Poker

The rest of the photography club won’t be joining us today, Rob. You see, there was no meeting scheduled for this afternoon. I have brought you here to multi-purpose room C in order to deliver the most urgent of news to you, and I’m afraid the great responsibility that goes along with it will change your life forever.

No, Rob, I haven’t been drinking. My supposed drinking problem is nothing more than a crude rumor created by the Earth children that you have spent your life with. I have encouraged the rumor in order to keep my true identity secret from you and the rest of the students and faculty here at Brandywine High School. But please, let me start from the beginning.

Your father, your real father, was one of the top scientists on the planet of Ka’aa. When the rest of the council of elders refused to believe him about the impending destructive ice storms that would ultimately destroy our planet, your father decided to send you, his only son, to find safe haven somewhere else in the galaxy, a planet whose sun and atmosphere most resembled that of Ka’aa.

Please stop fiddling with that camera.

I was sent with you to this planet Earth as a protector, although I have taken many different forms to avoid suspicion from your adoptive Earth family, the Pizers. Also, I’m afraid that my true Thandargian form would horrify you. You first met me as an orderly in the hospital of your birth. After that, you knew me as Ivan, your family’s first landlord, then Marc Raphun, a wheel-chair bound elementary school classmate, and then briefly as a sparrow. For the past five years you have known me as neighbor, physics teacher, and photography club supervisor, Mr. Sudcliff.



Yes, that’s why I do live alone. Although I do have a Beta fish, whom I will miss greatly--

Midterms? My dear boy, you will never need to concern yourself with something as trivial as the assessment of your accumulation of Earth-facts ever again. Yes, I’m afraid you and I are about to embark on a thrilling race for our very lives.

Seriously leave the camera alone. Are you listening to this, Rob?

A renegade alien from the planet K’thyl, an evil being who fancies himself something of an intergalactic hunter, has become aware of your presence here on Earth. He has long kept a space on his mantelpiece for a trophy from the planet of Ka’aa. Now he seeks to hunt you down in order to complete his collection.



Die Hard 2 tickets? Oh, an Earth-film. No, you won’t be able to see “Die Hard 2.” Ngar of K’thyl will be setting down on this planet any moment now and he will not cease until he takes you back to Ho’Mo star system.

Yes...it sounds like “homo” but that’s because I can’t pronounce all of the syllables in its name with this blasted Earth tongue. Leave those negatives alone! I’m seriously not drunk, Rob. I’ve really been sent here to protect you.



Ha, ha! No, you are not a Thandargian. You are a native of Ka’aa. We were enslaved on your planet after an unsuccessful invasion. I was but an infant when my parents were killed in a zagron expedition. Your father raised me as though I was his own son and not his slave. I was treated far better than any other Thandargian, I will tell you that much.

No, I’m not going to take my true Thandargian form here. Well, for starters, did you hear me before? It would be terrifying to you. It would. Yes it would. Anyway, I would need to re-enter the holo-pod--

No, You have no powers. Well, this isn’t one of your Earth comic book fantasies, is it? Yes you have another form, but it is inconceivable in terms of anything that I can explain to you now. Well, it’s complicated...I mean, essentially your true self exists within another dimension. Listen, we’re going to have to do a lot of hiding and running...I can explain all of this to you then. I think for now you should consider gathering some keepsakes from this planet before we board the ship that’s been buried underground for the last 16 years.



What do you think, Rob? Do you think you have time to revise your article on the recent vandalism on the tennis courts for the school paper? Do you think you should risk taking your place on Ngar’s interplanetary game mantelpiece so that Mr. Bodenhouse is not mad at you?!

I do not know if Mr. Bodenhouse is gay. Yes, I could’ve found that out if I wanted to; I guess I was too busy trying to honor your father’s dying wish to keep you safe in order to have part of Ka’aa survive! I cannot understand the fascination with reproductive and sexual habits that the adolescents on this planet harbor. It is not this way on Ka’aa.

Goddamn it! If you don’t put that camera down, I am going to put you into a very deep sleep state using my Thandargian telekinesis. WE HAVE TO GO. Grab your backpack.