The Magic Rain

Chapter Nine: So Sue Me

I always dream of boys. I know, that’s so lame, and it’s not my fault. I mean, it’s not like I want to dream of boys, that I drool over them when I’m awake or dress for them or – okay, maybe I dress for them… at least that’s what my father says, that I dress the way I do because I want boys to notice me.

So sue me. I’m not that pretty, so what’s a girl got if she doesn’t have legs up to her ear lobes or boobs out to "there?"

Clothes.

A girl always has clothes, thank God. And makeup. And cutesy words like "Gosh" and "sweet" and "cute" and "pretty."

So I work it. Does that make me a what – I didn’t want to use those kinds of words, even though I’d heard them before and knew what they were. I was just… trying to level the playing field, I guess, trying to compete with those girls who had more… "natural attributes" than I have.

Did I mention you could sue me?

I could tell through my closed eyelids that it was a sunny morning and I wanted to groan but didn’t have the energy to. I mean… sheesh.

Sheesh. Now there was a girly word. "Sheesh" and "gosh" and "pretty" and "sweet" and… and "little!" Everything had to be "little." My little jacket, my little hands, my little car (even though it was no "littler" than a lot of other cars), my little life. "Gosh, what a sweet, pretty little thing you are."

Sigh.

Why couldn’t I just be a girl instead of having to act the part, according to someone else’s rules? And who made these rules? Men, of course.

Could be worse, I supposed. I could be a goofy-assed boy.

And that did it, that just made my day enough for me to be able to open my eyes and giggle, and that’s all I ever really needed that early in the morning, a reason to giggle. Another girly word: girls didn’t laugh, they giggled. Or tittered. Hee… Hee… Hee. Like we were Michael Jackson clones.

I know, I know – we really do giggle. And you know what? Boys love it.

So sue me.

Sheesh.

But I realized I was smiling and that was good, another one of those things we did better than boys – smile.

And laugh – I mean giggle.

"Breakfast!" my mother yelled.

For crying out loud, it was the first day of summer. You’d think she would cut me some slack but noooooo, breakfast the same time every day, because she was teaching summer school and if she had to get up, so did everyone else.

Maybe I’d see Jimmy today at Sagan’s Grill… he was soooooooo cute…

Okay, so maybe I did think about boys a lot.

Boys and clothes.

And giggling.

* * *

I gathered my stuff and left my room a mess – my mother would eventually see it and force me to clean it up, but until then –

I stopped. Damn. I went back and did a quick clean up.

"Breakfast!" my mother called.

"Coming!" I yelled. Didn’t she know I was doing this for her?

Finished, I hurried downstairs.

My mother was serving my father breakfast. My father looked up from his bacon and eggs and smiled at me. My mother, typically, kept on working, cooking and serving, moving like her feet were on fire.

I put my purse by the door so I could grab it on the way out, and then went to help my mother. We didn’t always get along, but we sometimes worked well together, and now we moved like a pair of ballet dancers, she moving this way, me the other, getting things done and out to the table, everything from cutlery to food. While my father, the big-time psychology professor, sat there looking as smug as all get-out, while my mom, who had two doctorates to his one, ran around waiting on him, hand and foot. Men.

And then, somehow, we were all seated and there was that inevitable moment of slight surprise as we all stared at each other, amazed that we were all in the same place at the same time.

"Damn," my father said, "I’m late for class!"

And that was that, he wolfed down his food and bolted, careful at least to give my mother a peck on her moist forehead before leaving our lives once again.

The sound of the closing front door left my mother and me sitting there, silent, and alone with each other.

Never a good thing. I mean I love her, but…

"Your turn," she said, and I could hear the hurt behind the sarcasm. "Go ahead, eat and run."

"Mom…" I put my hand over hers. I felt badly for her. And I reminded myself to never, ever, ever have kids. Or get married.

She smiled and tossed her head, but the hair on her forehead was plastered there by perspiration, so it wasn’t going anywhere. I reached over and gently moved those hairs aside and her smile widened.

I forced myself to sit there for an additional ten minutes, letting her ask me the questions I so hated answering, letting her feel like… well… a mom.

Then, nearly exactly ten minutes after my father had left, I leapt up, gave my mother another worthless peck on her cheek and ran out the door, grabbing my purse and sweater as I did so.

* * *

We lived on a frontage road some distance from the nearest highway. It was pretty, real pretty, but thank God I have my own car, because it was a long way into town or to school.

I threw my purse and sweater into the back of my trusty "little" Datsun 510 and patted the vehicle with genuine affection. It was as old as dirt and my mother joked that dirt was the only thing holding it together, which was of course my excuse for why I never seemed to get around to washing it.

My father had bought it for me a year ago, and told me it had once been considered a classic, and that "Datsun" was the forerunner of today’s "Nissan."

"The 510," he had said, "used to be one of the better rally cars around. They used to modify these babies and get them to run 150 miles an hour as easy as falling off a log."

That was one of my father’s favorite expressions – "Mel,” he’d say to me, “it’s as easy as falling off a log."

I put my foot on the clutch, turned the ignition key and the little engine roared to life. I had to admit – the 510 had never let me down, and that was something – especially since the car was a lot older than I was.

I released the parking brake and backed the car out of the driveway. Then I shifted into forward and zoomed off – okay, maybe not "zoomed," but I drove off, thinking that it would have been fun having the modified version of the car, the one that hit 150 miles per hour like falling off a log.

I saw him a few hundred yards down the road, staggering out of the woods. I put on the brakes and stopped several yards from him, wondering what I should do.

He was huge – maybe even bigger than my dad -- and my dad was 6 foot three. He was bleeding, and his clothes… well, his clothes were ripped to shreds, but that wasn’t the only odd thing about them. They looked as if they were from some Harry Potter movie.

The man fell to his knees and I felt my heart ache for him, but I was also afraid. I had no idea who this guy was, after all. He could be a bank robber who was fleeing the cops.

In a torn and tattered robe.

I hesitated, glanced down at my cell phone and thought about calling 9-1-1, but then he raised his head and stared at me through my windshield and all thoughts of 9-1-1 flew away like a flock of noisy birds.

He was gorgeous.

Damn.

I hesitated, and then did what any sane, reasonable girl would do when faced with a total stranger who was kneeling a few yards away bleeding all over himself and dressed like some sword and sorcery geek.

I got out of the car and walked quickly toward him, stopping perhaps three yards away. I glanced back at the Datsun.

He spoke.

I turned quickly back to him. His drop-dead beautiful face was lashed with blood and I guessed that branches had whipped it, meaning he had been running headlong through the woods.

Honest people don’t run that way. Bank robbers run that way.

Did I mention he was drop-dead beautiful?

I had no idea what he had said. It sounded like a foreign language.

"What?" I asked, feeling stupid.

He repeated the words, which were completely nonsensical to me. He tried to stand and without thinking I hurried forward, grabbing his arm to help him up.

His arms were large and very, very muscular.

Oh, good – a buff, beautiful bank robber who could probably break me in two like a twig. Or rape and pillage me.

Could a person be pillaged?

He was hugely heavy but somehow between the two of us we were able to get him back to his feet.

He was tall. Very tall. Six-foot-four kind of tall. And he stared at me like I had two heads. Seriously, he seemed… amazed by me. I mean, like I said, I dress well because I don’t have the looks to pull off grunge, so I know he was not stunned by my beauty – at least not the way I was stunned by his.

Then he did the strangest thing. He reached out and patted the top of my head like I was a little girl. Or a puppy. Then he slid his hand off my head and to his chest, as if he were comparing my 5’3" to his 6’4". So okay, I’m not a supermodel, but 5’3" isn’t that short, is it? For a girl?

He spoke again and I shook my head, making a show of shrugging my shoulders.

He nodded, obviously understanding that I did not know what he was saying.

"I can take you home," I said and laughed at myself. A bruised and bloodied 6’4" puppy of my own. I’m sure my mother would let me keep him. My dad? Not so much. "I mean to the hospital," I said quickly.

He shook his head now, indicating that my language confused him as much as his did me.

I took his arm – damn, I could feel the muscle under the sleeve of his robe – and tried to help him toward my car.

He wouldn’t budge. I frowned and looked up, way up, at his stunning but bruised and battered face and saw him staring over my head in open fear at something. I turned and the only thing I could see was my pretty little Datsun.

Okay, so maybe it does look old, but it’s as sound as a dollar – actually a lot sounder than that.

So why was this huge, buff, sexy boy looking at my car like it was a dragon about to spit fire at him?

I pulled on his arm to try to nudge him toward the car, smiling that big bright girl smile that guys fall for, but no go. I couldn’t have budged this mountain of muscle with… well… with my car. I mean I think I could have literally hooked this guy up to my bumper and floored the accelerator in my little Datsun and not been able to move him. Heck, maybe he could carry my car home for me.

His arms were really buff. And his green eyes --

I tried to snap out of it.

Damn, I was being so girly here. So the guy was gorgeous, so what? What I needed was some way to get him into my car. And yes, I know how that sounds.

The guy shouted something in a strange language and waved his hands at the car. He was very obviously scared of the Datsun. Sheesh, who’s scared of a Datsun?

I pulled on his arm again, hoping that he would get the picture and trust me enough to at least approach the car.

Instead he very gently pulled his arm out of my grip, and I thought "what a nice guy for not wanting to hurt me" by being so gentle. Then he picked me up like I was a three year old and put me down behind him.

How cute, I thought, he’s trying to protect me… from a Datsun.

"Listen," I said, trying to reason with the big guy, "you obviously don’t understand English, but surely you’ve seen a car before. I just want to drive you to the hospital to get you some medical help and – "

He turned away from me to face the Datsun, raised his hands and murmured something in that odd language of his.

My Datsun disappeared.

"Holy shit!" I shouted.

He turned to me. "Holy shit," he said, nodding grimly.

My car. My lovely little baby-poop-brown Datsun was… gone! I ran around him, to where my car had been.

It… was… gone. I turned back to him. "What did you do?" I asked him.

"Holy shit," he repeated, though he seemed a little less sure of himself now, probably noticing I was freaking out.

"My father gave me that car!" I said.

He stared, now knowing for sure that he had done something wrong.

I turned back to where the car had been.

What the hell was going on?

I stood there for I-don’t-know-how-long, glancing around as if the car would miraculously re-appear the way it had miraculously disappeared. I thought that if I waited long enough I would… I don’t know… wake up, maybe?

Something touched my shoulder and I jumped straight in the air, twisting in mid air and landing facing him. He had put his hand on my shoulder, probably to comfort me, and part of my girl brain registered the fact that it felt really nice to have that huge honking hand draped on my shoulder, but most of me was just… freaking out.

"I – I –"

"Jo-Bri," he said, pointing at himself.

"Jo-Bri," I repeated, thinking that this at least was better than "holy shit."

He pointed at me. "Holy shit."

I closed my eyes a moment. "Melinda," I said, pointing at myself, without opening my eyes. What was the use of seeing what was going on when none of it made sense? "Melinda," I repeated, tapping my own chest.

"Melinda" he said, and my eyes opened. He had an accent, for sure, but he pronounced the word very much like I had but with something extra – a deep, sexy voice that sent a thrill through me. Okay, he had disappeared my car, but damn, this was one good looking and good sounding guy.

"Okay," I finally said, "I want you to return my car to me."

He stared. "Okay," he said, then surprised me with "I want you to return my car to me."

Either he was a quick learner or he was putting me on. I was being punked! I glanced around for the camera crew then remembered I wasn’t a celebrity and it was only celebrities who got punked.

I turned back to him.

"Melinda," he repeated and it sent another oh-so pleasant thrill through me.

"Mel," I said. "Mel."

He said something to me in that language and I suddenly realized what other girls found so sexy about men who spoke with accents or in foreign languages. French had never done it for me, but whatever language this guy was speaking was just fine with me.

Except that my car was still gone.

I noticed his various cuts and bruises again. I reached up and touched a bruise on his face and he winced slightly. Okay, that part seemed to be real.

I sighed, and took his hand. It was a big hand, and even though he was very careful not to apply any pressure (his gentleness was only making me fall for him even more), I could feel his strength.

I turned and pulled him. It was like trying to walk away with a brick wall. I turned back to him and he was staring at me now with what I could have sworn was interest, the kind of interest that damned near made me swoon like some girl in the movies, the kind of thing I’d always hated to see and had sworn never to do.

"We need to go to my mother," I said, "and God knows what she’s going to say, but it’s all I can think of to do."

He stared at me.

"Please?" I said. "Pretty please?"

He finally nodded. "Pretty please." And he let me lead him down the lane toward my house in the distance.

Hey, Mom, look what I found… oh and by the way, I need a new car.

* * *

He made your car disappear," my mother said.

We were standing in the kitchen. My little puppy boy stood behind me, glancing around as if he were in some freak show and could not believe what he was seeing. Oh God, don’t let him be mentally challenged. Not that there’s anything wrong with being mentally challenged, but…

My shoulders slumped. Coming from my mother, the description of the morning’s events seemed bizarre and highly unlikely. At least I had Jo-Bri to show her.

"His name is Jo-Bri," I said lamely.

"Jo-Bri made your pretty little Datsun disappear," my mother said, staring at me in growing alarm. "Melinda," she said, "are you doing drugs?"

"Mom," I replied, pointing at the 6’4" guy standing behind me wearing a robe and looking like Brad Pitt after a mugging, "even if I was, I don’t think crack cocaine can cause something like him to pop out of nowhere."

She looked up at him. "Oookayyy," she said, "I’ll give you that one." She suddenly reached her hand out. "Hello, Jo-Bri," she said, "My name is Diane."

He stared at her hand.

"I’m… I’m Melinda’s mom," she added, lamely.

"He’s foreign," I said, just as lamely.

"What?’ my mother asked, "They don’t shake hands where he comes from?"

"Mom, they make cars disappear where he comes from."

She withdrew her hand.

"Right," she said dryly.

I turned to him, looking way up into that bruised, battered, gorgeous face. "Make something disappear," I said.

He stared at me, frowning, trying to understand. He reached out to put his hands on either side of my face but my mom was faster, pulling me back in alarm.

He stared at us, his hands in mid-reach, and then he let them drop to his side.

I indicated the toaster that stood on the butcher-block island beside me. "Poof," I said.

"Poof?" my mother asked. "Melinda, are you sure you’re not high?"

I waved at the toaster.

"Go ahead, Jo-Bri," I said, "make it disappear."

He stared at me.

"I’m calling 9-1-1," my mother said. "He needs medical help and I’m beginning to think you do too."

She picked up the cordless phone.

"I’m not taking drugs, mom!" I said, and indicated the toaster again. "Poof!" I shouted.

He stared at me. My mom, holding the phone, stared at me.

I slapped at the toaster. "Bad toaster! Bad toaster!"

"Okay, Melinda, enough is enough -- "

I touched the toaster and flinched backward. "Ow, ow, ow!" I shouted.

He blew the toaster up.

"Holy shit!" my mother shouted as we both staggered backward, staring wide-eyed at the burning toaster.

"Holy shit," he repeated solemnly, probably thinking this was some holy exclamation we people were used to saying whenever we saw a miracle happen. Maybe he thought "holy shit" was the name of our deity.

"He – he blew up the toaster," my mom shouted.

"I told you!" I shouted back.

"Holy shit," she repeated.

"Holy shit," Jo-Bri repeated.

My mother ran to the wall socket and unplugged the toaster, then ran to the sink and filled a cooking pot full of water, which she then splashed onto the toaster, putting out the fire.

The toaster sputtered before actually dying.

Jo-Bri walked up to the sink and my mother stepped quickly backward, throwing her arms protectively over her head, squeezing her eyes shut and preparing for the worst.

Jo-Bri went to the sink and stared at it.

My mother opened one eye and saw him staring at the sink.

Jo-Bri pointed at the faucet and said something in that endearingly indecipherable language of his. I wanted to scratch him behind the ear and pat him on his Brad Pitt head. Then I wanted to French kiss him until his toes curled.

Where the hell did that come from? Great, a stranger makes my car disappear and blows my mother’s toaster to hell-and-gone and all I could think of was wrapping my tongue around his.

My mother, watching him carefully, reached around him and flipped the faucet handle up, so that water flowed.

He exclaimed something in his language.

"He’s never seen indoor plumping," my mother said. I wanted to scoff at that, but there he was, my hulking warrior, staring in wonder at the water flowing into the kitchen sink.

Then I saw the change in my mom’s face. To be honest, I think part of her was as entranced by my gorgeous puppy boy as I was – after all, my mom’s a girl too, even if she is, well… old. But now I saw Diane Franklin, crack psychiatrist, emerge on her pretty face, and now she was studying Jo-Bri like a specimen… a fascinating, gorgeous, battered, 6’4", disintegrated cars and blew up toasters kind of specimen.

I weighed the options – my mother would take Jo-Bri in to study him. Or she would call 9-1-1 and the cops would whisk him away, take his fingerprints and find out he was an illusionist escaped from some traveling circus who was suffering a nervous breakdown because his girlfriend the bearded lady had left him for the circus strongman… and I’d never see him again.

Please Mom… take him in.

* * *

I stood by the cooking pot. My father stared at me, frowning. My mother stood to his right, staring at him to see how he would react. I slapped the pot and shouted as if in pain.

Jo-Bri stared. Mom and I had cleaned him up, covered him with antiseptic and bandages and given him some of dad’s baggiest workout clothes to wear. Thank God Dad was nearly as tall as Jo-Bri.

My father stared at me.

I stopped dancing around and shouting and stared at Jo-Bri.

"What?" I asked. "The pot attacked me. Kill the damned pot."

"Kill the damned pot," my father repeated dryly, staring at me with half-lidded eyes.

"No, Stephen," my mother said, "he made Melinda’s car disappear and he blew up the toaster, he really did. I saw it."

My father studied her face, trying, I suppose, to figure out if he was being punked.

"Only celebrities get punked," I said.

"What?" he said, glancing at me, more certain than ever that I was off my rocker.

I threw my hands up in exasperation.

"Great," I said, "now he behaves." I turned to Jo-Bri. "What? A pot isn’t good enough?"

"A pot isn’t good enough?" he repeated.

I glanced around. "The Fridge!" I said.

"No!" my mother shouted, and then forced herself to calm down. "Melinda, you will not let him blow up the fridge."

"Okay," my father said, "you called me home early to watch you try to get Mr. Band-Aid here to blow up the fridge?"

"No, not the fridge," my mother repeated, "just a pot or two."

"Speaking of pot," my father responded, "did you break out our old college stash?"

I stared. "You guys did pot in college?"

"What?" my mother asked me, irritated by the whole situation, "you don’t believe we could do pot or you don’t believe it was invented that long ago?"

I held up my hands, not wanting to get into that conversation.

Jo-Bri walked up to me. My father moved quickly forward, to protect me, and Jo-Bri turned to him, but I held my hand up. "It’s okay, Dad," I said.

Jo-Bri hesitated, then stepped up to me and placed his massive hands on either side of my face.

My father took another step forward. "It’s okay, Dad," I repeated.

My father stopped, staring tensely as this guy who was even bigger than he was took his daughter’s face in his huge honking hands as if he wanted to crush my head. Except that his touch was so gentle and his hands so amazingly warm and comforting…

I felt dizzy and cursed my girlishness, just because some good looking guy –

Then I realized that I really did feel dizzy, and now my sight slowly faded, as if I was in a white out. I would have called out to Mom or Dad but didn’t want to alarm them, to cause them to try to intervene and maybe get someone hurt.

Then I saw it – a small village sitting on the edge of what looked like a desert of some kind.

"Home," I thought, he’s showing me his home.

"Home," Jo-Bri said, startling me.

"Melinda, are you okay?" my father asked. I would have nodded but didn’t want to disturb whatever it was that Jo-Bri was doing.

"I’m okay, Dad," I managed, though I still couldn’t see anything except the village.

Then a pretty girl, a little on the heavy side, and the word came to me. "Kawille," I said.

"Kawille," Jo-Bri confirmed, and my heart sank. There was such love in that one word that I knew I’d lost the big lug before ever having had a chance to win him in the first place. So much for the French kissing.

Then I nearly staggered, a wave of sorrow so strong swept over me and the image of Kawille disappeared, replaced by an image of what looked like a village square, covered with dead bodies.

"They’re dead," I said, and I heard my mother gasp. What must it have sounded like to her, to see her daughter caught in the grip of some giant stranger, talking about someone being dead?

"It’s okay, mom," I said quickly.

I’m so sorry, Jo-Bri, I thought.

"I’m so sorry," he said.

"He can read my mind!" I exclaimed.

"That’s enough of this nonsense," I heard my father say.

Hodon, Jo-Bri said, though not out loud. Holy crap, I was reading his thoughts now! He killed my family, he killed Kawille, and he killed them all.

"Someone killed his family," I said, hoping my father wouldn’t interfere.

You need to prove to my father that you can do things, I thought at Jo-Bri.

What kind of things, he thought back.

Like making my car disappear, and the toaster blow up.

He was puzzled by that.

My father thinks you are dangerous to me. He doesn’t know that you are… special. I could still feel his sorrow and it had nearly devastated me and made me fall so in love with this boy that I did not know if I could stand on my own two feet if he let me go right then.

He released my face and immediately placed one of his huge hands on my shoulder to steady me, and I realized he had read my thoughts about not being able to stand on my own two feet. Then it struck me – he also read my thought that I was in love with him.

I wanted to crawl under a rock somewhere. My vision cleared now and I turned to see my father, fists balled, a few feet away, on the verge of doing something we all might regret. My heart broke at the love my father must feel for me, willing to take on this huge stranger to protect me.

Jo-Bri raised a hand toward my mother.

"What are you doing?" my father asked angrily.

Jo-Bri muttered something in his language.

My mother floated up off the ground about three feet.

My father turned to see his wife levitating.

We all stood there – except for my mother, of course, who wasn’t really standing anymore.

Jo-Bri muttered something else in his strange but somehow intoxicating language and my mother floated softly back down to the ground.

"I’m special," Jo-Bri said.

My father was staring at my mother.

My mother was staring at Jo-Bri, her eyes even wider than my father’s.

I had told Jo-Bri in my mind that he was special. "He can learn to talk by reading our minds!" I exclaimed.

"You are father," Jo-Bri said, staring at my Dad.

My father turned to stare at him, his hands no longer fists but rather hanging by his side.

I had often wondered what I would do if faced with the impossible – a UFO or vampire, for instance. What would I do when faced with something that made my entire world a lie?

Well, here I was, staring at my flying-nun mother, the burned-out toaster that still sat on the charred butcher-block island, and Jo-Bri, who had just read my mind.

"Is anyone hungry?" I asked and wondered where that came from. Oh yeah – I was actually hungry. So that’s what you did when faced with a magical giant from some desert world who could make your Datsun disappear and your mother levitate – you had dinner.

* * *

I made dinner that night. Tofu chicken with broccoli and cheese sauce. My parents would normally never have eaten it, but I think the fight against my vegetarian lunacies was put on hold while they tried to figure out what to do about the Jo-Bri matter. And by the way, yes, it is a challenge being a vegetarian in cattle country, Montana.

I had to teach Jo-Bri how to use a fork and knife, of course, though that was more of a pleasure than a chore, leaning against him as I moved his arms and hands, feeling his warmth and strength, his sheer masculinity in a way that I had never reacted to a boy before. I was almost disappointed when he caught on so quickly, but it reinforced our dawning realization that he was an extremely fast learner.

So after dinner we sat around the table, staring at each other, until my mother stood and went to stand by Jo-Bri, who stood up as well, apparently out of politeness.

I marveled that someone supposedly from another world would have the same kind of etiquette we had. My father pushed his chair back, still worried about mom being so close to Jo-Bri.

My mother took his massive hands in hers and placed them on either side of her pretty face. He hesitated, and then nodded.

"Oh!" she exclaimed after a moment. "The sky is so green."

"The sky is green, yes," he said, and I was surprised again, not that he had repeated what she had said, but that he had added the word "yes," obviously picking it out of her mind.

"It is beautiful," he added, and I gasped.

A tear ran down my mother’s face and it broke my heart, because I knew she was seeing the dead bodies I had seen from Jo-Bri’s village, or perhaps something else tragic. "You loved her so much," she said, and my heart fell again. Kawille. I wondered whether it would be harder to compete with her if she were alive, or as the memory of a love lost.

"Your parents," my mother said.

"Hodon," Jo-Bri said again.

My mother nodded wordlessly, then finally stepped back. Jo-Bri gently released her from his huge hands.

My mother wiped her eyes. "His whole family," she said, to me and to my father.

"Hodon killed them all," Jo-Bri said, and again we were amazed at how quickly he was learning, and he pronounced the words nearly exactly as we did, with just a slight accent, the kind that girls went crazy over. Boys too, I guess, in girls I mean. Almost like a Greek or Italian accent, very slight and so damned endearing.

We nodded, all of us feeling badly for him.

"Hodon is coming," he said grimly and I think we all reacted the same way – with fear and shock. I didn’t know who the heck this Hodon guy was, but if Jo-Bri, who could disappear a Datsun and blow up a toaster, was worried, I figured we should all be worried.

My mother sat down again, and so did Jo-Bri, with charming politeness. I wondered if my father felt any kind of jealousy when Jo-Bri was holding mom’s face so gently in his hands. I know I was, wishing it were I again in his hands instead of her.

"We have to make a decision here," my father said.

"Between what and what?" I asked, not at all meaning to be flippant about it.

My mother laughed.

Jo-Bri smiled.

"It’s not like he was an exchange student or something," Mom said. "He’s…"

"An alien?" my father said.

"A sorcerer?" my mom added.

"He’s a human being," I protested. "It’s not like he’s a freak!"

My parents stared at me.

"Okay, okay!" I relented, "he’s kind of a freak. But he’s still a person."

"What I want to know is who this Hodon is," my father said.

"Well," I said, feeling as worried about that as my parents probably were, "Jo-Bri can tell us all about that, once he’s learned English."

My mother nodded. "Of course."

"Of course what?" my father asked.

"Of course once he learns English he can tell us what he wants to do," my mother said, slightly exasperated at my father’s slowness.

"And in the meantime?" my father asked, himself sounding a little irritated.

He was jealous.

"He’s a foreign exchange student!" I exclaimed.

They stared at me – all three of them. I felt Jo-Bri’s stare most of all, and struggled not to return it. I didn’t want my parents to know how I felt about him, and was embarrassed that Jo-Bri himself already knew. I couldn’t believe I had actually told him with my thoughts that I loved him, right before he showed me a picture of the girl he loved, the girl Hodon had killed.

I tried to gather my wits. "Look," I said, "we can’t just give him to the police, can we?"

My parents had no response to that one.

"Besides," I said to my Mom, "I know you want to study him. You too, Dad. I mean, Mom, you’re a psychiatrist, and Dad, you’re a psychologist!"

"I’m thinking you want to study him too," my father said, surprising me. Maybe he wasn’t as oblivious to things as I thought.

"And given what he’s gone through," I plowed on, trying to ignore what my father had said, "can we really abandon him?"

"And we need to find out who this Hodon is," my mother added.

"That’s right," I jumped in, and then felt a stab of fear at the thought that someone could come and do to us what he had done to Jo-Bri’s family and village. And to Kawille.

My father took a long, deep breath and he and my mom stared at each other for a long moment.

"All right," my dad finally said. "But…"

I held my breath.

"Who’s going to teach him how to use the bathroom?"

We stared at him.

My father vigorously shook his head. "Oh, no –"

My mother began laughing, and I joined in. Jo-Bri started laughing too, though I’m sure he had no idea why.

My father uttered a mild curse under his breath. "Great. Potty training a sixteen-year-old sorcerer from an alien planet."

"Oh, just let him put those frying pan hands of his on your head," my mother said, laughing, "he’ll probably find all sorts of crap in there, including how to whiz in the toilet."

I spit out my milk. Now my mother and I were laughing so hard that tears rolled down our cheeks. Suddenly I felt something on my face and opened my eyes to see Jo-Bri staring down at me with an expression of concern on his beautiful, bandaged face, his hand lightly touching my cheek, wiping a single tear from it.

My heart broke as I remembered the sorrow that swept over me as he showed me Kawille. With that kind of loss in his past, here he was, standing there looking at me, worried that I was crying because I was hurt or afraid.

My mother had stopped laughing too, and she and my father stared at us as this alien Adonis stood looking down at me.

"It’s okay," I whispered to Jo-Bri, and he nodded. "It’s okay," he repeated.