She led Belle and Zara to the second level of the barn. It was clean up here and had no smell. There were long counters that held transparent tanks, each containing thousands of wriggling worms. Above each tank, a warming light lit the worms, giving them a bluish tinge. Belle felt her skin crawl. She wanted to run outside, fast.

  “Mealworms are the staple food of Mars,” Myra said. “They’re cheap to grow and very nutritious.” She picked up a worm and showed it to Belle, who jumped back a few steps. “They can be ground into flour, fried, or baked. They’re very useful and produce no pollution at all.”

  “They’re environmentally friendly,” Lucas said, appearing out of nowhere. He carried a box with him.

  As Myra put the worm back, Belle noticed her hands.

  “You have six fingers?” Belle asked in amazement.

  Myra smiled. “A blessing of the Sulux.”

  As they left the barn, Lucas handed Belle the box he was carrying. Belle heard scratching sounds coming from within. She lifted the lid and gasped. Four tiny chicks stared at her. They smelled like old socks. Belle wasn’t sure what to make of them.

  “These are for you, Belle,” Myra said with a big smile. “You can learn a lot when caring for other living creatures. Treat them with respect, and they will serve you well.”

  “Thank you,” Belle said, trying not to gag at the chicks’ smell. Her mom gave her a stern look, so she stuck a finger in the box, pretending to stroke them. She couldn’t wait to get home and dump them in the barn. She had no intention of taking care of them. Her mom could do that.

  “I feel overwhelmed,” Zara said. “There’s so much to learn about this life.”

  Myra put her hand on Zara’s shoulder. “That’s what neighbors are for. We’re all here to help each other.”

  Walking back to the house, Belle held the box at arm’s length, faking excitement about her new “pets”. Lucas walked beside her, with a sneer on his lip the whole time.

  “What?” Belle said, as he led them into their house.

  “I didn’t say anything,” he said.

  Belle felt he was mocking her. He probably thought she’d fail at farming life. She was afraid he might be right.

  Sol 100/Summer, Cycle 105

  I admit it. There are some things that I like about Mars. On a nice day like today, it feels a lot like Earth. I like the gravity too, because I can jump pretty high. My highest leap today was so high I could almost have landed on Dad’s shoulders.

  But I don’t like it enough to want to stay here forever. I put those turkens into the big barn. They scratched me with their sharp claws. I have the marks to prove it. One of them even pecked me. That really hurt! They’re not the sweet creatures Mom seems to think they are. They’re evil and they hate me — just like Lucas.

  I still can’t believe I have to see him at school next week. I persuaded Mom to walk there with me on the first day, since it will be a new school on a whole new planet and everything. As for walking with Lucas after that? Maybe I’ll suddenly take up cross country running — or cross country leaping — so he won’t want to keep up with me, and I’ll be rid of him.

  Chapter 7

  MELTDOWN

  Life as a farmer was hard.

  The turken chicks stank up the barn. They pooped everywhere and pecked at Belle whenever she tried to touch them. They scared her.

  She made Melody help her clean the pen, since the android didn’t mind being pecked. But when her parents found out they took Melody away to help Yun with the water tank repairs.

  “Myra gave you those chicks to learn how to care for other living creatures,” Zara said. “How will you learn if Melody does all the work?”

  So every morning, Belle was left alone with her killer chicks. In the afternoons there were farm chores, most of which she did by herself too. She tended her mom’s vegetable patch and helped her dad put up fence posts around the corrals. He made it her job to see that every fence post was properly placed. She also had to check the crisscrossing laser beams between the posts to make sure they functioned correctly. Then she cleaned the house and studied up on how to care for the new farm animals that her parents had applied for. But the worst chore of all had to be mucking out Loki’s stall every day. Belle couldn’t believe how much of a mess a horsel could make. After three days of this, she was tired and bored.

  On the fourth day, her parents received their permits to grow crops and keep livestock.

  “There’s such a shortage of farmers,” Yun said. “The authorities are practically giving these permits out as you land in Olympia.”

  A truck arrived two days later. It carried dozens of bags of seed, twenty-four alpacas, three dozen shoats, and a bunch of turken.

  “I didn’t think the animals would arrive this quickly,” Zara said, examining the alpacas.

  Belle approached a shoat. It rammed her legs with its hard head. From a distance these animals were almost cute. But up close, they could be scary.

  For the next week, Belle rose with the sun and worked all day helping her parents around the farm. They fed and watered the animals twice a day. There was now even more mucking of pens and stalls for Belle to do. Yun programmed and reprogrammed the laser fences to the right intensity.

  “Don’t want to fry these poor animals before we learn how to care for them, do we?” Yun said. He laughed, ignoring Belle’s sulky face.

  Belle didn’t think any of this was funny. Each day she longed to go back to Earth, to city life, and to going out to the holo-movies with her friends. But her parents wouldn’t listen. They were too busy being happy about “going back to their roots” and “being the backbone of a new civilization.” Someone forgot to tell them that Mars was not a new civilization — it was more than a hundred cycles old.

  Then there was the food. Myra was wrong when she said mealworms were delicious. They were tough and chewy. Zara ground them into flour and made bread. Belle barely nibbled at it. She kept seeing the disgusting worm wriggling in Myra’s six-fingered hand. It was a good thing the Walkers had given them some meat and eggs or Belle would’ve starved.

  At dinnertime on the night before school, Belle was in a foul mood. She didn’t want to start school. She’d had enough of her chicks, and she’d definitely had enough of being a farmer. Yun was telling stories about his trip into Sun City for supplies. Zara suggested names for their alpacas. But Belle felt more and more miserable. Her parents would never want to leave. She’d never see Earth again. She stared at the food on her plate, pushing the beans around with her fork.

  “Aren’t you eating?” Zara asked. Yun stopped talking and looked at Belle as if he hadn’t noticed her lack of appetite until that moment.

  “Not hungry,” murmured Belle.

  “Well, you need to keep up your energy,” Yun said. “You’ve got school tomorrow. Now, eat.”

  “No.” Belle smacked her fork onto her plate.

  “Isabelle Song…” her mom warned.

  “What?” Belle dared to glare at her mom, but only for a second.

  “What has gotten into you?” Yun asked. “You were quite happy helping me with the animals today.”

  “I’m never happy,” Belle said. “Not anymore.”

  “Oh boy,” Yun said, leaning back in his chair. “Is this what we have to look forward to when you’re a teenager?”

  “Really, Yun?” Zara said.

  Belle jumped out of her seat. “Dad! Stop it! Why can’t you just listen to me?”

  “Then tell us, what’s wrong?” Zara asked.

  “Nothing!” Belle got louder with each sentence. “You two just don’t get it. You’re acting like you’ve been farmers your whole lives, when you know nothing! In the meantime, I have no friends and no life! I hate Mars. I want to go back home!”

  “I understand. It’s been a big change for all of us,” Yun said. “But I bet you’ll make new friends when you go to school tomorrow.”

  “Not if they’re anything like Lucas Walker. All he does is laugh at me.” Belle shoved her plate off the table, spilling food and making a loud clang that echoed through their house. “He was right about one thing though — I hate living underground!”

  She stormed up the stairs and knocked over a chair in the shack. She stomped hard on the front step, putting a hole into the wood. Cursing it, she ran.

  And ran.

  The sun lingered on the horizon, lighting the sky in blue first, blending upward into a fiery red-orange. Startled birds, searching for scraps, took flight, cawing noisily as they rose into the chilly evening air.

  Belle’s face and lungs stung as the cold whipped by her. She ran all the way to a big cluster of trees at the farthest end of their farm. She leaned against a wide trunk, rubbing the stickiness of dried tears off her cheeks.

  She slid down to the ground and lay her head against the rough tree bark, listening to her own breath and the silence around her. Earth didn’t have this kind of silence. It was frightening, but also sort of comforting. Slowly, she drifted off, dreaming of her apartment back home, and her old friends, whose faces faded away one by one.

  The sudden sound of grass rustling woke her.

  “Who’s there?” she called. The familiar squeak of her android’s joints told her she was safe. “How did you find me?”

  “I followed you,” Melody said. “I was giving you some space, as humans like to say.”

  “Thanks,” Belle said. It was nice to know that at least Melody understood her.

  “I advise you to return to the house now. It is dark and getting very cold.”

  Belle rose to her feet and stretched. “I’m not ready to go back yet.”

  “How do trees get on the Internet?” Melody asked.

  “What? I don’t know. What do you mean?”

  “They simply log on,” Melody replied, waiting for Belle to laugh at her joke.

  Belle shook her head. “You’re going to have to work on your timing, Melody.”

  She looked up at the thick, low branches above her. They stretched outward like giant arms. “Let’s climb.”

  Belle reached up and swung one leg over the first limb, and then the next.

  “You should not go any higher,” Melody said, when Belle had climbed up four thick limbs.

  Melody hovered up and landed on the tree next to Belle. The limb was wide enough to hold them both. They sat there in silence. As they looked out over the Song farm, the sun sank below the horizon. The sky was filled with shades of red, orange, and purple. It was a spectacular sunset.

  “It is a very pleasant farm,” Melody said. “And located in an ideal spot.”

  “You don’t approve of my outburst,” Belle stated.

  “It has only been two weeks,” Melody replied. “You begin a new chapter tomorrow. You should give this life a chance.”

  Belle was about to tell Melody she sounded a lot like her mom, when she heard something.

  “What was that?” It was a sound she’d never heard before.

  They sat very still and listened. Nothing happened at first. Then, there it was.

  “It sounds like a howl,” Melody said.

  “Shh!” Belle put her finger to her lips.

  There was definitely a howling sound in the distance. Then something else howled back. Belle removed a pair of binoculars from Melody’s central storage space. She focused them on the direction of the howls. But even with night vision activated, she couldn’t see anything.

  “It’s getting closer,” Belle said in a loud whisper. “Are you carrying any of my Petripuffs?” Belle had created the small, handheld defensive weapons as a science project the year before. They could paralyze an enemy long enough to let someone escape.

  “Your father forbade them on the journey here,” Melody said. “He said they were too dangerous to carry.”

  “Really? Too dangerous for an alien planet, with strange alien animals lurking in the darkness?” Belle tried to swallow her anger. She had to focus on those howls.

  “We should return home,” Melody said.

  Belle wrapped her arms around Melody’s neck. The android hovered down to the ground in seconds. Melody activated her light beam and guided Belle home. With each kilometer, more howls seemed to join in — each time sounding closer.

  Belle’s heart was pounding when she dashed inside the shack. She slammed the flimsy door behind them.

  “What was that?” she panted.

  “According to my archives, that would be the night call of wolves,” Melody responded.

  The door to their underground home slid open. Her parents came rushing out.

  “We were so worried!” Zara pulled Belle into a hug.

  “You shouldn’t be outside after dark,” Yun said.

  “Did you hear them?” Belle asked.

  “Hear what?”

  “Wolves!”

  They stood very still for a long while, listening. There was nothing more than the occasional caw of an unknown bird outside.

  Yun sighed. “There are no wolves on Mars. People here never cloned any predators, unless you count dogs. And they’re tame.”

  “But I heard them!” Belle exclaimed. Her anger came flooding back.

  “You have an active imagination, Belle,” Yun said. Then he insisted that Belle head straight to bed. “You don’t want to show up on your first day of school exhausted and cranky.”

  Sol 114/Summer, Cycle 105

  Those were wolves I heard. I don’t care that my parents don’t believe me. I can’t imagine hearing something that I’ve never heard before in my life! Whatever. I’ve got to start making more Petripuffs to protect myself. I’ve given Melody a list of ingredients to buy. I hope Dad doesn’t notice my allowance shrinking.

  I’m not looking forward to school tomorrow. Martian kids go to school from Spring to Fall because winters are too cold. Thank the stars we only go twice a week. The rest of our school work is done at home.

  I’m sure I’ll have a lot more to write about the school — just don’t expect it to be good.

  Chapter 8

  AN UNUSUAL NEW FRIEND

  The next morning was cold and misty when Belle crawled out of bed. She’d barely slept. She kept waiting for more wolves to howl to prove to her parents that she hadn’t imagined it. But they never howled again, not once.

  At breakfast, Belle wasn’t in a good mood. She was mad at her parents and how they thought she’d made up the wolf stuff. But she knew that arguing wouldn’t solve anything. So she decided that she just wouldn’t talk at all.

  Zara and Belle left the house early, strolling through the fields and cutting across the back of their farm. They headed north and walked along a dirt path through another farm, and then another.

  “I don’t see Lucas,” Zara said, breaking the silence.

  Belle grunted.

  “I wonder who lives here? It would be nice to get to know more neighbors, don’t you think?”

  Belle bent down to pull a pebble out of her shoe. They walked on for a while longer.

  “There!” Zara pointed ahead. “That’s the school.”

  The low, box-like building stood alone in a vast empty area of grass and dust. It had smooth gray walls and barely any windows. Belle couldn’t see a playground or a sports field anywhere. It was the saddest looking schoolhouse she’d ever seen.

  Only when she squinted could she see the outline of a town beyond the building. She saw more low, boxy buildings with flapping canopies shading the alleyways between them.

  That must be Sun City, Belle thought. The school was just outside the town.

  Zara stopped and turned to Belle. “Okay, I get that you’re angry,” she huffed. “But nothing ever got solved by sulking. If you want to be heard, you have to speak up.”

  Belle kicked at some pebbles at her feet.

  “I know you’re unhappy about moving here,” Zara said, more gently. “But what did you expect us to do? We have no jobs with BAMCorp. And we can’t exactly force them to give us another job, can we?”

  “That’s not it,” Belle mumbled.

  “So you hate being a farmer.” Zara threw her hands up. “What would you like us to do instead? I’m open to any ideas or suggestions.”

  Belle shrugged.

  Zara sighed. “Well, when you think of something, let me know.” She pointed to the building. “Do you think you could try to be polite to your teacher, at least?”

  Belle gave her half a nod, and they walked on toward the school.

  Sun City School occupied a corner of the gray block building. The building also housed a medical clinic, a library, and the community center. The school had children from kindergarten all the way through senior high school. Children from all the farms in the area came here for their education.

  “Your class is in room number one,” the principal, Ms. Yuko, said. She seemed nice, though Belle thought she smiled too much. “Please say your goodbyes now.”

  “Have a great day,” Zara said. She opened her arms and Belle gave her a long hug that said “goodbye” and “I’m sorry” at the same time.

  Ms. Yuko walked Belle down the long, narrow hallway. There were three doors on each side, each slightly open. Belle looked back to watch her mom leave the building. She missed her already. Then someone tapped her on the shoulder.

  Belle turned around, and her mouth fell open. Here was a girl (at least, Belle thought it was a girl) who was definitely not human. Her shoulder-length black hair looked like it was made of plastic. She had a high, ridged forehead, where her nostrils were. Her two large eyes seemed to glow gray and yellow. And her lips were a bright red, which made her smile surprisingly pretty. She lowered her head when Belle looked at her, and made a gesture with her hands, weaving them around like a dance.

 

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