We have another fantastic blast from the past today with Darcey Dugan’s “The Boy Who Sits Across From Me in History”. This piece was originally published in issue 2 and we’re thrilled to be able to republish it here on our website.
The Boy Who Sits Across From Me in History
Darcey Dugan
The boy who sits across from me in History stares too much. Over the course of the year so far, I’ve collected too much evidence to convince myself (and the rest of the world when they’re ready), that he is an alien.
He can’t be any younger than forty, at least; his hairline goes way back, and I can only assume so does he. And I’m sure the aliens have found some anti-aging tips that we haven’t yet, so I’m going to put him at about 400 years old.
He doesn’t stare at me the way I catch other boys staring in class – with ogled blushing hormone-fuelled imagination of what I look like with my nun-like uniform hitched up higher than my knees. He looks at me instead with wide vacant eyes.
He doesn’t look back down at his work when my eyes confront him, he dares to hold them right there. So, he’s won that game. Sometimes the staring makes me jittery and very conscious of whether I’m crossing and re-crossing my legs too often. Other times it just grants me permission to observe him as a curious object and gather more evidence for my theory.
I scribble in the margin alongside the timeline of World War II:
He’s corrected Mrs Flannery again on dates, was he there?
Voice suspiciously high- alien frequency?
Human hair isn’t that orange.
Check for Velcro strips on his hair when leaving.
Skin too see-through. Stretched too tight? Head too big for human mask?
Jenny thinks Mr Jackson keeps going into his supply room to talk to his pet hamster he keeps in the cabinet, and that’s who tells him which student to pick on each day. Everyone is almost certain that Mrs Gant is a robot, Jimmy said he saw an off button on her neck once. Apparently, Joey Herman sells rare lizards from his locker. And the boy who sits across from me in History is an alien.
Find your copy of issue 2 here.
