Chapter Text
♫ tugged at the celebratory clothing that Parent Linda had made them wear.
“Stop that,” chided their parent, straightening the bow at the top of their carapace.
“Do I have to wear all this?” they complained, turning their focus to the spiked arm bands instead.
“This is a big day!” said their parent. “You have to be presentable for your teacher.”
“I don’t think the teacher will care,” said ♫ .
Their parent brushed a gentle claw across the top of ♫ ’s carapace as they stopped outside the entrance to the Human Education Center, where one of Alien Grace’s caretakers was waiting to lead the pebbles to their classroom. Or was it Teacher Grace now, ♫ wondered? No matter what their parent and parent’s friends tried to tell them, they knew exactly who their teacher would be.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to go in with you?” their parent asked.
“I’m okay!” chirped ♫. “I don’t want you to be late to bring the others to playgroup.”
Really, they didn’t want their parent to find out who the teacher was so soon, just in case they were pulled out of the program. As much as their parent liked the prestige of ♫’s acceptance to the class, if the other parents' opinions overruled that… ♫ wanted to attend at least one class first.
They had been absolutely fascinated by the human since their visit to the education center. They’d heard of the human’s arrival to Erid alongside Savior Rocky, but hadn’t understood how weird and wonderful humans were until they had seen him. Even better, this human knew about things like radiation and space travel. They could indulge all three of their interests in one class: humans, space, and science!
Their legs carried them away from their parent and toward class, almost without conscious input from their mind, and they nearly tripped when their parent’s call woke them from their musing.
“Have fun,” said their parent, worrying the claw of one leg in another.
“I will!” ♫ called as they scuttled away.
They were early, but the attendant led them to the classroom anyway. They travelled down a long tunnel and into a room with carved out risers and a two-way xenonite window, where they could hear in and the teacher could see out. Seeing! They hoped the teacher would tell them more about what that meant; the learning center hadn’t taught them nearly enough.
They were the first one there. Well, the first pebble. They used the moment of relative solitude to take off the bow and the most uncomfortable arm bands and hide them under one the benches of the stone risers. They had insisted on leaving as early as their parent would allow, and since the play group started early, it had worked out in their favor.
Alien-Teacher-Grace was there too! He wore clothing of his own, but it didn’t make nearly as much noise. He was moving some equipment around: a smooth board on wheels next to something with a bit more texture.
They ran toward the xenonite, misjudging the distance and crashing into the window by mistake. Alien-Teacher-Grace startled.
He began to say something, voice atonal and flat, then pivoted to another machine. He activated the machine, and words came out.
“Hello!” said the machine, which ♫ realized was translating Alien-Teacher-Grace’s words. “I’m Mr. Grace, it’s nice to meet you.”
♫ bounced in excitement. “I’m ♫!”
Mr. Grace’s carapace did something strange. “That’s a beautiful name.”
“What are you doing with your carapace? What does it mean?” ♫ asked, tapping at the xenonite with each question. “What’s that stuff at the top of your carapace for? What is it called? Is that how you see?”
Mr. Grace made a noise that sounded like laughter. It was laughter, they realized! The idea of similarities between humans and Eridians was so cool!
“You can laugh? We laugh too!” they continued.
“Slow your roll, there. This is called a smile,” he said, pointing at the strange thing his carapace was doing. “It means I’m happy. My eyes are what I use to see,” he continued, pointing higher up on his carapace. “And don’t worry, we’ll talk more about visible light in class.
♫ spun around twice.
“Where did you find out about sight?” Mr. Grace asked.
“The Human Learning Center. I want to learn all about humans and science and when I grow up I want to visit Earth!”
Mr. Grace’s smile faltered at the mention of the Learning Center but returned as ♫ continued.
“That’s amazing!” said Mr. Grace. “I’ll be happy to help you get there.”
♫ bounced. The other pebbles still hadn’t arrived. That meant more time for questions!
“Is your biodome just like Earth? Do you like it here? Aren’t you cold?”
Mr. Grace tilted his upper carapace, the one that held his “eyes” and “smile”. “We’ll talk about that in class too, but yes, it’s similar. I do like it here, the Eridian scientists did a great job building it. The temperature is perfect. Humans like it colder than Eridians do.”
A few other pebbles came in through the door, freezing in surprise when they saw Mr. Grace. He waved.
“Hi, everyone! How about you all take your seats and get to know each other a little, we’ll get started soon.”
♫ ran to the risers.
“Let’s use our walking feet, buddy. I don’t want you to trip and hurt yourself.”
♫ slowed down and walked to the front row, giggling. The other pebbles nervously followed and sat down with them. ♫ was relieved to see that they were all dressed in celebratory clothes as well. They recognized one of them, ♩♪, as a former member of the playgroup.
“So it’s true?” ♩♪ asked in a whisper. “They’re really letting an alien teach our class?”
“It is true!” ♫ replied. “He’s smart, he helped with the astrophage problem.”
“Really?” ♩♪ asked. “My parents wouldn’t tell me anything about that even when I asked.”
♫ sighed. “Mine too. I had to sneak out during their sleep cycle to listen to a science thrum.”
“You’re brave,” said ♩♪.
“Not brave,” said ♫. “Just curious.”
The room grew louder as other pebbles filtered in, each one unique in their reaction to Mr. Grace. Some were excited, some stared, others started to whisper to friends right away. One even started crying and ran back into the tunnel. The human was a little scary, sure, but ♫ thought that reaction seemed a little excessive. They already almost felt used to Mr. Grace’s strange sounds and creepy bipedalism! It made them wonder how Mr. Grace had felt about seeing Eridians for the first time. They decided to save that question for after class, because Mr. Grace had clapped his claws together in a purposeful rhythm, and he looked like he was ready to start.