Faye wished she could forget all about the lemurian—wished the whole thing had never happened. The kids in school had spent the whole week making fun of her, people on the street looked at her curiously, and in the shops they would whisper behind her back. Everybody knew about the girl that had been harassed by a lemurian; and Faye worried that the gossip was growing well beyond what had actually happened—which was nothing, really. Nothing had really happened at all!

“You know, it was the Romans that named the lemurians, way back when? Lemurian, or lemures, means spirit in Latin, like a ghost. Only a few people claimed to have seen the lemurians at night, or hiding in the shadows, but most people weren’t sure if they even really existed…”

Faye and Patty walked down Brentwood Drive on a clear Sunday afternoon. Patty hadn’t lost interest in the lemurians yet, far from it, and had asked their history teacher Mr. Branch about books on lemurians, since she couldn’t find much on the subject in the town’s library.

“Madagascar was called Lemuria,” Patty went on, while Faye was only half listening, “though nobody had ever been there or even knew where it was. And Marco Polo called it Madagascar on the map, even though he had never been there either, and he thought people were talking about Mogadishu! Which is in Somalia, and not even an island. He misunderstood, misheard and misspelled Mogadishu, and so that’s why we still call the island Madagascar. Like with the Indians, who we still call Indians, even though they clearly don’t come from India. People are pretty silly, don’t you think?” Patty looked at her with her large magnified eyes behind her glasses.

“Yeah,” said Faye. How could she stop thinking about the lemurian if Patty talked about nothing else? She hadn’t the heart, though, to tell Patty she didn’t want to hear it. Patty thought she was doing her a favor.

Across the street a large gang of greasers hang around in front of the malt shop. One of them made a lot of noise revving a growling motorcycle. These guys in leather jackets would just hang out on this corner in the weekends, leaning against stuff, bothering people. Some of them were just kids, twelve or thirteen years old, but there would often also be a few adult greasers among them; some came from out of town, just to hang around here all day, doing nothing.

Faye looked over her shoulder as she and Patty passed them, looked at their greasy hair, fashioned in the same style as the lemurian had: ducktails in the back and wild quiffs at the front.

Some of the boys looked back at her, and Faye turned away quickly. But it was too late. Some boy with a big mouth yelled, “Oh, watch out, daddy-o! Don’t make googly eyes at that chick! She’ll have you deported to Canada!” And they all laughed, of course, and jeered. God, even these hoodlums knew about her..!

Patty took Faye by the hand and quickened her pace, pushing her glasses back up her nose, “Come on!”

“Hey!” someone yelled, and running feet followed them.

“Hey, chicas, wait up!” Faye looked back. Two skinny, poor-looking Mexican boys followed them. Both had greaser hair-dos but they didn’t wear leather jackets and their clothes seemed pretty dirty. Faye remembered seeing them before; they weren’t really part of the pack of greasers, but were allowed to linger on the sidelines. Like reserve greasers.

They quickly caught up with Faye and Patty—who weren’t going to run… There were plenty of regular citizens around who wouldn’t let a bunch of greasers hassle two teen girls.

“Hey, wait up, why don’t you!” one of the boys said. He spoke with a thick accent, but Faye and Patty could understand him all right, most of the time.

“You the girl that made Johnny disappear, isn’t that right?” he asked accusingly of Faye. He was about Faye’s age, and had a nice friendly face, though he tried looking tough. He missed a front tooth, which for some reason looked pretty cute on him. The other boy didn’t speak, he just glared at the two girls. He had a large head and small, wiry body. He looked unhealthy, like he had been seriously malnourished growing up.

“That wasn’t very nice of you!” the boy continued.

“I know!” said Faye, “I didn’t mean to! But what’s it to you?” she asked. Who did this kid think he was, anyway?

“Johnny’s my friend, is what it’s to me!” the boy scowled at her. She had never heard of lemurians befriending humans. Patty still held her hand tightly, which gave Faye the nerve to stand up for herself.

“Well, he’s off to Iowa. He should have a better life there, you know, more opportunities. So it’s all alright, really.”

“Iowa?!” the boy yelped, like it was some distant planet. He then said a couple of things in Spanish to the big-headed kid, who didn’t reply and whose sullen expression didn’t change. Maybe he understood neither English nor Spanish. In the background the other greasers were still yelling and guffawing.

“So you don’t like people, you send them to Iowa?” the boy continued to scold Faye.

“Well, she’s sorry, okay!?” said Patty, and tugged on Faye’s hand—let’s go!

“Wait up! Wait up!” the boy said, his forehead furrowed in anguish for half a second. “Johnny’s family, don’t you know, they real worried! And they real hungry, don’t you know? Is not very nice!”

Faye and Patty looked at each other. “Why are they real hungry?” Patty asked. What did that have to do with anything?

“Because Johnny, he no catch rat for the making of money, the family they no have money! And his little sister, see, she work hard at poultry factory, for tiny money; she hungry, her mom and pop they hungry, so she takes duck. Just one duck, they have millions! But no, is stealing. So now she lose stinking job, now she looking for food in the garbage!”

Oh God, thought Faye…she had driven a whole family into poverty!

“Hey, wait-a-minute!” said Patty suddenly shrilly. “Does this little sister wear an overall with pink and purple flowers embroidered down the sides?”

“Si, this is Pearly! Why you know this?”

Pearly? Oh god, this was too terrible! They had seen this little sister go through dumpsters, when they went out looking for lemurians early in the morning. Poor little Pearly! Faye wanted to cry (no way was she going to cry right here on the street).

Patty saw how upset Faye was getting, so she spoke up, “Don’t the Mexicans in your neighborhood give them food?”

“No, oh no! They don’t like them nohow. They say: what sort of creature is not even in the bible? Must be evil, anyhow!”

“But you’re Mexican.”

“Yes, they don’t like me too!”

“Well, what if… we give you some food. Could you then give it to the little sister?” asked Patty hopefully.

“You will give me food..?” the boy looked for a moment at his big-headed buddy, who still stood glaring at the girls, apparently not understanding a word of what was being said

“Sure, I can do this, I’ll give it to Pearly” the boy concluded, “this is a nice idea.”

“Great! This is what we’ll do, right Faye?”

“Sure,” said miserable Faye.

“Great! Then we’ll meet up here, tomorrow after school… say, what’s your name? I’m Patty, and this is Faye.”

“Me, I’m Tuto. But I no go to school, see. I work all day. So we meet at sundown, okay?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, but I’m not allowed to go out after dinner on a school night.”

“I am,” said still miserable Faye.

“Great! So you two will meet, here, at sundown!” said Patty chirpily. “Say, what do lemurians eat?”

“Just food, I guess,” said Tuto.

“Not weird stuff, like, I don’t know… never mind. Food, okay! We’ll ask our parents for food!” Patty seemed to be getting pretty excited about it all.

Faye felt stupid, standing waiting with two large bags of groceries at her feet. Two old ladies passed, tut tut-ing disapprovingly. Faye had no idea what they imagined she was doing here. What time was sundown, anyway? It was slowly getting dark, the sun was down. But in two or three hours, the sun would still be down; did that still count as sundown?

When Faye and Patty explained to Faye’s parents what they set out to do, they thought it a fine idea. Faye’s father, especially, had been feeling pretty bad about the whole business. Her mom didn’t like seeing both her daughter and husband joyless like that, so she was happy to help. The twelve year old twins were in their own little world as usual, and hadn’t even asked what was going on when they caught Faye and their parents raiding the pantry and Faye left the house with two large and heavy bags filled with food: potatoes, onions, cobs of corn, canned soup, canned ham, canned beef stew, a bottle of milk, a frozen chicken and two cartons of eggs on top.

Faye could tell her mother wasn’t crazy about the idea of Faye meeting some Mexican kid on her own, but she made a point of being a liberal parent. Mother, and her older sisters (the Four Aunties), had been raised in a very strict Presbyterian household, and she didn’t want her children to have a similar false start in life, she had once explained to Faye.

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Faye’s attention was pulled towards a waving arm in the corner of her eye. There, from the gloom of the narrow alley between the Wacker Store and Jason’s Deli peered two gleaming orange eyes!

Faye’s heart skipped a beat, and then proceeded thumping hard in her throat. Uncertainly she stepped towards the alley, almost forgetting her two bags.

“Hello,” said a clear girl’s voice from the dark as Faye approached.

“Pearly!” blurted Faye.

“Hey, wow, you know my name! But I know you as well, you know?” the small lemurian said, as she stepped lightly out of the shadows, looking defiantly up at Faye. “You followed me, about a week ago, you and some other girl.”

“Oh! You saw us..!”

“Well, I smelled you. You can’t sneak up on a lemurian, you know?”

“Smelled me?” From such a distance? “Do I stink?” Faye asked horrified.

“Ha ha,” the lemurian’s laugh tinkled prettily. “Oh no! Well, everybody stinks a little, and everybody smells nice as well. Everybody a little more of one than the other. Now, I mainly smell the washing powder in your clothes. And I can smell you’re nervous. You shouldn’t worry, we lemurians don’t bite. Well, some do. I don’t,” and she smiled tiny clean teeth at Faye.

Some people across the street were eyeing them warily, making both girls equally uncomfortable.

“I shouldn’t be out in the open like this,” Pearly said, “I’m not really allowed to be here. Let’s step into the alley. I’ve parked my bicycle here.”

The girl lemurian seemed real nice and friendly, but she also looked very lemurian, indeed—less human than her brother Johnny did—and Faye couldn’t shake the feeling she was being accosted by a talking animal; like she found herself suddenly in a Disney cartoon. She banished that thought from her head—it wasn’t nice: this was how bigoted people saw lemurians, like talking animals. Or beasts. They weren’t of course. They were maybe just as smart as humans. They just hadn’t been to school, like most humans, so they were maybe a bit… simple. Uneducated. But they couldn’t help that.

She admitted to herself that, yes, she had been a bit bigoted as well. Before. Before she had seriously looked at lemurians for the first time, since she had followed a couple of them (including young Pearly), and saw how they lived, and how sad they seemed.

Pearly didn’t seem very sad, right at this moment. Nor did she seem at all angry with Faye for having caused her brother’s disappearance.

“Look,” said Faye, “I’ve brought you food, for you and your parents. Milk and eggs and stuff.”

“Wow, that’s so nice! When Tuto told me you would bring us food, I said, well, that’s one human I’d like to meet! Here let me take those bags, they seem heavy…” she said taking the bags from Faye, and this tiny girl easily threw them over her shoulder in one hand.

“Aren’t you angry with me for… you know…” Faye asked uncertainly. She did hope Tuto had told her she was in fact the girl that had sent the police to take her brother, and she hoped he had also told her she hadn’t meant for that to happen.

“Golly, no! Well, I was for a bit, but Tuto said you were sorry, and you never meant to, so… I don’t want to hate humans like my mother does. Though some humans sure make it hard not to hate them just a little bit. But you are definitely one of the nicest! And I don’t have any girl friends, so…”

“Friends?” Faye was a bit shocked! Could she be friends with a lemurian? This Pearly did seem like the kind of girl it was easy to be friends with; she didn’t seem bothered about things, cheerful, even if her life seemed harsh to Faye.

“I’m the only kid lemurian around, you see, and the Mexican kids aren’t allowed to play with me. It was just me and Johnny, really. Tuto is nice, as well.”

“Oh dear, I really am sorry about Johnny, you know. But I’m told he was brought to Iowa, and lemurians are supposed to have better lives there—so maybe you should go to Iowa, too, with your parents. Or with all the lemurians that live here.”

“No way is Johnny still in Iowa! He wouldn’t just leave us here, no matter how great life is in Iowa! That’s what worries me… he should have been back here within a few days. I mean, how far is Iowa, anyway?”

Faye wasn’t sure, but guessed is wasn’t really very far.

“He would have gotten on a train, hide away on a freight train, like they do. Or he could have taken a bicycle, he can ride a bike better than any lemurian, with those long legs of his.”

“Do you think something happened to him?” asked Faye worriedly. Or worse, “Or do you think that maybe the police didn’t bring him to Iowa at all, and maybe they… I don’t know…”

“I don’t know either,” said Pearly pensively. “What did Johnny… do?” she asked earnestly, looking up at Faye with those big luminous amber eyes.

“Nothing, really. He wanted to talk to me, I guess. I don’t know what about. I didn’t really give him much of a chance to say anything. I yelled at him and ran away…”

“You did what? A-Hahhaha!” this sure made Pearly holler with delight. “What did you yell at him?”

“Well, just to leave me alone, and I cursed at him.”

“Cursed? Like ‘pox on your children’?”

“No, like I called him a bad name.”

“Oh, I’ve heard all of those before… I wonder what he wanted to say to you. It’s weird, he doesn’t just go around talking to humans, you know… sure, he has to talk to them, because of his work, but, well, he may be half human, but he never—”

“He’s what?”

“He’s half human, half lemurian.”

“But—so, I mean… your mother, she…”

“Yes, she mated with a human. She never talks about it, so I’m not sure what happened. But I can tell you this, she really hates humans, so I don’t think it was a very nice experience…”

“I didn’t even know humans and lemurians, could, you know…”

“Yep.”

“Well…” Faye didn’t know what to say after that. She was astonished. It was getting awfully dark in the alley. “I guess I ought to go home soon. It’s already pretty dark.”

“Oh, okay. Of course. Are you in a terrible hurry?”

“No, but I don’t want my parents to worry. Not for too long, anyway. They pretty much let me go about my business since I’ve turned sixteen, but they can’t help themselves worrying at the same time.”

“Can I ask you a favor? I mean another favor, after all the food you’ve already given me, which is so very nice..!”

“Yeah, sure,” Faye didn’t feel comfortable being praised about anything, after what she’d done to Johnny and Pearly and her family.

“Could you possibly ride me home on my bicycle? With me and the bags sitting on the back seat? See, I’m much too small to sit on the saddle, so I stand on the pedals—this is Johnny’s bike, you see? And with these two bags…”

Faye looked at the bicycle and at Pearly. It was a very old lady’s model, with a step-through frame, and Pearly had very short legs, indeed. But to ride all the way to the shantytown, where only Mexicans and lemurians lived… she didn’t really dare. Then she told herself, see it’s exactly this kind of bigotry she could do without.

But it wasn’t really because they were Mexicans and lemurians, Faye realized, it was because they were poor. And whenever Faye had heard people talk about the shantytown, the community of wooden shacks at the edge of town, they spoke of it as if it was a dangerous place, and nobody ever went there, because, well, why would they?

And was it really bad, to think the way Faye thought? She knew nothing about poor people. Maybe they would kidnap her, and ask for a ransom. She didn’t know how poor people thought. And could anyone really blame them if they did kidnap her? What would she do if she was hungry every day, Faye wondered. Take Pearly, who was fired when she tried stealing a duck. But was it really stealing if you were hungry? What were you supposed to do? Die?

Pearly saw how the prospect worried Faye, and said, “Never mind, I can walk. Really.”

“No, I’ll bring you!”

“No, really, I can walk. Look, I’ll hang the bags on the handlebar, like this. It’s not too far, and I’m in no hurry, I don’t have to go to work anymore, as Tuto told you… so I have all the time in the world. You go home. Say, why don’t we hang out tomorrow?”

What? Hang out with a lemurian? “Uhm, yeah, okay?”

“Yay! You know the crater?” Of course Faye knew the crater, she had lived here her whole life. “Let’s meet out there then, we can ride our bikes!” Pearly said, as if riding bikes was the greatest thing ever.

“You mean during the day, right? After school?”

“Right! What time is that? I don’t go to school, you know.”

“Wait, tomorrow is Tuesday, so we’ll have a lot of homework. Is Wednesday okay, around four o’clock?”

“Yes!”

“Can I bring someone? A friend?”

“Who? The girl that smells like rice?”

“Ha-ha!” she couldn’t wait to tell Patty she smelled like rice! “That’s right, the other girl that followed you. She’s the best!”

“Great, I’ll have two new friends! See you Wednesday! And you can tell me why you followed me!”

“Okay, we will. Be careful, don’t let anybody catch you!”

“Don’t worry, I told you, you can’t sneak up on a lemurian,” and Pearly pushed her bike with the bags, and disappeared into the night waving.

Faye felt really great walking home. She was so relieved, it felt like her feet didn’t touch the ground, like she walked on an inch of bouncy air!