The next morning, after breakfast, the transport came to take the children to school. Seven of them climbed aboard, and the operator didn’t even notice that Syp wasn’t there.

Syp was halfway to Eiske’s house when she remembered that he had asked her to bring some jerked meat. She went back to her mother. “Eiske asked whether we had any jerked meat.” Geldou filled a small cloth bag with strips of dried bokan meat and sent her on her way.

At Eiske’s, Syp timidly knocked on the door and waited. “Here I am, Uncle!” she called as she opened the door a crack. She heard him call for her to come in. She hesitantly entered and placed the bag on the table.

He came from the back room. “Good morning, Syp. How are you today?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s an odd thing to say.”

“My stomach feels odd. Mom and Dad argued last night about me. I don’t understand. She says I have five days. She told him that they need to turn me loose, whatever that means.”

“I see.”

“Mom told me that I’m wasting my and the teacher’s time.” Eiske was stunned at his sister's attitude. “Would you please tell me what they’re talking about, Eiske?” Syp looked at him earnestly. “I thought everyone was supposed to go to school. Am I so dumb that school won’t help me? Melle says I read really slow.”

“Syp, has Geldou talked to you about the difference between boys and girls?” The sudden change in the conversation surprised Syp.

“Eiske, I know I don’t look like my brothers. I know I’m a reject. Everyone knows.”

“A reject? Is that what the other children call you, Syp?”

She hung her head. “Yes. I won’t repeat the other things they say.”

Eiske’s heart sank. “I’m going to ask you to do some things, okay? Like a test.”

“Are you a teacher?”

“You know I’m a doctor. Sometimes doctors have people do tests. Sometimes they teach people how to care for themselves and one another. Let’s see here. You are as tall as a five-year-old, but you have the shoulders of an eight-year-old, wide and firm. Long slender arms. Open your hand." Syp spread her fingers. "Hm. Syndactyly.”

“What does that mean?”

“Two of your fingers are joined.” He looked at the other hand. “Do this.” She raised her hands over her head, and he felt the muscles on her outer arms. “Would you take off your top clothes for me?” He noted that she had no nipples. “Would you let me look at your legs and feet?” She looked at him curiously. “I promise I won’t hurt you, Syp.”

She slipped her shoes, socks, and pants off. He examined her toes. The center toes were webbed on each foot and extra muscles ran along the inside and outside of her legs. “Can you sit with your feet touching?” She easily did this. “How about touching the back of your head with your foot?” She could. “Here is the last one. Can you bend over backwards and grab your ankles?” She had never done this before, but she could do it. “Now jump,” he said to her. She did and hit her head on the ceiling. “I want to show you some pictures. Does this look like you? This is an Aphyxian human male or boy.”

Syp shook her head. “My brothers have those. I don’t have one.”

Eiske showed her a different picture. “This is an Aphyxian female, or girl. Do you look like this?”

“I don’t have these openings.”

“How about one of these?” He put six pictures on the screen of his electronic pad.

“There! That’s how I look. There’s no hair, just these two openings.” She read the words under the picture. “Zupheon Stafriez. Genderless.” Syp leaned her head back and forth. “I’m not an Aphyxian male like my father or an Aphyxian female like my mother? That doesn’t make sense. It takes an Aphyxian male and Aphyxian female to make a child. How can a Stafriez come from two Aphyxians?”

He took a medical book from a shelf and opened it. “You know that scientists saw the meteors coming toward our solar system three centuries ago.”

“Yes,” she responded. “Aphyx was in the path, so the people tried to evacuate. That’s why we’re here.”

“You know this history,” Eiske smiled. “The Stafriez were here several before the Aphyxians arrived. The Stafriez and the human colonists didn’t interact much at first, but eventually got to know each other. Here is a picture of one of them. The freckles on the nose were prominent at first and faded over time.” He pulled Syp’s hair back from her face.

“Ow! It hurts when you touch my hair!”

“Just a moment.” He searched through her hair. “These freckles across your forehead extend down the center of your head and split here. They are behind your ears.” He felt the lines down her head. “You have markings on your shoulders.” He touched them and traced around the shape on her back.

“If I’m not a male or female, what am I?”

“You may have Stafriez reproductive organs, but they are not external.”

“What does this mean for me? I’m not a ‘he’ or a ‘she.’” She didn’t know what to think about that.

“It means that you can choose to use either of those words. Or you can choose to be an ‘it.’” It also means that you can do several things that an Aphyxian descendent cannot do. You can jump great distances and run extremely fast. Early accounts are that the humans weren’t aware of the Stafriez for several decades. They were small groups of quiet, peaceful individuals. The Stafriez were technologically advanced but the Aphyxians weren't interested in mixing with them. They believed the Stafriez would enslave them."

"Let’s go outside. I’d like to see you jump.” He looked down at the book and read a section while she put her clothes on.

Once outdoors, Syp crouched down and jumped. “That was eight feet easily,” he thought. He studied the horizon, looking to see if anyone was watching, as Syp vaulted into the air repeatedly. “Can you show me how fast you are? Do you see that orange fabric on the stick over that way?” She raced to it and returned. “Would you show me how you run?"

She tried to run the way her brothers did, but it was awkward. Eiske called her over. "Put this part of your foot down, and bend it like this when you walk.". She was surprised when she found this easier.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

" Now, can you run like that?"

She was at the marker in three leaps. The height of her leaps had nearly tripled. When she came back, she couldn’t stop herself and lost control of her body. She tumbled to the ground and lay there dazed. Eiske knelt at her side. “Syp!”

“I’m okay, Eiske.” She slowly sat up and looked around. “That was fun until I couldn’t stop.”

“It looks like fun, but it also looks extremely dangerous. Let’s take a break.” They went inside and he offered her a glass of water, which she sipped slowly. He looked at his medical book again.

“Do you mind if I look at your eyes?” He brought some medical equipment from the back room and placed it on the table. Grasping her chin, he turned her head back and forth looking at various angles. Finally, he stood across the room from her and asked her to follow the light with her eyes, but not moving her head. “Where do you sit in the classroom?”

“In the front, by the door.”

“Is there a special reason you sit there?”

“I can’t read what the teacher writes on the smartboard.”

“Does it look blank, or can you tell that there are marks there?”

“It looks blank.”

He began to hold things up and ask her what they were. She had to guess. Her guesses were way off. “Syp, what color are my eyes?” he asked when he sat in front of her again.

“I’m not good with colors,” she crossed her arms and looked at him.

“Let’s try something different.” He gathered a small basket of small objects. “Are any of these the same color or very close?” She put them in three groups. “Tell me something that is the same color outside.”

“These are like the trees. This is the color of the sky. There is no color outside like this. Wait! The barn.” He took a box of crayons out of his pocket. “What are those?”

He explained that he had found them when he was a child. “Can you tell me these colors?" She took colors from the box and lined them up.

He rearranged them. "You can see blue like I do." He laid the crayon down. “You can see greys, where Aphyxians see greens.” He put a crayon down that said green. “You can see red. Do any of these other colors stand out to you?”

She picked out a light purple. “These are the bugs at night.” Slowly she slid a yellow out. “This is the color of lightening bugs."

"What do you think?” she asked him.

“I think I should talk to your parents.”

“About what?”

“About what is going to happen on Zaterdaag.”

“Oh, please, Eiske, don’t do that! You’ll just make them mad. You’ll see how angry they get tonight at the dinner table.”

“Is it possible that you might have misunderstood?”

“Of course, it is. I always misunderstand.” She turned away from him. “I’ll go home and work and no one will get mad.”

“I was hoping you would help me clean the kitchen. It’s been a mess since Siedeske died. It’s not fair that your mom brings me a meal every night. Your family needs that food. If we can clean up my kitchen I can figure out what I need to do to cook.”

“I know something you can cook,” she smiled. “Look over here. You have tubers. Here are some wild onions. This is a naltig.” An odd look came over her face. “Eiske, don’t look. Cover your eyes.” She reached down suddenly and picked up a worm. He watched, astounded when she swallowed it in one gulp.

“Are you hungry, Syp?”

“Um,” she tipped her head from side to side. “Maybe. Are you?”

He looked at his timepiece. “Yes.” She told him that she could eat with him. She began to work at the plants Siedeske had planted. When she had the plant part of the way out of the ground, she asked him for a knife and cut some of the roots off. After she put it back and packed the dirt down, she dug up some naltigs with a stick and pulled some onions.

While he cooked lunch, she looked over the kitchen. “You have a lot of dirty dishes. Do you have an electric device that heats food quickly?”

“You mean a microwave,” he guessed. She nodded. “I don’t have one. Siedeske always cooked on the stove. It might be useful to have one so I can reheat things.”

“My mom’s taught me how to make a few things with the microwave and on the stove.”

“You’re pretty small to be cooking.”

“I am not! I just turned five!"

Lunch was not necessarily tasty, but it was something, they agreed. He would be able to save the jerky for later. After they washed the dishes and cleaned off the table, she stood on the counter, and they emptied the cupboards. They scrubbed them out while he talked to her about what life as a doctor was like. When the insides were finished, they soaped the wooden outsides of the cupboards and polished them. He went outside to the field while she worked on the floor. When he returned, he put things back in the cupboards to his liking and passed stacks of plates and other dinnerware to Syp for the topmost places. The only things that were left were food items. They threw away the rancid oil and flour that had bugs in it, examined the dried fruits in sealed containers, and made sure the lids on the pressure-sealed foods were still tight.

Eiske made a list. He would go into the village for fresh supplies in the morning. Syp looked around the sitting room. “Did you read all of these books?” They were lined on the shelves of one wall.

“I did.”

“I don’t understand why reading is so hard. I turn my electronic pad and hold it at different angles, and I just can’t read it. It’s so frustrating. My teachers don’t know how to help me.”

“Just a minute! I have an idea! Where did she put that?” He went from room to room and returned after a flurry of digging through closets and moving things around. He brought out the standing magnifier that Siedeske had put over her lap so she could do tiny, detailed sewing. "Let's try this." He set it to the side of Syp’s chair.

“Here’s my electronic pad. Tell me what you see.”

“I can see that there’s marks, but I can’t tell what they are.”

He unrolled various colored sheets of cellophane, and held them over the light one after another.

"Stop! Eiske! Insert the tab of part E into the slot of part B and ensure that the pieces are lined up evenly with a level,” she read. “Eiske! I can see it! I can see each word. Even when I move the pad back and forth!"

He stood looking at the lamp. He would never use it. "Let's put this in the transporter. We'll take it to your house."

"Oh, no, Eiske! Then Mom will know I told you about my problems at school! She'll be so mad! Please, Eiske, don't say anything!"

"But it will help you at school."

"You don't understand. The boys will just make fun of me more. Mom will be mad. Let's not make things worse!"

Eiske stood and looked at her. "All right. I understand. Let me think about this for a minute."

"How can we change the color so you can see?" He began to mutter to himself. "Reflections! If we hold the pad up to something, the light will reflect back?"

He began to hold objects near the screen. Syp tipped the electronic pad back and forth. This idea was ineffective.

"Change screen color," Eiske began to mutter to himself. "That's it! Maybe there's a setting on the pad." He began to change the lighting settings, as Syp watched.

"There!" she exclaimed. "That's it! I can read all of it.". She opened the settings tool herself, so she could do it on hers later. "Thank you, Eiske, thank you!"

She blinked and her eyes changed.

“Are you crying, Syp?”

“I have never cried. My eyes don’t get wet.”

"The way a Stafriez responds to being sad is by blinking. Do you do that?"

“Yes. When other people are mean, my chest hurts, and I blink. If I go away from them, it stops.”

“Something happened when you got excited. Your eyes looked different. May I touch your eye?” When she said that he could, he put one finger on her lower eyelid and one on the upper. “You have an extra eyelid. You should have two.”

Syp was tired of this. “What else would you like me to help you with, Eiske?”

He looked around. “If you would clean the floor in here, I’d appreciate it. I’ll collect the clutter and sort through it.” An hour later, the room was tidy and the floor was clean.

“Where did you put the cleaning cloth from the kitchen?” she asked. Before he knew it, she had wiped down all the surfaces in the room.

“Would you walk back here with me?” He led her to a sleeping room. “Would you help me clean this sleeping room, too? All this bedding needs to be washed.”

As he sorted through the bedding, his wife Siedeske's clothing and the mess of his clothing on the floor and in the closet, Syp filled the washing machine with antibacterial soap and washed several loads of laundry. Syp hung things on a clothesline in the sun.

While Eiske made his afternoon walk around the property, she scrubbed the floor in his sleeping room. When he returned, she was standing in the doorway of another room, looking at all the miscellaneous that had accumulated. “This one too?” she asked wearily.

“We’ve done enough for today. Would you come back another day and help me, please?”

“I will. On a day that there’s no school.”

She helped him put the cleaning things away." You’ll let me know if I can help you somehow?" She nodded.