E.T. had been on his way back to the Taylors house, when he suddenly realized how curious he was about where Elliot had gone to. For this thing called school was something completely unheard of to him. He couldn't help but wonder if maybe it was a bad place to be if it was where Elliot could get his bicycle stolen from him and also be called a wimp for not making the team, and what did making the team mean anyway? E.T. was so curious he felt he just had to find out and so he turned back around and dashed quickly through the underbrush maneuvering himself forward with his extra long arms.

By the time E.T. arrived at the school Elliot was in the middle of physical training and E.T. found a dozen human children in a barren field that was surrounded by grass and he saw about fifteen human children scattered around on it and in front of them there was a man wearing a blue uniform with a white birdlike symbol on the left breast and he was speaking rapidly to all his pupils.

"On your mark, get set, go!" he exclaimed.

E.T. watched as a light haired boy with a face dotted everywhere with freckles ran forward toward a long and narrow white bar that was placed in the middle of the field and as soon as he was close enough he made a great leap for it and flew over it in a single bound. Everyone cheered as he landed on his feet on the other side.

"Very good, Perry!" exclaimed the coach. "Now it's your turn, Elliot."

E.T. watched as Elliot stepped timidly to the front of the line and and then set off at a run, rather slowly at first and then he began picking up speed and then when he was within inches from the white bar he made a jump for it. But instead of flying over it he fell on top of it and flattened it to the ground.

Everyone laughed at his mishap and the coach went up to him and said kindly, "That's okay Elliot, just try again."

So Elliot picked himself up and backed up from the bar and then set off running at it again with an air of determination in his movement. He made a great leap at it but he apparently wasn't close enough and he came up just short of hitting the bar and fell flat on his face.

Everyone except the coach laughed at him again and yelled boo. The coach went up to him and gently helped him to stand again and said, "It's okay, Elliot. You'll do better next time. Remember, if at first you don't succeed, try try again."

E.T. thought the coach had given very good advice, but then he watched as Elliot hung his head in disgrace and walked back to the end of the line his shoulders slumping as his ears filled with the things he heard from the others around him like "Chicken head!" and "What a wimp!"

E.T. watched from his hiding place in the bushes and shadows and felt he couldn't bear to see Elliot feeling so ashamed of himself, and he could actually feel his remorse as if it were his own and it was so deep that it made him want to cry and he sniffled.

The sniffle Elliot heard from him and he looked around quickly and spotted the top of his head in the bushes and crept quietly away from the line and walked up to him and bending down to eye level he whispered, "E.T.! What on Earth are you doing here now?"

"E.T. had to see you and find out about school," he explained. "I saw you trying to jump over there, but is it important that you must make a jump over that white line there?"

"So that I can show how good I am at jumping over things," Elliot replied dismally. "But as you saw I am no good at all, am I?"

E.T. smiled and looked tenderly into Elliot's sad face. "I do believe you can jump over it if you only feel you can. Come here." He put three of his four fingers together into a birdlike symbol and lit the one in the middle and very gently touched it to Elliot's forehead. "There," he said. "Let's see if this helps."

Elliot suddenly felt all of his sorrow and shame melted away from him and replaced by an overt feeling of happiness and confidence in being just who he was. And suddenly he knew exactly how to leap over the bar. He ran quickly up to his coach just he was about to call the time and said, "Coach, I want to try again now! I can do it! I can do it now!"

The coach looked into Elliot's eyes and saw the look of joy and confidence in them, it was more confidence than he had ever seen in any of the pupils he had coached before. And ignoring the sniggering that came from some of the other students he nodded and said, "Okay then, give it your best shot!"

Elliot raced to the front of the line and stopped for only a second to get himself set and then started off at a steady jog toward to white bar and then gained strength and speed as he got closer and closer to it and then he jumped high into the air and manuvered his body weight forward in a great arch and soared high over the bar and landed gracefully on his hands and knees on the other side of it.

He stood up and turned around and was met with gasps and murmurs of surprise and disbelief and then gradually he began to hear clapping and more and more clapping until it was all he could hear.

"Excellent!" the coach yelled trying to be heard of the cheers and applause. "Let Elliot be a great example to you all of what you can do if you just look inside and try your very best!"

E.T. watched from the bushes and caught sight of Elliot looking his way and he smiled at him as he lit his fingertip.


As Elliot was exiting the school building in the late afternoon he came across Murray standing next to Erin and he was apparently irritating her.

"Come on, Erin, just let me walk you to your house, please!" Murray was begging.

"No, a thousand times no!" Erin yelled trying to get away from him.

"Please, please, please!" he tried again. "I'll carry your backpack for you!" He tried to snatch it from her shoulders.

"No, stop!" Elliot shrieked. "Leave me alone!"

Elliot was very much disturbed at seeing Murray trying to harass Erin and he had to put a stop to it and also keep Murray under his thumb. He stepped boldly up to them and put his hand on Murray's broad shoulder.

"Excuse me, Murray," Elliot said very calmly and seriously. "But could you please leave and Erin alone because if you don't you will be advised to hold onto your socks, and your trousers."

Murray looked at Elliot with a mixed blend of fear, despise, and resentment and then clutched onto the waistband of his black jeans and walked quickly away from him.

"Thank you, Elliot," said Erin, amazed at how easily he had been able to tell Murray off. "That was very brave, and you were also really great in PT today as well,' she added smiling at him.

"Gee, thanks," Elliot said blushing slightly. "It was no trouble at all really."

Erin smiled and then she began to look at him a bit more seriously. "There is something I've been wanting to ask you for a while," she said. "I know you're the smartest guy in the whole school, but why don't you believe in God?"

Elliot always dreaded being asked this question and he decided to first answer her the same way he answered everyone else who asked. "Well, why would God create us to be imperfect and then curse for it even though it was his own fault that we are the way we are?"

Erin looked shocked. "Why, I'd never thought of it like that before," she admitted. "But I'd always thought that God loved us just the way we are."

"Well, I have good reason to believe he doesn't whether he exists or not," Elliot said blatantly. "Tell me, what is more likely, that an all powerful God created the universe and didn't leave any evidence of his own existence, or that primitive men just made him up so they wouldn't feel scared and alone."

"Well, I guess you have a good point there," said Erin soberly. "But I'd just always thought great minds believed in God like Albert Einstein for instance. Didn't he say that God didn't have a choice in creating the universe once?"

"Well, as for Einstein," said Elliot. "He didn't believe in any super-human kind of God, he just believed in the wonders and beauty of science and nature and reason and how the three of them go together so much. He was a very spiritual but very non-religious scientist.

"Oh," said Erin. "Well, how did you get to be so smart anyway?"

Elliot began thinking quickly for an appropriate answer and he couldn't seem to find one except for the truth. "Now, this is gonna sound crazy, and I mean really crazy, but you've got to believe me," he said seriously to Erin. "Three years ago I met an alien. You've heard of them, right?"

"I read about them all the time in H. G. Wells and Ray Bradbury," Erin stated.

"Well, this alien wasn't like the kind you read about in books or see in movies," Elliot continued. "He was incredibly nice just as he was incredibly smart and he never stopped surprising me with the magic he could do. He built a transmitter out of old junk in my house and contacted his people to take him home, and he made my bicycle fly, and then he got sick and died but he came back to life again, and when he left he said he'd always be right here for me and he came to visit me for Christmas, and he came back just last night and he's here now and he was the reason why I was able to make that leap in PT, he has a magic finger that heals."

Elliot had been smiling enthusiastically as he was speaking while Erin's face held a completely blank and expressionless look. After a moment she looked him straight in the eye and said, "I see what you're doing. "You know I am a sci-fi geek and now you're making fun of me to let me know you don't like me because of it! Well, excuse me for liking to read H. G. Wells!" a hurt look appeared in her eyes and she quickly pushed past Elliot and exited through the building's doors.

"No, Erin! Wait!" Elliot yelled after her. "I'm not making fun of you! It's all true!" But she was already running too far away from him to hear.

Elliot sighed sadly and exited the school himself, he went over to the bike racks and picked put his bike and rode away towards home.