It defied explanation. The girl I smooched during science class, all the way over in California somehow made her way into this school out in the middle of nowhere.

"Jamie!" I gasped, prying her away from my mouth. "How in the hell did you find me? What are you doing here? In my school?"

She grinned, placing my glasses back on my nose. "A bee forages one to three miles away from a hive, and can find their home from eight miles a way. A dog can smell a mate from three miles away. And salmon, they travel hundreds of miles during their lifetime, to reach the ocean, their home stream, and feeding grounds. I just had this...feeling that you'd be here, so I knew I had to go."

Roger groaned and got up. "This isn't over." But he still took his buddies and left.

I kept staring at Jamie. "Okay...so you had some kind of telepathic...thing. But my school? Do you live here? Where are your parents?"

Parents. I swallowed hard. "Wait. Your folks work for the government, don't they? You're trying to take me back to that place! It's the only thing that makes sense!"

Jamie looked genuinely puzzled. "Why would the government be after you? You just...went crazy and freed a bunch of frogs from being dissected. It was brilliant, and then you kissed me. I've never been kissed like that before. Ever." She took a deep breath. "I ran away from home."

"But your parents! They'll be worried!"

"It's okay. Daddy gets drunk and hits me. I'd rather be here."

"It's not going to work. What if they have a PTA meeting or something?"

"I'll borrow your dad."

"I...don't know if he'll..."

Jamie gripped my hand, pulling me in close. "Elliott, who's ET?"

I paled. "What are you talking about?"

"When I was searching for you, I...had this feeling. A word kept popping into my head. ET. ET. ET. Over and over again. I don't know what it meant, but I kept thinking it had some association with you."

I narrowed my eyes. "This is some kind of trick, isn't it? Who sent you?"

"Nobody!" she cried. Then, looking visibly embarrassed, "Just...my heart."

I swallowed. "He's...my best friend. He's...actually the reason why I did all that weird stuff in science class."

"He's a space man, isn't he? An alien, right?"

A chill ran up my back. "How did you know?"

Jamie shrugged. "I...just got a flash of something just now. Maybe it's because we're holding hands."

My cheeks flushed red. "Don't tell anyone, okay?"

"Is that why there were all those black vans? And that tent thing over your house?"

I nodded.

"Guess that explains why you moved and changed your name to Wolfgang." Her mouth suddenly hung open in surprise. "Elliott! You're glowing!"

I wiggled free from her grip. "Sorry."

"No! I love it!" she grabbed my hand again.

I pulled myself loose, glancing around to see if I'd been seen...doing that. "Maybe some other time...Where are you staying?"

"There's an abandoned factory down the street from your house. I've been sleeping in the manager's office."

"You can't be doing that! You'll get caught!"

"Don't you get it, Elliott? I love you! I had to see you!"

"But the police will come looking for you! When they find you, they'll find me!"

"I don't know anyone by Elliott at this school," she said in a tone like she'd use with the cops. "I've only been hanging out with this nerdy kid named Wolfgang. And he wears glasses."

It sounded great. Too great. "So, what, you're just going to squat in there like a hobo and go to school?"

"It's a little dusty, and drafty, but I got some blankets..." With an eager look, she blurted, "Are you inviting me to stay with you?"

Now my face felt really hot. "I'd...like to, but I don't know what Dad and Ruby would say...I could bring you food, and more blankets..."

I could tell the family confused her, but she didn't say anything about it. "You got a kerosene heater?"

I frowned, unsure how I'd sneak one to her without being noticed. "I'll...see what I can do."

"By the way, if you mention me to your dad, tell him my name's Lori."

My cabin lay within walking distance of the school, so I always walked Gertie home at the end of the day. The cool fall wind blew open a discarded styrofoam dinner tray on our front lawn, reminding me of an undersea clam.

Gertie ran into the house. Scooby Doo would be on soon.

I found Dad outside in the driveway, working on an ugly old Ford F-100. He rolled out from under the engine on a mechanic's creeper. "Hey kid! How was school?"

"Great. I...just met a nice girl today."

He chuckled. "That's good. I was starting to worry about you. And Gertie. I know the move and everything wasn't easy on you..."

I blushed. "Where's Ruby?"

"She took a Greyhound back to California, you know, for the kids. She wanted to tell you kids goodbye, but she had to get there fast, so she left early." He sat up, sighing as he stared at the ground. "Honestly, not the greatest idea. I offered to go in her place, but she was worried about you guys not having a dad...Figure out the computer thing yet?"

I frowned. "Maybe...Dad, would it be okay if I let someone borrow the space heater?"

Dad narrowed his eyes. "Who's asking for it?"

I shrugged. "A friend from school."

To say he looked skeptical would be an understatement. "Son, we're not exactly made of money, and this isn't a charity."

I fumbled for a good cover story. "Look, dad. The, uh, weather's getting colder, and her furnace just went out."

A wry smirk crept up the corner of his mouth. "Did you just say her?"

I reddened a little. "Yeah?"

"This wouldn't be that new lady friend you just described, now, would it?"

"Um," I stammered. "Maybe?"

"That's how it always starts." He chuckled, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Son, let me as you something. Do you think she's really into you, or do you, I don't know, kinda have a gut feeling that she's using you?"

"I think she's definitely into me." My blush deepened. "I mean, she kissed me on the mouth."

Dad's eyes got real big when he heard that! "Before or after she asked you for the heater?"

"Before." I cleared my throat. "Actually, she wasn't even the one asking at first. I mean, I offered to give her a few blankets..."

Dad patted my back. "You're a good kid." He paused. "Tell your girlfriend that if our furnace goes out, or we have a storm, there's going to be a problem...does this girl have a name?"

"Lori."

"Lori! Is she nice?" I opened my mouth to speak, but he just said, "Guess she must be, to give you a sloppy French on the lips, huh?" He gave me a kidding elbow.

I marched into the house.

Dad said our cabin looked like something from a horror movie, which appealed to his odd sense of humor. Ruby said it reminded her of something from an old western. A little drafty, but we had a furnace and a fireplace, so not too terrible. I'd say the decor was the worst part: A tacky clashing of western motif and seventies art deco, curtains a gaudy striped green-brown pattern, our sofas distressed curbature.

Dad had let me set up a science lab in the basement. Every weekend we'd go to the junkyard and the town dump, scavenging for discarded electronics, TV's, toys, electric typewriters, car parts, radios, sometimes a pinball machine, cassette and eight track decks, a broken arcade game...I made a few interesting computer-like things with them, not anything I could peddle to a corporation, especially since I kept experimenting with plant power. Dad kept making jokes about potato clocks.

We tried selling stuff to the bank, but they already had IBM business computers, and said my computer looked too small to store anything on. Since Dad attempted the sale while I was at school, he couldn't find the words to properly explain the miniaturization of electronics.

During commercial breaks, and boring all-day news interruptions on TV, Gertie busied herself with the many plants I had potted around the lab, talking to them as she watered and pruned and packed in soil. I had only taught her half of what I learned from all those books. Even Dad thought her skill went beyond Mom's repertoire. We never had to buy stuff for salads at the grocery store. It seemed ET had given my sister a green thumb too.

We did have a pretty good mini-greenhouse started, complete with plant lights. Because we enjoyed our salads, Dad made jokes about us being `pod people'.

I located a medium sized heater that I could, with some difficulty, lift up the stairs, provided I take the triangular fuel tank out first. Dad said you could cook TV dinners on top of the thing, what, with the heat coming off of it. The thought of giving Jamie an improvised stove in addition to heat made me smile.

I had only loaded it on a dolly and gotten it to the stairs when the basement window suddenly popped open, a female figure nosily scattering equipment and sketches all over the place as she landed on my work table. Circuit boards and half finished projects broke on the concrete.

"Jamie?" I gasped.

She hopped to the floor, holding a finger to her lips.

"What are you doing here?" I hissed.

"Coming to see you. What does it look like?"

I straightened my papers and other stuff.

"Sorry about the mess...Is that the heater?"

I nodded.

Jamie put her hands on her hips. "Maybe if we sneak it around back, when it's dark or something..."

"You mean your place, right? I think Dad would be cool with you, if you came around front."

Gertie gawked at my girlfriend. "Hey! You're Elliott's classmate!"

Jamie shushed her, waving her hands, trying to make my sister decrease her volume. "I grew up here, all right?"

My sister wrinkled her nose, shaking her head. "No you didn't! You were in California! You shouldn't lie! It'll make your nose get big!"

"Please don't tell Dad! He'll think she's a spy or something!"

Gertie looked Jamie in the eyes. "Are you a spy?"

"No."

"Then what are you doing here?" she paused. "And don't lie. Your eyes do funny things when you're about to tell a story. Like right now."

Jamie sighed. "If you tell your dad, I'm going to kill you."

"I won't tell a soul. Cross my heart, hope to die."

"You're...Jewish."

My sister didn't get the reference. "What does that have to do with anything? And how did you know that, anyway?"

I was wondering that, too, but I didn't want to add to the noise level by talking.

"Never mind. Look. I ran away from home, okay? Don't tell."

"Is that why you need a space heater?"

Jamie swallowed, nodding a little. "Don't tell."

"Where are you sleeping? Under a bridge?"

"It's a little better than that."

Gertie sniffed her. "You don't smell like a hobo."

My girlfriend rolled her eyes. "Gee, thanks."

"I'm going to play with my dolls." Gertie marched upstairs.

Jamie glanced at me with discomfort.

"She crossed her heart."

My girlfriend stared at my stuff. "What's all this?"

"I don't know. After I met ET, I started...thinking differently. Getting ideas."

Ever since those visions of ET at the hotel, I'd been drawing pictures of...space vehicles, astronauts, what a ship might look like if I were to build it, and how it might work on different terrain...and astronauts encountering ET and Yoda and the Green Guardians. I'd tacked and stapled and taped them up all over the place.

Jamie pulled one off the wall. "I hope you're not trying to build this. Rocket ships aren't supposed to be this round."

All my ship designs looked round. "ET made it work. There's got to be a way."

"Airplanes were inspired by birds, but they never worked until we made them more airplane shaped." She furrowed her brow. "Are you glowing again?"

I stared at my chest. I really didn't think the glowing could be seen.

"How are you doing that?"

"I don't know. It just happens."

"Like when you're around me?"

"Maybe?"

She giggled. "That's kinda cute."

I showed her a couple computers I'd made.

"You're...really smart."

I blushed. "Thanks."

Jamie handed me an oddly familiar looking walkie-talkie. "I kinda took this from your old house. Thought I'd give it back."

I stared. "You went in my house? Why?"

She leaned in close to me. "Why did you kiss me?"

My blush deepened. "Uh..."

"I hope you're not going to say it's all because of your alien friend."

"Well," I stammered. "I guess if you—"

"This whole time, I've been trying to figure you out. You go from pulling my hair and acting like I was icky to freeing frogs and kissing me. So I did some investigating. I've seen your mom at PTA meetings before, so I kinda got into the principal's file cabinet and looked you up...your mom's really friendly."

I guess that explained how she knew my religion.

I swallowed. "How is she?"

Jamie gave me an apologetic look. "She misses you, but she understands why you ran off. Those men with the black vans scare her too."

"Are people still watching the house?"

"Kinda. Your mom says it's not as bad as it used to be."

"Wait. If you went there, wouldn't they be following after you too?"

Jamie rolled her eyes. "Why? I'm just a dumb kid. I didn't even touch your space man. Unlike you, curling up next to him in your longjohns..."

"Wait. She told you about that?"

"So maybe I exaggerated a little about my telepathic abilities. I still wouldn't have gotten here without your alien friend."

"Did you...find anything else in my room?"

"Your mom said those men pretty much ransacked your house, so there was mostly a bunch of toys, and clothes and mementos, you know, because they didn't have any use for them and gave them back. Of course, they didn't check the garage very well.

"She found a funny notebook in a Monopoly box buried under your dad's clothes. There's also some weird stuff scribbled all over one of your brother's Dungeons and Dragons manual."

I stared. "What did you do with that?"

"They're in a backpack at my place. Along with one of Gertie's dolls and a bear."

"Mom was actually okay with you taking the stuff?"

Jamie looked sheepish. "I kinda told her I knew where you were...and was helping you hide."

"Where did you tell her I was?"

"In the attic of my old house. It's good I did, too, because a day later, your guys were swarming around the place, driving the new owners crazy."

"Wait, and they just let you go after that?"

She suddenly acted like a different person. "`Look, I don't know where that weirdo went! I just told him to hide up there! If he's gone, I don't know what to tell you!...Ugh, me and him?'" She shuddered for emphasis. "`Eew! It's not like we had a thing!'...I did really well in drama class."

"What about the backpack? Wouldn't they think it weird to see you walking out with one full of stuff?"

"My pink backpack? I got weirder looks from my teachers. I told them I left all my books at my boyfriend's house."

"Elliott?" Dad called from the top of the stairs. "Who are you talking to down there?"

"Shit!" Jamie cried, ducking under a work table.

I'm not a great liar. "...Myself! I'm...thinking out loud."

As Dad marched down the stairs, Jamie pulled a trash can and a chair around herself for concealment.

Dad frowned at the heater. "Need help with that?"

I slowly nodded.

Jamie sneezed.

Dad glanced up, trying to see what had caused the noise. "You hear something?"

I tried to look puzzled. "I think it's just a squirrel."

He squinted. "You left the window open."

"It was hot."

Dad still looked suspicious. "That squirrel sounded pretty close. You might want to close it a little better or we'll have to buy glue traps."

I paled when he picked up the walkie talkie. "Where'd you get this?"

"Jamie," I blurted. "I mean, Lori. She, uh, thought I'd like them."

Dad turned the toy over. "This looks like the one I got you for Hanuk-Christmas."

Dad's little joke. We celebrated Hanukkah, but his best gifts came around the 25th...And the ones for the other days tended to have a suspiciously Christian flavor to them. Green and red gifts or packaging. A`Hanukkah bush.' He made figgy pudding one year. One time, he and mom even had an argument about ham.

"It's a common brand."

His thumb rubbed the scratches along the plastic, his face still reflecting suspicion.

"She might have gotten it from a thrift store."

Sighing, Dad set the radio down and grabbed the heater. "Let's get this thing upstairs, shall we?" He motioned for me to get the reservoir.

Dad set the heater by his truck, then groaned in frustration. "Damn, forgot about the alternator. Your brother's supposed to be bringing it by when he gets off work. Sorry, kid. Won't be able to drive."

"That's okay. I'll use my Radio Flyer."

The moment I came out of the house with the wagon, Jamie came walking up the front yard like she'd just gotten there.

She waved to me and Dad. "Hey Wolfgang...Hi, Mr. Mueller."

Dad grinned. "So. You're the famous Lori I keep hearing about."

Jamie looked bashful. "I hope you've heard good things."

He nodded. "Got furnace trouble, huh? How long you think it'll take before you get it fixed?"

"I don't know. Might be awhile. They're saying we might need to get the whole thing replaced. We're trying to save up."

"I'd say so. Those things can get pretty pricey." Dad kept scrunching up his face, staring at her. "Say, haven't I seen you around somewhere before?"

"I go to his school. You probably saw me around there."

Dad made a face like he'd smelled a fart. "I don't know. It seems like I've seen you somewhere else..."

It was hard to guess how much Dad remembered about the girl. I mean, after the divorce...

"I hang around stores a lot."

"Maybe it was the hardware store," I suggested.

Dad gave another piercing look, then muttered, "We do go there a lot..."

Jamie sneezed again.

"Wow. Sounds like you're getting a cold. Maybe you do need that heater." He helped me load the wagon.

I offered the handle to Jamie, but she said, "Walk with me. I want you to...meet my parents."

Dad rolled his eyes. "Think you'll be back for dinner?"

I fumbled for words, but Jamie nodded. "What are you having?"

"Probably TV dinners, if that's okay."

She looked excited. "Sounds wonderful!"

"Poor girl," Dad muttered to me. "When did she last eat?"

When I shrugged, Dad gave me a wink and rubbed my shoulder, as if to say, `The apple doesn't fall far from the tree'.

An old yellow factory building with dirty windows stood a block down from my cabin, at the bottom of a steep hill. Its big garage doors occupied most of the debris scattered block.

I told Jamie all about ET as we walked.

"I thought you wanted to until it gets dark," I muttered as we drew closer to the building.

Jamie sighed. "Yeah, but your dad...And we can't exactly leave it outside. Someone might steal it."

We didn't so much roll the wagon down the street as slow its descent past the building. A couple kids in one of the nearby houses stared at us, so we slipped around the corner.

The sign for the business had been removed from above the door, leaving me guessing what sort of factory the place had been. My guess had been mattresses.

We waited for the street to be clear of observant drivers (the area was secluded enough - we didn't have to wait long) but I noticed a fat old lady staring at us as we snuck the Flyer around the side of the building. We ended up pretend carrying it to the back yard of a nearby house. A chihuahua barked at us from the window.

The woman scowled and swept her front porch.

We watched her from behind a shrub, breathing a sigh of relief when she at last went back inside her house.

The dog kept barking.

"C'mon," Jamie whispered. "Let's go."

My friend had propped the back door of the factory with a rock. She held it open as I wheeled the Flyer inside.

The discarded equipment told me we stood in an old small scale printing factory, perhaps for one of the unions. Dust gathered on the big roller machines, the forklift, the typesetting equipment.

Jamie switched on a flashlight, leading me up a metal staircase to a room with a desk and rusty old file cabinets. On the ground lay her sleeping bag, a wind-up alarm clock, canned food, and clothing. "You think we can get it up here?"

"I think I saw a ramp...how do you bathe? Or wash your clothes?"

"Next door. The guy works nights at the gas station. I sneak in when he's leaving for work, or at work."

I cringed at the thought of the man catching her. "Guess that explains the clock."

I helped her with the heater.

Jamie dug my spiral notebook, and a dungeon master campaign manual belonging to Michael's friend out of her pink bag. Someone had filled up all the blank spots in the campaign book with their scrawled handwriting. I stared at the scores of little symbols and diagrams filling every inch of blank space. "Make any sense to you?"

"No..." But then something clicked in my head, like I had just activated the part of my brain that spoke Spanish, and I had to think in Spanish terms in order to understand everything. That wasn't the language I was reading, of course. "Wait. I think...this has something to do with energy."

Jamie got a puzzled dog look on her face. "What?"

"Energy," I repeated. "It tells me how to make a liquid that provides electricity like a car battery, except better."

Her ears actually seemed to go up like a confused dog. "The only word I understood out of all that noise was `car battery.'"

"C'mon," I groaned. "Don't tell me you don't know what electricity is!"

"Finally you're speaking English! What was that stuff before? Swahili?"

I paled. "I literally wasn't speaking English?"

She shook her head. "Are you really all right?"

I frowned, remembering how strangely my lips had been moving a minute ago. "Yeah. I...just...think I know how to read this stuff now."

"Maybe your spaceman messed you up more than you know."

I just sighed, glancing at the heater. "Let me know if you run out of fuel."

Jamie slung her bag over her shoulder. "Let's go."

"Wait, where's the dolls and the bear you were talking about?"

Jamie patted the bag. "Why?"

"Maybe we should leave that stuff here for the time being. Dad already acted kind of sketchy when he saw my walkie talkies."

She frowned. "Guess you got a point."

Dad still got sketchy.

"What's that you got there?" Dad asked when I stepped through the door to our cabin. He'd spotted the book.

"Uh...Lori was just telling me how she liked D&D. I thought we might play sometime."

He looked Jamie in the eyes. "Your folks okay with you being here?"

"Yeah. They always say I should get out more often."

Not a lot of room in our cabin. We seated ourselves at a dinner table squished between the living room couch and a log wall. A stuffed deer head looked impassively down on us with its glass eyes as we ate. Its dead companion, a large wild pheasant, appeared to be molting.

My sliced turkey TV dinner resembled lunchmeat with soggy globs of croutons floating in grease, but I took it because I wanted our guest to have the first pick. I resolved to have real food in my spaceship, if I ever got it off the ground.

Dad squinted at my girlfriend like he expected to find a hidden microphone and spy equipment on her person. "So. Lori. Tell me about yourself."

"Not much to say, really. I've lived here...awhile. Dad works at the car dealership. Mom runs the bar."

Dad propped his elbow on the table, fingering his chin. He seemed ready to say something, but Jamie blurted, "I'm in El, Wolfgang's biology class. And home room."

I eyed Gertie nervously, but she kept her mouth busy with food.

"You're unusually quiet tonight, tyke," Dad said. "Anything on your mind?"

"Is it a sin to lie if it helps people?"

Dad gave me and Jamie glances like he suspected something amiss, but then he rubbed her head. "Still worried about that, are you?"

He shot Jamie an apologetic glance. "We're under the witness protection program. I saw a guy get killed. Bad shit, excuse my language. Can't tell our real identities or the mob'll come after us."

I and Jamie exchanged uncomfortable glances.

"What did he tell you? Something outlandish about a UFO?"

Jamie suppressed a giggle. "Something like that." She elbowed me.

Gertie looked troubled, but just stuffed a forkful of peas into her mouth.

Michael opened the front door. "Dad, I got the alternator..."

He frowned when he noticed our guest. "Hey, isn't that—" When dad looked his way, I mouthed the word no, shaking my head.

"Did I mention my uncle works at the hardware store?" Jamie exclaimed.

Gertie gave my brother a thumbs up when Dad wasn't looking.

Michael picked up the D&D manual. "Hey, this looks like Billy's-!"

I glanced at him nervously, again shaking my head.

My brother thumbed through it a moment, frowned, set it down. "Popular book."

Jamie grabbed a couple rolls, looked at the clock. "I should get home. My parents..."

Dad nodded. "Nice to meet you. Any friend of El, little Wolfgang, is a friend of mine."

"Want me to walk you home?" I offered.

"Thanks. I'm okay. See you at school tomorrow. Thank you for the heater, Mr. Mueller. And dinner."

Mike stared. "You gave her a heater?"

Dad shrugged. "Her furnace broke. She said she's just borrowing it for a few days."

I followed Jamie out to the porch.

She shut the door, once again kissing me on the mouth.

"You're glowing again," she said when she pulled away.

I gawked at her. A red glow had spread beneath her shirt, like someone had flicked on a light bulb in her rib cage. "You are too."

Her mouth hung upon in shock. The light faded. "It's not like a disease or anything, is it?"

"I don't know. So far it seems to be a nice disease. I mean, I feel pretty good...'

She grinned. "So do I."

As she departed, she held out one of my walkies, wordlessly turning the volume knob to the `ON' position before dropping it in her backpack.

The moment I stepped into the house, I found Michael and Dad waiting for me with expectant looks on their faces.

Dad crossed his arms. "Okay...What did you tell her?"

I swallowed. At present, being punished for blabbing about ET seemed to be a better alternative to pulling up stakes on account of a little runaway girl. "I...told her everything. But she's not going to tell anyone. We pinky swore."

"You...pinky swore," Dad groaned. "Great. Who else did you tell?"

I flushed hot with shame, both at lying, and the crime itself. "Nobody. Just her."

Dad sighed, glancing at Michael for a second opinion.

"She's just a little kid. What harm can she really do?"

"Michael, little kids have carried live grenades up to American GI's in Vietnam. How do we know she's not somebody's little spy? They are targeting a kid..."

"So, what, we're just going to move out of town on account of one kid? Elliott's been a loner ever since we moved into this dump. It wouldn't hurt for him to have a few friends, especially ones he can trust. I'm just saying..."

"Lord, give me strength..." Dad took a deep breath, rubbed his face. "Okay. We'll stick it out for the time being. But if I catch someone else, anyone else, sticking their nose in where it doesn't belong, we're getting out of Dodge, capische?"

I nodded. "Yes sir."

I slipped into my bedroom, switching on the walkie. I only heard static. Out of range. Still, I decided I needed something soothing to calm my guilt ridden mind into sleep. I set it on the dresser and shut off the light.

I dreamed about Dad finding out my secret. He yelled at me, took Jamie to the police station to notify the parents, then we started packing again.

A couple hours later, I woke, watched the late night monster show on my little black and white TV. The War of the Worlds. I kept the lights off, to avoid disturbing the others.

Thunder rumbled outside, rain beating against the window panes. I worried about Jamie in that big cold drafty building, hoped the heater would be enough.

"Elliott, are you awake?" a voice said on the walkie.

I clicked a button. "Yeah. You can't sleep either?"

"No. Whatcha doing?"

"Oh, just watching TV."

"Can you hold the thing up to the TV so I can listen?"

"If I do that, I won't be able to talk."

"That's okay. It's probably better that way anyway."

"You warm?"

"Yeah."

"How's the heater?"

"It's great. Glad I'm not outside. Thanks again."

I used a few rubber bands to hold the button down, pressing the walkie to the TV's speaker.

I started nodding off about halfway in, so I spoke up again. "I'm going to shut this off, all right?"

"Sure. Good night Elliott, I mean, Wolfie. I love you."

I stared at my radio receiver. Did she really just say that to me?

"Elliott?"

I gulped. Apparently she wanted me to say something back. "I...I love you too."

"Is your chest glowing? Mine's shining pretty bright. It makes the place look kind of spooky."

I was lighting up the room too. "Yeah."

"Oooh! The Martians are coming! Look at my hand!"

I chuckled.

"It's not going to keep glowing while I'm at school, is it?"

"I don't know. I hope not. Those guys might come after you."

"Maybe I could staple a magazine or something to my shirt."

"You'll look weird."

"Can't look any weirder than a glowing chest."

I sighed. "Guess you're right. Anyways, pleasant dreams."

I guess I did have a pleasant dream, it proved highly unusual and life changing.

In it, I flew over an immense circuit board, zooming in between its chips and capacitors like an X-Wing on the Death Star. I viewed the board from every angle, turned it three hundred sixty degrees like a model. I understood the pattern, knew how to put it together. Mostly.

My eyes snapped open, and the glowing of my chest intensified to the brilliance of a desk lamp. Drenched in sweat, I sat up, fumbling for a notebook.

I'd filled every page of the front half with sketches before the strange muse left me, and I sat staring at my notes.

A moment later, my bedroom window slid open with a loud hiss, and Jamie came climbing in, shrugging a damp rain poncho onto the floor.

She stared at my notebook. "You dreamed about it too?"