Not alone as I thought. I turned around and saw my sister slipping out the back door.

I stomped after her. "You've been listening in this whole time?"

Gertie looked ashamed, but also fearful, like I planned to hit her or something. "I was afraid you were going to run away without me."

Charlie popped out from behind her back, giving me a nod. "Hmmm!"

I sighed through my nostrils. "Did Jamie see you?"

Gertie shook her head. "I... don't think so...I won't tell anyone, I promise."

"Tell anyone what?" Roy stepped out from behind the hut, rucksack slung over his shoulder.

"Gertie—" I hissed.

My sister's lip trembled.

"Go on, tell me. I especially want to know what you were doing sneaking around in mister Admasca's house!"

Charlie nodded eagerly. I tried to ignore him.

My sister folded under Roy's browbeating. "Jamie wants to run away so she wouldn't have to do the Quarjabbe. We went into Admasca's house to talk about it, then Elliott sent me away so he could make love with Jamie and I, I spied on them because I didn't want them to leave me—"

"Whoa, whoa, wait! He what!" Roy crossed his arms, so angry that he couldn't quite formulate words. After some deep breathing exercises, his face had regained its normal color. "So you were just going to ditch me and run off to Lord knows where? Was that the plan?"

I shrugged. "I tried to tell her—"

Jamie joined us. "You're not our dad. I've lived on my own before."

"So you're just gonna continue doing what you were doing before you came here? Squatting in old abandoned buildings and stealing things? Is this what you do with all your problems? Run away from them?"

Jamie refused to answer that.

"How did you survive all this time? Did you run away from your parents like that? What did they force you to do? Clean your room?"

"Shut up," she growled. "You're not my dad."

I could tell the backtalk didn't set right with him, but he didn't take the bait. "Why."

"I don't want to talk to you."

"I meant, why leave?"

Jamie clenched her fists. "Look. I only worked for that Yatgibi guy a day and already I can't stand him. You expect me to do that again? For what, ten years?"

"It's only one year," Roy said in forced even tones. "It's not going to kill you. As an adult, you'll have to learn to work for bossholes, and believe me, this guy isn't half as much a dick as some managers I've had. Besides, we worked out a deal. Based on what I've heard, it might be even shorter, thanks to boyfriend here..."

"He's not my—"

I glared at her.

Jamie's face flushed. "Okay, so I'm not saying that he isn't my boyfriend, but..."

"Which brings us to item two...part of returning you to your parents as good or better than I found you involves you not getting pregnant. How old are you guys anyway? Twelve?"

"I told him no," Jamie said quietly.

"Well good for you!" Roy took me aside. "Hey, I was once your age. I know how it is. You're just starting to learn things about your body, you start getting ideas..."

My face flushed red with shame and irritation. "She's right, you know. You're not our dad."

"So what if I'm not!" Roy was almost yelling now. "Is it so wrong to try to teach a kid not to make the same kinds of mistakes I made?"

Frightened, Charlie swelled like a puffer fish, even producing needles like one.

Roy fell silent, giving me and Jamie disappointed looks. "You know what? You're right, I'm not your damn father. You want to leave so bad? Just go. I don't care anymore. You try to be nice, try to teach a child to survive in a place they don't belong in, and they just spit on you and complain that you're not their dad."

He fumed in silence for a moment. "So I'm not your dad. You don't have to be my kids. You can just go out there, get lost, get arrested a few more times, until you really get punished, and then pop out a couple babies and starve to death for all I care!"

With that he angrily marched away.

Charlie deflated himself, nestling on Gertie's shoulder. She petted him.

For a moment I and Jamie just exchanged uncomfortable glances.

She rolled her eyes. "C'mon. Let's go."

I swallowed. "Go?"

My girlfriend groaned. "You know what I meant. Back to the crazy guy."

We returned to ET's hut. I'm pretty sure if they had locks on their doors, we wouldn't have been able to get in.

Roy sat at the table, pouring shots of black liquid from what appeared to be a Bogolanfini patterned sake jar. The liquid reminded me of that black gunk that comes out of drain pipes when a plumber snakes them. "The prodigal children return."

I glanced around. "Where's ET?"

"Um, let's just say your friend and his two partners went out on a date and leave it at that."

"They already have an egg," Jamie said.

"Yeah, well, people say that about children too."

"What about Rilquza and Colzest?"

Roy shrugged. "Moon People Meeting."

Wotrevi scampered up and licked me.

Jamie frowned at Roy's drink. "That stuff looks like motor oil. What's it taste like?"

"Yuuum!" said Charlie.

Roy sipped the glop, rolling it around in his mouth like a wine taster. "It's...a little hard to describe. Kinda like...yams, rice milk and Listerine. Not quite as good as beer." He paused. "Have you ever contemplated the meaning of Gorbachev's birthmark?"

I shook my head.

When he spilled the liquid, ET's pet would lap it up, looking a little tipsy itself.

Roy held up his glass. "Said the monkey to the donkey, would you like something to drink? Said the donkey to the monkey, 'I should like a swig of ink!'" he emptied the glass, poured a shot for Norenio.

She took the glass, but only turned it around in her fingers, smiling at him. "We have a nennop now."

Roy stared. "What?"

"Tolmina has volunteered."

The Qulpari nodded. I am very excited about this.

The man looked horrified.

"Tolmina, tell him what we discussed."

You and Norenio have been together a long time, and have engaged in...reproductive activities. By the terms of your culture, and to honor Norenio's family, I recommend a mogza, uslofya or the human ritual of...matrisimineon?

"Mat...trim...money," the Abreya prompted.

Mattrisimunney.

Roy's face flushed with anger. "Well gee Mr. Castrated live in psychologist, why don't you tell me your opinions about what I should be doing with my relationship! You know what that's called? A creep and a nag!"

Charlie swelled like a puffer fish again, dove behind my sister.

Norenio's tail curled toward the Qulpari. "Tolmina can help us."

Yes, said Tolmina. I am very helpful.

"Honey, telling us what to do is not helping. If there were some way of making me a better person, that I'd call useful! But again, I probably wouldn't be here!"

"A nennop can give you advice. There is less...guess work and assumption. And they are also there to listen."

Tolmina grinned. I am very specific. I will listen to your concerns and tell you what I think about your guesswork and assumptions.

"Shove it up your slimy ass!" Roy drank a shot, pointed to us children. "And you! What do you have to say for yourselves?"

I rounded my shoulders. "We're sorry."

"Sorry," Jamie agreed. "You're right."

Roy poured himself another shot. "Damn straight."

Tolmina waddled up to him. You should be more...respectful.

"I didn't ask for your opinion." Roy swallowed black crude, turning his attention to me. "You ever felt like your entire life, from start to finish, has been wasted on something unimportant?"

I stared.

"No, I suppose not. Too young...Well, it's like this." His hands formed an imaginary mesa. "You wake up one day with this feeling like you had a destiny to be something, but then you just slept through it or walked away." He downed another shot.

Midlife crisis, I thought. It explains a few things. "I don't think you should be drinking anything that color. Are you trying to poison yourself?"

"I should have died a long time ago, kid. Besides..." He made a sound like he either experienced a lurch on an invisible sailing ship, or about to throw up. "Besides, the color black contains all the other colors." He paused. "Or was it white?" He frowned, made an artless hand gesture to dismiss the subject. "S'one of those colors."

Swaying like a dog with an inner ear disorder, he laughed, pulled Norenio close, groped her in a clumsy, lustful manner.

They muttered to each other for a moment, arguing, I guess.

By this time, Roy had spilled enough of the glop to make ET's pet wobble unsteadily. It rolled over on its back and panted, paws moving without coordination.

"I love you! I'm...so...lonely!"

Norenio stared at the man, looking uncomfortable. "You are drunk."

You have had many boqunze, Tolmina agreed.

"So what. Never stopped us before." Roy made a corkscrewy motion with his finger, poked Norenio's chest. "You... drank some too."

"Not as much."

He whispered something in her ear that made her blush green.

They argued in low tones again. Roy fondled her, but she recoiled from him, backing away from the table.

"Hey!...screw you...bitch!" Roy medicated himself some more.

He suddenly staggered to his feet, moving like a cartoon pirate in an invisible tsunami. "I've.. got to...let the dog out."

Jamie stared in disbelief. "He's got an actual dog?"

"He's drunk," I said.

Roy rubbed his face. "My...Dolcani. I have to walk it." He stumbled to the door like an unsecured rider on one of those carnival 'rotor rides', flung the door open, did the zombie shuffle onto the walkway outside.

Concerned about his safety, I hurried after him, Norenio following close behind. Jamie and Gertie trailed us, probably out of curiosity more than anything else. And of course Charlie came along, Norenio and Tolmina following close behind.

Roy leaned forward, to the point where I thought he'd fall flat on his face, but he somehow achieved balance, similar to that crazy trick the Tin Man does on the Wizard of Oz.

Part of the tree platform lacked railings. Roy made a wild zombie march in that direction, coming within inches of pitching over the side, but at the last second righted himself with a woozy smile, half jogging up the walkway on the sides of his feet.

He stumbled up to the air transport, opened the hatch, but pitched headlong into the frame.

He collapsed groaning in a ball on the floor.

All three of us kids and Norenio stood over him and stared as he rubbed his head and...just lay there.

Charlie purred and nuzzled against him, but the man responded by blindly slapping him away as if attacked by bats in a cave.

He jabbered something to his girlfriend, waved her away. Sighing in disgust, the Abreya and their orange `nennop' left him.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

The man did an army crawl to a bench, fat fingered something on the control console. Once the vehicle hummed to life, he slumped on the bench and dozed.

Being the last to board, Gertie nearly got pinched by the door as the ship took off.

Us children took seats, watching him with expressions of concern and dismay.

"Maybe we were better off on our own," Jamie muttered. "This guy is a spaz!"

Roy's head and body shifted forward with the motion of the vehicle, looking like he'd be soon suffering from whiplash. He slumped back, unphased.

Roy didn't once throw up. I kept expecting it to happen, but it didn't. If you can get that wasted without puking, it's a pretty good sign you've had practice, and might even be an alcoholic.

After riding in silence for awhile, Roy made a noise like he intended to vomit, but he just snickered and sang a weird little song:

"Why does it hurt when I pee?

Why does it hurt when I pee?

Don't want no doctors sticking needles in me!

Why does it hurt when I pee?"

He dozed again. To my annoyance, for several days afterward, we'd often catch Charlie humming that same tune.

We disembarked at the plateau above cliff dwellings, winding down a steep sort of paved road among cylindrical and domed concrete buildings with that cactus-like Burkina Faso style design. Below, at the end of these buildings, lay a shore, docks, and a swampy lake. Not the same place they generated electricity from.

The road flattened along an alley of the concrete structures, dropped down steeply again between buildings, descending another steeply angled street. I thought for certain Roy would pitch headfirst and go rolling like a barrel to the bottom, but he only did his Tin Woodsman routine, kind of half running downhill to maintain balance.

We rushed to keep up as he stumbled past a row of buildings to the shore. Along the way, we encountered a Qulpari, weirdly attired in a robe of neon purple cowry shells. The stranger appeared to have a compulsion for spinning like a dervish, I guess for similar religious reasons.

Not the most pleasant place. It smelled funny, bugs nipped us, buzzed in our faces, and a layer of scum floated across the surface of the water. Yet, oddly enough, a number of 'house boats' bobbed along moorings there, the nicer ones attached to docks.

Roy waded out backwards into the swamp, spreading his arms. "Welcome to Dago Buys..." He rubbed his face. "Daygobia..." The man again looked like he intended to hurl, but didn't. "That...Star Wars place. Never mind."

I found it confusing that he'd know about the second Star Wars film if he'd been 'abducted' long before it came out, but he had access to all kinds of recordings.

"You ever wonder what planet all those letters in the opening crawl go to after we've read them? Do they land in Yoda's swamp, and he makes a soup out of them?...Alphabet soup!" Chuckling, Roy slurmed his way past an oak-like swamp cypress in a seemingly aimless direction, leaned on another for support, then mucked up to the gunwale of a house boat, hopping onto its deck.

A branching crack crept around the dome of the rusty boat, its cylindrical body covered in green stains. At first I thought he had drunkenly trespassed on private property, but he pulled the door open, stumbling inside.

Roy lived in squalor. Only a few chairs and a table for furniture, some dusty wall decorations lay propped up by the walls, but weren't hung up. A hammock served as his bed. The human sized table held a few alien electronics. The floor had a tatami surface, normal but dirty looking. The stale odors of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers, mildew and old pizza clung in the air.

Piles of stuffing lay scattered across the floor, the culprit one of those catfish creatures. It smiled, wagged its tail, jumping up and licking us.

Roy apologized, and muttering something about a leash, told us to go outside and wait. When we didn't, he wandered about searching for the item, marched up to the table and hit his head on its edge.

Roy collapsed and lay on the floor as his pet licked him in the face.

It took awhile for him to recover and get a crude rope like leash attached to his pet. For a moment, I thought he intended to sleep on the tatami. "How...about...we walk your friend?" I suggested.

It seemed the answer was no, since he managed to stagger to his feet.

He stumbled outside, leading his pet into the swamp. The creature drank and went to the bathroom in the same body of water. The sight discouraged me from any thoughts of making deep fried Dulcani nuggets.

The pet led Roy up on shore, dragged him up a slanting street. Roy fell on the pavement, the Dolcani tugging crazily on its leash and playing around in the bushes of exotic plants.

"Some parental guardian," Jamie grumbled.