I’m Not From Here Chapter 1: A Completely New Life

The Boy from Senterre

            My name is Pierre Tremblay. Where I came from, everyone knew someone named Tremblay. I was born in Senterre, Quebec, Canada, Earth. My family lived there for generations. The story says that one of my great-great-great etc. grandfathers knew Intendant Jean Talon in person. Whether or not it’s true, it doesn’t matter. What is important is that my family had been living there for a few centuries.

            All this changed in the year 2025. Before then, if we left Senterre, it was for three to five weeks at most, usually just to visit Montreal, or occasionally we’d go to Florida as well. But we only went that far south in the summer, because we never wanted to miss any snow.

            That year, I was fourteen. I was still excited three days after my birthday celebration. Then my father brought home news. We’re moving. My sister Sophie, two years older than me, asked “Ou? A Montréal?”

            “Non, much farther than that,” replied my dad.

            She was disappointed, because she wanted to move there. Whenever we went there, fashion-conscious Sophie would get lost in the Centre Eaton and Les Ailes de Mode, and we’d have to wait for her to run out of money.

            I wasn’t prepared for what he said next.

            “I’ve got a contract. I’m going to be a manager at the Nebulos plant in Vaitolu, on the planet Seiloa!”

            I was in shock, as were Sophie and Céline (my younger sister). Only my mother wasn’t. She seemed to like warm places more than us, and she was the only one who said she wouldn’t mind leaving Quebec. But that wasn’t surprising, as she’d sometimes told me she dreamt of moving someplace warm.

            “So should I get some sunscreen at the Pharmaprix?” she asked.

            “Yes, you’ll need plenty of it.”

            “I always dreamed of living in a paradise like that, I saw it on TV a few weeks ago.”

            I would miss the rest of my family, and my friends, and the snow. Especially the snow, because I always played in it. I knew there was no snow on Seiloa, I read that in my Geographie Interplanetaire General class I had the year before. Seiloa was also known for one other thing. A strange animal that had a fury body, the ears of a rabbit, a beak, and a long leathery tail. In English they’re called hoopies, in French, les houpies. The sound they make is something like a houp, houp, houp. They can smell drugs and bombs much better than dogs, or even some machines. They’re paired up with vicious dogs (usually Rottweilers) for protection, and the dogs and the handlers (“houpiers”) are trained to communicate with them. Many countries on Earth now use them at border crossings and airports and prisons.

            “Maybe we could get a pet houpie,” joked my father.

            I was expecting some major culture shock. I was old enough to tell that their ideas of food, music and clothing are entirely different from those in Senterre. In Montreal you saw people from around the world, and many different worlds. But at least I was still in Quebec, and the signs were all en français. Seiloa would be different. And I didn’t know that many people from other planets. In Senterre the only one I knew was this lady from a planet YaYa Niaferia. She was a Ya’a Naomi, a race that resembles a cross between the human and the raccoon. She walked like us, but was covered in brown fur, and had a ringed tail, and a face that belonged on a raccoon. Her name was Laaya Agaya, or at least it said that on her metal nametag, but most of us had problems pronouncing it, so we called her Layée. She was the station agent for VIA Rail in our city. We’d sometimes go there after school and we’d tease her. There wasn’t much else to do in our town, and we were too young to go to the bar across the street. There was a depanneur and a café in the station, so that was our hang out spot. We’d ask what trains ran by, just to hear her say them with her accent. Abitibi became A-pee-tee-pee, and Coureur du Bois became Coe-oo-rer Dupois. When she got tired of this, she’d just say the destination cities the trains served, but she never could pronounce Montreal the right way. She then learnt to just call the trains by their numbers, and she could pronounce those quite well. She was an exception, not the rule, and she was only there because being new to the job she had no say where she was assigned. Sometimes I felt slightly guilty doing it, but my closest friends, Guy and Maurice, would always laugh at her. On one occasion Maurice even tried playing with her tail, and he got into trouble from his parents when Laaya called home. But we got away with teasing her most of the time.

            I didn’t realize that I was going to end up being like Laaya on a different planet.

Le Voyage

            It was rather sad for all of us. I had the most friends, so I was hurt the hardest. At the time I wished they’d pass a law against moving when you have a 14 year old in your family. We said goodbye to all our friends. We packed everything into boxes. The house that was full of warmth and comfort had become a different creature once emptied. I felt as though the doors and cupboards were all laughing at me. The only comfort that last night was a radio I listened to before I went to bed. I heard a hockey game between Montreal and Toronto. Being a Quebecois, I naturally favored the Montreal Canadiens. I was happy when the Canadiens won. I wondered if anyone on Seiloa knew what hockey was. I couldn’t sleep my last night there, on a matress on the floor. The windows were staring at me like the eyes of giants. The light that came through them didn’t seem normal.

            The next day we took a taxi to the train station. The silver shone in the early sun. All five of us, and our bags, boarded the Abitibi. Laaya was there, giving my mother a basket of fruit and cheese, my father a bottle of wine, and Audio-DVDs of Quebec musicians for my siblings and I. She then got off, and a few moments later the doors were closed and the train started.

            I tried my hardest to stay awake, even though I didn’t get enough sleep, because I wanted to see all the familiar trees and houses. I ate my breakfast of croissant, fruit and juice as slowly as possible. I wanted to savor every moment.

            This route had many places we only stopped at if someone wanted to get on or off. Some of these places were a long way away from where anyone would think of catching a train. We even picked up a small group of fishermen who brought a canoe and a bucket full of caught fish. They sat near us, and they were nice people. I asked them what they did when the lakes and streams were frozen. I already knew what one could do, but I just had to hear about winter one more time. One of them just cut holes in the ice, the others were content to cross-country ski.

            In the afternoon we stopped at Hervey, where our train was joined to another, the Saguenay, and there we entered another world. An announcement reminded everyone that “electrification” all the way to here from Montreal was completed, and we were waiting for an electric locomotive. The new electric slowly passed us on another track. Its headlights were arranged to make the locomotive look like a four-eyed beast, or worse, a metal giant. And the top two eyes were angry at something. I saw a light similar to what I saw the night before. Those giants eyes were looking at me. The locomotive was painted blue and green with yellow accents. The chrome current collectors on top were weird horns. This thing was not what I thought of a “locomotive” as being. And past this point there were more villages, towns and cities than there were before, and fewer places to stop “on request,” or “Arrêts sur Demande” as they were called in French. As we had our lunch we went past places with names like Saint-Tite (which caused every English speaker to laugh), Grand-Mere and Shawinigan (where a former Premiere Ministre du Canada lived).

            At Joliette I saw ticket vending machines on the platform. It meant that we were now “near” Montreal, within the network of the Agence Metropolitain de Transport. Once we got onto the island that the city was on, the only way we’d be getting off that island was in a spaceship from the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Interplanetary Starport (formerly Dorval Airport.)

            Our train sped through the Tunnel de Mont Royal, and slowed as we pulled into Gare Centrale. I’ve been here before, but this time it was different. It was more crowded than usual, and the upstairs concourse was less inviting. Not that it really mattered, because we were in more of a hurry. Dad led us to the escalators to tracks 23 and 24, where we would ride the Dorval Express. Something seemed out of place. This platform was covered in white ceramic tiles. It was supposed to look new, but it made it look sterile. The other platforms with their grey concrete might be more crude, but at least they had character. The columns here, like something from a Greek temple, were seriously out of place. They were trying too hard. I told myself that those columns would be the only thing that wouldn’t be missed.

            We boarded a light blue train that had the words “Dorval Express” on it in funny letters that are supposed to look like the Star Wars logo. As the train started, I couldn’t hold it anymore. I shouted “Au Revoir, Quebec!”

            My family didn’t say anything. They all understood. The train ran next to Autoroute 20, and I saw the cars, trucks and busses on it. Some of them ran on wheels, the rest used different hovering mechanisms, some had what resembled soap suds beneath them, some had many small jets underneath them, and some didn’t have anything special, other than a lack of wheels. All of them had license plates that said Je Me Souviens. I remember. And I did remember, I remembered the land I was born in, and the land I thought I’d live my whole life in. Non! That was what I wanted to shout there and then.

            The train turned to the right, passed under other tracks, and then entered a tunnel. What we ended up at looked like a Metro station. Except that it was bigger, and had signs in about seventy different languages. I tried my hardest not to notice the fellow passengers, but I couldn’t just ignore them. Most of them were different. People from around the world, and around the galaxy. Some of them looked almost like us, while others did not. Some had fur, some had scales. Céline asked “Maman, is that an ange?” when we saw an Ai’a’ive woman exit the train. Mom was slightly embarrassed. But I guess such a question like that was expected when one lives in a place that’s not diverse. The Ai’a’ive look exactly like us, except that they have brightly colored birdlike wings growing out of their backs. This one had bright green wings. She also had long black hair, and café-au-lait colored skin.

            Mom told us all that where we were going would be full of Ai’a’ive. I already hated moving. Knowing that I’d be one of the few sans ailles made me feel slightly depressed. Being without wings was never a problem before, but where we were going, it probably would be.

To Boldly Move Where No Quebecois has Moved Before!

            We had a few hours left before we’d be blasting off into space. Mom, who quite likes the stars, took us to a star-chart and pointed out exactly where our new home would be. The second planet orbiting Delta Pavonis. At least it was still in this dimension. There were several star charts, one for each of the nine dimensions. We live in the Black dimension, named after the color space is when you’re not on a planet. It would take a couple of days to get there, we were told. We walked through the security checkpoint, and our bags passed onto a conveyor belt, where an x-ray machine and a pair of hoopies checked them. The hoopies also checked us, and they smelt nothing wrong with us, but one of their dog friends disagreed.

            “They sometimes get like that,” was all the houpier could say.

            We had dinner at Moe’s Deli and Bar. It was our last taste of Quebec for some time. Montreal smoked meat was never so tasty! Outside the window we could see where the ships were being unloaded and loaded.

            I looked back with sadness as I came to the gate that led to the spaceship we’d be riding.

            We saw the spaceship through the top of the glass tube-shaped passageway. It was orange and purple, and had the name “Princess of the Stars” written just above the door that we entered through. There was also the logo for “Jefferson Starlines” below that. This Jefferson starship was twice the length of the train we took from Senterre, and twelve stories high. It had three wings that looked like those of a butterly.

            Stevedores were loading the back of the ship. I heard many of these big ships carried both passengers and freight. I noticed most of the other people in the passageway. They were all Ai’a’ive.

            Once aboard the ship I felt slightly better. There was a pair of Ai’a’ive who greeted us, one was a woman, the other, a man. The female had orange wings, tanned skin, long wavy brown hair and purple eyes, and wore a baggy purple dress with the Jefferson Starlines logo on it. The man had green wings, shorter hair, a slightly lighter skin color, and wore a purple jacket and one of those wrap-around skirts the Ai’a’ive men wear (what I later found out was called an ie lavalava.)

            The spaceship was just as enormous inside as it seemed on the outside. We were told where the stairwells were, and what to do in case of emergency within a breathable atmosphere. Some parts of it had rows of seats like a train or airplane. But there were also a couple of restaurants, a bar, a library, an arcade, a movie theatre, and on the top three floors, hotel rooms. We had a couple of rooms, one for my sisters and I, and one for my parents.

            The room was nice and big, and had two large beds, one for me and one for Sophie and Céline. They had purple sheets. The windows had curtains that were painted with strange geometric patterns. There was also a TV and a door to an ensuite bathroom in our room. We saw the starport, and then the island, and then the entire planet grow smaller and smaller as the ship blasted off. I was expecting it to rumble, and I was expecting us to lose gravity. Neither of those things happened.

            I had bought a “Teach Yourself Ai’a’ive” course-pack at a bookstore a few days ago, when my parents reminded me that the move was really going to happen. I decided to have a look at it then. I could understand a few things, but not that much. The word “Ai’a’ive”, which is supposed to be pronounced “Eye-A-Ee-Vay” was hard to pronounce, especially since many of us in Quebec pronounced it “Ya-Eve”, or even more lazily, we’d call then “Anges” or angels when they weren’t around. And what I really hated was that every vowel had to be pronounced, just like in Polynesian languages, said the book. I’m French, I’m used to silent e’s, in fact I’m very sure we INVENTED the silent e. As well as any other letter that’s silent.

            After trying to figure out how to conjugate their verbs for about an hour, I decided to go up and take a look around. I went into the library, and saw a couple of magazine racks near the front. There were only a couple of magazines in French, namely L’Actualité and Chatelaine. The rest of the stuff was in other languages, predominantly English. One magazine cover I remember, on the cover of Metropolitan, asks “Will 500 years from now be as bad as Zager and Evans predicted?” I took a quick glance through the Actualité, but there wasn’t anything interesting in that issue. Just some stuff about this one politician who was getting too much attention. I don’t know why everyone was obsessed with him, he was boring enough to scare people away from politics. He was an idiot named Jean Laclerc and he wasn’t even a cabinet minister, but everything he said got at least five pages in every newspaper and magazine. That would be another one of the few things I wouldn’t miss. I hoped he’d end up having to clean those columns.

            I walked to the movie theatre, and a notice said that the movie Life is Changing would be playing. I’ve never been more thankful for multi-language headphones. I got to listen to it en français. It was about an Ai’a’ive man who moved to Los Angeles, and it was full of humor. The problem was some things just can’t be translated. I was silent sometimes when everyone else (who just happened to be Ai’a’ive) would be laughing. I started laughing to, so I felt less out of place.

            Eventually the movie ended, and I felt really out of place. The Ai’a’ive are quite good at making friends whenever they meet. I’m not like that. It seemed everyone knew someone else, or at least pretended they did. Several of them were staring at me. It was as though I had a sign that said “Real live wingless boy!” in their language hanging on my back.

            I hurried back to my bedroom. My sisters had already gotten changed into their nightgowns. They were lying on top of their bed, and they had the air conditioning on full blast. I guess the room was designed to be hot. I should have remembered, Ai’a’ive like heat, I reminded myself. I hoped it wouldn’t be too hot on the actual planet we were going to. Then I remembered that that would be something futile to hope for. The days of snowball fights, snowmen, sledding, skiing, and hockey were all over. I cried myself to sleep.

            The next morning I awoke to the TV. Most of the image was on a flat screen, but there were also holograms shown a short distance in front sometimes, usually during the ads. My sisters were watching English cartoons. Something involving a grey hedgehog and an electrician with psychosis. I wasn’t paying too much attention. I looked out the windows. The only way I knew it was “morning” was by artificial lights outside the curtains, but not outside the ship, designed to simulate sunlight. They called them Rizen-Shine tubes. I wondered how astronauts knew when to wake up before those tubes were installed. They didn’t have to worry I don’t think, they had to deal with a lack of gravity. But not here, there was perfect artificial gravity here. But at least they’d be going back home.

            Outside the windows was space. Complete darkness, except for all those stars. I also saw an umbrella-shaped nebula.

            A few moments later, the shows changed, and I saw something I did find interesting. It was in English, but it was about Seiloa.

            “Seiloa is one of the planets that you can find Ai’a’ive on. Other worlds include Oava’ia’i, Fitu-Tuafafine, I’ei’e…and even Earth has a large Ai’a’ive population!” Well, I was thankful we were going to the most pronounceable (apart from Earth) of the planets. Oava’ia’i indeed, how do they pronounce it? “Seiloa is where the hoopie comes from. Thanks to them, it’s harder than ever to smuggle heroin, explosives, or dangerous chemicals.” I don’t have any problem with hoopies, except when hearing their chirping in long line-ups at the airport. But I’d rather have hoopies sniff me than be strip-searched. “Seiloa is very hot, so if you’re from somewhere very cold, bring your sunscreen! Seiloa is also full of flowers, and that’s what Seiloa means, ‘Many Flowers.’” So we were flying to Beacoup-des-Fleurs? “Seiloa is ruled by an Ai’a’ive Matriarch, also called a Masiofo.” Italian sounding music played, and it showed an Ai’a’ive woman on a throne, saying: “He insulted me. Put a horse’s head in his bed!” Then an alarm sounded, and I was told “No, MASIOFO, not MAFIOSO. Masiofo simply means ‘queen’.” An image of the actual Masiofo appeared in a hologram. This recorded hologram said a recorded message welcoming people to Seiloa. They had stuff about the government, and wildlife, and even ways of getting around. Then it showed some Ai’a’ive men playing something that I could best call Football Aerien, because it involved flying with the wings while trying to get a ball to the other end. Not to mention the proper Ai’a’ive name was too unpronounceable to remember.

            Then I saw a bunch of children sitting in a circle and singing. They had wings of many different colors, but their skin was generally in darker shades than mine, the girls were wearing loose dresses, and the boys were wearing those skirts, and both wore necklaces of shell. “These children are singing a song!” Well merci beacoup for that information, or Fa’afetai, as they say, I thought they were discussing the Theory of Relativity and its effect on Quebec politics. “They are singing about a pair of roosters who hate each other and are fighting each other.” Very interesting, but I hope that they show something more along the lines of music that I like.

            They also showed a scene at a beach. None of the Ai’a’ive were wearing swimsuits. The males were wearing those skirts, the females had sarongs that were wrapped around their bodies, tucked underneath their arms and reaching down to a few centimeters below the knee. Apart from their wings they were human.

            I would have seen more, but at that time there was a knock on the door. I opened it, and my parents told me to get dressed and come with them to breakfast. I made sure to wear something very Quebec that day, a Montreal Canadiens t-shirt.

            My parents led us to a special dining room, reserved for those in First Class. There were a couple of large tables that were stacked with fruit and pastries. There was also another table with eggs, sausages, bacon and potatoes, as well as more unusual food (for me anyways) including fried taro, and even something called fe’e (which I later found out was a pieuvre, one of those eight-armed sea creatures)

            I sat with my family at one of the many tables, and noticed someone was with us. A male Ai’a’ive with peach-colored wings was seated next to my father, and they were talking in French. He introduced himself, his name was Olosega Esi Ai’a’ive. He was an executive at Nebulous, and he was the one who found my father and told him about the job opportunity. While we all said it was nice, inside, I felt like leaping across the table, picking him up, and strangling him. I really thought that dragging a teenage boy across the galaxy like that should be a capital offense.

            I settled for just staring at him. He had brown eyes, brownish skin, dark hair, and slight wrinkles on his skin. I’d guess he was probably in his forties or fifties. He told us about where we’d be staying, and the weather, and even some basic Ai’a’ive phrases.

            I couldn’t believe this. After breakfast I went back to my room and decided to drown out my tears the best way I could think of. I took out my Discman and listened to Quebec discs. I knew it was the only way I’d hear good music such as “Marcel Galarneau” any time soon. I began to cry. It was the second time I’d cried that day Before then I hadn’t cried for four years. Part of me hoped that this was an elaborate farce, and we’d only be vacationing there. But no, I told myself, we were going to live there.

            I lied down and went to sleep. I wanted it all to go away. I wanted my friends, my house in Senterre, and my snow.

Bienvenue a Trois-Rivieres

            Vaitolu. It literally means three waters. Or three rivers. There were three rivers in it, as I’d soon find out. So I decided that amongst my family I’d call it Trois-Rivieres. The starport wasn’t in Trois-Rivieres, and I don’t think I remembered the name of the city at the time, but it’s called Sapovi (“Vache Sacré”, or “Sacred Cow.”) This starport wasn’t as big as Dorval. We went through the Customs and Immigration, where we were interviewed, as we had special visas to live and work there, and four colorful hoopies searched us, without saying anything. The officer who interviewed us, a female, was quite nice. She wore a black uniform with a jacket and skirt, and had slightly tanned skin and purple wings. I now noticed I didn’t just lack wings, my skin was paler than everyone here. I think she knew that I didn’t quite feel at home. “I had a son and we moved when he was young. I know how you feel,” she reassured me, and it was reassuring, even if it was in English. (She didn’t know any French, and my Ai’a’ive was terrible.)

            We took a maroon stretched limo from the starport to Trois-Rivieres. The inside was nice, with leather upholstered seating and ornate lamps hanging from the sides of the ceiling.

            My family was talking to each other, telling about how fun it would be to live in a new place. This car had air conditioning, so I guess they were allowed to be happy. I wasn’t happy at all.

            Trois-Rivieres was a town on a hill. The streets were laid out like a labyrinth, and the sidewalks were full of people walking and sitting in the sun, or at least the star that was our soleil for our stay there (it was actually Delta Pavonis, but it’s simpler to call it le soleil.) It was the same color as Earth’s sun, which was nice. Some of the streets were covered in smooth white cobblestones instead of pavement. We drove up a hill, and crossed a set of three tracks. Then we passed a railroad station, and crossed the three tracks again on the other side (it was a U-shaped piece of road. Palm trees of all kinds, as well as various local trees surrounded us, as we continued on a winding road that looked like it belonged in a James Bond movie. At the end of this the limo slowed down. On one side of the road was a couple of small stores and a restaurant. On the other was a brick road that led through a gate. We went that way. After another long road, and passing a couple of roads that ran off to the side (to other houses, I later found out), we were at our new house. It was a big villa, and had many windows, a large patio area, and a swimming pool. There was also a large garden full of all kinds of plants.

            As soon as we left the car, the heat attacked us. It was like walking into a sauna. We went inside to get out of the sun, and to explore our new house.

I’m Sick of Octopus

            We spent the afternoon waiting for trucks to arrive, then we’d help unload them and put them into our house, as best as we could. The local movers were used to the intense heat. They’d sing songs in Ai’a’ive while moving the boxes to a steady beat. We learnt one thing quite quickly. None of our electrical stuff would work, because it couldn’t plug in.

            “Why can’t they just use one plug around the universe?” asked Mom.

            “If one PLANET can’t even agree, how do you expect the GALAXY to do it?” retorted Sophie, remembering our one trip to France.

            We decided the next day we’d go to the electronics store and buy some adapters. But we just wanted to rest for the moment. That night We ent out to dinner with Olosega and his family. We were picked up by limo, and taken to an outdoor restaurant across town.

            None of us knew what to have, so Olosega and his wife Siapo ordered for us. They had six children with them. All of them had different colored wings. I guess wings are like eyes for the Ai’a’ive, in that they come in many different colors. I wondered if there was any way to uniquely identify wings the way they did with blood, eyes, and fingerprints. It made distinguishing them easier, that’s for sure. To me they weren’t yet named people, but “Green Wing,” “Yellow Wing” and even “Red Wing”, which sounded more like a hockey team than anything else.

            We ended up having spicy fe’e, with pieces of lamb, and some vegetables that have very odd names. We drank coconut juice (gathered from immature coconuts) For desert we had coconut and mango flavored ice cream. What was unusual is that there weren’t any forks to be seen. The only utensils were spoons for the ice cream.

            That night I didn’t feel well; the rest of my family didn’t feel well either. Seems like that pieuvre really hated us. My stomache was in pain. I felt slightly dizzy. My only hope was somewhere in Quebec an Ai’a’ive was having similar problems with poutine.

            I was hoping to go swimming the next day, but I could barely get out of bed. The day after, however, I had recovered enough to go out with my family for shopping. Now we were just complaining about the heat. Our fridge was fully loaded, so we didn’t have to worry about that. We stopped at an electronics store to load up on adaptors. Not only did we have to change plug-type, but also voltage and even the type of current. For some strange reason they use direct current at 100 volts.

            I noticed most stores don’t have any proper front doors. Then again there’s hardly a reason. Supposedly the planet wide crime rate on Seiloa is much lower than even the best places in Canada. Shutters that went across during closing hours were installed, I’d later find out. And ventilateurs were set up everywhere. After that we went to a clothing store, because my sister Sophie wanted a more tropical “look.” Everyone stared at us because we didn’t have wings, and we were dressed differently. Sophie was the first one to be “in”, as she walked out wearing a brightly colored puletasi, or two piece outfit with a knee-length dress and a sarong underneath it. By that evening my stomach bug had left.

            The next few days I found much better. But getting used to the heat took time (I drank five times as much water as normal), and I couldn’t wear shorts that were too short, because it “offends local sensitivities.” Then I got the news. It would soon be time for school to start. It was a moment we dreaded. I’d finished Secondaire II (Or Grade 8 to those English speakers) not too long ago, and now it was time for Part III (which is what they called it.)

École Ai’a’iveën

  I was surrounded by many Ai’a’ive in a schoolyard. They all spread their wings and laugh. Surprisingly they were dressed like Quebecois. And one of them spoke in perfect French.

  “Look guys, it’s the wingless loser! Let’s laugh at him!” Everyone was laughing at me. I looked around, and saw what looked like my old school. But the Ai’a’ive surrounded me. “What are you going to do, fly away? Oops, I forgot, you have no wings!” More laughing ensued.

“Hey, this guy’s skin is too light.” Yet more laughing happened.

            I woke up and screamed. It was morning, and there was only one day left before starting school. My mother took me shopping, where another nasty surprise was waiting. The school I’d be attending had uniforms. They didn’t have that at my old school. With everyone dressed the same way, my lack of wings would stand out, as would my pale skin. The only good thing is that this was a special school that was mostly taught in English. However, I was told the uniforms would be “Ai’a’ive style.” A woman at the store measured me with a ruler, and then led us to a backroom. This dark grey room had a curtained off section. The woman told me to wait behind the curtain. The curtain was dark burgundy. I sat there and waited for what seemed like forever. I heard voices, and the sounds of sewing machines, and more voices. It was torture waiting there. I’d be happy if a man in a military uniform burst in and shone a flashlight at my face while asking me what I knew. Or even a customs agent, I thought, remembering my favorite song. “I’m worse off than the dental-floss smuggler,” I thought, remembering lines from the song “Marcel Galarneau” that said he smuggled in dental floss hidden inside Export A cigarette packs, and was caught by Customs, interrogated, and sent to jail. At least he wasn’t made to wait in a back room for eternity. He was dealt with promptly. And everyone around him spoke perfect French.

            Eventually the woman came in, and handed me a package. My mother came in, and told me to try on the uniform. The first thing was a light yellow shirt, with six buttons, and the insignia of Masina Ai’a’ive Interplanetary Schools. I noticed the back had a couple of holes that were sewn shut. For the benefit of my lack of wings, I thought. I tried it on. Perfect fit. I saw what else there was. I put on a pair of nice brown sandals. This isn’t so bad, I thought. So I brought out the last piece of clothing. It was red. I thought those must be pants. Then it dawned on me. It was a lavalava. I, Pierre Marc Tremblay, would be wearing a wrap-around skirt. But since there was no way out, I wrapped it around. Of course I kept my shorts on, I had no idea how to properly put one on. I signaled my mother to come take a look at me. She came in and said I looked handsome. The old lady looked at me and frowned, and yelled for some man to come over. I was confused.

            “You don’t have the lavalava on right,” he said in accented English. “I’m going to show you how to properly wear it. You’re not the first. You’re from Earth right?” So he took me to the changing room. I quickly took off the garment, and he laughed at my shorts. “I see. You’ll have to take those off, we don’t wear anything under our ie lavalava. I understand, you’re not from here!”

            “I’m not from here,” I confirmed in my best English. He then gave me instructions on how to wrap the cloth. I practiced it a few times, and finally figured it out.

            The next day I entered aoga (their word for school) for the first time. I was driven by my parents in their new orange hover-car. My sister Sophie also went to this school. The girls’ uniform was a loose orange dress. Although I didn’t especially like my sister, she was a source of comfort in this alien world, and I stayed close to her until we were split into our respective classes.

            Most of the students of the school were Ai’a’ive, except a handful of humans and others, who happened to be in classes other than mine. In our classroom, we had furry mats on the floor, arranged in a circle. Everyone was staring at me. I sat down, and in walked a female Ai’a’ive with a green dress and red wings. She had really dark hair, and dark hair that she had in three long braids. She sat at the only chair in the room. It had a desk attached to it.

            “Class, we have a new student” she began. Everyone looked at me. “Could you please introduce yourself?”

            “My name is…” I began, but the teacher signaled me to be quiet.

            “Please come to the front of the class so that everybody may see you!” she instructed. I walked there and turned towards the class. I felt tense as I saw all the other students turned towards me.

            “My name is Pierre Tremblay, and I’m not from here. I’m from Senterre, in Quebec, in Canada, on Earth!”

            “Have you been to Japan?” asked someone from three seats where I was. “Do you know any J-Pop songs?”

            “Ereke, please let him speak,” ordered the teacher.

            I went on to talk about my family, and why I was in Seiloa, then I told everybody that my first language was French.

            “Hey, can you sing Allouette?” remarked some smart-aleck. This was going to be a long day. “And have you ever French-kissed?” he added. I never wanted more to be back with Guy and Maurice.

To be continued…

So here it is, a new story from me, although it involves Ai’a’ive. I hope you like this.