Preview: The Kid Next Door

CHAPTER ONE

It all started after Grampa and I suddenly heard a huge ruckus in the kitchen.  We went in - me a little nervous - to find out what was going on.  Turns out, I was gonna have a baby brother or sister!  And my pops was hollering in excitement.  

What a way to start a story, but that’s exactly what Grampa did.  I guess he was just prepping me to have another person in my life.  Up to now I’d been an only child, but that was about to change big time. 

He started telling me that pretty soon after his adoption by a floog from planet Gizmok, he began feeling kind of lonely.  He was, after all, the only one of his kind on the new planet where he lived.  Sure, Grampa had floog friends at school, but no close friends because he was so different from the others.  

Later he started making more friends when they realized just how different he was, but it wasn’t enough.  He wanted a ‘stick-to-your ribs’  kind of friend, the kind that would be true, no matter time, distance, difference, or age.

Then, one day ‘Efan’ - that was his name on Gizmok - learned that their next-door neighbours were expecting a baby.  Baby floog were called  ‘floogit’.

Mama Qantuu was so excited.  That’s true for any species, I assume.  At any rate, his mama sure was.  Grampa tells it like this …

“As the time approached, Maamel was crazy busy preparing for the birth of her friend’s baby!”  'Maamel', by the way,  is the Floogese word for mother.

Some things are universal, especially when it comes to babies.  The ladies seem to knock themselves out trying to help the new momma get ready.  Qantuu was no different.  

Mama Qantuu grew busier and busier, with no thought for anything else, until … well … I’ll continue reading from Grampa Ethan’s life story …

“Even though she was so busy, and feeling a little run off her feet, the whole situation suddenly served to remind her of a very important thing that, so far, she had entirely overlooked.  My birthday!  At the time, I had never given it much thought yet.  I was way too busy, learning a new language, getting used to new customs, new clothes, new … well .. everything!

So when Maamel said, “I have forgotten your birthday!  I do not even know when it is!” I was shocked.  And a little upset.  At the very least, I knew when my birthday was; the orphanage doctor gave me a birth date that was as close as they could estimate to what it probably was, and that’s what we’d always used.

It had just never occurred to me that on this planet, dates and years would be entirely different.  When I told her what date it was, she didn’t even know what a “March” was!  She ran to Xerix to get him to calculate what that date would be here, right now, today.  He ran the calculations on his tablet.

I knew my birthday was around this time, and I waited anxiously for the date.  Then, he finally announced, “He is four years and two days old, by our time and year duration standards, on day thirteen of the month, Doohah!”

It was now the fifteenth day of Doohah, in the year (79)861.  We’d missed my seventh Earth birthday, by two days!  

Now I was really upset.  So, Qantuu promised to include me in the festivities with a belated birthday celebration.  Unfortunately, with that promise, she took on far more than she intended. 

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