Bang, bang! Ouch!
Dad hit his thumb with a hammer. It was Sunday night and we were building stilts. For the Giant party, each kid would get a pair of stilts to take home. That meant Dad had to make 30 pairs of stilts before next Friday night. 
Dad is very smart and a research scientist and everything. But it is true that he is clumsy. All the wood was cut to the right lengths. He just had to hammer on the small steps that a kid would stand on.
Bang, bang! Ouch! Dad hit his thumb.
“Will you paint the stilts?” I asked.
Bang, bang! Ouch! Dad hit his thumb. Again.
“No. We have markers to decorate the stilts. Whoever has the best decorated stilts will get a prize.” Dad handed me a piece of wood. “Hold this for me, please.”
Bang, bang! Quickly, I moved my hand away so Dad didn’t hit my thumb!
Mom opened the back door and called, “John, Dr. East wants to talk to you.”
While Dad took the call, I hammered together a stilt all by myself.
Dad came back shaking his head, “Dr. East is worried about the weather. It might rain.”
And that’s all anyone could talk about. Rain. What if it rained too much for the party? The weather forecast said it was going to rain on Friday night. But Earthling weather forecasters get it wrong all the time. It would probably be sunny and clear on Friday night. We could wait another day or two before we had to think about weather.
Have you ever gotten a song stuck in your head? You sing it over and over? I kept singing, “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are.” But I couldn’t remember the rest of the song.
At lunch on Wednesday, I asked Bree to sing the song again, and I tried to remember more words. But mostly, I just let the Earth sun shine in my heart while she sang. That was a good feeling.
Aja didn’t like the singing, though. “Please don’t sing while we eat.”
Bree told Aja, “That’s a good star song.”
Aja said, “Why do you care about stars?”
Bree pushed her tray away. She didn’t like cafeteria food. “I don’t. I just like aliens.”
Freddy frowned, “You keep talking about aliens.”
Bree glanced at me and turned away, but said nothing. And suddenly, the sun in my heart was covered with clouds.
Aja said, “If you’re not eating those fries, can I have them?”
She shoved her tray over to him.
Aja stuffed in fries and mumbled, “Are you an Alien Chaser or an Alien Lover?”
“Yuk,” Bree said. “Who would love an alien?”
Now, it was storming in my heart.
All Bree could do was talk about aliens. But it wasn’t a joke for me. If anyone else found out I am from Bix, it might be very, very, very, very bad for my family and me. Bree was bad at keeping secrets.
“Enough crazy talk,” I said. I picked up my food tray and stomped over to sit with Edgar and Mary Lee.
After school on Wednesday, Mom picked up Bree and me. We only had two days before the Giant party and we had lots of shopping to do. Bree was still singing the “Twinkle, Twinkle” song to herself. Mom asked to hear all of the song. That was OK because I didn’t want to talk to Bree.
Bree explained to my mom, “It’s really an old poem by Jane Taylor.”
Then she sang the whole song.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.
Then the traveler in the dark,
Thanks you for your tiny spark,
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so.
In the dark blue sky you keep,
And often through my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye,
'Till the sun is in the sky.
As your bright and tiny spark,
Lights the traveler in the dark.
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
How I wonder what you are.
How I wonder what you are.
While she sang, the Earth sun tried to shine in my heart, but I didn’t let it. That Bree. She had to stop talking about aliens. Or we couldn’t be friends.
Next, we stopped at the candy store.
Mom asked, “Do you have jawbreakers?
“Of course,” said Mrs. MeLong. She pulled out three jars that were filled with colorful balls. First there were balls about as big as my thumb. Next were balls about as big as a quarter. And finally came the giant jawbreakers, bigger than Ping-Pong balls.
Mom bought two of the smallest ones for Bree and me to try. Jawbreakers are candies as hard as a rock.
Mrs. MeLong said, “Don’t try to bite it. Just suck.”
Bree said, “Aliens have hard teeth. It should be easy for you to bite a jawbreaker.”
She was doing it again!
I pulled Bree behind a candy shelf and said, “You don’t know how to keep a secret.”
Bree said, “I didn’t tell anybody—” She looked around, then whispered, “—that you’re an alien!”
“But you keep talking about aliens. That means people keep thinking about aliens. That means they might find out about my family and me. You have to stop.”
“But I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Why didn’t she understand? Angry, I said, “We can’t be friends. You don’t know how to keep a secret.”
Bree spit her jawbreaker into her hand. She started to say something else, but I held up my hand and walked away.
Earthling girls just talk too much.