Rolo, Zira, and Quiggles strolled out of the tavern laughing. The night sky by now had darkened to a deep purple.

Waiting on the bench outside, Riffa looked up from her phone. “Finally! What took you so long?”

Rolo chuckled. “I thought he would never stop talking!”

“He was funny,” said Zira. “I liked him!”

“Well, hurry up,” Riffa grunted.

They resumed back along the harbor road, as Quiggles zigzagged about under the streetlamps, trying to catch plasmic flies with his tongue.

Riffa’s brain-chip flashed while she looked up the subway schedule. “If we catch the next wormhole, we can make it home before 29 o’clock.”

Rolo’s smile dropped. Something didn’t feel right. He stopped walking. The others didn’t notice.

“Ooh!” said Zira to Riffa. “Can we stop for frozen quig-pops at the subway station? Remember we used to eat those after visiting the zoo?”

Zira turned and saw Rolo was far behind. “Rolo, c’mon.”

Rolo sighed. “Zira, I …” He had to tell her something, but he didn’t know how.

She walked back to him. “What’s the matter? Do you want me to carry you?”

“No. It’s not that. I just … I don’t want to go home.”

“What do you mean?”

Something about the word “home” struck Rolo. He thought of returning to his same old bed, the same old food, the same old toys, the same old routine. It felt so … empty. He didn’t fully understand till now what was really missing, what he really wanted. He looked up at Zira with empathy. He knew this would hurt her, and he didn’t want to hurt her. But he had to. He took a deep breath and stammered:

“I want to go … to go find Earth.”

“Sure, and I wanna go to the ice cream planet.” Zira laughed.

“Zira, I’m serious. I wanna go back to my home planet.”

“Don’t be silly, Rolo. This is your home planet, and that’s just a story!”

“What if it’s not? I think it’s real.” He tried to smile to win her over, but he didn’t really feel like smiling, and it wasn’t working.

“Rolo, you don’t understand. You’re just an earthling.”

That stung: “just” an earthling. Zira was always dismissive of him. So were all the blorxlings, and they talked down to him and didn’t take him seriously. He shot back, “I understand more than you think!”

“No, you don’t! Now c’mon, let’s go home!” Zira used her scolding voice now, which Rolo knew all too well.

“If you don’t want to help me, fine! But I’m going to do this, with or without you!”

“Rolo, I said no! You’ve been running away from me all day, and I’m tired. Now be good and come along!”

Quietly, half to himself, he said, “No.”

“Rolo, we have to go, now!” She reached out to grab his hand.

He stepped back to escape her reach. He felt his eyes stinging as he looked up at her. Heat rushed to his face. His ears felt muffled. A pressure built up inside him, until he couldn’t contain it anymore. He erupted.

“You just don’t understand me! You never even tried to understand me!”

He was shocked by his own words. He didn’t like how that came out, but it was the truth, and he had to say it. He watched her stunned reaction, then he turned and stomped toward the harbor.

Zira chased after him, so he ran.

“Rolo!” she hollered.

Riffa yelled, “See? This is why you’re supposed to keep his leash on!”

“Rolo!”

He reached the fence around the harbor, slipped between the metal bars, and kept running, followed by Quiggles.

Zira crashed into the fence and grabbed the bars. “Rolo! Come back here!”

He ignored her and fled onto the docks.

“Rolo!”