Gabby Duran and the Unsittables (6 page)

From the
San Francisco Journal
, October 30, 2008:

“I don’t get it,” Gabby said when she finished the last clipping.

“Inaccurate,” Edwina declared. “You’re a highly intelligent girl who just had a close encounter with a slug-child and a talking cat. You might be struggling with several
layers of denial, but you most certainly
do
‘get it.’”

Edwina was right. Everything Gabby had seen and read pointed to only one answer. “Philip
is
an alien,” Gabby admitted. It felt weird to say it out loud, but it also felt
right. “And so are his parents and Vondlejax.”

“Very good,” Edwina said. “Anything else?”

“Well”—Gabby thought about the articles—“they can’t be the only ones, because all those articles were about other aliens from years ago until now, and from
different places all over the country. And the Sitipedia one says people are posting from all over the world. And
you
…” Gabby looked again at the logo and title, still glowing
on the screen on the back of the limo seat. “You must work with A.L.I.E.N., the Association Linking Intergalactics and Earthlings as Neighbors.”

“See? You
do
have a talent for deductive reasoning,” Edwina noted. “Despite what your math teacher said on your last report card.”

“You read my report card?” Gabby asked.

“As you’ve surmised,” Edwina continued, “aliens have been living among us for a very long time. And as you’ve seen for yourself, while human beings have many points
in their favor, accepting things they don’t understand is not among them.”

Something clicked in Gabby’s head. “When you call human beings ‘they,’” she asked, “is that because—”

“This is problematic, given that most aliens come in peace, and they would much prefer
not
to be hunted down and dissected,” Edwina said, once again ignoring Gabby’s
interruption. Gabby noticed that this time, “they” referred to the aliens. So much for clues about Edwina’s identity.

“That’s where my associates and I come in,” Edwina said. “We at A.L.I.E.N. make it our business to maintain peaceful human–intergalactic-being integration. When
mishaps occur, we make sure they’re perceived as flights of fancy, tricks of the light, or easily dismissible mythologies.”

“Like the vampires,” Gabby said. “So…are
all
monsters actually aliens? Mummies and zombies and werewolves and—”

“And leprechauns and centaurs and fairies and all number of creatures who have disguised themselves so well through the centuries that they haven’t inspired any stories about them at
all, yes. Overall, we at A.L.I.E.N. are quite proud of our record of success. With one notable exception. Can you guess what it is?”

Gabby looked down at Edwina’s laptop and scrolled again through the headlines. She remembered how eager John and Lisa were to hire her.

“Babysitting?” she asked.

Edwina nodded. “It has been a challenge. Time and again mishaps like the ones in those articles threatened to expose the secret we’ve worked so very hard to contain. The situation
has become so dangerous that we had to declare all intergalactic children officially Unsittable.”

“Unsittable?” Gabby echoed. “But that’s horrible. Every kid is sittable.”

“Only given the right sitter,” Edwina said. She looked into the rearview mirror and fixed Gabby with a pointed stare.

“Me?”

“You can’t be everywhere at once, of course,” Edwina said, “and we recognize you have other clients and responsibilities. But if you do this, if you’re willing to
keep our secrets and join our cause, I assure you that you’ll be doing a great service to families very much in need of your talents. And of course, you’ll be rewarded most
handsomely.”

“When you say ‘keep your secrets’…”

“From everyone,” Edwina stated. “That’s nonnegotiable.”

Gabby flopped back in her seat and thought.
Unsittable
was a terrible thing to call a kid, especially a kid as great as Philip. And she’d made John and Lisa so happy just by
spending ten minutes with him. There must be all kinds of families just like them, and Gabby could make them just as happy. Lying to her own family would be awful, but Edwina had already promised
four times her hourly rate. With that kind of money coming in on a regular basis, Gabby could do more than just help out at home, she could…

She almost couldn’t think it out loud. It seemed so selfish, especially when she and Alice and Carmen had to consider car payments and school clothes and college funds….

But with the kind of money Edwina was talking about, Gabby could afford to be a little selfish. No, not selfish. Aspirational. She could give her family everything they needed and still have
enough to pursue a dream she’d held close since Maestro Jenkins first heard her play and suggested it.

R.A.M.A. The Royal Academy for the Musical Arts, in London. The finest college for anyone wanting a career in music. Ninety percent of its graduates moved immediately to careers in professional
orchestras, and every major philharmonic looked to R.A.M.A. to fill their ranks. Maestro Jenkins said that as a female French horn player Gabby was so unique that if she graduated from R.A.M.A. she
could have her choice of the best orchestras in the world. The Berlin Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, the London Symphony Orchestra, the New York
Philharmonic…Maestro Jenkins said they’d all fight for the honor of having her on their stage.

It sounded like a dream, and Gabby had immediately looked up the school online and discovered it could
only
be a dream. R.A.M.A.’s tuition was more than Alice made in a year. Even
with aid and scholarships, Gabby would have to find money for travel and expenses and textbooks. There was just no way.

But college was six years from now. If she started working for Edwina today and set aside a little each month, she could have enough for R.A.M.A. She could take care of Alice and Carmen and
still make her dreams come true. Plus, she’d be there for families like Philip’s, who needed her desperately.

All that good had to outweigh the bad of keeping secrets, right?

Gabby put her business face on and leaned forward in her seat. “Here’s the deal,” she said. “My sister handles my books, so you’ll need to set up a payment plan
with her. And if you’re really paying me four times my rate, we’ll have to give her some kind of reason why.”

“Unnecessary,” Edwina said. “A.L.I.E.N. will deposit your fees in a special account to which you’ll have easy access. When it grows to a tidy enough sum, we’ll
create a very old and very dead long-lost relative who left the family an annuity in his will. Checks will come to your house, at which point your sister can deal with them as she sees
fit.”

“Okay, good, good.” Gabby chewed on her lip as her mind danced through all the other complications. “That leaves scheduling. I do that through Carmen, too, but it’s not
like you can call and say, ‘It’s Edwina from A.L.I.E.N.’ So here’s what I’m thinking—how about we set up a secret code, so when she tells me about the job I know
it’s actually you? Like you could use the word ‘vanilla.’ Or ‘salamander.’ Or always use a last name with an umlaut—”

“We know where to find you,” Edwina cut her off, “and we’re well aware of your schedule. When we need you, we’ll be in touch. That is, if you’re saying
yes.”

Gabby imagined her mom throwing flour in the air and dancing in the flurries when she heard about the long-lost relative’s will. She imagined Carmen raising her eyebrow in a grand show of
amazement at their new, full bank account. She imagined herself in ten years, standing proudly in a navy blue cap and gown as she accepted her diploma from R.A.M.A. She imagined the families
she’d helped cheering her from the audience, stray tentacles accidentally popping loose as they applauded and wiped away grateful tears.

Gabby took a deep breath. There was only one response, but saying it out loud still felt momentous, like everything in her life was about to change.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

Edwina smiled. “Then by the power vested in me by the Association Linking Intergalactics and Earthlings as Neighbors, I hereby declare you, Gabby Duran, Associate 4118-25125A: Sitter to
the Unsittables.”

G
abby spent the rest of the ride in silence, her mind too filled with wonder to speak. When the limo pulled up in front of her house, Gabby knew
that for appearances’ sake, she should fly out like she always did after a job. But the occasion felt too monumental for that.

“Thank you for the ride, Edwina,” she said formally. “And of course for the opportunity.”

Edwina didn’t respond. She simply looked at Gabby in the rearview mirror.

“It was great meeting you,” Gabby offered.

She waited for Edwina to tell her it was great meeting her, too. It didn’t happen.

“O-kay, then. So I’ll just…” She reached for the door handle, then thought better of it. “Do you have a cell phone or anything? In case I wake up tomorrow with all
kinds of questions I forgot to think of, and—”

Edwina pressed a button on the console. Gabby’s door popped open.

“Right,” Gabby said. “You’ll find me.”

She grabbed her purple knapsack and slid out of the limo, which screeched away the second she shut the door. Across the street, Madison was again playing flute in the living room. She wondered
if Maestro Jenkins had told her about R.A.M.A., too. Maybe they’d end up there together. Maybe by then, she and Madison would be friends. Maybe they’d be roommates even. And after
graduation they’d end up in the same orchestra and they’d tell funny stories to reporters about their early days as bitter rivals at Brensville Middle School.

Madison stopped playing and glanced out her window. Gabby thought she was pretty invisible on the darkened street, but Madison locked eyes with her, then shook her head with a smug smile.

The message was clear.
I practiced, you didn’t. I win, you lose.

Okay, so maybe they wouldn’t be R.A.M.A. roommates. Gabby turned and darted inside her house, clomping extra loud so it might seem like she ran in as usual. “Mom? Car?” she
called.

“Down here, sweetie!” Alice answered.

Gabby trotted downstairs to the TV room. Alice was sprawled on the overstuffed couch, decompressing to the drone of Food Network. She still wore her stained It’s All Relativity apron from
the Greek-Italian-Cajun themed Diwali luncheon. Carmen hovered over the Puzzle Place—an old behemoth of a dining room table the Durans had found at a secondhand store, refinished, and turned
into a home for Carmen’s favorite hobby: impossibly complicated jigsaw puzzles.

“How were the triplets?” Alice asked.

For a second, Gabby had no idea who she meant. John, Lisa, and Philip?

“Oh, you mean Ali, Lia, and Ila!” Gabby remembered, reaching back to what seemed like ages ago. “They were great!”

Carmen looked up from her puzzle. “You sound weird.”

“And the flight?” Alice asked. “You said there was trouble, but Carmen checked that Web site that tracks all the planes, and it said the flight left and arrived right on
time.”

“Really?” Gabby squeaked. Her palms tickled with sweat. “Oh, that’s because the trouble was after we landed. Long time on the runway. Is it getting hot in here?”
She tugged on her shirt and flapped her arms like chicken wings to get a breeze on her suddenly swampy torso.