Beyond the Veil

I Have the Weirdest Friends

When I first saw her, I didn't really see her, just the pile of books she was carrying. It was almost as tall as she was, which is still pretty impressive even with as short as Lily is. I mean, can you carry a four-foot stack of books?

I'm no slouch when it comes to reading. I downed the whole Harry Potter series in one month-long binge back when I was nine, and I gave up going to the library at my high school last year. What's the point when you've read every novel in the place? Okay fine, not every novel, just all the ones that sound halfway interesting.

Lils though, she's something different. I could tell it even then. No one carries that many books all at once without there being a juicy story behind it somewhere. How could I not go say hi?

After the usual introductions and stuff, I asked her why she was trying to check out so many books all at once.

"I'm new to your country," she says.

Her accent was strange too. My dad's the same way with movies as I am with books. I mean he watches them all the time, and I must have heard most of the accents around at one point or another with that going on in the background all the time at home. But I'd never heard anyone speak quite like Lily did at first.

Of course, the librarian wouldn't let her check out all those books. I mean, most of them were reference books, and no one is allowed to check those out ever. Even when it comes to fiction, we're allowed a maximum of five at a time, and you have to earn that. You can't just go up and check out half the library your first week in school, you know?

Lils was beyond bummed out that she couldn't get all of those books. I mean I thought she was going to have a panic attack kind of bummed, and all I could think about was Penny and the way she was when I first found her at the park last year. If I could take a girl from 1829 and teach her how to fit in at a public school in 2016, I figured I could help this foreign exchange student. No sweat. So, walked with her to class and invited her to join Penny and me for lunch in the school courtyard.

I swear I must be some kind of magnet for the strange and unusual, cause it turns out Lils is from a bit farther away than some tiny little country no one's heard of on the other side of the globe. She and her family are refugees from a planet several solar systems over.

How'd I find out about that? Oh, that's a whole other story. A long one, and I don't have time to tell it right now. Sorry.