Chapter 6 - A card

After Dr. Melcher and Florence Rose departed from her house in the ambulance, XL and Beeba departed in Saucer 1. XL gave the command "return home" to the control panel of Saucer 1, and they had a quiet ride back to XL's house. Shortly after returning, Beeba's mom came by in her car to pick up Beeba and take him to his home.

The next few days passed uneventfully. The weekend was over, and so XL went to school each day, which he attended with Beeba and his other friends. On Thursday evening, there was snowfall overnight, covering all the ground with a thick white blanket.

On Friday morning, the last school day of the week, XL woke early as usual. It would turn out to be a particularly important day, although he did not foresee it. He played a few computer games while his mom got up and made breakfast. His dad was just departing for work as he began to eat his breakfast.

The morning was cool as XL and his sister Anna waited outside for the school bus. Soon the bus picked them up. XL sat with a boy from his own class, Allan. Anna sat further back with her own friends. She was in a higher grade, so XL didn't see much of her during his usual school day.

They arrived about 15 minutes before the start of classes. XL saw that Beeba was there already, and he was busy playing tag with a few other children of their age. It was a special kind of tag that could only be played in the winter, because the players had to stay within tracks that had been prepared in the snow. Beeba and the other kids had made some tracks the shape of concentric circles, with four other straight tracks going through the circles like the spokes in a bicycle wheel. One child was assigned to be the fox, and the others were the geese. The fox would chase the geese, but neither the fox nor the geese were permitted to leave the tracks.

XL joined the game, stepping into the outer concentric ring. Judy was the fox, and she came chasing after him. XL knew that it was bad luck that Judy was the fox, because she was fast. XL ran around the edge as fast as he could, catching up with Beeba, who was also running ahead of him. He couldn't pass Beeba and Judy was catching up, but also they were reaching one of the spokes. Beeba kept on going around the edge, but XL turned onto the spoke to escape.

Judy could have easily followed Beeba and caught him, because he had been playing for a while and he was tired already. But just to prove how fast she was, instead of tagging Beeba she turned down the spoke, ran at full speed, and tagged XL. Now XL would be the fox! "Judy is such a pest," he thought. The only girl faster than Judy in their school was XL's own sister, Anna. Anna was 3 grades higher in the school, and Anna often won races in track meets. "It's too bad I didn't inherit my sister's speed," XL thought to himself. He went to the centre of the spokes, and then headed out to chase the other geese.

Soon the bell rang, and they went inside for classes. It was an uneventful morning of learning some math, social studies, and English. In English class each student took turns standing up in front of the class and reading a short story that he (or she) had written as homework. XL was glad that he had written his story three evenings ago, well ahead of time. However, not every student was so well prepared. The worst was Jake, who hadn't prepared at all, except to write a couple of lines just before school, as the rest of the kids in his grade were playing tag. Jake's writing was a mess, and his reading was so slow that XL thought perhaps he should go back to grade 1. None of the kids dared say that to Jake's face, however. If Jake was embarrassed he didn't show it. He had a reputation of being a very mean bully.

At noon, XL went to the lunch room. Usually he sat to eat with Beeba, but Beeba wasn't there so he sat down with Allan, James, and Derek, and began to eat his lunch. Derek didn't usually eat with XL's friends; typically he hung out with Jake. Derek must have been Jake's only friend. He was a tough kid too, but not so mean. However, XL and Beeba were very popular students in their grade, and other kids would often join their table when there was an empty chair there.

A few minutes later, Beeba arrived carrying his lunch and holding a couple of envelopes. All the seats at XL's table were taken, but he pulled a spare chair from another table and sat down next to XL. "Hi XL," he said. "I was delayed because Dr. Melcher wanted to see me. He was at the school to coach the older kids on the basketball team, as he usually does at noon on Fridays."

Beeba sat down across from XL and began to eat his lunch. Beeba unscrewed the lid from a bowl of hot food, and dug his spoon into it with gusto. There wasn't much in this world that Beeba enjoyed better than eating!

"How are you doing," XL asked Beeba. "You seemed a little tired this morning."

"Oh, I'm fine," said Beeba. "One hundred percent!" he added.

After finishing their lunch, XL, Beeba, Allan, James, and Derek put on their winter clothes and went outside for noon-hour recess. The other students from his grade followed. They had 15 minutes to run around and burn off some energy before afternoon classes would begin.

As they entered the school yard, Beeba handed XL one of the two envelopes that he had been carrying. "Dr. Melcher gave this to me when I saw him a while ago," said Beeba. "It's from Florence Rose. Dr. Melcher stayed with her when he took her there, and visited her again during the week. He said that she was back at her home now, and that she was very grateful that we had rescued her. She would have died of starvation if nobody had found her. She told him that she preferred to find her own real happiness, than to die that way--even though she would have died happy. I got an envelope too. I think it is a thank-you card."

XL put his card in his pocket, but Beeba was still holding his card in his hand when Jake came up behind him and tripped him. Beeba fell into the snow.

"Well, if it isn't the crummy little Bee," said Jake. "Perhaps I should step on it and put it out if its misery," he added. "What a stupid name, anyway, 'Beeba.' Did your parents have a nightmare when they named you? What an idiot!"

The other kids, Allan, James, and Derek were further into the yard, but they turned around to see what was happening. XL noticed that Judy and her friends were beside them. He also looked around to see if a teacher was supervising the school yard as usual, but none could be seen.

Beeba stood up and faced Jake.

Reader, click to choose the next part of the story:

What do you recommend for XL to do?

Choice A	Try to prevent more fighting. Get one of his nearby friends to fetch the schoolyard supervisor. Try to calm Jake and Beeba. Intervene if necessary.
Choice B	Stand back. Let Beeba handle this.

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