THE BIG LIE AND WHY I WILL NEVER WRITE SCIENCE FICTION

by Melodie Johnson Howe

It all started when I was nine years old and I became a Bluebird. I’m talking about one of those girl organizations that sell cookies and camp out in the wilderness. The Bluebird’s uniforms were great looking: little red vest, perky white blouse, blue skirt. Not the drab brown (do I dare say fascist?) attire of the Girl Scouts.

Memory has compressed. But I think it was shortly after I joined that we were sent off to camp during Easter vacation. The campgrounds seemed to me to be located on the peak of Mt. Everest. And we had to take a yellow school bus straight up the side of this mountain to get there while being forced to sing songs that had no endings. I sensed doom.

Even at nine I knew that human beings belonged indoors. We belonged in our own beds, in our own bedrooms, in our house. We were constructed to sit in a chair at a table when we ate. Some of us even dreamed of being waited on. But we should never sit cross legged in front of a raging campfire surrounded by trees as tall as the Empire State building eating cold beans and meat (word spread quickly that it was grizzly bear) and singing those endless songs. It was enough to give this nine year old indigestion.

One night we were told by the so-called adults that we had a big treat coming. We’re going home, I thought happily. No. The big treat was we weren’t going to sleep in our smelly tents, but outside under that stars. I was appalled. This could lead to no good. Too get out of it, I thought of throwing a tantrum. But tantrums take a lot of physical effort and it was hard to breath at the top of Mt. Everest. I could feign illness. But then I would be alone in the tent. So in the dead of night we Bluebirds stuffed our little vulnerable bodies into our sleeping bags and laid on the ground smack dab in the middle of the wilderness. My sleeping bag seemed to have been placed on a pile of rocks. There was much conversation and giggling as we starred up into the starry sky and listened to the cries of bloodthirsty wolves pacing around us. Then it was quiet. All the Bluebirds were asleep. Except me. I listened to their murmurs and soft snorts as I stared wide-eyed up at the vast dark sky. Looking back I think it was at this point in my life I developed insomnia. It was also when I saw the space ship.

I believed my eyes immediately. It couldn’t be anything else but a craft from outer space. It was a bright green oval with a golden ring around it. And it had feelers sticking out of it. I poked my friend Phyllis awake.

“What?” she groaned.

“A space ship.”

She sat up. “Where?” She peered into the deep dark woods. Phyllis wasn’t the smartest Bluebird in the nest.

“Up in the sky.”

“I don’t see it.” She lay back down.

“How can you not see it? It’s lime green with a gold shiny ring around it and it has feelers with … ” — and here the next two words rolled off my tongue with all the authority of a scientist — “suction cups.”

“Suction cups,” she repeated, deeply impressed. Then she exclaimed “I see it!”

We snuggled in our bags watching it chug across the night sky. Though at times I felt Phyllis might be looking in the wrong direction. Soon she fell asleep. But I stayed awake. I was thrilled that she had seen what I had described to her. I felt powerful.

A week later we were back down from Mt. Everest and in school. Our teacher, Mrs. Helena, decided to have each student stand and tell what he did over Easter vacation. I sat through the droning, boring, petty things the other kids did waiting for my moment. Finally it came.

“Melodie?” Mrs. Helena’s voice was always riddled with disdain when she spoke my name. I don’t think she cared for it.

I stood. Suddenly Phyllis had a stricken look on her face and seemed to be warning me with her eyes. Why? I wondered. I started talking, setting the scene beautifully. Mrs. Helena looked impatient. Undaunted I continued:

“And then I saw it.” I paused dramatically. “A space ship.”

Mrs. Helena’s black hairy eyebrows shot up. The other kids woke up. Some with mean gleeful looks on their faces, others with simple awe. Phyllis was trying to burrow hear head into her desk. I described every inch of the space craft. I could hear snickering.

“That’s enough Melodie,” Mrs. Helena snapped. “I do not allow lying in my classroom.”

“I’m not lying.” I desperately continued. I had saved the best for last and was sure my scientific words would win her over. “The feelers had … suction cups on them.” Outright laughter.

“Sit down, Melodie. I will be talking to the principal who will be talking to your mother.”

I looked at Phyllis who was now trying to get her entire body inside her desk, It was obvious she was not going to stand up for me. I was betrayed. My cheeks felt hot. I was mortified. Yet a few students peered at me with a new look in their faces. Was it respect?

My mother sent me to my room. I was told to wait until my father came home. The Executioner. Eventually he arrived. We sat on the end of my bed and I told my story again. I was getting very tired of this space craft.

He grinned. “Suction cups? Why didn’t you tell us you saw this object?”

I smelled liquor on his breath. “I didn’t think you’d believe me.”

My mother burst in. “Well, what did you tell her?”

“She thinks she saw a UFO. What am I suppose to tell her.”

“Not to lie.”

“She imagined it.”

They began to argue over what constitutes a lie and imagination. I knew this argument would escalate into a more personal viscous battle that would have nothing to do with me and my space craft. But my father’s words stayed with me that night. “She imagined it.” My dad had given me permission to imagine and then tell about it. It was my first step on the road to being a writer. Of course, there’s always the possibility I did see the spaceship.