Young Writers Society

Crane opened the door wide and pinned Ellipse with expectant, too-human eyes. It was disconcerting. Gato had circular pupils, a trait which, out of all the space-faring species, only they shared with earthlings. He tilted his head, gesturing for Ellipse to enter, and so she did.

Tejal’s family occupied a suite very similar to the Conics crew’s; the only differences were that the plan was flipped, and the furniture had not been rearranged to surround the coffee table. The subdued color scheme, made of light greys and navy blues, remained.

Focci twisted to look at her when Ellipse stepped through the door. He was sprawled on the ground near an unmade, pulled-out sofa bed, and was typing into a keyboard hooked up to Tejal’s tablet. “Ah, hello again,” he chirped. “Decided to hang out with us?”

“Something like that,” Ellipse sang back. She stepped cautiously and switched into English, unsure if Tejal’s parents could understand Trade Siren. “I would like to ask you all for help.”

Tejal had apparently been in the process of climbing onto the pull-out, but he stopped, still hanging off the arm of the sofa, and quirked an eyebrow. “With what?”

“Oh, well the first bit is for your parents.” She turned to see Crane and Shell settling on the floor near the boys, curled up together like a yin-yang. They both looked at her, gazes steady, and Ellipse felt Tejal and Focci’s equally steady stares prickle along the back of her neck.

She gulped. “Uh, well. I need you to… turn me in.”

Tejal fell off the sofa. “What?!”

“I was not finished-

“I know none of us have said anything, but you’re never going back to Andra-Media, Ellipse! It’s obvious something bad was happening.”

Ellipse felt awkward being the only person standing in the suite. She flung her arms in Focci’s direction and bulged her eyes. “You two need money! The bounty is-

“Two million USD,” Tejal finished. “We know.”

Gills drooping, Focci glanced at the tablet screen and curled his tail in. “You should not have to sacrifice your own well-being for us, Ellipse.”

“I am making an educated choice to sacrifice my well-being for you,” Ellipse spat. She crossed her arms and tried to lift her chin and ignored the way her voice turned breathy and pitchy. “I have to go back, anyways. I have to settle things there, and to do that, I need what you two can make with two million dollars.”

Tejal squinted at her, and then looked away when his parents growled something. “Shell says you should sit and start from the beginning.”

With a short huff, Ellipse dropped to the ground and sprawled her legs out on the carpet. “Do you want the start of my plan or the start of everything?”

The white gato offered a deep, soothing purr, which Tejal translated as “whatever you’re comfortable telling us.”

Ellipse thought for a moment and stretched forward. Everyone in the room knew the surface details already; it could not hurt to fill in the rest. She took a deep breath and stared at a spot of carpet between her feet.

“I was Elliott Bei.”

Everyone in the room probably knew that already, but they kept their thoughts to themselves.

“I… there was a lot going on before Andra even left to be famous. It happens to a lot of kids born on Titan. Our parents went into debt to get into space and could never get out, especially not after we came along. And you know how some parents think their kids owe them for giving birth. It was like that. The scouts offered money in exchange for guardianship of Andra and came back a year later for me.”

Ellipse wrapped her fingers around her ankles and hunched her shoulders, not ready to look around yet. The comforting gazes felt like a wool blanket in the tropics. “I wrote the songs, after the first album. Every single hit that managed to sell in Siren markets was mine. They put me on light shows after I picked up the specifus and hydrogen floater languages. Now that I am out here, I know I did a lot, but at the time it was just slipped in with homeschooling curriculum. I thought everyone did it.”

Something swished along the carpet, probably Tejal scooting towards her.

“I liked it, actually,” Ellipse said. She furrowed her brow and tried to stop blinking. “But Andra did not want me to be part of this… thing. They never liked how we were forced into it. I was put with a physical trainer and dietician at thirteen, and that is when things got worse. I saw less and less of Andra, because they were on tour more, and I wrote more, and I was always hungry. When I did see Andra, they felt distant. And then Independent Titan destroyed the citizen databases.”

“That is when you were sent away,” Focci concluded, snout smooth and whiskers flopping pensively. “You told me about this part.”

Ellipse’s blinking turned wet. “Yeah. I told you part of it.” She bit her lip and took in a few short breaths. “I had no idea what was going on. I just knew that there was a bombing somewhere, and Andra and I were in a safety drill because of it, and then they locked me into a ship, and I wound up at the papers office on the Titan satellite. I had a note Andra gave me with the name Ellie Tibot and a few instructions on it, and I did not know what to do, so I followed the instructions.”

“We found you a year after that,” Tejal said, suddenly at Ellipse’s side. He tilted his head to give her a soft, questioning look, and Ellipse tried not to meet his eyes. “Did anything happen in the meantime?”

Ellipse shrugged. “I worked? It sucked. Suddenly I was someone else, and I watched, sort of, while Andra made new plans for us to reunite, but I was always thinking that if I messed up, then Andra would not want to see me again. So when you and your parents found me, Tejal, I freaked out and followed Focci onto the Conics.”

Gills wriggling, Focci wrinkled his snout and shuffled towards Ellipse. “And now you want to go back? You remember what I told you, right? There is more than one person in the universe-

“Capable of loving me, I know,” Ellipse finished. A fat, thick tear rolled down one cheek, and she closed her eyes, trying to will the water back into her tear ducts. “I know that, Focci,” she sang. “I know because you and Tejal love me. And I love you back.”

Tejal launched himself forward, hands clenching in Ellipse’s shirt, and her eyes shot open to stare straight at him.

“Then stay with us!” he demanded. Ellipse thought his cheeks might be wet too. “Stay! We’ll work it all out together, and-

“No, Tejal. I have to go back to Andra-Media.” She set her hands on his shoulders and pulled her face into pleading anguish. “I am giving you two million dollars. It is final.”

Suddenly Focci was on her too, his tail curling around both earthlings in a last-ditch effort to keep the three of them together. “No no no. You admitted it!”

“And I have things to settle!” Ellipse hissed. “I have to confront Andra about leaving me alone, and I have to reclaim everything I loved doing before all of this, and then I will need your invention to help me get back out safely.”

In the low lamp light, Ellipse could see wet streaks on Tejal’s cheek. The sleeve of her shirt had water stains. He laughed, breathy and disbelieving, and dug his fingers further into her clothes. “How the heck is a pinpoint fold generator going to bring you back to us?”

Ellipse’s cheeks remained damp, but her eyes dried immediately. “You wanted a network of pinpoint fold generators, right?”

The boys nodded, still uncertain.

“You are going to build one, and you are going to make my story go viral. All across the universe, all at once.”

Focci’s gills straightened out. “A combination of celebrity scandal and technological innovation? I can see that.”

“Ohhh,” Tejal said. His grip loosened, and his thinking face returned. “I don’t like it, but I get it. We could do it. We could even code a virus to force the spread.”

“I would code that,” Focci sang, after the translation rang out from the tablet. “I still do not like this plan though. We will have conditions.”

“You have to stay in touch,” Tejal insisted, leaning back in.

Focci curled his tail tighter. “We left a prototype near Titan, so you have no excuses.”

“And if you’re in trouble, you tell us, okay? So we can help.”

“Even if you are just lonely, tell us,” Focci added.

With a quick, bittersweet chuckle, Tejal wrapped the three of them into a group hug. “You don’t have to be alone again. We’re your friends, no matter how far apart we travel.”

Ellipse decided that as soon as all this business was done with, she would take advantage of every group hug opportunity that presented itself. Tejal’s grip around her shoulders settled like a warm blanket, and the weight of Focci’s tail around her waist felt like being picked up and held. Her friends were all at once safe and exciting, and Ellipse vaguely wondered how she had survived that year on the fold monitor without them.

They were interrupted by a loud meow from the couch. Tejal squeezed tighter as he looked over his shoulder at his parents and scowled. “We were having a moment.”

Crane—or Ellipse assumed it was Crane—let out a series of loud rumbles, and Tejal’s cheeks flushed, red tingeing his tan cheeks.

“Crane says this is all nice, but we should probably figure out a solid plan before tomorrow.”

Gills fluttering and tickling at Ellipse’s neck, Focci curled his tail in even further. “We deserve at least another minute of hugging.”