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Science Fiction Middle School Adventure

We called it Yopanko. No real reason why, other than the fact that it was a word we could all pronounce equally. There were no S sounds for Georgie's tongue to mash into lisps. No Rs to trigger Kelvin's Elmer Fudd syndrome. And no Ls to make me self-conscious about my hand-me-down accent, the byproduct of my mother's emigration from Nagoya, Japan to Seattle, Washington. Our speech impediments, our insecurities, our home and school troubles—suddenly none of that seemed to matter.


What mattered was that Yopanko was ours, a new language entirely for us. At least, that's what we thought.


***


We also thought, on that January afternoon when I scored an A+ on my math test and proceeded to moonwalk out of class with my backpack on my head, that Yopanko was a one-time thing, a throwaway joke, a cheap laugh. After all, there were already enough barriers to entry for the cliques in our junior high. We knew that. We'd seen the after-school TV specials. We understood the dangers of being "different" in sixth grade. But by the time Spring Break arrived, Georgie and Kelvin and I still assembled in my backyard every afternoon, squatting and jackknifing and barrel rolling until the sun set.


That was the beauty of Yopanko. We never required words to express ourselves, only movements. If we felt like congratulating one another on a video game high score, we'd bounce on one leg like can-can dancers. If we needed to express disdain for a homework problem, we'd clap using the backs of our hands. And if we wanted to show the kids who teased us what we thought of them, we'd flip them off behind their backs. (We knew not to fix what wasn't broken.)


Every day we invented new moves for our language. We were bonded by it, the way other kids might bond over their love of sports or their mothers attending the same AA meetings. It was a part of our daily lives.


Might be why we never saw that Tuesday in April coming.


When it happened, we were in my backyard, breathing in the stench of budding cherry blossoms. The sun sat low and dreamy on the horizon. Kelvin and I huddled by the fence, waiting for Georgie to show us the Yopanko move he'd concocted. It was a new way, he said, of asking the lunch ladies for another serving of mac and cheese. Well, he said "mac and cheethe," but we knew what he meant.


Georgie was bent over backwards, knuckle-deep in the middle of a crab walk, when a bolt of blinding light arced across the sky. I shielded my eyes with my hands—we'd all agreed to keep that as the international symbol for "Sweet baby Jesus, I can't see," because it was also neither broken nor in need of fixing.


Only when the light faded did Kelvin and I realize we were alone.


Kelvin blinked, doffed his non-prescription glasses, wiped them against his undershirt, donned them. Then blinked again. I can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing if I'd worn glasses.


Hearts racing, we kept shouting Georgie's name, our first English word of the day. Well, Kelvin's version came out more like "Geowgie," but I knew what he meant.


I was quadruple-checking the neighbor's gazebo when another flash of light surged, taking Kelvin with it. One second he was there, and the next my mother's head was poking out our kitchen window, surveying the bare backyard.


"Did your friends go home, Hanzo?" she asked, as always, in Japanese.


The question had an ulterior motive. Even back then, I knew that my mother's divorce and emigration had left us with neither the food nor the means to feed my friends, so she would wait until they scampered back to their own homes before cooking. Once, we ate dinner after midnight because she waited for Georgie's parents to return from a concert and pick him up. I never bothered to tell her why that wasn't such a good idea, with Georgie being a diabetic and all.


As for her question, maybe I told her yes. Maybe I asked if she'd seen the bright light. Maybe I said nothing at all. I can never quite recall. What I can recall is that the moment she shut the kitchen window and retreated inside the house, they came to get me.


It was a funny sensation, being whisked away by the light. The world around me fuzzed. The air thinned. My body felt warm and gooey, my bones loose and jellied, like I'd spent too long soaking in the bathtub. But the weird thing is, I kind of liked that feeling.


So, imagine my disappointment when it ended and I opened my eyes and found myself standing beside Georgie and Kelvin in the middle of an alien spaceship.


All around us green aliens sat at control stations blatantly copied from Star Trek. Antennae jutted out of their big bug heads. Their hands and feet, somehow both slimy and scaly, possessed three digits apiece. To compensate, they had two sets of eyes, one stacked on top of the other like Lego blocks. They reeked of iron and tartar sauce. And we might've been scared if they hadn't looked like a group of grown-ups who'd pooled together their old Halloween costumes to go trick-or-treating one last time.


Besides, we'd seen the after-school TV specials. We understood the dangers of being abducted by aliens.


At the command center above us, one of the aliens swiveled in the captain's chair. He stood and descended the staircase, his enormous gut shaking the ship with each step. Like most people in power, he looked taller from afar. Up close, he was about my height, though he probably didn't have the benefit of puberty to look forward to. I wondered, briefly, if he'd also been bullied before.


"Welcome abord the Starprise Entership!" the captain exclaimed. Grinning with teeth that resembled rotten candy corn, he introduced himself as Sterwolk. Which was just our luck, being captured by the one person in the solar system whose name contained all our trigger letters. Not to mention the flawless English he used while introducing the members of his fleet.


Georgie, Kelvin, and I exchanged a glance. Eyes were rolled. Scoffs were withheld.


"Maybe you've been wondering," Sterwolk continued, "how we're able to speak your native language?"


In fact, I hadn't been wondering, and from the looks on their faces, neither had my friends. We were worried about more pressing issues, like whether Georgie's crabwalk would really net us extra mac and cheese.


Still, it didn't stop Sterwolk from spending ten minutes lecturing us about his advanced intergalactic communications technology. Listening felt too much like homework, so we didn't do it.


"By the way," he finally said, pointing a finger at each of us, "which of you is the leader?"


Instinctively, I looked at Kelvin. He looked at me. So did Georgie. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. After all, I was the one who'd lobbied to keep the middle finger in the Yopanko vernacular. Shrugging, I stepped forward.


"Me," I said, short and simple. That's what the lady from the after-school TV special preached: being as noncommittal as possible, not giving your alien abductors anything to work with. The less you gave them, the more bored they became, until they eventually took you back to your home planet. I figured if that TV special was good enough for kids in the 1950s, it was good enough for us.


But something different happened. The moment I spoke, Sterwolk's expression changed. His eyes—all four of them—clouded with a look resembling disappointment.


"You're speaking," he said. "English."


"Yes." One word. Very noncommittal. I prided myself on that.


A rush of whispering lanced the silence of the Starprise Entership. Crew members muttered and hummed unintelligible words. I supposed it was their native language, but to me it sounded like a bunch of crickets chorusing a moonlight song. I tried exchanging another eye roll with Georgie. That's when I noticed the oversized computer monitor behind him. On its screen rested an image of my starlit backyard.


"Silence!" Sterwolk shouted, commanding everyone's attention. Then he must've blushed, because his pale green skin turned electric blue, and he said, quieter, "I'm sorry for raising my voice. It's just—"


Without warning, he looked at me, raised his three-fingered hand, and dropped all but one digit.


Sterwolk was flipping me off.


I opened my mouth, but he raised his other fingers, interrupting me.


"Yopanko." Sterwolk said the word as though it were a Christmas tree ornament, something capable of breaking under pressure. "We've been studying your language for months now."


He slinked closer until his metallic breath congested my nostrils.


"A language without words," he said. All four of his eyes filled with tears as yellow as a school bus. "It's so pure. So beautiful. So unmarred by the ugliness and prejudice of the other languages we've recorded."


I covered my nose, stepped back. Sterwolk stepped forward.


"In fact, that's why we brought you here today," he said, and smirked his rotten smirk. "To discuss the matter of Yopanko."


"What about it?" I asked. From one word to three. I could practically see the lady from the after-school TV special, shaking her bouffant hair and waving goodbye.


"What we want," said Sterwolk, his voice rising to suffocate the room, "is to disseminate the power of Yopanko throughout the universe. We believe that it could be the key to unlocking intergalactic peace." He paused and said, "For that reason, we'd like you three, as the creators, to be its ambassadors."


Again I looked at Georgie, but he and Kelvin were staring at each other, lost in thought.


None of us said anything.


Snapping his slimy fingers, Sterwolk directed our attention to the computer monitor. The image of my backyard vanished, replaced by a crudely Photoshopped image of the three of us, crowned and medaled. We were standing in front of the White House. Only, in the picture, the White House was more off-white, and the people around us were aliens. Other than that, it was a fairly believable photo.


"Think," Sterwolk said. "How men can build bombs with nothing more than a few words. How wars can break out from idle threats." With each example, the photos changed. There we were, zipping through the galaxy as though it were an obstacle course. There we were, signing peace treaties for planets we'd never heard of. There we were, kissing alien babies like crooked politicians.


"All of these problems," said Sterwolk, as the timeline concluded, "may be resolved with Yopanko. If you're willing."


And if I'm being honest, it didn't sound too bad to me. I thought about it: adrift in space with no curfews or homework, no classmates asking me to say "Lollipop" and "Volleyball," no bread and instant noodles for dinner each night. Not that I knew what aliens ate, but still.


Didn't sound bad at all.


"Would you excuse us for a moment?" I asked, turning to form a huddle with my friends.


Silently, we tried to do the impossible: Yopanko with only our eyes and not our bodies. No one wanted to speak first, but after a few minutes, I whispered, "What do you guys think?"


Kelvin glanced at the ground. "Well, it sounds nice and all," he said.


Georgie nodded. "Especially the part about free healthcare, whatever that meant."


"But?" I asked, and even I could hear the deflation in my tone.


"But," Kelvin said, stretching the word out to infinity, "I don't think my mom and dad would say yes. And I wouldn't want to leave without telling them. They might not get it, you know?"


I looked at Georgie hopefully, but he shook his head. "Yeah, my mom and dad, too. And I'm hungry," he said. "And I left my medicine back at your home, Hanzo."


"Yeah," Kelvin parroted. "That too. His insulin."


I could feel my face fall. Because we spent most of our after-school time at my house, sometimes I forgot what it was like to be Georgie and Kelvin: to have two parents who still loved each other, people who eagerly waited for you to come home, who cooked meals that didn't consist solely of one food pyramid group. Sure, we were bonded by Yopanko and our speech impediments, but there was still so much that separated me from them. A river of so much.


"Okay," I said, feigning a smile. We clapped each other on the back like wannabe jocks. I returned to Sterwolk.


"Well," he said, "did you three come to an agreement?"


"Yes," I said slowly. "But what happens if we say no to your offer?"


If Sterwolk had eyebrows, they would've furrowed. Instead, his antennae wiggled. He put his hand under his chin. Again, the ship filled with the sounds of cricket chirps. It was clear that he and the others hadn't thought that far ahead, hadn't believed we'd ever refuse.


After a few minutes and what sounded like general clicks of agreement, Sterwolk nodded and smiled wide.


"We'll eat you," he said.


My blood iced out right then and there. Behind me, Kelvin screamed "No!" so hard his voice cracked, twice.


But Georgie really went to pieces: crying, kicking, shouting. The whole nine yards. A few of the aliens crew members seemed to yank their antennae downward to drown out the sound.


"Please just let us go," Georgie begged, tears bobsledding down his face. Except he did what he always did when he was flustered or when his blood sugar dipped too low: he forgot about his lisp. Gone was the careful consideration to his language, the sentences painstakingly crafted to avoid the letter S. He was desperate. "Pleathe juth let uth go," he kept saying again and again. "Pleathe, pleathe, pleathe."


At this, Sterwolk and the others howled, a cacophony of screams and screeches that blended into one grating nail-to-chalkboard sound. One alien fainted in a Jell-O puddle. Another pitched forward, bent over the command center, and vomited pink ooze flecked with lug nuts. Sterwolk himself shoved past me to the control panel below the computer monitor. He punched a round, silver button.


In an instant, we were blinded by another flash of light. The gooey-jelly sensation warmed my arms as a serene quiet overtook the ship.


Georgie was gone again.


"That noise, that language your friend was speaking," Sterwolk said after he had composed himself. He withdrew his hand from the button. "So vile. So impure. We can't have that where we're going. Universal peace would never be attainable. Your friend is not coming along."


Kelvin started crying, heavy sobs that rattled in his chest. I might've too, if I hadn't looked above Sterwolk. There, on the monitor, I saw Georgie standing in the backyard, face still slick with snot and tears.


"Georgie's okay," I sighed, pointing for Kelvin's sake. He looked up.


Sterwolk recoiled. "I told you this is a non-violent mission we're asking you to participate in. What would it look like if we killed someone? What kind of message would that send?" This, despite the threat of eating us.


Before I could reply, Kelvin yelled: "Rory's lawn rake rarely rakes really right!" It was a phrase I recognized, one that the school's speech therapist had also asked me and Georgie to say. We pronounced it alright, albeit with hesitation. In Kelvin's grasp, the R sounds wheeled and curved into jagged Ws.


And he might've worn non-prescription glasses, but Kelvin was smart.


On command, Sterwolk and the others yowled. One alien plucked out their antennae altogether. The ship rocked with the noise of it all, up until the point when Sterwolk pounded the button again. Kelvin nodded to me before the light came. Then he disappeared and reappeared beside Georgie in the backyard.


Once again I was alone.


The ship floated. The silence resumed. Sterwolk and the crew all breathed in unison, one united inhalation that seemed to fill my lungs. With air. With choice.


"Forget the others. We only need one ambassador," he said. His finger hovered over the button. His jagged teeth gleamed. "So, Hanzo, what do you say?"


I thought first about my mother. Then I thought about the classmates who teased us when we bungled vocabulary words. I thought about the tongue twisters the speech therapist had been making me practice each week, silly sentences that would cramp my cheeks, stuff like "Little Lenny Lou leopard led leprechauns leaping like lemmings."


Mostly, I thought about Georgie and Kelvin, waiting for me some 50,000 feet below. Georgie and Kelvin on the monitor, gazing up at the cloudy expanse of night. Georgie and Kelvin, more similar to each other than to me.


But that's all I did—think about those things. I knew what I wanted.


With one arm outstretched lobster-claw-style, I performed a little shimmy, brought my feet together, and waddled forward like a penguin. It was a maneuver that I'd done only once, when I couldn't sleep one night. I'd been meaning to unveil it that afternoon, before Georgie's crabwalk landed us on the ship.


I waddled my heart out for Sterwolk and the others. And I kept my mouth shut the whole time.


Sterwolk returned the gesture. And as the ship filled with the din of buttons being pushed and knobs being turned, I had to give him credit: he really must've studied us well, because he even knew that my dance was the symbol for full speed ahead.


The ship sailed higher, through clouds and stars, then pitched forward. I watched my friends shrink on the monitor until they were no bigger than crickets. And though they could never have known, I lifted my hand and waved goodbye, just like any other kid would. It wasn't Yopanko, but I hoped it was a language they would someday understand.

March 25, 2023 03:57

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56 comments

Wally Schmidt
02:43 Mar 29, 2023

I can't speak for everyday, but I do feel like, today, what the world needed was a ZP middleschool alien abduction story. This was so much fun and somehow you managed to give each of the MC and subordinate characters such personalities. Even Hanzo's Mom gets a best supporting actress award in this story. But my favorite part of the story is that you infused it with ZackSlaps (i.e. jokes and humor only Zack can pull off). Here are are few of my favs: "... we'd flip them off behind their backs. (We knew not to fix what wasn't broken.) ".......

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Zack Powell
08:04 Mar 29, 2023

You're always so generous with your praise, Wally. Thanks for making me feel like a way better writer than I actually am. And double thanks for seeing the fun in this story - after the uber-seriousness of my last story, I had a blast writing the ZackSlaps in this one. If you're gonna write something weird like an alien abduction, might as well go all the way to Weirdsville, right? (You hit all my favorite lines too.) Thanks again for the kindness, and I'm looking forward to reading your next story, whenever it finds its way to our lovely c...

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Wally Schmidt
14:21 Mar 29, 2023

Growing up the only girl in a houseful of brothers meant praise was neither generous nor frequent-and never unmerited. So rest assured, Zack, when I dole out praise, it is because it is well-deserved. And yours always is. Do you know what I do when I don't like a story??? Read, don't comment. Next, please. ..As for me, I've been doing a lot of writing OR (off-Reedsy). I'm enjoying being promptless for now and writing about topics in formats that inspire me. I'll be back though, just can't say when.

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Edward Latham
07:52 Mar 28, 2023

A secret language is every young adventurer's delight! This was a great take on when that secret language turns out to not be so secret after all! Nice use of simple and funny alien tropes to add to the humour and keep the plot moving, and the descriptions of the yopanko moves must've been fun to write! An easy and enjoyable read

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Zack Powell
23:39 Mar 28, 2023

Thanks, Edward! And yeah, imagine going through all that trouble of creating a special language just for you and your friends, only to have it co-opted by an alien race. Bummer, right? And the Yopanko descriptions were the absolute highlight of writing this. Any chance you get to be weird and kooky in writing, I say you should take it.

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Michał Przywara
23:20 Mar 27, 2023

Ha! That did not at all go where I was expecting it to - but what a great twist! Abducted by aliens? Definitely an adventure. Tuning out when the (alien) adults are talking? Definitely middle school. It's funny, sad, and touching. We have three outsiders who bond over what they perceive as their flaws. A classic school friendship story. But even among them, Hanzo is doubly an outsider, coming from elsewhere and from a divorced family. Here's where we really hit the sad, because although he's found people he can belong with, he doesn't reall...

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Zack Powell
02:17 Mar 28, 2023

I can always count on you to make sense out of my narrative nonsense, Michał. You were right on the money with your interpretation of Hanzo and his situation - the outsider feel even in his own social circle, the chance to change his situation with the aliens. Got everything I was going for, and then some. Was hemming and hawing over the genre tags (what else is new?), so I'm glad the spirit of the Adventure and Middle School designations came through. Thanks again!

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Laurel Hanson
12:37 Mar 27, 2023

Love these kids right off the bat. It is impossible not to enjoy this story. I would personally be unable to not enjoy any story with this line: "All around us green aliens sat at control stations blatantly copied from Star Trek." But also, we're brought so swiftly and precisely into a sensory world with lines like: "They reeked of iron and tartar sauce," and "tears bobsledding down his face" and of course, the sensory chaos of "a cacophony of screams and screeches that blended into one grating nail-to-chalkboard sound. One alien fainted in...

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Zack Powell
20:30 Mar 27, 2023

Figured with a story this silly, I'd have fun and go all in with the goofy details/imagery - even though I was on the fence about it - so thank you very much for making me feel like I made a good decision, Laurel. And double thank you for interpretation of the agency being in the hands of the kids, which I was deathly afraid wouldn't come across here. You get me. The sign language thing is a super valid critique! I had a moment halfway through writing this where I said to myself: "Wait, aren't they just using their own version of sign langu...

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Nathaniel Miller
14:57 Mar 26, 2023

It’s the best stories that subtly intertwine humor and depth; you’ve done so brilliantly here. The young innocence of it all adds such a nicely simplistic touch. Elegant, even. But in that simplicity, you’ve woven such profound themes of inclusion and desire. Brilliant. I like, too, how generic the spaceship and aliens are, and how the abduction almost unsurprising to the protagonists. The familiarity of it works with its underlying profundity fantastically. Once again, I find myself incredibly impressed. Bravo :)

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Zack Powell
03:04 Mar 27, 2023

Thanks, Nathaniel! Glad the humor translated to the page - and if you found some depth in here, too, then bonus points to you. This was meant to be just a silly piece, so it's nice to hear there might be more to it than a few quick laughs. And it'd be wild, wouldn't it, living in a world where alien abductions are normalized and not freak occurrences? Thanks again!

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14:38 Mar 26, 2023

This reminds me so much of my daughter, who could only speak Japanese when she moved to America at age 5. Next door, there were three children around her age who played outside that she bonded to immediately. But they spoke English. She would talk back in Japanese. A few days later, she came home in tears saying she "discovered" they don't speak Japanese! And within a week she was mimicking everything they said in English, and then became totally fluent in a few months. (I wish language learning worked that way for adults)

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Zack Powell
17:05 Mar 26, 2023

Sounds like your daughter got the better deal, to be honest. Japanese AND English at such a young age is amazing. Wouldn't surprise me if the neighbor kids were secretly jealous of that (I know I would be). And I also wish language learning worked that way for adults.

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Michelle Oliver
07:12 Mar 26, 2023

I loved this. The universal language that transcends words, as thought out by teenage boys. Haha The back story was beautifully told, setting up the final moments so well, the fact that even in the group of three misfits he didn’t fit. "Welcome abord the Starprise Entership!" This line was so good, highlighting the problems with language translation and interpretation. Another masterful story. On the surface such absurd fun, but deeper, darker levels give it such poignancy. The lack of family connection, the shame of poverty, the effects...

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Zack Powell
07:46 Mar 26, 2023

Thanks, Michelle! Was giggling to myself the whole time I wrote this, so I'm glad some of the fun came through for you too. And thanks again for noticing the backstory at work - it's the thing I've been trying hardest to improve, where and when to insert it, and how much, and which details. It's a balancing act, as you know. Thanks again for seeing where my mind was headed for this one. You got just what I was going for, with Hanzo's character, the language translation problems, everything. Great analysis!

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Marty B
05:03 Mar 26, 2023

The 'language of the body' is also the language of the Moties, in the old SF novel 'The Mote in God's Eye' by Larry Niven. How many kids wish to be whisked away by aliens!

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Zack Powell
09:29 Mar 26, 2023

Well, consider that novel added to my Amazon cart. Always on the lookout for book suggestions and recommendations. And I imagine plenty of kids (and probably a few adults) fantasize about being whisked away by aliens. One of life's big "what ifs," I suppose.

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Stevie Burges
03:45 Mar 26, 2023

Zack, the whole story got me from the word 'Go' (not Yopanko but you get my drift). So imaginative, layered, and well.... just brilliant. Thanks for writing it I so enjoyed it.

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Zack Powell
10:25 Mar 26, 2023

Thanks, Stevie! Always appreciate the kindness and the compliments.

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Mary Bendickson
15:31 Mar 25, 2023

Here I am flapping my arms and clacking my beak. That's Yopanko for parroting everything these other fine authors praised you on.

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Zack Powell
10:27 Mar 26, 2023

LOL, Mary. I'm walking backwards while wiggling my toes as a way of saying thank you in Yopanko.

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Mary Bendickson
14:00 Mar 26, 2023

I think you may be on to something (Hands held high wiggling fingers;)

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Lily Finch
13:52 Mar 25, 2023

Zack, the layers in this story run. Deep. I found this story engagingly realistic for middle school-aged boys in the Yopanko sense, but adding the aliens was the extra Umph to make this story move from good to great! Your ending was fantastic and typical of what a kid would do in that adventurous situation. Given his domestic situation, the fact that he knew that his mother and he would both be better off if he remained with the aliens speaks volumes about his character. One of my favourite lines after the ending: "Listening felt too much l...

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Zack Powell
08:17 Mar 26, 2023

Love how you saw the strings moving and the gears turning behind the scenes, Lily. Everything you mentioned is spot on and just what I was hoping would come through: Hanzo leaving his mother so she would maybe be better off; the disconnect between him and the other boys; the "anywhere but here" mentality. Brava! You win the "reader of the day" award. Totally fake, but it's yours now. Thanks again. And I loved your story for this week, and since I'm not recommended this time around, I've got my fingers crossed for you!

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Lily Finch
20:05 Mar 26, 2023

Zack, I feel like we know each other so well. Our taste in writing and reading stories. And our sense of humour---thanks for the award---I am so glad you loved my story. Thank you. Oh, yeah, put your suggestions into play except my love letter was written in haste. It wasn't the greatest. Still, thanks for the suggestion. As always, I loved it! LF6

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Delbert Griffith
12:36 Mar 25, 2023

"Stand by Me" meets "Galaxy Quest" for a warm, comfortable embrace. What a nice tale with a lot of depth. The large miseries and small triumphs of three boys navigating the perilous waters of middle school life, not to mention their home lives. Add aliens and Yopanko into the mix and you have a winning recipe for a ripping yarn. I really liked that the boys allowed themselves to dream, and that Hanzo had a bigger dream than childhood and familial loyalty. His dreams took him to places as yet unknown, for a greater cause than he could ever i...

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Zack Powell
08:59 Mar 26, 2023

Damn, that movie mash-up is one hell of a compliment! (You've got good taste by the way, LOL.) Great interpretation too. I'm sure a lot of middle schoolers who feel like they're different dream of running away to a better life, even at the risk of losing your friends and family loyalties. In this case, it might be better to keep it a dream, though. Who knows? Thanks as always, Del. And thanks also for highlighting that favorite line, because I was THIS close to cutting it but I loved it too much, and now I feel vindicated for having kept it.

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12:32 Mar 25, 2023

I love this so much. Amazing work Zack, as usual :)

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Zack Powell
07:04 Mar 26, 2023

Thank you, Ms. Wafflez! Much appreciated, as always.

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Riel Rosehill
08:58 Mar 25, 2023

Zaddy! Happy to see a story from you this Saturday morning - I had a feeling there would be one! And wow, this story took a turn with those alien abductions! Fun fact: it's one of my guilty pleasures to listen to those kind of anecdotes. But for the aliens to abduct kids because of their made up language - such a fun idea! It read like a fun sci-fi adventure, and you know you've done something right with the ending when that's where I find my favourite sentence(s): "And though they could never have known, I lifted my hand and waved goodby...

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Zack Powell
07:16 Mar 26, 2023

Thank you, my dear! (And a second thank you for confirming that I'm not alone in listening to alien abduction anecdotes and testimonies, because there are some real gems there.) The idea was super fun to imagine. We skipped over magical realism and went straight into the dreaded Sci-Fi lair. 😬 But I had a blast with this. I needed a lighthearted, jokey piece after the story I attempted for last week's contest (which, obviously, I didn't post because it was ultra-depressive, but if I ever get to finishing it, I'll send it your way because I ...

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Riel Rosehill
19:47 Mar 26, 2023

Look at that date... 2024. It looks like it should be ten years in the future... I was like wow you don't run back to sci-fi, then I realised that is only next year. Where has time gone? We'll turn 30 then..! So I was onto something with Georgie! Ha. And I'd say similar humour and interests? I don't think we'd fight over what shows to watch if we were forced to be housemates! (Trust you binged OFMD by now?) Now I'm super intrigued by what you had brewing for last week - I hope you will finish and send it, because I'd love to read! And I'm ...

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Zack Powell
19:40 Mar 27, 2023

Isn't that a scary thought, that we've almost made it through 30 years of life? 🤣 Time really does fly. I mean, we're already 1/4 of the way through this 2023. OFMD is still on my to-binge list. Waiting for some of the spoilers to (hopefully) recede from my memory, and then I'm gonna devote a weekend of my life to it. (And if I obsessed and that weekend turns into a week, or a month, or forever, so be it xD) 😭 The Millie sentence broke my heart. You've mentioned before that she was having health complications, and I was hoping for the best...

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Naomi Onyeanakwe
08:55 Mar 25, 2023

Zack! I love this. I really love this and that says a lot as sci-fi is my least favourite genre ever. And even you, for someone who claims to run away from sci-fi, you did really really well. And I'm very glad you decided to go for it. There's so much I love about this story. I love the structure, I love how silly and unserious it is, yet still packing so much meaning, I love the depiction of everything. And there's just so many layers to this story, it's amazing. And I love that ending. Not because that's how I wanted it to go but because ...

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Zack Powell
07:04 Mar 26, 2023

Naomi! Thank you, thank you as always. Like you, I also have Sci-Fi at the bottom of my genre list - this is my second story in that genre out of 43 submissions, and I absolutely hated the first one because it took itself so seriously. Hence the silliness of this piece. Aliens abducting kids over a fake language? Children who don't really care one way or another about being taken hostage? Sure, why not, right? I'm really glad to hear you enjoyed this one, because I did too. Surprised myself with how much fun it was to write. Thanks again for...

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Naomi Onyeanakwe
08:55 Mar 25, 2023

Zack! I love this. I really love this and that says a lot as sci-fi is my least favourite genre ever. And even you, for someone who claims to run away from sci-fi, you did really really well. And I'm very glad you decided to go for it. There's so much I love about this story. I love the structure, I love how surreal and silly and unserious it is, yet still packing so much meaning, I love the depiction of everything. And there's just so many layers to this story, it's amazing. And I love that ending. Not because that's how I wanted it to go ...

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Suma Jayachandar
07:56 Mar 25, 2023

Zack! It is so heartwarming to watch you take the plunge (rather take a flight as appropriate here) into your self confessed uncomfortable waters, sci-fi. And boy, what a punch you have packed into it! There is this fuzzy warmth of middle school camaraderie with a deep underlying connection of being ‘misfits’ . Add to it the protagonist carrying the additional baggage of being an uprooted child in a single parent household, the perfect balance between mirth and pathos is achieved. Signature Zack. And then you take it a notch higher when you...

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Zack Powell
06:58 Mar 26, 2023

Thank you, thank you, Suma! You're absolutely correct: Sci-Fi is the genre on here for which I have the least amount of experience and comfort, so this was wildly out of my wheelhouse. And yet, I had a lot of fun. Always interesting to see where stories take you when they're in genres you don't normally write. You're very generous to leave such a thorough comment for such a silly story, and I appreciate every word. Makes me heart sing. (And the "taller from afar" line is my personal favorite of the story, so you and I are on the same page th...

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Zatoichi Mifune
16:02 Jun 15, 2023

Love the story, love the language. What's not to love about a language called Yopanko? So creative! I wish I had read this when I was a child. I was always searching for the perfect language. My favourite line was 'Which was just our luck, being captured by the one person in the solar system whose name contained all our trigger letters.' He just left his friends to go off somewhere with crazy aliens who would eat him as soon as he stopped doing what they wanted? AH. Scaddy (that's my own word, a mixture of sad and scary, made up especially...

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1 1
15:43 Jun 08, 2023

Can I read this on my podcast?

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Zack Powell
16:25 Jun 08, 2023

Yeah, totally! What's your podcast called? I'd love to give it a listen.

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1 1
12:43 Jun 09, 2023

Thank you! My podcast is booksy w it’s only two episodes and honestly it’s not very good

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Steven Taylor
19:37 May 29, 2023

“ And though they could never have known, I lifted my hand and waved goodbye, just like any other kid would. It wasn't Yopanko, but I hoped it was a language they would someday understand.” ‘Nuff said.

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