How to Dissect a Frog For Dummies (And Aliens)

Sam ran, her backpack slapping against her spine; something with a sharp corner jabbed her through the thinning fabric in the same spot with each movement. 

The hallways were mostly clear, and a few stragglers of students rushed to find their respective classrooms. A disingenuous hall monitor flipped through a manga on a plastic chair with his foot propped up on his knee. 

It was unnatural, Sam thought, to only give the students three minutes to get from one class to the other. That rule was acceptable for the average high schooler who didn’t have any electives. Or even jocks, who had the sports building right next to the main hall. 

The band kids were the ones who suffered. Their band hall was across the parking lot and beside the cornfield. 

“Like the Lepers in Hawaii,” Sam’s best friend had said. “Out of sight, out of mind.” 

Her classroom door was in sight, she could calculate the number of steps it would take to get there, 15 and a quarter. She pushed her legs harder, and the slap of her backpack grew with intensity. 

13 steps.

11 steps. 

8 steps. 

She reached her hand out towards the door handle. 

Just as she took her first step into the over-air-conditioned classroom, the bell rang. Sam smiled as she faltered to her desk in the back of the classroom. Her legs were quivering as the weight of her backpack fell to the floor. She looked out of the cracked window, the cornstalks swayed in the wind, so tall you couldn’t see the road that lay beyond it.  

“It would be beneficial to arrive at class before the second bell.” Mrs. Whorthawl, the teacher, is an older woman with wrinkles draped over her face and neck like an unkept curtain. Sam lowered her head. “Today we will be having visitors join us for our dissection lesson. Each of you will be paired up with a…guest.” The last word dripped like it had been poison on her overlined lips. 

Lizzy in the front row desk shot her hand up, she didn’t wait to be called on to speak. “Is it the aliens?”

“We can’t call them aliens, Liz. That’s racist.” James turned his head to Mrs. Whorthawl, awaiting her praise of his political correctness. 

“It’s not racist. They’re not human.” Lizzy defended. 

“Yeah, that’s not racist. It's alien-ist” The self-appointed class clown, Noah, sat backward in his seat, leaning his head back to face the front of the room. 

“Alien-phobic?”

“Like homophobic? Homophobic for aliens?”

“I don’t know if they can even have se-”

“Ew. Are you one of those people who have an alien kink?”

“I think they’re called Algerians,” Maria, who sat in front of Sam, responded meekly, peeking her head above her textbook. 

“No,” Lizzy flipped her ponytail over her shoulder, glaring at the girl, who promptly hid behind her textbook again. “We call them Algerians. They’re called whatever they are in their alien language.”

Sam pulled out a half drank Gatorade and held onto it with both hands as she guzzled it. Part of it spilled over and ran down her chin. 

“The…Algerians,” Mrs. Whorthawl continued as if no one had spoken. “Are around your age, mentally. They are here as guests to learn about Earth biology. We are going to be dissecting a frog, I know we-”

Lizzy’s hand shot up again. “We already did that, ma’am. Two weeks ago.” 

If looks could throw daggers, Lizzy would be cut open like a soon-to-be dissected frog. 

“I know we already did that, but this time you will be walking your partner through the process as well. This is a tremendous honor, our government could have chosen a larger, more prestigious school, but they chose us to house the first Algerian-Human social educational interaction. Let’s not disappoint.” She turned and pulled on the cord to move the presentation screen away. 

There were two messages. One was in English:

Rules for Frog Dissection Assignment with Algerian Exchange Students

1. No headphones, no music, no phone ringers 
2. Do not ask personal questions
3. ABSOLUTELY DO NOT give the scalpel to the Algerian 

The other language was similarly structured but in odd shapes that seemed disconnected at intervals, like Morse code written in circles and squares. 

Two hard thumps came at the classroom door. 

“I expect everyone to be on their best behavior.” She glared at the room as she took her time walking to the door. Wiping her hands on her plaid pants, she reached out a hand to the handle and pulled it open, stepping out of the way. “Welcome to Ridley High School.” 

The class gasped as the “guests” entered in a single file line. 

In the five years since the Algerians had landed on Earth, Sam had seen them on social media, artwork, and even plushies in a rigged arcade game. But it hadn’t done them justice. 

Their skin, if you could call it that, had a light blueish-green hue. It was mostly transparent, showing a constant circulation light path running up and down their five limbs, like a race track of light inside their body. Their three arms seemed equidistant from each other, one in the place of a human’s sternum and two slightly out of the shoulder blades, wrapping around to the front of their body.

The race track of lights beneath their skin was brighter in their head. Instead of hair, they had a scarf-type fabric tied loosely around their neck and draped across their shoulders. 

They were all the same height, about six feet. Their heads were almost cartoonishly diamond-shaped, as if pushed through a cookie cutter. Large black orbs covered a majority of their face. There was no nose, but two slits sat horizontally under the eyes, they fluttered open every few seconds. 

Someone snickered but covered it with a cough. Sam could understand why. They were wearing uniforms. Earth uniforms, or imitations of them anyway. They had an additional hole for their third arm, but it had buttons. They all wore pleated skirts that were not in the school dress code. Their feet, or what would be feet, were uncovered. The light was brighter there too. 

One of the Algerians stepped forward, a small journal held open by all three hands. 

“Morning for good to all of you, Humans.” Its voice was monotone, sounding like it was coming through a damaged radio from the 1940s. “We are Unit 1979 of Earth Exploration Team. We learn science from Earth today. We thank you for help.” 

Sam saw one of the Algerians, near the back of the line, nudge the one next to them and flickered their large eyes to the board. They read the instructions in their language and then softly slapped the inside of their hand, then the outside, twice. They bent over slightly, and another one slightly in front of them turned their head and made a motion with their third arm. 

“You all can take a seat.” Mrs. Whorthaw stood behind her desk, almost pushed up against the wall. “We’ll have the students start with the prep work, I’m sure they’re all very curious about how we work.” 

Sam watched as the Algerians who had spoken to them, their teacher, she guessed, told them in their language. The Algerian students walked down the center aisle by the desks in perfect unison. No matter how excited they had been only two minutes earlier, the students were scooting away from their new deskmates. 

The last Algerian in line, who had laughed at the instructions on the board, slid onto the chair beside Sam. 

“Hey,” Sam said in a quick breath. 

“Good mornin’.” 

Sam's head snapped at the sound. It was clearer but still sounded grainy like it was coming further away. But it was also southern, Texas Southern. 

“I said that right, right?” 

“Uh,” Sam cleared her throat. “Sorry, yes. Good morning. Yes, you said it right. Where did you learn English?”

“Movies.” The Algerian looked at how Noah was sitting and spun around, copying it. It leaned back, resting its arms on the table. “Y’all have a lot for a civilization that’s only been around a few hundred thousand years.” 

“Class,” Mrs. Whorthaw said. “Please introduce yourselves.”

“I’m Sam.” Sam lifted her hand out to the Algerian. 

The Algerian pushed itself up and turned to face her, it jumped up and down slightly in the seat. 

“Yea, I’ve always wanted to do this.” 

Awkwardly looking around the room, Sam thought about dropping her hand. But right as she decided to give up, she felt a jolt of electricity when the Algerian wrapped its hand around hers. It wasn’t as cold to the touch as she had imagined them to be. But warm, she could feel the light pulsing through its hand. 

“Howdy, kind lady. My name is Sheriff.” Sheriff brought Sam’s hand to the space between its eyes. Then let go. Sam’s hand felt heavy in her lap. 

“Sheriff? That’s…an interesting name.” 

“I picked it out. Our true names cannot be made with the human vocal range, so we all got to choose our own. Did you choose Sam?”

Sam shook her head. “My parents named me Samantha, but I go by Sam. It’s easier.” 

“Alright, class, please start the assignment. Make sure to explain the process thoroughly. I will be here if you have any questions.” Mrs. Whorthaw sounded like that was the last thing she wanted to do. 

Sam turned her attention to the pinned frog on the tray before them. 

“Right, so...” Sam leaned down and pulled her backpack up, opening it and pulling out various notebooks, textbooks, and her flute case. “Here we go.” She put a green spiral notebook in between them. 

“What is that?” Sheriff gestured to the pile that littered the desk. 

“Just my other school work and this is my flute, I had band class last period.”

“Music?” 

“Yeah, music. Do you play music?”

“Yes, but not flutes. Algerians hate Earth music, it’s like torture. Nothing you human play is any good.” 

Sam snorted and opened her notebook, flipping through the paper to find the lesson on frog dissection. 

“Alright, so frogs are called tetrapods because they use four limbs to move. They mostly live by water, but they breathe air.”

“What are those?” Sheriff pointed to a tray of supplies beside the frog. 

“Those are our materials. It’s what we’re going to use to do the actual dissection. There are medical scissors, a scalpel, extra pins to keep the flesh down once we cut it open, a dropper, and a swab to collect the samples. But I think first I can talk you through what we will be looking for.” 

“Do you like being human?”

“What?” Sam turned to find Sheriff a lot closer than he was before. 

“Do you like being human?”

Sam breathed out a laugh and tucked loose hair behind her ear, using it as an excuse to put some space between them. “Well, I don’t have anything to compare it to. I was born human. Frogs are interesting because they are amphibians, which means they lay eggs. They were introduced early on, around 200 million years ago, in the evolutionary lineage of biological life on Earth.” 

Sam could feel Sheriff looking at her, she felt cool sweat start running down her back. She looked up at the clock, they had another hour of class. 

“How old do you think I am?”

“Oh, I’m not sure. Three hundred?”

“Good guess. Tell me more about my kind.” Sheriff leaned the edge of his face on his third arm. While the other two tapped lightly on the edge of the desk. “I bet you’ve learned a lot about us. I wanna know how accurate it is.”

“Public primary education is rarely accurate,” Sam curtly answered, then bit her lip and smiled tightly. “But, I guess. Mrs. Whorthaw said you were our age mentally. From my knowledge, Algerians can live from five hundred to seven hundred years. You don’t go through puberty, but you must be a certain age to join the Earth Exploration Team.”

“E.E.T. We called it E.E.T. for short.” 

Sam couldn’t find any facial indication, but she could swear he was smirking at her. 

“Okay. So, you join the E.E.T., and then what happens next? Your leaders haven’t stated how long you’ll stay or what even the main purpose of your exploration is—learning about humanity? There isn’t much you need to do except watch. Why do you want to interact with us? You’re smarter, more advanced, and can survive in space and on Earth, which is highly improbable. It’s like you’re just curious, you just want to…” Sam looked from Sheriff to the frog to the tray. The tray was now missing the scalpel. 

“Why?” Sam asked.

Sheriff made a clicking sound, like a lawnmower not quite starting up correctly. “You’re the one teaching me, Samantha. Why don’t you tell me?”

Sam flicked her eyes over to Mrs. Whorthaw, sitting at her desk with her hands collapsed over a wooden cross. The other students were quietly mumbling, and slowly another Algerian picked up the scalpel in front of them. The student was either unaware or incapable of speaking up. 

“We’re a small school.” Sam forced herself to unlace her fingers and rest them on the table, fingers spread wide. “In a small town. Far away from any major highways or cities. If anything…” She swallowed a lump in her throat. “If anything were to happen, no one would get here in time to do anything about it.” Tear droplets hung onto her eyelashes, threatening to fall. “We’re experiments.”

Sheriff took one of his finger-like appendages and pushed some stray hair behind her ear. “I knew you were smart, Samantha, but truly, you have stood out among the rest of the humans.”

“You’ve done this before.”

“Oh, many times,” Sheriff said with a sweeping gesture. “But you, honestly, are my favorite. I look forward to seeing how you look pinned onto a table, ready to be dissected.” 

Sam shot her hand out, wrapping her left hand over her flute case, and swung, making contact with Sheriff’s face. She grabbed the medical scissors with her other hand and gripped them in her hand, stabbing down, aiming for his eye but hitting the slit beneath it. 

Squirming and squealing like a fire alarm, Sheriff pushed himself away, falling to the floor, catching himself with two of his arms. 

Spinning around, Sam climbed up to the windowsill, her flute case tucked close to her chest, stepping on projects of biospheres and lept through the window into the cool morning air. She heard screaming behind her, and more alarm sounds came from the Algerians, she didn’t turn around. Pushing her legs faster, she closed in on the cornfield across the road. This time of year, they would be ten feet tall, she could disappear and wait it out.

The alarming sounds grew louder, coming now from the entire school. Sam didn’t look back. She was so close. 

13 feet. 

11 feet. 

8 feet. 

“Samantha!” She threw herself into the cornfield, slipping on the fallen husks. She used one hand to steady herself on the ground before kicking back up and trying her best not to brush against the stalks. 

“Come out.” Sheriff’s voice carried, sounding as if he was simultaneously behind her and in front of her. “I won’t hurt you, not like you hurt me.” 

Sam crouched down, opening her flute case and shakily putting it together. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a bright light, turning to face it, she was faced with Sheriff, his white shirt and plaid skirt stained with a bright pink liquid. The same color dripped down his face, framing the diamond outline. 

She raised the flute to her lips, contorting her lips into the perfect embouchure, and took a deep breath. 

“Wait-” 

Sam’s fingers brushed over the keys on their own accord. The melody was beautiful but unheard over the ear-splitting screech that came out of Sheriff. His body bent backward as if he had been pulled back by his head. The screaming deafened as she felt something warm drip out of her ears. Her vision began to distort, and soon Sheriff blended in with the corn surrounding them. She couldn’t feel her fingers move anymore, she couldn’t feel anything. 

When her vision returned to normal, she stared at a clear blue sky. She turned her head slightly, wincing as she did. She saw the cornstalks swaying in the soft wind. Relief pooled in her chest, the cold metal of her flute still lay in her left hand. She didn’t try to move too much but strained her eyes in that direction. 

“Oh, Sam.” Sheriff stepped into her view, he bent down and picked up the flute from her hand. He twisted it around a few times before crushing it into a ball as if it were tin foil. “You’re much too valuable to be wasted at some primary educational system. You’ll be coming back with me. What do you say?”

Sam couldn’t speak if it would save her life, and it might have. With the limited energy she had, she lifted her arms. She slapped the back of her hand to the palm of the other, then flipped them and slapped again. Repeating the motion before dropping her arms and fluttering her eyes closed. 

In the distance, as she felt herself being lifted, words drifted past her consciousness. 

“I knew this would be the one.”