"Peekaboo!"

 

            From Ramona’s point of view, human people were madly interesting when she was a shy young thing. Before she saw Ralph, or figured out the rest of her life right there on the spot, she was like an obsessed teenaged girl.
            You can see how this would go.
            If she saw a fellow working on his car at night. His suspended light source would draw her attention as she did her own research. Like the proverbial moth, she might creep close and look over his shoulder to see what in the world he was doing. His grunting, talking to himself, and moving things around would be totally mysterious to her.
            If he saw her and she knew he saw her, she would skedaddle right quick.
            Her mom had told her to stay clear of humans because they are unpredictable, above all things and might possibly take a shot at you.
            Children playing would be fascinating. She wouldn’t understand clothing. Why do that?
            Her father said human people wear those things because they don’t have enough body hair to stay warm, and besides their body mass is too small to produce much heat. Humans are slaves to the elements, he told her.
            Windows would be like her own TV screens or monitors. The trick would be to watch the show without being seen. She found that this was actually pretty easy because people are so self-absorbed. They don’t look around much, generally speaking. They don’t look at the sky much, or look at their windows. Children are different. They look at everything, then when they try to report what they have seen, well they bump into a bland wall of disbelief usually. Not always.
            Some ladies still hang laundry on a line to dry because it smells so nice when dried that way, and the sun sterilizes like no electric dryer can.
            When she was young, Ramona liked to watch the ladies hang their laundry. They were usually so busy that they never saw her there. If one, sensing something, looked up suddenly, Ramona would do that thing where they change their wavelength to something out of the visible range for humans.
            Peekaboo!
            In fact, this interest in humans is how she met Thaga and Ooog, years before. She watched Ooog gardening and wondered why he did that. Was he making a strange artificial forest or something? What were all those plants for anyhow? What did they do with them? Surely, they couldn’t be food, she thought.
            She was standing motionless in the tree line watching Ooog one day, when Thaga walked out to the road to mail a letter. When Thaga saw Ramona there, she jumped, but managed to steady herself quickly.
            “Oh,” Thaga laughed, “You scared me a little. But not much. I just didn’t expect to see you there.” Possibly, Thaga and Ooog knew of the Forest People. I would suppose so.
            Ramona wasn’t scared either, for some reason, of the little woman in the big apron. She held her ground while the little woman talked to her gently. Thaga even kind of sang to her.
            Thaga took Ramona’s hand and said, “Why don’t you come to the house and spend some time with us?”
            At the stone cottage, they became friends. Ramona learned to speak good English. Thaga learned quite a bit of Saslingua, though it’s hard for English speakers to pronounce. And Thaga, as well as Ooog, answered a lot of her questions about the Hairless. So, she didn’t have to do so much research.
            Of course, Ramona wasn’t Ramona until Thaga named her. Her name, given by her mother, was impossible to say, in Thaga’s opinion.

💚💮💚