The crowd kind of gasps. The judge splutters. “Earth?! You are aquitted!”

The police jump to unhandcuff us. The judge looks into the crowd. “What’s your name, missy?” He asks. She answers, “My name is Mango.”

“Lovely name. You’d be a wonderful lawyer, Mango.”

She nods and blushes, and her blush is a weird light red, which makes her face look light lavender. Cool. Everyone starts flowing out of the stadium, and we get caught in the flow of the tide. I spot the girl who saved us in the crowd.

“Hi!” I smile. Hopefully I’m doing this right.

“...Hi.” She replies, not looking particularly interested in striking a convo.

But I just LOVE to ignore social cues. “I’m Concord. Thanks for saving our butts back there.”

“It was nothing. I should be going now.” She steps away.

Ugh. Leave it to me to scare the first new person I really interacted with away.

“Also, it’s not polite to use the word ‘butt’ in a sentence.” She adds.

Since i’m lame and seriously lack good ideas, I just sorta nod and watch her walk away. Great! The books I read never warned me about this! They said butt all the time with no problem! I never knew it was inappropriate! When we get back to the rocket, I tell my mom. Mom’s not a scienctist. Of course she’s super smart. I mean, she’s a mom. But I mostly just tell her my problems.