Because of my previous year at school, the understanding of my mission on Earth has all but disappeared. However, my experiments with matter continue. At home, host mother has started to provide me with substances to eat that I cannot identify as food. Yes, I am familiar with fruit, vegetables, bread and what is called ‘breakfast cereals’. But now I am being presented with items that look, smell and taste like nothing I have  experienced before on this strange planet. One is called ‘kidney’, another one ‘liver’, the third is ‘bacon’, and the last one is called ‘egg’. I ask Earth mother why these foods have such strange names. 

“Well,” she says, “liver and kidney are the same shape as the organs in your body.” That made sense. I had studied pictures of the human body-machine at school, and I recognised the shapes. “Bacon is named after a famous man who worked with Queen Elizabeth the first,” she continued.

“And the one called egg…” I asked, “is that because it’s egg shaped?”

“Eggsactly!” She replied with a smile. Had I known that I was being served cooked animal body parts and the unborn foetus of a chicken at the time, I probably would have made an early exit from planet Earth.

Meanwhile at school, I concoct some interesting substances of my own in our cooking lessons. I take home this ‘food,’ as it was kindly called by our teacher, and present my efforts to mummy. Her words are complimentary; but when I later find my food homework in the dustbin, I realise that mummy’s words do not match her actions. I make a mental note that there is room for improvement in my baking skills, and I am not the only one in our family capable of bloody lying.

One ‘food’ material we are allocated at school continues to be a problem: it’s called ‘milk’. I hate the stuff, and cannot believe that humans actually drink this substance. I’m told it comes from a cow, not a host Earth mother, and actually this milk is for a baby cow, not us. So, if we drink it, what’s the calf going to have? But despite this logic, we are required to drink one-third of a pint of the sickly white stuff every day. In the winter, it’s not too bad because the cold deadens the taste. But during the hot summer months, the milk is warm and sickly and I feel I want to throw up on a number of occasions.

Apart from the milk, I continue to be very wary of females, who are definitely a strange alien race – no more understandable than cats, and a little more frightening than dogs. There is, however, one female who seems to take care of me – tying my shoelaces and talking to me kindly. She later turns out to be the only one in the class whom I can turn to.

We move home, and I like the new house much better. I have my own room, and the play area is more spacious. A large tree sits on the right-hand side of the garden near the house. Host mother tells me it’s a ‘Cherry Blossom.’ It has no cherries, but lots of blossom, which fall like snow in the Autumn.

Unlike Aberdale Road, where you had to walk miles to get to the shops, (which were ‘rubbish’, as host mother said), our new area has more than twelve shops. I discover that one is a Candy shop, which makes me and host mother very happy. Then there is also a newsagent’s, a grocer’s and the Co-op. But I don’t know what the others are. I have a different route to walk to and from school now, which I like also very much. Our new home is bloody good.

Then one day in March, a new television programme called ‘Fireball XL5’ arrives, and all my troubles at school are almost forgotten. Fireball XL5 is a spaceship that careers around the Universe under the command of spaceman ‘Steve Zodiac.’ I’m hooked on the series and follow my namesake Steve and his robot Robbie as they battle with aliens, save space damsels in distress, and put planets in order. Zodiac is my hero – but he’s also nearly my downfall, as I almost make an early exit from planet Earth.

Just before Easter, I leave school one day knowing that my favourite programme is on television that evening. As I leave the school gates, I see Earth sister up ahead and run to tell her that Fireball XL5 is on television very soon. But I have to cross a busy road to reach her, and traffic is stopping me in my tracks. I wait impatiently at the kerb, going through an abbreviated version of the ‘Highway Code’ (a set of rules devised by humans for use when crossing Earth’s highways). ‘Look right, look left, look right again’ – or something like that. There’s nothing to my right, but a car approaches from the left. It seems to take an age to pass: doesn’t the driver realise that Steve Zodiac will be traversing the known universe in half-an-hour? Finally, the car has past, and I launch myself across the road. Unfortunately, I forgot the part about looking right again and a car slams into my side, hurling me into the air. I was only joking when I said I wanted to follow Steve Zodiac into Space.

The next thing I remember is lying on the pavement on the opposite side of the road with a number of people looking down at me. Someone asks my name, and another feels my right arm. “I think it’s broken,” he says.

“No, it’s fine,” I reply. I want to go home, I want everything to be all right, I want to see Steve Zodiac. But everything is definitely not all right, and Steve Zodiac will have to wait.

An ambulance arrives and I’m put on a stretcher and lifted inside. Host mother suddenly appears. She’s panting and looks concerned. I tell her it’s alright – I can see Fireball XL5 next week. She gets in the back of the ambulance with me – and then comes the real sickener. Whilst the paramedic is struggling with my cardigan, I hear mother say, “Don’t worry about the arm – just cut it off.”

“Are you sure,” the man replies, “I think I can manage…”
“No-no, it’s fine… just cut it off,” she says.

Can you imagine the effect this had on a young alien who has already lost one piece of flesh at the hands of the Earth medics? I lie in hospital for two days worried stupid about the bloody arm host mother has nonchalantly gifted to the hospital’s flesh bank, wondering how, where and when they will remove it. Then Earth father comes to visit, and I ask him if they are really going to cut off my arm.  

“What! No, of course not – it’s only broken!” he laughs. “Whatever made you think that?” Whatever indeed.

So, there I was, back in Leicester Royal Infirmary with the bright lights and the smell of disinfectant – the place that has already mutilated my boyhood once. What are they going to do next – cut my balls off? Don’t even bloody think about it.

I’m given the privilege of eating in my hospital bed. Apart from the broken arm, head injuries and internal bleeding, I’m okay. It’s the last two that cause the doctors concern, so Earth father tells me. They do tests, and give me a bed pan. They’re going to fix my arm ‘soon’, they say.

It’s several days later, and they must have fixed my arm because it’s all covered in white stuff called ‘plaster,’ and I feel sick. Thankfully, I don’t remember the operation. I check my hose: it’s still there – so are my balls. That’s a relief then.

The days roll on, and a nurse says I’m well enough to get up and have food with the other in-mates, instead of eating in bed. I don’t like the look or smell of their food, but do I have a choice? No. I’m served some dead, minced-up sheep covered in mashed potatoes. I feel nauseous and helpfully inform the nurse that if I eat that, I’m going to be sick. In return, she informs me that if I’m sick, I’ll feel the weight of her hand. Carefully measuring the size of her hand against the look of the dead sheep, I decide that the best strategy would be to try eating the ‘food.’ I feel sick, and run to the toilets. I try to retch to make my point, but only succeed in making the sounds. I’m sent back to bed without any dinner.

I start to feel better. Then Earth father visits me with a hospital doctor. They inform me that the arm was not set at the correct angle, and they’ll have to break it and reset the arm again. If only they’d told me what information they wanted, I would have talked ages ago.

After this, I’m moved out of a ‘critical bed’ into the main ward, where I see more of the other kids – including the ‘Gestapo twins’ – two teenage girls hired by the Matron with horrible facial burns (the girls, not matron). This ward is, I discover, some sort of Communist State where everything must be shared out ‘fairly.’ This includes all presents and food from loving family members, who end up contributing to the Communist ideal in total ignorance. The two girls wait until Visiting Time is over, and then pounce, grabbing everything they can find from the inmates. I hide fruit and toys in my locker and even under my bed sheets; but with sadistic glee, they still manage to find every last grape. After the redistribution of resources, I find that I get nothing at all! I am sure this is not what Karl Marx meant when he wrote Das Kapital.

Meanwhile, back at school, my classmates have been preparing for Easter (a holiday, during which we all receive large chocolate eggs – no idea why). I receive letters from my peers telling me to ‘Get Well Soon!’ I’m doing my bloody best, but it’s the hospital they need to write to.

Finally, the day arrives when I can go home. How am I going to manage without the hospital and the Hitler youth (as my father describes them)? Very easily, I conclude. It’s a great relief to be away from it all – but I’m blissfully unaware of what’s waiting for me at school.

The next day, I’m in Assembly with my right arm still in white plaster. Mrs Pullen is giving us a lecture on the Highway Code – and guess who didn’t follow it to the nth degree? Far from being received as the valiant soldier with his undeserved injuries, I have to stand up in front of the whole school to demonstrate what happens if you do not follow ‘The Code.’ I find myself branded as a renegade, the flouter of rules, and a very bad example to all and sundry. Particularly the sundry. A broken arm – twice (once by the medics); head injuries; internal organ damage, and mental torment are not sufficient punishment, it seems. I am ostracised by my classmates, and the only girl who speaks to me is my guardian angel. She helpfully ties my shoelaces, to the disapproval and distain of the rest of the class, who brand her as Satan’s helper. And there are just no benefits to having a broken arm either. I cannot write with my right hand, so the teacher coldly informs me that I have to write with my left. Presumably, I would have to write with my feet if both arms had been broken. To cap it all, no-one wants to write anything on my plaster cast – which is probably just as well in view of what they might be told to write.

It is therefore with very great relief that my days at Overdale Infant school come to an end, as I move one hundred and twenty-nine metres to the Junior School next door. Life cannot surely not get any worse – can it?

* * * * * 
End of Chapter 2.

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