I opened a door into the classroom. There was one room for every age group and, unfortunately, I was supposed to be teaching the youngest age group. Just letters and numbers, the lead Intercepter told me. I was grateful they could speak English. Even at this early point in their life they were the same height as me, pea-green faces with large round eyes peeping at me through their brown clothing. They sat at desks in rows. If I had replaced the green creatures with slouching humans, with little imagination I could imagine the classroom like one in Earth.

But I had no more time for studying my surroundings. Forty creatures scrambled up from their desks and rushed at me. Each collision was like a full-grown human slamming into me, and I was surrounded by a mass of eager faces and flapping brown fabric. I would have gone down, only the impact sent me back against the wall, where I stood propped up as the torrent of creatures rushed at me and all the little voices squealed. Only when the slowest runners reached me did the noise soften enough for me to speak. “Stop! Stop!” I yelled. The noise slowed and the grips around my waist and neck loosened. “Back to your seats,” I ordered, pointing to their desks. There was a mad scramble to go back to the desks. They moved surprisingly quickly and were back in their seats, hands folded on the desks, looking up at me, within a few seconds.

“So,” I began, not knowing how to begin. I started as a planet vacationer and wound up here through some crazy turn of events. I had never had much contact with small children, human or otherwise. I felt lost.

“So. This is the first human teacher you have had, right?” It was all I could think about to ask. The room overflowed with eager agreement. They said, “Yes!” and “That’s right!” and made squeals and chirps. It was loud. I waved my arms over my head. “Stop!” I shouted again. Instant silence.

I had to be careful with these children, then. I realized that anything I asked them to do, they did with intense dedication. When I came to them, stepping into their room, they ran to greet me. When I asked a halfway-rhetorical question, they responded with deafening agreement. And when I requested silence, they did so leaving their words half-finished.

“All right, well, let’s start with numbers.” I turned to see a huge white board behind me and some writing utensils on a rack. I picked up a large one and dragged it along the board. When it left a mark I knew I had encountered a kind of a chalkboard. I wrote the numbers up to ten on the board and then I said them and they repeated them back to me, the room echoing with their enthusiasm.

The head Intercepter had told me four hours. After four hours I was supposed to leave through the door, and the next teacher would come and teach a different thing. I figured it would be torture to slog through simple concepts with a bunch of small creatures who were overly loud, instead of the actual vacation I planned to have, but there was something about it I enjoyed. I didn’t even know what it was. But I left the room after four hours feeling slightly less bewildered.

To be continued!