Chapter One

Quinn put the last stroke of her answer on the blackboard and, with a flourish, turned to her math teacher, Alfred Phelps.

"Tah-dah!" she announced, expecting to find him standing ramrod straight behind her, stern-faced as usual. Instead, to her surprise, he was seated at his desk, his glasses off, staring at uncorrected test papers without reading them.

"Mr. Phelps," Quinn whispered, edging toward him slowly. "I'm done."

"What? Oh." Phelps straightened up. He ran a hand across the few hairs left on top of his head, then straightened his tie. His glasses remained on the desktop. "Yes, good job, Ms. Morgendorffer. You may go now."

"Um, okay." The pull of the mall was strong... but as Quinn glanced over her shoulder, she realized that her concern for her math teacher was stronger. She had worked with him one-on-one in that classroom for several weeks, and somehow over time, Phelps had gone from being her adversary to being her ally. Her friend. She liked a teacher. What was up with that?!

"Mr. Phelps? Are you all right?"

"Oh..." Phelps focused on her, surprised that she was not already gone. "I'm just fine, Ms. Morgendorffer. Why do you ask?"

"You just look so sad. And I've never seen you without your glasses."

Phelps was silent for a moment. Then, softly, he patted the chair beside him. Quinn stepped forward cautiously and sat down.

"You're the first person who's ever shown me that sort of compassion," he whispered, his eyes boring into her. Quinn had never realized how bright they were. When Phelps took her hand in his, she started to wonder if she had made a mistake.

"Mr. Phelps..."

"Quinn, I have something I've been wanting to tell you for such a long time."

With a jerk, Quinn ripped her hand out of his and bolted upright. "Mr. Phelps! I am not that kind of girl!"

"What?"

"I mean sure, Fashion Club members date a lot and sometimes we even take pity on the old guys just over thirty but come on, Mr. Phelps, even I have my limits! Besides, you're a teacher! And did I mention you were old?!"

Phelps gazed at her with astonishment. "Quinn, I don't know what you're talking about."

"And I thought you were gay!" Quinn shot back.

Phelps sighed and shook his head. Slowly, the adrenaline left Quinn's body, and she began to feel very foolish. Here he was opening up to her, and she had reacted with such cruelty. She slid back into her seat beside his desk.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Phelps. Go on."

"I am not gay, Ms. Morgendorffer," he murmured. "That is my first confession. I find you a very beautiful, vivacious girl. If I were human, I would probably be tempted to have more than a teacher-student relationship."

Quinn's eyes widened. "If you were human...?"

"I am an alien," Phelps said with calm resignation. "From the planet Xulfanex, several light years away. My real name is something you couldn't pronounce without your head exploding and the remains burning to a crisp and oozing through the floor. And even if you could, I would just as soon not tell you."

"But you look human!"

"A costume, Quinn. Just a costume." Un-Phelps smiled faintly. "If you thought I was unattractive before, just wait until you see--"

"Um, that's okay," Quinn said quickly. "We're all entitled to our privacy. So how did you get here?"

"I'm on a mission. You see, I'm an intergalactic constable." The alien formerly known as Phelps folded the wire arms of his glasses and gently laid them in his pocket. He had no more need for them. "One of my species, who had been viciously terrorizing my planet, escaped into your galaxy through a worm hole. I had no choice but to follow him. However, in my zest for capture, I carelessly forgot to map my way home, and now even if I catch this evil being, I will be unable to return him for punishment."

"So there's another weirdo alien loose on earth?" Quinn pressed her hands against her temples and rubbed slowly, trying to keep herself from losing it. This felt like one of those crazy stories Daria would write. Hey, maybe it was! Quinn slapped herself lightly on the cheek. Then harder. Then harder across the other one. But alas, she did not wake up beside a finished Daria tale, and now she had two swelling cheeks for her effort.

"I've narrowed him down to Lawndale High," the alien replied. "He could be anywhere. Anyone. Teacher, student. In this school, an other-wordly being wouldn't exactly stand out."

Quinn's mind reeled. She thought about Brittany with those gravity-defying breasts. Everyone thought they were fake, but come on, no plastic surgeon was that good. Those things needed their own zip code. She thought about Ms. Li and her odd paranoia about security, her need to have everything pre-screened before it was allowed on school grounds. Kevin, with his sub-human intelligence. Ted, with his clumsy attempts at normal student interaction. Daria...

"Oh come on, she's your sister, for heaven's sake."

"You can read minds?!"

"No... I just figured that thought would stray into your head sooner or later."

Quinn's cheeks reddened from more than the slapping. "So you came here and pretended to be a teacher?"

"Yes. The fact that Lawndale High had no discernable math teacher - or math department, for that matter - prompted me to fill the role. I figured I would bide my time until I found whom I was looking for."

"And all this time we've spent together... was just to fill space?" The shade in Quinn's cheeks deepened to a purple, as she realized that the affection she felt toward her math teacher was based on a lie.

"No, Quinn," said the former Mr. Phelps. He reached over with his "costume" hand and tipped her chin gently. "During my time on earth, I have also been in search of an extraordinary mind who could calculate the distances between the galaxies so that I might find my way home. In you, I saw that mind. I just had to work with it a little, to help it find confidence."

His words were kind, and his explanation made sense, but Quinn had heard too much for one day. She jerked her head away and stood up.

"I gotta go."

"Quinn, wait." Un-Phelps stood as well. His face took on a worried expression. "You won't tell anyone my little secret, will you?"

"Yeah right. Like anyone would believe me," Quinn mumbled before she hurried out the door...

...and ran straight into Mr. DeMartino.

"Ms. MORGENdorffer!" he spat, as he helped her up off of the floor. "It might be in your best INTEREST to watch where you're going."

Quinn stared at him, at that eye of his that could swell to nearly the size of his face. The teeth that were too squarish to be the hot squarish, the geeky black hair jelled into place. He couldn't be...

"Now RUN ALONG, or you'll be late for my CLASS!"

That night, Quinn tossed and turned to the rhythm of a thousand nightmares. It felt as though something were reaching into her mind in order to steer her thoughts. Phelps loomed before her, changing color and shape, expanding into a creature so grotesque that when it opened its mouth, three tongues shot out and swerved wildly about, dripping with yellowish saliva. As they shoved themselves against the border separating dream from reality, Quinn gasped. She awoke in a bath of sweat.

The next morning, feeling unwell, Quinn padded over to her pink phone and dialed a number.

"The Dutchman Inn. How might I help you."

"Um, hi. Does Jake Morgendorffer still have a room?"

"Let me see. Morgendorffer... Morgen -- ah. Here we are. Four-oh-seven, just like the last few weeks. Would you like me to connect you?"

"Yes, please."

Quinn gripped the phone, the silence on the other end overcome by the beating of her heart. When she heard "Hello?? Is anybody there?? Damn phone!", she'd never felt such relief.

"Hi, Dad?"

"Daria?"

"Quinn, Dad." She would chalk up this mind lapse to morning forgetfulness.

"Oh hi, sweetie! What can Daddy do for you?"

"Well for starters, you can get an apartment. This hotel living thing has gotten so passe. It's not even fun to order room service when I'm there."

"But I thought you liked the hotel's curly fries!"

"Never mind that." Quinn didn't want him to think she had called to scold. "Dad, I just wanted to ask you about... Mr. DeMartino."

"What about him, sweetie?"

"Since you're his friend and all, I thought maybe you could tell me if you've seen him acting... weird?"

"Well gee, I don't know. In what sense?"

"I mean..." Quinn squirmed, trying to think of how to put it delicately. But since delicacy was lost on her father, she decided to be blunt. "Like, 'from another planet' weird?"

"You mean like Daria?"

"No, Dad! For real."

A pause filled the other end, and Quinn could guess what her father was thinking: Dammit, Helen! Thanks to our split, our little girl is going crazy!

"I am not going crazy," she stated emphatically.

A fit of chuckles burst through the other end. "Of course you aren't, sweetie! But hey, he always seemed pretty normal. More normal than me, that's for sure. So I don't think there's anything to worry about."

"Okay." Quinn exhaled quietly. "Thanks Dad. I love you. Bye."

"Bye!"

Quinn laid the phone on her receiver. She wondered if she could talk her mother into letting her stay home for the day.

Meanwhile, in Room 407 at the Duchman Inn, Jake Morgendorffer laid the receiver on the hook. Behind him loomed Anthony DeMartino. Without turning around, Jake murmured, "She knows."