Leave of Absence - Jennifer Shaff

A girl named Lisa discovers someone or something from another planet living in her basement. Lisa and her brother live alone because their parents had recently passed away in a devastating car crash. Spock, the alien, was first discovered by Lisa one afternoon when he was snooping in her basement.She had thought there was squirrels in her basement so she went down with a bat, just in case it wasn't squirrels. When she got down, she didn't see anything and to her surprise Spock was standing behind her and he used the Vulcan Nerve Pinch which allows him to mend minds with Lisa and explain himself much quicker and it also kept Lisa quit. Lisa got a leave of absence from the school that she was teaching at because of the recent death of her parents.

She is now helping Spock build his crashed space ship so Spock can get back to his planet. Spock had also promised Lisa that he will take her to space, so she eager to help him build his ship as apposed to being reluctant. After Spock and Lisa became familiar with each other, helping on another became much easier. Lisa showed movies of the planet Earth to Spock. Some that explained Lisa's Jewish religion to him and other about aliens to show him what humans expected would be out there.

The last thing Spock needed for his ship was some type of metal. So Lisa took him to the school bus demolition derby at the local carnival so they could cut off some metal from a busted up school bus. After they collect the metal, they would be able to fix the space ship and fly off the planet earth. As they were sitting in the bleachers, Lisa began to see her parents and remembered the time of their death because she used to come to the derby every year with her father. She began to feel claustrophobic and wanted to leave but it was so crowded that she couldn't see the aisle. Then she slipped through the bleachers and Spock followed. As Lisa started running towards the exit, Spock pulled her arm and told her they needed to go to the buses first. Lisa agreed and they ran towards the demolished buses.

After they collected the amount of metal they required they returned home and Spock worked on his machine the whole night. When the morning came, Lisa went to the basement and saw Spock's clothes folded neatly, she yelled, "Spock," but no one answered. She began to think that he left without her and started crying. Then she saw Spock in the backyard hunched over his communicator. He asked Lisa if she was ready to leave but no words came out form Lisa's mouth. She could not go into space with him, she couldn't leave. He told her if she couldn't come he would have to leave without her. Spock entered his ship it turned on, it vanished in thin air and left floating diamonds that quickly faded.

A month and a half after Spock's departure, things began to get back to normal. Lisa called her principle and told her that she was ready to come back and she began to talk to her friends again. Although she sees herself in space and in Vulcan, she doesn't have any doubts of letting Spock leave on his own.