The Lost Marble

       'Hey, Earthling, you lost something?'
       Blood rushed to my ears making them burn. I was a stranger here and they teased me. My name was Earling, but they all called me Earthling because I was the only one born on the Earth. The rest of my class, all twenty-four of them, were born on the Moon. The boys had silly names like Lunemark, Lunis and Luneo, and the girls were called Selena, Lune or Lune-Marie. I didn't really know anybody and just called them all ‘lunatics'—not to their faces, of course.
       'No,' I said angrily. 'I didn't lose anything.'
       There was a chorus of laughter in my helmet. Of course, we were all sharing the same radio frequency and the whole class heard us.
       'Make sure you don't lose yourself, Earthling!'
       'He'll go crying for his mommy!'
       'Better go back where you came from!'
       I bit my lip and clenched my fists in thick awkward gloves. This taunting would never stop.
       'Quiet, everybody!' Miss Lewis shouted over the clamor. 'Earling, Luke, hurry up!'
       I looked up and saw a figure in silvery spacesuit. So this must have been Luke. He pushed a white button on the panel on his forearm and pointed to mine. I hesitated, but then pushed the white button, too. He came up very close and touched his helmet to mine.
       'We turned the radio off,' he said. His voice was muffled. 'They can't hear us now. But the sound can go through the helmets so we can talk privately. What did you lose?'
       I didn't answer. It would sound stupid for I had lost a marble. Not just any marble, but my favorite one—bluish-white, with sparkling dots—which looked very much like the Earth hanging in the black Moon's sky.
       The boy kept looking at me and I could see his eyes behind the glass of his helmet.
       'I lost a marble,' I said reluctantly, expecting a whoop of laughter and a snide remark like 'It's good you haven't lost all your marbles!'
       But the boy said nothing and squatted down instead. He rummaged in the dust for a while, then got up and pressed his helmet against mine.
       'Did you lose it here?'
       'Yeah. I wanted to put it back in my pouch and dropped it.' I blushed again. I was very clumsy in a spacesuit.
       He squinted at the thick layer of dust. It was stomped by many feet.
       'I'm afraid it's gone,' he said. 'Let's go catch up with the others.'
       I sighed and followed him around the bend. The beaten path suddenly forked. We could see nobody either to the left or to the right—only blinding glares and black shadows. He pointed to the white button and I turned my radio on. Hissing and cracking filled my ears.
       'Miss-ssss Le-eeewis-sss!' Luke called out. The words sounded blurred. 'Whe-eere a-rrre you-ooo?'
       'Hssss... Luke... shhh-archhhh... you... sss-tsst...'
       I froze in panic.
       We are lost! They can't hear us and we don't know which way to go! We will run out of air and die!
       I whirled around in mad fear, gasping for breath, feeling an urge to run, but not knowing where to go.
       Luke put a hand on my shoulder and turned me around. We were standing face to face, our helmets touching.
       'It's a solar flare,' he said calmly. 'It disrupts radio communication. We should go back to the place where we had stopped to rest. That's where they'll be looking for us first of all.'
       The grip of mad fear loosened and I could breathe again. I trudged behind Luke to the place where I had lost my marble. Luke took out an inflatable mat and rolled it out in the shade of a huge boulder.
       'Better to stay out of the sun now,' he said when we sat down. 'Too much radiation.'
       But on the Moon as soon as you get in the shade, it becomes freezing cold. Especially if one is drenched with sweat—mostly from fear, but also from staying in the sun.
       I shivered.
       Luke showed me his forearm panel and pressed a red button.
       'The automatic temperature control would have kicked in in a couple of minutes, but this is faster,' he said. 'You can give voice commands, too. Buttons are used in case the person inside is unconscious.'
       He smiled good-naturedly.
       'Did you get scared?'
       I nodded silently. His grin became wider.
       'Don't worry,' Luke said. 'They'll find us. It'll be okay.'
       I awkwardly shifted on the mat kicking up a fountain of dust. Something shiny rolled out into the sun.
       'Hey, is this your marble?' Luke said picking up the glass ball. 'We've found it! Here you are.'
       'Thanks.' I took it from his palm and smiled.
       I think I have found a lot more than the lost marble!
      
      
перевод на русский - http://www.proza.ru/2010/12/09/231