The first thing I noticed about Grandma was her hands. I know, strange, right? Her hands used to look like regular old people’s hands. Wrinkly. Full of knobs like a turtle’s shell. Her wedding ring would never make it over that knuckle, no way.

When Grandma reached across the picnic table to grab the salt, the fingers that curled around the shaker were crazy long and thin and didn’t seem jointed. Only hair was supposed to grow. Not fingers. Fingers didn’t curl like earthworms. They didn’t grow as long as pitchfork tines. I couldn’t take my eyes off them.

“Staring’s rude,” she said.

I gulped and elbowed Mom.

“What?” Mom asked, totally missing my covert intentions.

I glanced at Grandma before answering. Grandma’s eyes were locked on me, so I said, “Nothing, Mom,” and focused on pulling the white meat off my fried chicken. The crack of bone stopped me cold. Grandma had a leg in her mouth and had chomped it in half. The sharp, splintered bone cut her lip. With one of those pitchfork curlicue fingers, she dabbed at the blood.

“Oh my…that was clumsy. Lucy, will you get me a knife? These chicken bones are tougher than I expected.”

I got shakily to my feet. Mom hadn’t seen because she was busy breaking up a food fight. I yanked her shirt to get her attention, but she was wrestling the mustard from my sibling who shall not be named. What could I do but get the knife? I brought back a roll of paper towels as well. For the blood.

Grandma arched a hoary eyebrow at the towels, swiped the knife, and began stabbing the leg bone. Of course, it just rolled all over when she tried to stab it, which meant Grandma stabbed through the paper plate, into the wood of the picnic table. Mom would not be pleased when she saw the divots. But she didn’t know because she’d taken Charlotte for a “talk” inside the house.

“Lucy dear,” Grandma leaned across the table, and I swear her neck elongated, drawing her face so close I could smell chicken grease and blood.

I held my breath best I could. “Yes, Grandma?”

“You’ll not be seeing me and Gramps around for a while. It’s a secret I’m telling only you. You look like you’re the oldest. I can trust you. Besides, you caught me…red-handed hee hee.”

A fly buzzed by, and Grandma’s fingers shot out elastically and tweezed a wing. She daintily put the fly in her mouth and swallowed. Like she had just popped a chocolate.

She smiled wickedly. “You keep the secret, you hear? Your mom’s going to think we’re having a ‘disagreement.’ I’m off to pick a fight with her so it feels like regular family feuding, but you and I know there’s more to it. Ten-four Lucy, my pretty little vault? If you tell your mom anything you saw here, I’m going to be very, very angry with you.”

Grandma went back to gnawing on the ravaged chicken bone. “Now, help me get this here argument rolling. Everyone’s got a hot button. I’ll need your mom’s political affiliation.”

“But Grandma, you already know—“

“Your grandma knew. I don’t.”

Truth: Lucy’s grandparents are estranged from her family. She’s pretty sure they hate her. No matter how sweet and understanding we may be, sometimes conflict is unavoidable. Lucy is a soft-spoken, kind, and thoughtful student. I am delighted to have her in my class. Her mom is a dear friend, and if you spent even five minutes with either Lucy or her mom, you’d be in a ray of sunshine. Charlotte is lovely, too, but I needed a troublemaker. Artistic license! Sorry, Charlotte. Oh, and any time we have a falling out, we can tell ourselves the offended party has clearly been possessed by an alien.