Udo scowled, then snorted in Kopano’s direction. “You see? Noth—” His father’s face suddenly contorted in anguish. Udo clutched at his chest, feet kicking out in front of him in spasms. His eyes went wide in panic. “My insides!” he screamed. “My insides are boiling!”

Kopano’s mother screamed.

Kopano and his brothers all rushed to their father’s side. Their uncle took a frightened step back. Kopano grabbed his father’s arm.

“Father, I’m sorry! I don’t know what—”

His father slapped him on the side of the head and grinned. Just like that, he was miraculously recovered and already turning back to the television. A practical joke.

“You stupid boy, I’m fine. Or perhaps my alien powers are just greater than yours, hmm?” He waved Kopano away. “Go on. See to your mother. You scared her bad.”

Kopano slunk away. Had it really all been a dream? What would he have done with Legacies, anyway? A boy from Lagos rushing off to save the world? Even Nollywood didn’t make movies with premises so far-fetched.

Little Dubem clasped his hand.

“I believe you, Kopano,” his youngest brother whispered. “You will show them all.”

At least, for a few days after his embarrassing announcement, Kopano’s family was too glued to the news to mock him. But then the invasion ended, suddenly and brutally, with the nations of Earth coming together to simultaneously attack every Mogadorian warship. Meanwhile, the Garde, the ones who had invaded Kopano’s dreams and promised him bigger things than Lagos, went to the Mogadorians’ secret base in West Virginia and killed Setrákus Ra. Kopano imagined being there, fighting alongside the Garde, and melting Setrákus Ra with his fire-breath.

Fire-breath, Kopano had decided, would be his Legacy.

When the news broke that Earth was saved, they celebrated in the streets. His father hugged him close as they danced down the road, fireworks going off overhead. Kopano couldn’t remember the last time Udo had hugged him like that. Not since he was a boy.

But the next day, it started.

Alien son, go down to the market before school and pick up the items I am thinking about right now! Use your telepathy!

Alien son, did you finish your homework?

Alien son, use your telekinesis to get me a beer, eh?

Kopano grinned through it all, but inside he seethed. His unemployed father had nothing better to do than sit home all day and think up ways to humiliate him.

Worse still, his bigmouthed brother, Obi, had spread the word around school. Soon, Kopano’s classmates were teasing him, too. A stall in the marketplace had started selling rubber Mogadorian masks, hideous gray things with empty black eyes and tiny yellow teeth. A group of his older classmates chased Kopano through the halls wearing these masks and, when they caught him, they used rolls of duct tape to bind him to one of the football goals. They took turns kicking balls at him.

Until one day, when Kopano stopped a football in midair. When that happened, they all ran away screaming.