mooncalf

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That's right about where I tuned my mother out, even though she kept babbling, one hand on the steering wheel, one hand gesturing in space. That's my mom for you.

I mean, don't get me wrong, she's not a bad mom, although the way she talks down to me sometimes really sets my teeth on edge. But did she ever stop to think that maybe I liked it being quiet? That maybe I liked being alone in the house? Of course not! 
So she finds out about this 'exchange student program' that the government is doing with that freaky new lunar colony and she just flips out. Does everything behind my back, files an application, goes through three billion interviews with everyone from the school to the FB-freaking-I, and for what?

Dramatic music, please.

A cow from the moon!

Yeah, one of those weird cow-guys we were all seeing on the news about a year ago is going to come live in my house and go to my school and be my friend. Right. He'll probably be just another jock a-hole, only this one'll have horns and I won't be able to get away from him.
She could have at least told me, you know? But no, she breaks it to me less than an hour ago -- "Get in the car, Marcus, we're going to the train station! I have a surprise for you! I'll tell you on the way!"

Does she have to call me Marcus? Marc. Thanks. Just Marc, Mom. Remember? We've only been over this a million times.

Mom's shut up now, looking straight ahead, jaw kinda clenched. I think she's pissed off that I wasn't immediately thrilled with the idea, but that's what she gets for not bothering to mention it to me beforehand, huh?

So we get to the train station and it's jammed. Reporters and cops and government people everywhere. And Mom shows one of the cops her driver's license and we get hustled inside...

...and there they are. Gotta be fifty of them, at least, all about my age, horns and big floppy ears and tails, each one with a little human family clustered around them making nice and chattering.

Someone gives Mom a sign with 'KEARNEY' written on it in big letters and she holds it up, hissing at me to smile. Fat chance, Mom. And the cow-people go streaming by, glancing at our sign before they go by, and some of these guys really do look like a-holes, huge and beefy... beefy. Heh. Sorry. Bad joke. Gallows humor.

"... miss-us Kearney?"

... that is definitely not a jock a-hole. She's just a little shorter than I am, with bright red hair, and she's beaming like she just won the lottery or something. And she steps forward dragging this huge trunk behind her and sticks out her hand and says in this really strange accent, "Miss-us Kearney? I am Mee-ay, and I am to be staying with you, I think!"

Maybe this won't be so bad after all...

BACKGROUND:
Thirty years after the top secret Gorgon moonbase was abandoned, it began to broadcast. And broadcast to the world. After the initial fuss (in which the government was rather uncomfortably forced to admit that yes, we'd had semi-working bases on the moon since 1955, but nothing ever came of it, so can we please drop the subject?) there was a second fuss: the broadcasters weren't human. Oh, they looked human enough in passing, but closer examination of the fuzzy picture revealed that the residents had horns... and tails...

The resulting hysteria is better left undescribed.

Eventually, though, better pictures were taken, and the addition of big floppy ears was noted; these were not demons. These were, as amazing as it seems, cows. Humanoid cows.
No one knows how they got there. No one knows where they came from. No one knows how they survive. But Gorgon, abandoned as a bad job by the government in 1970, is now a thriving self-sufficient colony of 'mooncalves', with full access to the radio and television that Earth broadcasts every day.
Thanks to that, they speak English, vernacular English, and are more or less on top of current events and trends in America, although there are still many things that they do not quite understand.
And if you ask a mooncalf where they came from, how they got to our moon, the only answer you will receive is a small, strange smile and a sing-song "Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon..."

Two years later, a rather uneasy peace has been hammered out with Earth, and the abandoned moonbase has been signed over to the mooncalves. Slowly, carefully, emissaries from both cultures visited each other; now, for the first time, a large number of mooncalf 'civilians' are arriving on Earth, as guests, as workers... as exchange students.

SUMMARY:
A friend for my son. When Julie Kearney applied to host one of the mooncalf exchange students, that's what she expected, and she specified a male student. And a male student she was supposed to get, but a clerical error ensures that she and her son, Marc, instead get the sixteen-year-old and quite female Mie. Julie Kearney is quietly urged to accept Mie at least temporarily to avoid a diplomatic incident, and she is assured that things will be ironed out later.
Cheerfully, innocently, Mie invades their home and promptly turns Marc's life on its ear, upsetting everything he'd ever taken for granted. And eventually, whether she knows it or not, Julie Kearney gets exactly what she asked for -- a friend for her son.

CHARACTERS:
MIE TSUKIKOUSHI: Sixteen years old, headstrong, outspoken, and eager to see everything, Mie is a miniature tornado of curiosity. She never displays any signs of culture shock; the culture, however, is shocked again and again by Mie's rather odd view of the world. She's also ridiculously strong for her size.

MARC KEARNEY: Also sixteen years old, quiet and somewhat withdrawn, Marc prefers peace and quiet and privacy to interacting with other people of his own age, save for his very few friends, who are all more or less the same. In many ways Marc is a typical teenager of above-average intelligence.

MILES KEARNEY: Marc's older brother, who left a few months ago to attend college. Miles was always more outgoing and popular than his younger brother, and Marc often feels overshadowed.

JULIE KEARNEY: Marc's divorced mom. Julie has always been at a loss to understand Marc, but she does a decent job of parenting, for the most part. Sometimes, however, she screws up pretty badly.

EILAN CONCANNON: The quarterback of the junior varsity football team and quite possibly the most popular junior at Marc's school. He and Marc barely know each other, and generally have nothing to do with each other on a day-to-day basis. That's about to change. In a big way.

CHARISMA SHEPARD: The rather unfortunately-named object of Marc's very quiet affections, Charisma is a quiet, studious, and pretty girl who travels quietly on the outer fringes of the 'popular crowd' at Marc's high school. She has no idea that Marc has feelings for her. That's about to change. In a big way.

TREY DYSON: Two years older than Marc (but in his grade) Trey has had it in for Marc since Marc was eight. Fortunately, most of the time Marc is easily able to avoid the rather dimwitted Trey; but when their paths cross, the result is never pleasant.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:
Oh, I've been planning this manga for years. It has a definite beginning, and a definite end, and along the way any number of things are going to happen. Not that I'll ever get around to drawing it, but... oh, I really should. And sure, it's kind of an American ripoff of Urusei Yatsura. Another American ripoff of Urusei Yatsura. Just what the world needs, right?
Yes, these are the characters that I stole for Main Image Box Theatre, way back when. The Kearney of MIBT is Miles, for the record, not Marc.