Upbeats

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Robyn hung around. She’d go with him to the hospital and she’d make sure he got home alright.

  I slipped away and returned to the others. The ship was still standing there, looking completely out of place. Angela was talking to one of her inferiors.

  "I think it’s about time we turned in," I announced to my friends. "We’ve had a big night. We could use an hour or two of sleep. We’ve still got to go to school, tomorrow."

  Brooke groaned. "You think we could just skip it?"

  "Then they’re going to connect this to us. No, we’ll have to grin and bear it," I said.

  "Okay, but I will not like it," Ned said, stubbornly.

  "You don’t like school normally," I pointed out.

  "Yeah . . . I have to admit, though, last week I was worrying about my reputation in detention, now the biggest thing I’m worried about is if someone’s going to figure out who I really am after this whole stunt," Ned shook his head. "What is my life coming to?"

  Angela walked up to us. She smiled. "Well, I’ll be off now. Thanks . . . um . . ."

  "Upbeats," I said. "It’s our name."

  "Cool," Angela said, approvingly. She turned to walk back up the ramp when the dinosaur officer with the weedy voice, walked up to Angela, sheepishly.

  "Um, Boss?" he said, guiltily.

  "Yes, Momix?" she said, tolerantly.

  Momix hung his head in shame. "Uh . . . he’s escaped."

  "Did you close the cage door?" Angela asked, calmly.

  "Yes, boss," Momix replied, like a good little boy.

  "Did you lock the cage door?"

  "Ooh . . . boss?"

  Angela slapped her forehead and slowly slid her hand down her face, which was not a happy one. "Did you at least close or lock the outer hatch?"

  Momix held his tongue for a moment. "Boss?" he said eventually, quietly, shamefully.

  Angela was silently fuming but she kept her composure. "Momix, I swear . . . I don’t know how you got out the academy with an IQ like yours."

  Momix slinked back into the ship.

  Angela sighed, irritably. She turned around to us. "Upbeats, I’m sorry to say this but you might have to deal with this Gemini chap a bit longer."

  Ned’s shoulders sagged. "Seriously? Please tell me you’re a practical joker."

  "I apologize," Angela said, sincerely. "Momix is new and a little . . . dim."

  It felt like the bullet that barely missed Smithy had slammed into my chest. We’d won . . . but we were really defeated. We had done so much and now . . . this.

  "Can I ask a huge favour of you Upbeats?"

  "Shoot," Brooke said.

  "Will you continue to defend this planet? To be its official protectors, till such a time as it no longer needs fortification?"

  I didn’t have to think. This was my planet. We’d risked so much already. I wasn’t going to let that be forgotten.

  "We’d be honoured to," I said, earnestly.

  "Then I declare you the new defenders of Planet Terra: commonly referred to as Earth."

  Angela turned and started walking away. She paused for a moment and looked over her shoulder at us. She smiled and winked. "I trust you."

  "Hey, wait a minute," Ned called. "Why can’t you just send out a search party made up of your officers and find him?"

  "Because we can’t risk someone seeing us," she replied.

  "Why?"

  "It’s a universal law. Earth, as a whole, must not find out about aliens for as long as possible."

  "Who made a law like that?" Brooke asked, probably already disliking the person who declared the law.

  "He had his reasons. He’s dead now but he had his reasons. And he was right. Earth must not know about aliens for as long as possible. Someday you’ll understand why. But for now, Adios, Totsiens, Bon Voyage, See ya, Goodbye."

  She left. The ship blasted off. I could hear a sound like exploding thunder as it left our atmosphere.

  And we were left standing there in the dark, the rain pouring down, soaking our clothes and washing away some of the charcoal in my hair.

  It was so late, it was early. Soon the sun would rise.

  I looked at my team, the ones that were left, the ones who hadn’t been driven off to hospital or anything.

  Everyone was just about falling asleep on their feet.

  "Let’s go home," I said, wearily.

  Epilogue

  We were all at school the next day. Even Smithy. He had his upper right arm in a bandage but besides that, he was his usual quiet but content self.

  "That was so cool," Ned was saying. We were in the cafeteria, lunchtime. Kids chatted, excitedly, all around us. They were going on about their "incredible" weekends. They had no idea that while they were out having fun, we were saving them from destruction.

  "I wonder why the Monmia talk so funny," Brooke said.

  "Yeah . . . maybe they just don’t really know English," I said. "Oh, and, Robyn? Thanks for the charcoal suggestion. That stuff didn’t come out that easily."

  "Sorry . . . I was trying to work out a better solution for that one. Maybe we can just get you a small wig. That’ll work."

  "Our hero costumes could use a little work," Ned agreed. "I was thinking about inflatable boots, you know, for those hard landings . . ."

  Brooke didn’t waste any time in whacking Ned, playfully, on the arm.

  "You do realize you can hit me harder than that, right?" Ned said.

  Brooke brought back her fist and punched Ned as hard as she could. Ned grinned, crazily. "Told you."

  (If Brooke had hit any of us, who do not have invincibility, it would have left a bruise. A bad bruise.)

  "I wonder how we’re ever going to keep this up," I said, quietly, as if I were talking to the mystery meat sitting on the tray in front of me.

  "Keep what up?" a cheery voice enquired.

  Our lively conversation and playful banter stopped dead. We pretended not to have been talking at all.

  Sabrina Ride, a girl who was relatively new to Rockwell, but had already been signed up to write for the school’s paper, slapped her tray down and took a seat.

  "Nothing," I said. "I was just talking about my grades."

  Sabrina narrowed her eyes and adjusted her glasses. "You always get straight A’s," she pointed out.

  "Well, yeah, but . . ." I closed my eyes and shook my head.

  So this is how all those heroes feel when they’re not in costume. They’re not invincible, not amazing, just ordinary people, trying to cover everything up.

  It’s like two people exist. You’re trying to be one, but you have to be the other as well. And when you’re one, you have to cover up for the other.

  "Nothing," I said. "Just . . . nothing."

  Sabrina shrugged and brushed a lock of her wavy brown hair out of her face. "Hey, did you guys hear about that fire Downtown? A whole warehouse burned to the ground. Some people say they saw a group of kids running from the scene."

  Brooke looked away. Robyn stared at her food. Smithy shuffled, uncomfortably, in his chair. I tried to think, fast, of what I could say.

  I looked across from me and saw a grin creeping up on Ned’s face.

  "Ned, don’t . . ." I started but he ignored me.

  "Yeah, I started that fire. I’ll let you in on a little secret. Keep it between you and me," Ned lowered his voice. "You see, there was this evil alien overlord who was going to pump poisonous, lethal noxious gas into Earth’s atmosphere and only I and a few others who I will not name, knew it. So I made up a disguise, snuck out last night when everyone else was asleep and set his evil lair alight. Stopped him right in his tracks. Now the world is safe . . . for now . . ."

  We all stared at Ned. Even the ones of us who knew what he was talking about, more or less.

  "Why else do you think you’re alive right now?" Ned’s eyebrows danced.

  I could have slapped Ned, for real, right there and then.

&nbsp
; "Ned . . ." I hissed, horrified.

  I was terrified of how Sabrina would take it. But Sabrina stood up and picked up her tray to take her leave. "I should have listened when they told me not to ever get information for a story from you, Ned Detwiler."

  Ned grinned and leaned back in his chair, far too satisfied with himself. Sabrina left to find some "sane" kids to hang out with.

  "One thing I believe in: if you want to hide something, put it out in plain sight," he said. "People will trip right over it and never figure out what it is."

  I should have been mad.

  But I just found myself laughing.

  And soon we were all laughing.

  We’d risked our lives.

  We’d come out on top.

  Sure, Gemini had escaped and was still out there, plotting his next evil plan.

  But we could at least carry on trying to put a stop to it.

  We’ll stop him, one day. That much I know for sure.

  But, for the time being, people could carry on with their ordinary lives and only see us as average kids. I didn’t mind.

  Because . . . I am normal. For all you know, I’m just going to be Luke Rosenhart: Straight A student, skate-boarder, lover of classic Rock & Roll, big brother, obedient son.

  I’m just your average, ordinary, everyday kid . . . who just happens to have powers.

  Observer Scene

  You know how at the end of movies or comics, there’s always a little scene where you get to see something the heroes don’t? Like what the bad guy is planning next?

  I call it Observer scenes.

  I will not tell you who I am, how old I am or where I come from.

  All you need to know is that what I say is true.

  I don’t get involved. I refuse to. I am merely an observer.

  I admit, though, I did help a little bit in this story.

  I placed the bees in the reptile enclosure to get the kids to run into the hippo habitat. I couldn’t imagine anyone just going there for fun.

  I even rigged the votes for the trip to the zoo. Everyone wanted the Aquarium. But System didn’t land there, he landed in the zoo.

  But besides that, I only watched as the Upbeats discovered who they were and as they stopped Gemini.

  I watched as the Intergalactic Police finally arrived.

  I made sure they did.

  I watched as the warehouse burned to the ground.

  I watched, the next day, in between classes, as Robyn pulled Smithy aside in the corridor.

  "Smithy, just something I wanted to quickly ask you . . ." Robyn started, shyly.

  He shrugged. "Shoot."

  Robyn chewed her lip for a moment, quietly debating the matter in her head. "Do you know Gemini?" she blurted. "I mean, it’s not that I’m accusing you of anything but . . ."

  "But you just want to know," Smithy finished. He sighed and looked past Robyn, into the distance. I ducked, so he couldn’t see me. Then he nodded. "Don’t worry, I get it. And, no. I don’t know him. I want to find out why he looks so much like me as much as you do. It could be a total coincidence, you do realize. I mean, he’s from another planet, galaxies away."

  Robyn nodded. "Yeah, I guess so. I just wanted to know. It had been bugging me."

  "No problem."

  I watched as Gemini escaped . . .

  He ran to his apartment. He didn’t know who the kids were. He had a suspicion they were human, from the way they sounded but, then again, they may only be part human.

  He was angry. But he wasn’t about to rage around like a madman. He was older than that. Far too professional.

  He’d just start again. There were thousands of potential bidders out there that wanted to destroy humans. The Monmia had gotten in first but he could just as easily find someone else.

  He just wanted to know who those kids were. Maybe they were working for the Intergalactic Police.

  He wouldn’t put it past them.

  If they were human kids then they would give themselves away, sooner or later.

  In his experience, human kids weren’t all that intelligent . . .

  About the Author

  Erin Byrne is a 15-year-old home-school student in Australia. She wrote Upbeats when she was 14 and submitted it in a national competition in 2012 for writers under 35. She has drafted a few more adventures of the Upbeats and other similar novels which she also intends to publish. Her inspiration comes mainly from reading books (such as Famous Five, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Animorphs, S.T.O.R.M., Anne of Green Gables), and watching science fiction and comedy shows. She also enjoys playing acoustic guitar, exploring the woods around her house, and DSLR photography.

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