“Aren’t you always reminding me that I’m a product of your imagination?”
“You have a point there.”
“You mean about the failures of this country’s educational system or that stuff about how if I’m weird, you have only yourself to blame?”
“Both, really,” I said.
It was frustrating to see these kids wasting this opportunity. I know I’m not the oldest or wisest entity in the cosmos, but life is short no matter what planet you’re from—way too short to waste chances to learn.
Plus—as has been proved only a couple million times—List aliens have a much better time taking advantage of undereducated people than well-educated ones. Trust me, in my alien world, the ranks of abductees, hosts, slaves, and murder victims include a lot more TV and video-game addicts than they do book readers.
I saw a group of girls gather around an iPhone to watch a little red-carpet footage from some second-rate award show.
And then I had an idea.
Because this was supposed to be an English class, I decided to make up for some of the time they’d lost and uploaded into every student’s brain a couple of my favorite human books—which I’ve of course memorized word-for-word in both text and audio formats—The Catcher in the Rye and Stranger in a Strange Land. And then, as a bonus, I gave them the entire contents of Wikipedia.
The poor sub must have thought he was getting punked. All the kids—having suddenly discovered the joy of a good book for the first time—were lining up and asking him for more things to read.
It felt good to put things somewhat back on track here, but I sensed there was a lot more fixing to do in this school, so Dana and I gathered up our books and went out into the hallway.
Chapter 28
ONE OF THE many cool things about Robert A. Heinlein’s classic Stranger in a Strange Land, which is about a guy with alien superpowers living among humans here on Earth, is this thing called “grokking.” Grok is a Martian word that literally means “to drink,” but it’s one of those words—in both the book and real life—that often means a whole lot more. When you grok something, you’re saying you get it.
Like when Dana and I stepped into the linoleum-floored corridor, I instantly grokked the fear, confusion, and hopelessness of about a hundred freshman filing, zombie-like, down the hall toward the back of the building.
“Number 5,” I whispered, and Dana nodded in agreement. I quickly made us look a little younger—I’d make an excellent plastic surgeon if I were into that kind of stuff—and we joined the end of the line.
“Where are we going?” I asked the little messy-haired kid in front of me.
“We’ve got another practice for the big musical, stupid,” he replied.
“Ah, the big musical,” said Dana. “When’s that happening again?”
“Saturday, you moron. What are you guys, foreign-exchange students?”
“Something like that,” I said, putting my hand on his neck and quickly erasing his memory of this conversation, just in case.
We exited the building and came to a silent stop on the sidewalk next to the school parking lot where, a moment later, two yellow buses, each driven by a henchbeast, screeched to a halt.
The kids wordlessly broke into two groups and climbed aboard.
“You want to do something about this?” Dana asked me.
“Not yet,” I said. “Sounds like this is another rehearsal, so I’m pretty sure they’re not in immediate peril. Number 5’s too much of a perfectionist to kill prematurely. He’s going to want the best, biggest bang he can get on Saturday.”
We broke away from the group and hid behind the rear bus. Dana slapped a small magnetic device under the bumper.
“Homing beacon,” she said, as the bus doors closed and the buses squealed away from the curb, “so we can track where they’re taking them for the practice session and hopefully see where Number 5’s intending to film Holliswood’s grand finale this weekend.”
We returned to the building, and I noticed two pregnant teachers standing silently in the courtyard, staring up at the sky. I’d never seen so many pregnant women in one town. Time to get to the bottom of this.
“How long have you been pregnant?” I asked the closer one.
“Four weeks,” she replied.
“Four weeks?” said Dana, her eyes nearly bugging out of her head. “You’re a little big for four weeks, don’t you think? Aren’t you worried?”
“No, I’m just happy,” she said like a very, very bad actress reading a very, very lame script.
Then I did something I don’t normally like to do because it makes me feel queasy on the best of days. I used my X-ray vision… and looked inside her belly.
I’d describe to you in detail what I saw, except you’d never forgive me if I did.
Chapter 29
“ALIEN SPAWN,” I explained to Dana as diplomatically as I could. “Number 5’s, by the look of them.”
“Nasty,” said Dana. “So all these pregnant women in town are actually filled with little Number 5s?”
“That’s my theory,” I said.
“That’s horrible!” said Dana, gasping.
“And I’m guessing the ‘caviar’ mailing from the television station is how it happened.”
“Which means the station is probably one of the first, if not the first, place Number 5 attacked. Let’s go have a look!”
“You may be right, Dana, but I want to check out a few things before going over there.”
“Like what? Gym class?”
“No. I have to go see somebody.”
“Who?”
“Never mind. I’ll see you back at the house, okay?”
“Who are you going to see, Daniel?” she asked, tapping her foot impatiently.
“Well…” I started to explain, but then I clapped her out of existence. It was an awkward thing to explain to anybody, let alone Dana.
Chapter 30
I PULLED THE van into the diner lot and spotted Judy Blue Eyes through the plate-glass window, shuttling a brown-rimmed coffee pot back and forth to customers along the counter.
I made my way inside, pulled my “Relax” cap down over my eyes, and took a stool across from the rotating pie display.
She had recovered well from the other night, and it would be an understatement to say she was looking pretty cute.
“Hey, you!” she said, spotting me and causing my alien heart to flop around in my chest like a fish in the bottom of a rowboat.
“Hey, J-J-,” I started to say but, fortunately, she cut off my nervous stutter with a glass of water and a menu.
“So, um, how’s it going?” I finally managed to ask.
“Good. How’s it going with you?” she asked.
“Good.”
“Want another of those grilled cheese sandwiches you liked so much—with a slice of pickle in it?”
“Sure. Great. Thanks.” I was doing well with the one-word sentences. “Look, um, Judy —”
“Yes?” she asked, batting her eyes and causing me to forget what I had meant to ask her.
“So, has anything… unusual happened since the other night?”
“Unusual? Like what?”
“Like, um, anything weird?”
“Where? Here, at the diner?”
“Yeah, or in your neighborhood, or at school.”
“My school is always weird—my parents have been homeschooling me since eighth grade. It totally stinks.”
“I’m sure they’re doing what’s best for you.”
“Yeah, completely destroying my social life is just what the doctor ordered.”
“Seriously, you never go to school?”
“Pretty much just for standardized tests. Like twice a year.”
“So when do you get out to see your friends?”
“Friends? I’m lucky to get out for piano lessons. I took this job pretty much just so I could talk to other human beings.” How ironic that she had found herself talking to a nonhuman instead, I thoug
ht. “Only problem is it’s usually old truckers, municipal employees, and police. My parents figure it’s good experience for me and a chance for me to earn some money for college.”
“I’m impressed.”
“Yeah, they seem to think I’ll get into a better school this way. And who knows? Maybe they’re right. Maybe Mulberry Avenue Academy is better than Holliswood High.”
“What’s Mulberry Avenue Academy?”
“Mulberry Avenue is the street my house is on. I was trying to make a joke, stu.”
“Stu? Um, my name’s Daniel.”
“Stu’s not just short for Stuart, stupid.”
I was unprepared for that, but I was pretty sure she was flirting.
“So you feel like it’s a good idea to tease me even with a name like you’ve got?” I said pointing at her name tag. “I mean, it seems to me if you want to go that way —”
“My real last name’s McGillicutty. My boss couldn’t spell it over the phone to the uniform supplier, so he put the order through as Judy Blue Eyes.”
“McGillicutty, huh?” I was tempted to tell her name sounded just like a substance, magillakedi, that’s excreted by a three-hundred-pound centipede-like creature from Frizia Nine and is one of the three worst-smelling compounds ever discovered… but then I thought better of it.
“So, remind me.… Did you say you wanted that sandwich, stu?”
We were staring pretty hard into each other’s eyes at this point, and I was feeling a little giddy. “Sure, a sandwich would be great.”
Chapter 31
ONE MINUTE JUDY was herself—smiling, bouncing down the length of the counter to pass my order through the kitchen window—and the next minute, the diner was almost as surreal as an alien picnic.
All at once the volume on the TV set above the cash register went from mute to ear busting. A number from that High School Musical show started to crescendo, and suddenly Judy was juggling coleslaw cups and then twirling the two-foot-long pepper mill like she was a majorette.
Then the volume went back down, and, without missing a beat, she was back leaning across the counter looking at me.
“That’s funny,” she said, putting down the mill. “You asked for pepper, right?”
“Um, yeah, sure. Listen,” I said, getting out my wallet. “I just remembered I have to walk the dog.” Even weirder than Judy’s juggling routine was the fact that Zac Efron from High School Musical was starting to look a little like Number 5 to me. Sure sign it was time to split.
“Oh, okay,” she said, looking a little surprised.
“Just promise me you’ll keep your eyes open for anything strange, okay?”
“You betcha, cutie.”
Did I mention Alien Hunter superability number 415? Yeah, I can blush so hard that Santa could probably give Rudolph a season off and have me guide his sleigh at night.
So my big giant red head and I stuttered “Th-th-thanks,” and left a nice tip on the counter.
I scanned the room for danger on my way out and noticed a few shady dudes in one of the corner booths. Their overcoat collars were turned up, their rain hats pulled down, and, though they were taking pains to hide their faces behind their menus, I got a definite glimpse of blue skin.
I quickly looked away, continued on as if nothing was wrong, and, as I passed the coffee machine, grabbed two full pots and threw the boiling-hot liquid right into their laps.
I knew it wasn’t going to do any real damage, but there’s nothing like a good old-fashioned, lawsuit-worthy, scorching-hot coffee spill to really tick someone off.
It worked like a charm.
Chapter 32
I WAS OUT the door and into the parking lot in a flash, four coffee-scalded aliens hot on my tail.
“I hate when that happens,” I said pointing at the damp, yellow stains on their poorly fitting pants. “So-o embarrassing!”
“You. Are. So. Dead,” said the biggest one. He pressed a button on a small electronic device he was holding, and the back door on a tractor-trailer parked at the rear of the lot rolled open, revealing an interstellar transport container. That could only mean one thing: something very big, very bad, and very foreign was about to appear on the scene.
An unnerving roar emanated from within, and, a moment later, an enormous space creature leaped out into the parking lot.
With the body of a six-hundred-pound lion, a giant ant’s head with wicked-sharp mouthparts, and a stinger on its tail the size of a baseball bat, the creature gave the impression that it wasn’t here to march in the annual firemen’s parade.
It let out another roar and pawed at the pavement like an angry bull, its antennae pointing at me like twin rifle barrels.
“Um, why’s it looking at me?” I asked the aliens. One of them responded with a grizzly voice.
“Every day since it was a kitten, its trainers have punished it with a stick that was coated in the scent of your pathetic Alparian species. It may have never met you personally, but, trust us, it hates your guts.”
“Um,” I said, trying to decide whether giant lions or giant ants scared me more, “you wouldn’t have any spare deodorant I could borrow, would you?”
The henchbeasts thought that was hilarious.
Chapter 33
I DON’T KNOW if you’re a fan of nature documentaries or otherwise familiar with the African savanna’s ecosystem, but the truth is that even if the lion is King of the Jungle, he’s not quite an all-powerful ruler.
The only truly supreme creature on that continent—the one creature that no other animal will go against—is the African elephant.
Weighing in at seven tons, more than twenty times the size of the largest lion, five times the size of a rhino, and with ivory-hardened tusks capable of tearing open a Jeep, there isn’t much that’s going to risk challenging the will of a full-grown bull elephant.
So I changed myself into one.
Although, in deference to my adversary’s mutant alien status, I included some special bonus features that I’ll explain shortly.
Unfortunately, my sudden shape change didn’t have the immediate effect I intended. Instead of leaping back into his cage, scared out of his wits, the beast charged me at an alarming rate of speed, leaping almost straight up into the air so that he could land on my back and dig his claws, jaws, and poison stinger into my unprotected flesh.
I quickly jumped sideways—setting off a few car alarms as I landed—turned around, dropped to my front knees, and raised my big elephant butt at the pouncing alien beast.
Now, before you interpret this move as a sign of submission, think again: What trumps an ant… besides a giant sneaker?
A spider. Ant-lion versus elephant-spider!
I raised my tail, exposing a massive set of spinnerets, and fired a tangle of web that would have impressed even Peter Parker.
The ant-lion fell to the pavement with a thud, bound up like a mummy. It growled at me in rage, wriggling helplessly in its silken straitjacket.
I knew I didn’t have much time before the aliens regained their wits and decided to attack me themselves, so I quickly charged up to the ant-lion, knelt down, and probed through the sticky threads with my trunk to find the back of his armored head.
Then I undertook one of the more challenging telepathic adjustments I’d ever undertaken.
“I hope this works,” I said, ripping the threads from its struggling body.
Fortunately, it did—the reprogrammed ant-lion quickly leaped to its feet, gave me a startled stare through his bulging bug eyes, and charged after the henchbeasts.
“Yeah,” I yelled in booming elephant voice as they ran away into the woods. “You know that memory he had of my scent on his trainer’s stick? Well, I kind of changed it to a memory of your scent, you ugly bugglies!”
But they were already too far gone to hear me. I could hear trees falling and their screams fading in the distance.
I morphed back into my usual handsome self just as Judy tentatively popped up her
head from behind our Dodge minivan. Instead of Judy Blue Eyes, though, it was more like Judy Wide Eyes.
“Bet you didn’t know I could do that, huh?” I said, kind of embarrassed.
“Yeah… No…” stammered Judy. “What was… ? Who were… ? Hey, why are we outside? Are you leaving?”
Watching her face was like seeing lights get shut off inside a building. I had no idea how, but Number 5 had clearly done something to her short-term memory. And if that was the case… well, this guy was getting more worrisome by the minute.
“Yeah, I better run, Judy,” I said. “Stay out of trouble, okay?”
“Um, yeah,” she said, waving like a Disney theme-park character as she walked, oblivious, back toward the restaurant. “Come back and see us real soon.”
Chapter 34
I HOPPED BACK in the van but didn’t get very far. Main Street was basically a two-mile-long parking lot. People were just sitting in their cars, staring into the bumper of the automobile in front of theirs, not the least bit worried about the plume of black smoke that was billowing farther up the road.
I turned the van into a levitating skateboard—like the one in that Back to the Future movie—and offered the young man in the Ford Focus behind me the sort of nod I imagined Danny Way would give before undertaking one of his record-setting jumps. Then I put my helmet on, jumped on the board, and zipped down the sidewalk to see what was going on.
A house was on fire—and in the most stunning show of community cooperation I’d ever seen in the U.S. of A.—neighbors and passersby had formed a bucket brigade to the house, filling and passing buckets, hand over hand, to douse the flames. The place was a total loss, but it looked like their efforts would at least keep the inferno from spreading to any other properties.
“Where’s the fire department?” I asked a businessman standing in the line, sweating in his charcoal suit.
“Nobody’s seen them in a month.”