That was when Peter decided to complicate things with a new problem.
"What are you going to do about this yourself?" he asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, since one of the things on Broxholm's shopping list is the best kid in the class, if we can't unmask him you've got a good chance of being picked yourself."
That was the best laugh I'd had in days. "You're nuts," I said. "There's no way I could be picked for top kid in the class!"
"There is too. It all depends on how he's making his choice. The way I see it, there are four of us that might be considered best in the class—Stacy, Michael, you, and me."
"You're nuts," I said again.
"Listen to me! Stacy and Michael are your basic perfect students. But they just did a good job of taking themselves out of the running—though to tell you the truth, I don't think Broxholm would have chosen either of them, anyway. They're real bright, but they don't think that much. They believe everything the teacher tells them. I'm sure Broxholm is bright enough to know that doesn't make a great student."
He paused. "Then there's me," he said. "I'm real bright. But I'm not motivated. And I'm not very social. You know how it goes: 'Peter is a good student, but he's not very well rounded.' I hear it every year. That leaves you, Susan. You get good grades. You get along with everyone. You're in all kinds of activities. Let's face it, you may not be the best in any one thing, but when you look at everything together, you make a pretty good pick for top of the class."
I stared at him in horror. "You're not kidding, are you?"
He shook his head.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - What Can Duncan Dougal Do?
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I had been worried that Broxholm might want me for one of his "average" slots. It never even crossed my mind that I could be considered the top student in the class.
"Peter, what am I going to do?" I wailed.
Peter shrugged his skinny shoulders. "Don't worry," he said. "I've got a plan."
I thought he meant the camera. He didn't, but I didn't know that then. The plan he actually meant was so weird I never would have thought of it.
I took a deep breath and tried to settle down. "I'm glad you mentioned that," I said, referring to the camera. "I think I've figured out the best time for me to get back into Broxholm's house."
"You mean us," said Peter.
I shook my head. "I mean me," I said. "I'm going
to do it tomorrow morning, during my music lesson time. That way Mr. Smith won't suspect anything when I leave the room. I figure if I use my bike, I can make it to his house and back before I'm really missed. I'll get in trouble later, but at least I'll have the proof we need."
"You're not going alone," said Peter.
"Yes, I am," I said. "If we both take off, it's going to look suspicious—especially considering the amount of time we've spent together lately. Maybe suspicious enough that Broxholm will pretend he's sick, just so he can check up on us. We don't want him walking in on us while we're taking the photos. I doubt we could manage to sneak out of his house without getting caught a second time—especially if he's actually looking for us."
"Then I should go instead," said Peter. "You might not have enough time. I'll just skip school altogether."
"Now, how can you do that?" I asked.
Peter sighed. "I keep trying to tell you, it doesn't make any difference what I do. As long as I don't get in trouble with the law, no one cares."
"Peter, that's not a very nice way to talk about your parents," I said.
"I don't have parents," he snapped. "I've got a parent. Period. And he doesn't care what I do, as long as I don't get in trouble."
82
I felt stupid. Here I had known this kid for six years, and I didn't even know he only had one parent.
"All right," I said. "We'll go together."
"Why don't I just go alone?" said Peter.
I shook my head. "I got this whole thing started. It's my job." 1
Actually, I wasn't really feeling all that noble. I wanted to see Ms. Schwartz again—to make sure she was OK, and also to get some advice.
Peter shrugged. "You're the one who's going to land in hot water. If that's the way you want to do it^ it's OK with me."
Then it was time to go back inside. Even though the major weirdness was over for the day, you could sense a kind of nervous energy in the classroom. The other kids didn't really believe the rumors about Mr. Smith being an alien—at least not yet. But after the little show Stacy and Mike had put on, they were starting to take things pretty seriously.
It would have been funny, if it wasn't so scary.
The next morning I rode my bike to school, carrying my piccolo and camera in my backpack. As I was putting the lock on my front wheel, Duncan Dougal came sidling up to me and said, "If you and Peter are pulling some kind of joke on me, I'm going to turn you into peanut butter."
83
Strange as it may seem, Duncan's threat made me feel better. At least I knew there were some things in the world that I could still count on.
"It's no joke, Duncan," I said, drawing a cross over my heart with my fingers.
He looked at me suspiciously. Then he nodded. "OK," he said. "Now, what are we going to do about it?"
Now that was something I hadn't expected: an offer of help from Duncan Dougal. Think quick, I told myself. This may not happen again for another ten years.
I looked at Duncan. "How would you feel about skipping school today?" I asked.
He grinned, showing the big gap between his front teeth. "I love skipping school," he said.
He wasn't telling me something I didn't know. One of the things that made it possible to survive having Duncan in our class was the fact that he was out of school so often. We all knew his older brother wrote his excuses for him. But none of us were about to tell; we weren't crazy enough to do something that would put Duncan in our classroom any more often than necessary.
Besides, if one of us told and Duncan found out who did it, he would massacre that person.
But it might be useful to have him along—if I could be sure of one other thing. "Can you go someplace with Peter without picking on him?" I asked.
"Sure," said Duncan. "I like Peter."
I looked at him. To my astonishment, he looked like he really meant it.
I shook my head. What can you say to someone like that?
"All right," I said. "You go do whatever it is you do when you skip school. I'm going to sneak out of the building at quarter after nine. I want you to meet me at the corner of Pine and Parker. You'll need a bike."
I thought about telling him not to steal it, but decided that might seem too insulting.
Duncan nodded his head. "Where are we going?" he asked.
I looked him right in the eye and said, "Peter and I are going to break into Mr. Smith's house and take pictures of the force field where he's holding Ms. Schwartz prisoner. I want you to stand outside and be our lookout, in case Mr. Smith gets wise and comes back to stop us."
I hesitated, then added, "I hope you won't mind facing an alien death ray."
I suppose that was a rotten thing to say. But the look on Duncan's face made it worth it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN - Hookey for Three
I was so nervous that I didn't even look at Mr. Smith when it was time to leave for my lesson.
Forgive me, Mr. Bamwick, I thought as I headed away from his room, toward the side door.
Peeking out to make sure there was no one around, I sprinted to my bike, unlocked it, and headed out of the schoolyard as fast as I could.
Duncan was waiting at the corner of Pine and Parker, sitting on a blue five-speed.
"Follow me!" I said and kept riding for the edge of town.
I checked my watch. It had been twelve minutes since I left the class. If I could make it back just as fast, that would give me sixteen minutes to take the pictures.
Peter was waiting in front of the hedge at Broxh
olm's house. I could see his smile quickly turn
to a frown when he saw who was with me. His pale face turned even paler as we drew up.
"What's he doing here?" demanded Peter.
I was impressed. It took a lot of nerve for Peter to say that in front of Duncan.
To my surprise, it was Duncan who tried to make peace. "I just came to help," he said. He did say it kind of belligerently, but he was holding up his hands with the palms out to show that he meant peace.
"He's going to be our lookout," I added, hoping that Peter would see the wisdom of this.
He hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "OK," he said grudgingly. "I guess you can stay."
Duncan looked as pleased as a naughty puppy who's just been let back into the house. "What do you want me to do?" he asked.
"Stand right here," I said, indicating a spot just inside the hedge where he could have a good view of the sidewalk. "If you see Mr. Smith coming, run up on the porch and pound on the door to give us a warning. Then run for your life!"
Duncan nodded seriously and took his place. I looked at Peter. He gave me a nod, and we headed for the back of the house.
To my relief, the broken lock was still where Peter had jammed it back in place after our last adventure here. I had figured that as a temporary
87
tenant, Broxholm probably wouldn't keep that close an eye on things that needed repair around the place. It was nice to find out I had been right.
We opened the door, and headed back into the alien's lair.
I felt a little more at ease this time. After all, we could be pretty sure that Broxholm would stay at school. We knew exactly where we were going. And we had a lookout to keep us from being surprised.
How could we go wrong?
The answer to that question was even worse than I expected.
For the first few minutes everything went as smooth as could be. We made it out of the cellar and into the attic with time to spare.
Nothing had changed. The column of blue light was still there. And poor Ms. Schwartz was still trapped right in the middle of it.
I rushed over to it and placed my hands against the force field. Almost instantly I could hear Ms. Schwartz's voice in my head. Hello, Susan. What are you doing her el
We came to take some pictures of you, so that we can prove what's going on, I thought back at her.
Her reply scared me. Weren't you just here a few minutes agoI she asked. She sounded confused.
I bit my lip. Was she all right?
Of course, since the thought was about her, Ms. Schwartz picked it up.
I'm not sure, she responded. It's getting so it's very hard to think in here. She paused for a moment, then asked, What day is this!
It's Tuesday, I thought. Tuesday, the twenty - fourth of May.
Her reaction almost knocked me over. You must do something! she thought desperately. It's only two days until Br ox holm is planning his pickup. Susan, you have to do something!
I.know, I know! I replied. Her fear was coming through as clearly as her thoughts, and it was making me afraid, too.
Our conversation was interrupted by Peter. "Susan, we can't just stand here and chat. We've got to get these pictures taken!"
He was right of course. Hang on, Ms. Schwartz, I thought. We'll get you out of there somehow!
Peter had already started flashing.
"That's good," he said. "Let me get a couple more of you standing next to her. Then move away from the force field so I can get some of Ms. Schwartz by herself."
I was glad Peter was there. I might have gotten so wound up talking to Ms. Schwartz that I wouldn't have taken the pictures in time to get
back to school. But he was working fast. In a few minutes he had used up most of the roll, taking some pictures with flashes, some without, working from all different angles. I helped, and we did everything we could think of to make sure we got at least one good shot.
We were just trying to figure out the last angle when we heard a terrible scream from downstairs.
"Ahhhhhh! Ahhhh ahhhhhh ahhhhh!"
I couldn't make much sense of the words. But I recognized the voice. It belonged to Duncan Dougal.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN - Duncan's Disaster
Peter looked at me. I looked at him. I wondered if he was as terrified as he looked. I wondered if I looked as terrified as I felt.
''What's he doing in here?" I whispered.
"And what's happening to him?" hissed Peter.
And what are we going to do about itl I thought.
We hesitated for only a second and then began to creep down the stairwell.
Duncan was still screaming.
We had left the door to the attic open, in case we needed to make a quick getaway. Poking my head around the edge, I looked in the direction of the screams. They were coming from the room where Mr. Smith sat to take off his mask every night.
I reached for Peter's hand. "What should we do?" I mouthed to him.
He pointed down the hall and started off with me following close behind.
After a couple of steps, we dropped to our bellies and slid up to the door and peeked around the edge.
I couldn't believe it—Duncan was all alone. He was standing in front of the "mirror," screaming for all he was worth.
I can't say that I blamed him—the communicator was on, and Duncan was looking into the bridge of Broxholm's starship. And one of those hideous aliens from the ship was looking back at him, talking to him in that language of growls and shrieks.
I took a deep breath and slithered into the room, crawling across the floor as fast as I could move. I scooted right under the table and hit the switch I had seen Broxholm use to turn the set off.
It made a crackling noise and then fell silent. Duncan stopped screaming.
"You idiot!" yelled Peter, jumping into the room. "What are you doing in here?"
"I got bored," sniveled Duncan.
Talk about a short attention span. He couldn't have been out there more than five or ten minutes.
"And I wanted to see if you were telling the truth or not," he continued. "So I went around the house and came in through the cellar. This was the only room with anything in it, so I came in. When I touched the switch, that—that—that thing showed up and started growling at me."
Duncan was blubbering now, with big tears cutting clean paths down his dirty face.
He turned to me and said, "Is that what Mr. Smith really looks like?"
I nodded my head.
Duncan's eyes rolled back in his head—and he fainted.
By the time we got him on his feet and out of the house, I only had ten minutes to get back to school.
"Maybe I shouldn't go back," I said.
Peter shook his head. "You have to," he said. "We can't afford to be more suspicious than we already are. Anyway, I don't think the aliens actually saw you—at least not your face. You stayed down low enough."
"What about me?" blubbered Duncan. "What about me?"
Peter hesitated. "You'll have to hide out at my house," he said. "It's the last place anyone would think to look for you. If you stay there, you may be safe. Get going, Susan; you've got to get back to school as soon as possible. Don't worry about the pictures; I'll take care of that. Just move!"
I hopped on my bike and headed for school. By riding extra hard I got there just about the time my lesson was supposed to be ending. But I was all hot and sweaty when I sneaked back in. Even worse, I ran into Mr. Bamwick the moment I walked through the door.
He was furious."Susan, where have you been?" he shouted. "I've spent the last forty minutes waiting for you. We've got a concert in two days, and my star soloist can't even show up for her lesson!"
I did the only thing I could think of: I started to cry. It wasn't hard to do, since I was on the edge of tears, anyway.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Bamwick," I sobbed. "I'm just so frightened I couldn't come to my lesson."
Wqw! So far so good. I was actually
managing to tell him something that was pretty close to the truth.
But then I felt bad, because Mr. Bamwick, who really is a good guy, got upset about scaring me and started apologizing for putting me under so much pressure.
In the end it worked out better than I could have imagined. Mr. Bamwick went to Mr. Smith and explained that there had been a problem with my lesson, and since we had this important concert coming up, would it be possible for him to keep me for a little while longer, and so on.
It was great! I had a real excuse, and I even got to work on my solo.
Back in class things were pretty quiet, until just before the end of the day when Mike Foran started throwing spitballs at Stacy. I wondered if the two of them weren't actually enjoying themselves. After all, they had been so well behaved for the last several years that maybe this was the perfect chance for them to let off a little steam.
But it wasn't Stacy and Michael who were asked to stay after school that day.
No, that honor was reserved for yours truly. I was sitting at my desk, thinking that maybe we had actually gotten away with our litle photo session when Mr. Smith walked up to me and said, "Miss Simmons, I want you to stay after school. I need to talk to you."