I crouched there in the trash, listening for Mancatcher sounds. After a few seconds I heard him say, “Is somebody out here?”
I let out a sigh of relief. (A soft sigh.) If the Mancatcher had spotted me, he would have been calling my name, not just asking for “someone.” So he hadn’t seen me—at least, not well enough to know it was me. It was the first break I had had all day.
In a little while I heard the door open and close again. I started to relax. But suddenly I realized he might be trying a trick—making it sound like he had gone, so anyone out here would think it was safe to stop hiding.
I decided I had better stay right where I was. The only move I made was to shift around slightly so I could sit down. As I did, I could feel stuff smearing all over me. Something wet started soaking through my jeans. This was revolting! But it was better than getting nabbed by the Mancatcher.
I gave up holding my breath and sucked in a load of fresh air. Well, “fresh” wasn’t quite the word for it. Let’s just say that if I didn’t have to breathe, I would have quit right then.
It was hot in the dumpster. Not surprising—the thing was made of dark green metal. I began to feel like I was in a big, smelly oven. Sweat started pouring down my face.
How long was I going to have to stay here? When would it be safe to sneak out?
I heard the all-clear buzzer sound. Kids began to shout and laugh. No aliens after all!
I began to relax. Everyone would be inside soon. Maybe then I could get out of the dumpster or out of here without getting caught.
Unless, of course, the Mancatcher was still lurking around outside.
Soon I realized I was hungry. I also realized I was surrounded by food. I wondered if there was anything I could eat in here—maybe something that had just gotten thrown in.
If I have a good fairy, she has rotten timing. I can think of a dozen wishes I would rather have had come true that day, such as that I had never gotten out of bed to begin with that morning. No sooner had I started thinking about food than I heard a sound. Without thinking, I looked up just in time to see the round mouth of a garbage can being lifted over the edge of the dumpster. Down it came, right over my head—a garbage shower of soggy napkins, pickle bits, orange peels, ketchupy french fries, and who knows what else, all swimming in leftover chocolate milk.
I wanted to scream and shout, but of course then I would have been found and dragged off to the Mancatcher’s office. My stomach was trying to add my own lunch to the pile of stuff in the dumpster, but I managed to hold things down.
I heard scraping noises. Another garbage can appeared above me. I scrambled back across the trash on my hands and knees. It was slick, and I had gone only a few feet when one hand plunged down into a soft spot and I dropped face first into the goop.
That was disgusting, but not terrifying.
What was terrifying was what I spotted only six inches in front of me as I was going down.
It was a hand. A human hand, lying between a ball of aluminum foil and a leaky, half-eaten jelly sandwich.
The garbage muffled my scream. When my heart stopped beating so fast, I lifted my head and looked again. That was when I realized the thing I had seen was more like a glove than a hand. A skin glove. Maybe a better way to describe it is to say it was like a mask for someone’s hand.
It reminded me of Broxholm’s mask—the one he had used to make him look human. When my brother had tried to fool me that morning, it was his human-looking arm that had tipped me off that he wasn’t an alien. Until now, I hadn’t thought about it the other way around. But since Broxholm was really green underneath his mask, then the rest of his skin must have been green, too.
Or maybe it wasn’t. Who can tell with an alien? Maybe his different parts were all different colors. But whatever color they were, you can bet his hands didn’t look like human hands. So he must have been hiding them some way—such as with a glove that looked like human skin.
Only Broxholm had been gone since last May.
Everything in the dumpster had been put in over the last couple of days.
Which meant this glove was fresh garbage.
Which could mean only one thing.
We still had a teacher who was an alien.
CHAPTER FOUR
Honey Flint
The way I figured it, whoever owned the glove got left behind when Susan and the school band drove Broxholm out of town. But why hadn’t the aliens come back for him? (Her? It?)
Had he/she/it been abandoned?
Or was the mission still on?
Whatever the case, I figured we had to do something about it. But first I had to get out of the dumpster. Except I was really afraid to do that, because if the alien, whoever it was, saw me climbing out, then he/she/it might wonder if I had found the glove. And in that case he/she/it might decide it was no good having me around.
I remembered the way Broxholm had fried the school door shut. Maybe I should just leave the glove where it was. But if I did, I couldn’t prove what I had found. On the other hand (so to speak), if the alien somehow caught me with the glove, I was dead meat for sure.
I crawled farther into the dumpster to think. Settling onto a pile of used french fries, I stared at the glove, trying to decide what to do. The only thing I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to mess around with these guys!
After what seemed like hours the final bell rang. I could hear kids shouting and screaming as they ran out of the school. The back door scraped open. One of the janitors dumped more stuff into the dumpster.
By now my clothes were soaked with sweat—among other things. (At least I wasn’t wearing nice new clothes, like most of the kids.) I would have traded almost anything for a breath of clean air. Closing my eyes, I leaned my head against the side of the dumpster. Ouch! The metal was hot. I scrambled over to the other side, the side in the shade, and tried again. That was better; not cool, but not burning, either.
I think I dozed off for a little while (who knows—maybe the fumes knocked me out). The next thing I knew, I was jolted awake by a horrible clanging noise. Someone was bouncing a basketball off the side of the dumpster! If I was into headbanger music, it would have been great. I’m not. It was terrible.
I heard another noise, and screamed as a huge rat scurried across my leg. Fortunately, my scream came at exactly the same moment as the next thump of the basketball, so I don’t think anyone heard me.
“Get out of here!” I hissed at the rat.
It ignored me.
I grabbed a half-eaten apple and threw it as hard as I could. I missed, but the rat ran away—about a foot away. Then it went back to examining the garbage.
I decided if it left me alone, I would leave it alone. Except I found that whenever it got out of my sight, I started to feel nervous.
By the time the mad basketball player was done bouncing his ball off the dumpster, I felt like someone had been working over my head with a sledgehammer. I listened, which wasn’t easy considering the way my ears were ringing. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I thought the parking lot was empty.
I stared at the glove again and decided I had to take it with me. I knew that if I didn’t, no one would believe me when I told them about it. And I had to tell people. If I didn’t, who knew what the alien might do to our town?
Feeling nervous, I crawled to the front of the dumpster and poked my head above the edge. Fresh air! It was glorious. That was the single best breath I have ever taken.
It was also almost the last, since the next thing I saw was the Mancatcher. He was walking across the parking lot.
I dropped back into the dumpster and waited to hear the sound of his car pulling away before I tried again.
This time the coast was clear. Straining, I pulled myself up on the edge of the dumpster. It wasn’t easy—the heat had drained my strength. Finally I got my leg up over the edge and dropped back onto the loading dock. I felt as if there should be little odor lines in the air around me, like in the comic strips. I
smelled worse than my brother’s socks—which he usually wears for three days straight.
I was almost as confused as I was smelly. What should I do first? Who should I talk to about the hand mask I had found?
The answer to that one was simple. I had to talk to Susan. She would believe me.
But when I got to Susan’s house and rang the bell, her mother opened the door. She took one sniff at me and told me to go home and get cleaned up. She wouldn’t even tell Susan I was there.
So I didn’t tell her that I was afraid to go home.
I was stinking my way down Pine Street, trying to figure out what to tell my mother, when a woman stepped out of the bushes.
I shoved my purple hand into my pocket. I didn’t want anyone to see the evidence that I had pulled the fire alarm.
The woman was very pretty. She had long blond hair tied back in a ponytail and eyes as blue as my father’s Buick. Her figure looked like someone had taken one of those Greek statues I like to look at in the encyclopedia and put clothes on it. A camera dangled from a strap around her neck.
“Hello, Duncan,” she said, putting out her hand. “My name is Honey Flint.”
I was dying to shake her hand, only I couldn’t because I didn’t want her to see the purple stain.
“How do you know who I am?” I asked.
She smiled, which probably should have been against the law since there wasn’t much a guy could do to defend himself against it. “I’ve been paying attention,” she said. Then she wrinkled her brow—and her nose—and added, “What happened to you?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
That wasn’t really true. I did want to talk about it. But I was afraid she would laugh at me.
Honey shrugged. “I guess boys just have all kinds of adventures,” she said. “Which is what I wanted to talk to you about. I understand you’ve had some adventures with an alien.”
I felt a little prickle of fear. People in town had been keeping quiet about the alien situation. According to my dad, they figured no one would believe what had happened, so they just weren’t talking about it. The police reports simply showed Peter as missing, either a runaway or a kidnap victim; they didn’t mention anything about an alien.
So how did this woman know about what had happened? Was she one of the aliens? Did she know I had found the hand mask? Had she come to try to get it back from me?
“How do you know about the alien?” I asked nervously.
Honey smiled. “I have my sources,” she said. Then she put her hand under my chin, so that I had to look up into those blue eyes, and said, “How would you like to be in the news, Duncan?”
“What news?” I asked, more interested now.
Honey smiled again. “The National Sun! ”
Now that was exciting. My father loves the Sun. He makes my mother buy a copy every week when she does the grocery shopping. I like it, too. It has great headlines, things like “Elvis Ate My Baby” and “Walking Zombies Terrorize Town.”
As soon as Honey mentioned the Sun, I felt I could trust her. I figured if she was an alien she would have said she worked for the New York Times or something. What kind of an alien would claim to work for the National Sun?
I also thought how amazed my father would be if his favorite paper did an article about me.
“Well?” asked Honey.
“Sure,” I replied. “I’ll talk to you. I like your paper. My whole family likes it. We keep it in the bathroom.”
Honey blinked, then smiled and said, “Why don’t you just tell me what happened to you last spring?”
Then it hit me. Honey was my answer. This was what to do about the skin glove.
Reaching into my pocket, I said, “Honey, have I got a story for you!”
CHAPTER FIVE
How to Hide a Hand
My interview with Honey Flint went fine until I suddenly began to wonder if she was the alien after all. I mean, nothing said these guys were limited to one face. For all I knew, old Broxholm had carried a whole box full of masks, one for every occasion.
So when Honey asked if she could take the glove, I didn’t know what to do. Maybe she had spotted me climbing out of the dumpster and was looking for a way to get the glove back without putting me on ice. (Not that I thought the aliens were kind and sweet or anything. But I could see where this one might not want to create more suspicion by having another kid disappear.)
Of course, if Honey was telling the truth about being a reporter, she might be able to help me convince the world that we still had an alien teacher in town. But if she was lying to me, if she was really the alien in disguise, then I would be handing over the only piece of evidence I had.
Finally I told Honey that she could take a photo of the glove. She seemed unhappy that she couldn’t have it, but I didn’t know if that was because she was secretly the alien, or just because she wanted it to prove her story to her boss. (That’s one problem when you start to get suspicious; you can’t trust anything anymore.)
On the other hand, she did seem really thrilled with the story. “This is great,” she kept saying. “Oh, Duncan, this is just great.”
When we were finally done talking it was almost dark. Honey told me she would like to take me to get a milkshake or something, but that she didn’t think any place would let us in the way I smelled, and she really didn’t want to put me in her car, either. I suppose I should have been offended. But she said it real nice, and besides, it made sense.
I wasn’t all that thrilled about walking home alone in the dark, especially since I was half expecting an alien to jump out of the bushes and grab me at any moment. Also, I didn’t know what was going to happen to me when I got home. Being late wasn’t a problem—my parents didn’t really care that much what time I got there. But the garbage thing might be an issue.
Finally I stopped at old man Derwinkle’s house. Mr. Derwinkle has the best lawn on the block, mostly because he’s always watering it. I figured the odds were good that I would find a hose lying in the driveway.
I was right.
Old man Derwinkle is pretty deaf, so he didn’t hear me spraying myself down. The first water was hot, from the hose lying in the sun all day. Once I got past the water that had been in the hose, the rest was cold. I didn’t care; hot or cold, it all felt great. I didn’t realize how much stuff had been stuck in my hair until I saw it coming out in the water that ran off my head.
So now my clothes were soaking wet, and stained in several places, but not nearly as smelly as they had been.
The same was true for me.
The only problem was that when I got home Patrick spotted me and bellowed, “Ma! Duncan’s dripping all over the floor.” So my mother made me go out back and take off all my clothes and put on a bathrobe before I could come inside.
Patrick snuck out back and took a picture of me while I was naked, which shows you what a booger he is.
I spent almost an hour that night trying to get the purple stain off my hand so I could go to school the next morning without getting in trouble. I wondered how long it would take to fade away. I considered asking Patrick, since he knows about this kind of stuff, but I couldn’t count on him not to say something to my father.
Of course I could always stay home sick (I know four different ways to make myself throw up) or play hookey, but that’s a little tricky the first couple of days of school. Later on, once you know the routine, it’s different. But skipping at the beginning can really mess you up.
I suppose if I had been smarter I would have seen the answer sooner. It wasn’t until I went back to my bedroom, which I have to share with Patrick-the-booger, that I thought of the alien glove. If it could hide the alien’s hand, why not mine?
I pulled the glove out of my pocket and looked it over. What if it was full of alien germs or something? I decided to wait until morning to decide whether to use it.
When morning came my hand was as purple as ever. So I went into the bathroom, where no one would se
e me, and pulled on the glove.
It was like magic. The glove fit my hand perfectly, almost as if it was adjusting its shape while I was pulling it on. What was even weirder was that as I was putting it on, it changed color to match my other hand—as if it were a chameleon or something.
I had only two problems. First, the fingernails were too clean. So I grubbed them up a little. Second, there was a small hole at the end of one of the fingers. I suppose that’s why the alien threw it away. I put a bandage over the hole. I have to wear a lot of bandages, so that looked pretty natural. Even so, if you had looked closely, you would have known it wasn’t really my hand. But unless you give them a reason to, most people don’t look at stuff very carefully. That’s one reason a guy like me can get away with a lot of things; people just don’t see what you do.
My mother and father didn’t notice my new hand at all. I didn’t give Patrick a chance to see it.
I was really happy when I started off to school that morning. Things looked a lot better than they had the day before.
The Mancatcher was standing at the door when I came in. I knew he was looking for a kid with a purple hand, so I waved at him when I walked up.
“Hiya, Mr. Ketchum!” I said cheerfully.
He scowled at me. I knew he thought I was the one who had pulled the alarm. But when I waved my hand in front of him like that, it looked as if I had nothing to hide. So he didn’t even bother to look at it closely.
Things would have been just fine if not for the fact that sometime during science class my fake hand started to fall apart. I tried to shove my hand into my desk, until I realized all we had were those stupid desks that have only a writing surface and no place underneath to keep stuff. I’m glad no one saw me flopping my hand around, trying to hide it in a space that wasn’t there.
Finally I jammed my hand into my pocket. But my pants were a little tight, so strings of flesh-colored material bunched up around my wrist.