Alien Encounter Read online

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  For all who believe in the unseen—it makes life more interesting!

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Begin Reading

  Copyright

  An Acrostic Poem About Lewis

  Why I Met Lewis

  I met Lewis because of underpants. This is not a normal way to meet someone. When weird things happen, they are usually a surprise.

  The Woods

  Lewis and I met in the woods. I don’t know what he was doing, but I was there looking for a stick. It was for my new invention—the triple slingshot. Slingshots are easy to make. The only hard part is finding the right stick, and if you need lots of sticks to choose from, the woods are the perfect place to look. They’re filled with sticks. If I’d been looking for a regular stick, I probably would have been done in about two seconds, but I wasn’t. Special sticks take a lot longer to find.

  An Acrostic About What I Will Make with the Perfect Stick

  Looking for a Stick (Hour Number One)

  I bet I’ll find that stick any minute now.

  Looking for a Stick (Hour Number Two)

  I can’t believe I haven’t found the stick yet.

  Looking for a Stick (Hour Number Three)

  Stupid impossible-to-find stick!

  It’s not easy to think good thoughts when you’ve been disappointed for almost 10,800 seconds in a row. That’s probably why I suddenly remembered Dad’s saying.

  Sometimes it’s hard to tell if the stuff Dad says is true or not. He tells jokes without laughing, and says real things while smiling. He’s a confusing guy. Even though I didn’t want to believe him, my brain was starting to think that maybe his saying was true. Maybe I wouldn’t find my stick or, worse, maybe it didn’t even exist.

  The One Thing You Should Be Scared of if You Hear It in the Woods

  SCREAMING!

  If you are in the woods and you hear screaming, your first thought should be DANGER!

  A good idea for a second thought would be BEAR ATTACK!

  I don’t know if Twin Rivers has ever had a real bear attack, but last year we had an almost bear attack. My across-the-street neighbor Mrs. Lee saw a bear in her backyard. He could have eaten her, except she was inside getting some iced tea to drink with her lunch.

  She said, “Iced tea saved my life!”

  Our whole town knew about it because she got to be on TV, and every time the camera did a close-up, she said the exact same thing. “Iced tea saved my life!” She probably said it more than twenty times.

  Mrs. Lee said she was filling her glass with iced tea when she looked out her window and saw a big, furry thing sitting at her picnic table. It was a bear, and he was eating her lunch. He ate her tuna sandwich, her strawberries, and even her broccoli salad (he must have been really hungry to eat that).

  She took a ton of pictures. One of them even got in the paper. It was a picture of the bear at the table with the sandwich in his paws. He was sitting up and looked just like a person, except he was furry, had huge claws and teeth, and could totally kill you.

  Everyone at school was super excited about the bear, until Marcus Wolver kind of ruined it. He made up a fake rumor. Most people didn’t believe him, but a few did, and that was annoying because now instead of everyone being excited, some people were grumpy about the Lees.

  The Thing That Is Wrong with Marcus

  Marcus is a nincompoop.

  Normally, I wouldn’t pick a dumb word like that, but Mom said I’m not even allowed to think about the other word I wanted to use. She’s pretty bossy about stuff like that. She says old-fashioned words are more polite, but that’s probably just because no one knows what they mean.

  I made up an acrostic to help describe Marcus and the word nincompoop—I think it helps.

  Marcus was wrong about the Lees for a lot of reasons, but the main reason he was wrong was that he didn’t know them. This is important because if he knew them, he’d know that the Lees are not costume-loving people, and people who do not like costumes do not run around in bear suits.

  I know this because the Lees are my neighbors, and even if you don’t want to, you learn stuff about people when they live right across the street from you.

  Things I Know About the Lees

  • Mr. Lee spends a lot of time working in his garage.

  • Mrs. Lee likes to garden.

  • Mr. Lee fixes furniture for a job.

  • The Lees hate Halloween—every Halloween they turn off their lights so it looks like they’re not home.

  My sister, Betty, says they do that because they’re cheapos and don’t want to give out candy, but Mom says that’s probably wrong. She thinks they are just tired from a long day of work and don’t want to have to get up every two seconds to answer the door. I believe Mom because even though Betty is twelve and I’m nine that doesn’t mean she is smarter than me. She is wrong about a lot of things.

  Proof That the Lees Are Not Cheapos

  Every Christmas the Lees give us a giant tin full of pretzels and three kinds of popcorn (the chocolate popcorn is the best). This is not a cheapo present. A cheapo present would be the smallest tin, the one that comes with only the regular popcorn.

  I told this to Betty, but she said, “What? I don’t care about that anymore.” She has the attention span of a hamster.

  Sometimes if you know something and other people say you’re wrong, you just have to ignore them and keep on believing it. That’s how I feel about Mr. Lee—no matter what anyone says, I think he’s OK.

  What Happened to the Bear After It Ate Mrs. Lee’s Lunch?

  It walked away.

  What Happened to the People After the Bear Ate Mrs. Lee’s Lunch?

  They got scared. Some got crazy scared, like Carla Minkel, a girl in my class. She said that even though tuna sandwiches were her favorite sandwiches in the whole world, she was never going to eat another one for as long as she lived.

  She said, “I don’t want to be a bear magnet.”

  Mom and Dad were pretty scared too because they gave me a whistle and said, “You have to promise to carry this with you at all times!”

  Dad said, “If you’re in the woods and get into trouble, blow the whistle, and I’ll come and save you.”

  I didn’t say anything, but my imagination dressed him up like a superhero. He looked ridiculous!

  Mom saw me smiling and got mad.

  It was too hard to explain what I was thinking about, so I just apologized instead. Sometimes that’s easier than a big explanation.

  I put my head down and said, “Sorry for laughing.”

  Betty’s foot was peeking out from the corner in the hall, so I knew she was listening. She loves it when I get in trouble. I’m sure she was smiling!

  I had to tell Mom “I promise I will always carry the whistle” about twenty times before she finally believed me.

  It was an easy promise to make—nobody wants to be a bear snack, and the whistle was pretty small. But that was months ago, and right now I had a bigger problem. I was in the woods and someone had just screamed. Even someone like Marcus Wolver would know what that meant. Screaming always means DANGER!

  What I Did the Second After I Heard the Screaming in the Woods

  I grabbed my whistle and started blowing it like crazy. It’s good that I had something to do, or I probably would have been screaming,
or maybe something worse. While I was blowing, I looked around for the bear, but I couldn’t see anything except trees and bushes. And all I could hear was the whistle and my super-loud breaths in between blowing. It was the kind of thing that can totally freak you out!

  My List of Didn’ts

  • I didn’t see a bear.

  • I didn’t get eaten by a bear.

  • Dad didn’t come and save me.

  For sure I was going to tell Dad that his Save Me Whistle Plan was a …

  What Can Happen After You Blow a Whistle for Ten Minutes and Nothing Happens

  You decide to stop blowing. This is a good thing because blowing a whistle for a really long time is not easy—it messes with your brain. My head felt like a giant balloon, and even though I wasn’t blowing anymore, I could still hear the whistle sound in my ears.

  I was sitting down to rest when someone shouted, “DON’T BLOW THAT WHISTLE!”

  I screamed, jumped back up, and dropped the whistle.

  I was scared, but it was in a new way, not the bear way.

  “UP HERE! UP HERE!” shouted the voice.

  I looked around to find where the voice was coming from. It was somewhere above me. And then high in the branches of a tree, I saw him—a boy waving at me.

  What Surprise Looks Like

  When your brain is surprised, sometimes you can’t help but open your mouth. This is an OK thing to do if you are in a house, but not such a good idea if you are outside in the woods. The woods are filled with bugs.

  I spit, I gagged, I coughed, and still the bug was stuck. By the time it was in my throat, it was too late. I couldn’t stop it—my body swallowed!

  The boy in the tree was laughing, but I was in bug shock and still worried about the bear, so I ignored him. Finally, after a few more minutes of nothing bad happening, I looked back up at him.

  “Why are you up there?” I shouted. “Did you see a bear?”

  “No bear,” he shouted. “I’m stuck. I can’t get down. Look!”

  He wiggled his arms and legs around to show me. Something about him looked strange. A minute later, I figured it out. He wasn’t holding on to anything—his arms and legs were completely free. He wiggled them around like a giant beetle. I couldn’t see what it was, but something behind him was holding him up.

  “HEY!” shouted the boy. “What’s your name?”

  “Morgan Hen—” I answered, but I stopped myself before adding the rest. This wasn’t school.

  What Happened Next?

  “MORGAN! Hey, Morgan,” the boy was shouting again.

  I looked up.

  “Come up here and help me.”

  I nodded, picked up my whistle, and walked to the base of the tree. He was lucky I was a good climber—in about ten seconds, I was standing on a branch next to him. Before I could say anything, or even understand why he was stuck, he smiled and pointed to the back of his pants.

  “I’m Lewis,” he said. “And I have a giant wedgie!”

  Can a Tree Give You a Giant Wedgie?

  YES! Yes, it can! I was wishing I was like Mrs. Lee and had a camera with me because some things you just have to take a picture of … or no one will ever believe you.

  What You Should Definitely Ask When You See a Tree Wedgie

  “HOW DID YOU DO THAT?”

  I pointed to the wedgie and burst out laughing.

  For a second, Lewis didn’t say anything, but then he threw his arms in the air and said, “I know! Awesome, right?” He flapped his arms and kicked his legs like he was swimming.

  It was one of those things I would have never believed unless I’d seen it, and here I was seeing it with my very own eyes!

  Lewis squirmed some more and made a crazy face. I grabbed the branch above me with two hands and held on tight. Laughing really hard, high up in a tree, is not safe.

  After a while, we got too tired to laugh anymore. This can happen, but only if something is super funny.

  Helping Lewis

  “That’s a killer wedgie,” I said. I inspected the stick. It had poked a hole right through the back of Lewis’s underpants. He was definitely stuck.

  “Push up with your feet and then maybe you can slide off,” I suggested.

  He scowled. “I can’t push up! Don’t you think I’d push up if I could push up? YOU have to help me!”

  I looked at his feet. He was right. I hadn’t noticed it before, but there weren’t any branches near them. There was absolutely nothing for him to push up from. His feet were just dangling in space.

  “You have to pull me up,” said Lewis. He lifted his arms so I could grab them. I tried, but there was no way I could do it. He was too heavy.

  I slumped back against my branch, out of breath. I shook my head. “It’s impossible.”

  “Well, I can’t stay here!” said Lewis. “Maybe I can break the stick.” He started squirming.

  He shook back and forth, but it was useless—the stick wasn’t going to break. The tree was too strong.

  My Idea That Lewis Did Not Like

  “You wait here, and I’ll go get help,” I said. It was the only thing I could think of.

  “Wait,” said Lewis. “How do I know you’ll come back? Maybe you’ll forget about me. Or forget which tree I’m in.”

  I thought for a moment. He had a point. All the trees looked pretty much the same. But then …

  “Here.” I pulled the whistle out of my pocket. “If you blow this, I’ll hear it, and then I’ll find you. Plus you’re really good at screaming.”

  Suddenly I remembered how scared I’d been. I leaned on my branch and studied Lewis. I had a few questions.

  “Why did you scream when you saw me? Why didn’t you just yell out HELP or LOOK HERE?”

  Lewis smiled and shook his head like he couldn’t believe I had to ask. “Screams are louder than yells,” he said. “Everybody knows that.”

  While I was thinking about that, he pointed to my pocket.

  “What else do you have?” he asked. “I need something more special. Something you’ll for sure come back to get. This whistle doesn’t seem very important.”

  I felt around in my pocket and shrugged. “I don’t know. Just normal stuff.” I emptied my pocket into my hands and held them out. There wasn’t much to choose from, just a bottle cap, the key for my back door, my pocketknife, my whistle, and some coins.

  Slowly Lewis nodded and smiled. It made me wonder what he was going to pick.

  Lewis’s Idea That I Did Not Like

  Lewis pointed to the pocketknife. “PERFECT!” he shouted. “You can free me! You can cut my underpants!”

  “WHAT? NO WAY! I’m not touching them!” I put everything back in my pocket and shoved the pocketknife toward him. “Here, you take it!”

  There was no way I was going to touch his underpants!

  Lewis took the knife and opened it. He twisted around right, twisted around left, but neither way was good. His arms couldn’t reach far enough behind him. He couldn’t cut himself free. After about five minutes of trying, he finally gave up.

  Lewis looked over at me and held out the knife. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. I knew what was next. Either I had to help him or I had to leave him hanging. It was a hard decision.

  What Is Not Easy to Do?

  To cut whatever underpants are made of with a pocketknife is not easy for a lot of reasons.

  Why I Helped Lewis

  I don’t know why I helped Lewis. Sometimes you just do stuff without really knowing why you made that choice. This was one of those times.

  The List of Promises

  Before I started, I made Lewis say a whole list of promises. This was a safe thing to do because sometimes the world doesn’t need to know everything.

  (1) I promise not to make fun of Morgan for touching my underpants—even if it was only the top part of the very back.

  (2) I promise to never tell anyone that Morgan touched my underpants—even if it was only the top part of the ve
ry back.

  (3) If someone asks me if Morgan touched my underpants, I will lie and say no. I will even lie to my mom. But if she is dying, then I can tell her the truth.

  (4) If someone asks how I got out of the tree wedgie, I will say I cut my own underpants.

  (5) Even if Morgan and I are enemies, I will never tell about the underpants.

  Gravity Is an Important Thing to Remember

  Lewis and I did not think about gravity. It was bad planning. Gravity was the reason Lewis crashed down out of the tree the second his underpants were free. I didn’t hear a thump, but there must have been one, because when I looked down, he was on the ground on his back.

  The Good Thing About the Fall

  Most falls are not good, unless you start thinking about what could have gone worse but didn’t. If the list of things that didn’t happen gets long enough, your brain can suddenly start to think, “Hey, that was a pretty good fall.”

  I watched Lewis roll around on the ground. He was moving. He wasn’t dead. That was number one on my list.

  As I climbed down after him, my list got longer and longer.

  MY GOOD FALL LIST

  (1) NOT DEAD.

  (2) NOT BLEEDING LIKE A FOUNTAIN.

  (3) NOT CHOKING.

  (4) NOT PARALYZED.

  (5) NO BONES STICKING OUT OF SKIN.

  What Lewis Said That Was a Surprise