Alien Encounter Read online

  Betty looked around the kitchen and smiled. “Who’s Lewis?” she asked. “Your new invisible friend?”

  “No! He’s real, and he’ll be here in twenty minutes!” I could feel my face turning red—I hated that. Stupid face! I took a step forward and stared at Betty’s chin. One day we’d be eye to eye—I couldn’t wait.

  “He’s not like Jason,” I teased. “When’s he coming over?” Mom says I’m not allowed to make fun of Jason, but this was a special occasion—Betty was asking for it.

  “Just you wait,” threatened Betty. She pointed her knitting needles at me, turned, and stomped off, probably to find Mom so she could tell on me.

  I didn’t care. The whole Jason thing was stupid. It was probably number one of all the dumb things I’d ever heard—and I’d heard a lot of dumb things. Jason was Betty’s pretend boyfriend. He was 100 percent not real. It was something all her friends were doing. They said it was so they could get practice being girlfriends so that on the day when a real boy asked them out, they’d be ready and would know exactly what to do. Betty had a long wait ahead of her, because for her, that day was going to be NEVER!

  A couple of times I’d even caught her pretending to talk to Jason in her room. So embarrassing!

  I looked at the counter. I had all the ingredients for a terrible sandwich. Now I understood what Lewis had been talking about.

  Lewis would be here in five minutes. I had to decide fast. I shoved everything back in the fridge and looked in the cupboard. I was lucky—I found some mini marshmallows and chocolate chips. It was an experiment, but maybe it would work. I threw the sandwiches together, wrapped them up, and put them in my backpack. It took only a few minutes to get the other stuff—a bag of tortilla chips, four juice boxes, and my camera. When Lewis rang the doorbell, I wanted to be ready to go.

  The Expected Visitor Does Something Unexpected

  Lewis was twenty minutes late. For a while I thought he wasn’t going to show up, and I wasn’t the only one. Betty did too.

  Every couple of minutes, she’d walk by and say, “Where’s your new friend?” Then she’d make a big show of looking around the room. “Is he here? Where is he? I can’t see him.”

  I tried to ignore her, but it was hard. She was being super annoying, and it was on purpose. Before she started this whole thing, I was just going to take off the second Lewis arrived, but now it was different. Now I wanted Betty to see him. I was going to prove that he was real. That would show her!

  When the doorbell finally rang, Betty was in the middle of a sentence. “I can’t see—”

  RING. RING.

  I could tell that she was surprised. What was she thinking? That I had made-up friends too? And that I’d make lunch for them?

  Lewis was lucky he had a brother—girls were weird.

  I let Lewis in and introduced him to Betty. She was polite, but definitely disappointed. I guess she’d been hoping her crazy was contagious. That I had imaginary friends too.

  After the introduction, I walked over to the door to leave, but instead of following me, Lewis walked toward Betty. Maybe he could sense her strangeness. Lewis seemed to like strange things.

  “What are you knitting?” asked Lewis. Now both Betty and I were surprised.

  “Uh … a sweater,” said Betty.

  “Wow, that’s hard to make,” said Lewis. He shook his head. “I made a scarf once, and a really bad hat, but I couldn’t make a sweater.” He pointed at Betty’s brown mess. “That’s cool.”

  “It’s the back of the sweater,” said Betty. She held it out for Lewis to admire.

  “Looks good,” said Lewis. “Nice stitches.” Then he turned back to me and said, “Let’s go.”

  I nodded. My mouth didn’t have words—I was stunned. Lewis followed me back to the door.

  He turned one more time, said “Bye, Betty,” and then slammed the door behind us.

  The Kind of Questions That Can’t Wait

  It took me a minute or two to get my brain working, but when I did, it was filled with questions.

  “WHAT WAS THAT? Were you serious? You know about knitting? Do you knit?”

  Lewis didn’t seem surprised, or embarrassed, or any of the other things I would have expected. He just answered my questions like nothing was strange.

  “I don’t knit now, but I used to. I’m not very good at it. I learned to knit at my old school. We all had to do it. I really wanted to make a sweater, but it took me forever to just make a scarf. Do you knit?”

  “No!” I spluttered and held in my laughter. If I started knitting, Betty’s head would probably explode.

  “It’s kind of fun,” said Lewis. “But not easy. You should try it.”

  I nodded. But it was a lie. I wasn’t going to knit. Ever! I was sure about that.

  “Oh, hey, I remembered the underpants,” said Lewis. “In case you were worried.” He pointed to a lump in his coat pocket.

  I shook my head. “I wasn’t worried,” I said. “And I’m not touching them.”

  “They’re clean,” said Lewis.

  “It doesn’t matter!” I stopped walking. We were at the start of the trail.

  “OK. OK,” said Lewis. “I was mostly only joking.”

  Lewis walked ahead of me. He’d made a fast recovery and was hardly limping.

  “Stupid underpants,” I mumbled. And then I jogged to catch up.

  A boy who knits, and an underpants picnic! Could this day get any weirder? I shook my head. No, definitely not.

  The Tree

  It was easy to find the tree. Lewis was worried about beavers again, but when we got there, every single stick was exactly where I’d left it.

  “Here—take my photo before we go up,” said Lewis. He pulled the underpants out of his pocket, and spun them around on his hand.

  I moved back to take the photo and get out of the line of fire. I didn’t trust him. What Lewis thought was funny and what I thought was funny were probably not the same thing, and I didn’t want to take any chances.

  A second after I took the picture, Lewis was gone. I’d never seen him climb before. He was like a squirrel, even with his sore legs.

  “Come on! Let’s get started,” yelled Lewis.

  I waved and did my best, but he was already at our tree meeting spot before I was even six feet off the ground.

  “What did you bring?” asked Lewis. He grabbed the backpack while I wedged myself in between two branches. This was a lot higher than I’d remembered. I looked down. I could see the ground below us, but it wasn’t close.

  “You’re lucky you didn’t kill yourself,” I said.

  Lewis rubbed his leg. “Only this one still hurts, but it’s not bad,” he said. But I caught him wincing a second later. Somehow that made me feel better. It’s hard to be friends with a superhero.

  The First-Ever Underpants Picnic

  Lewis pulled the tortilla chips out of the backpack, put them on his lap, and then dug around to see what else he could find.

  “Hey, be careful,” I said, but it was too late—the chips and a juice box were on their way down to the ground.

  “Oops,” said Lewis. “Oh well, we can have those for dessert.” He pulled out another juice box and stuck it under his arm. “You brought sandwiches, right?”

  I was about to tell him about Betty eating all the grape jelly, but before I could, he had unwrapped a sandwich and was sniffing it.

  “Peanut butter,” I said.

  “Oh good,” said Lewis. “I thought it might be flax butter.”

  I made a face. I didn’t know what that was, but it sounded gross.

  “I told you,” said Lewis. “Sage makes bad sandwiches.”

  He dug around in the backpack, found the other sandwich, and tossed it over to me. I was lucky to catch it. I scowled. Didn’t he learn anything? Half our lunch was already on the ground.

  “Good catch,” said Lewis. He gave me a thumbs-up and grinned.

  I unwrapped the sandwich.

  �
��Wait! Don’t eat!” he shouted. “We’ve got to do this first.” He fished in his pocket and pulled out the underpants. Then very carefully, he hung them on the stick that had given him the wedgie. I guess that was more important than lunch.

  “The wedgie spot,” said Lewis. “Take a picture.” He leaned in close and smiled. I snapped the shot. I didn’t want my picture with the underpants, so Lewis took one of me just sitting in the tree.

  Sandwich Inventions

  Lewis said the sandwich was the best peanut butter sandwich he’d ever eaten. Even though that was a nice compliment, I took the extra juice box. He could have the one on the ground. That seemed fair.

  We’d finished lunch and were just about to head down when I noticed something on the ground. It caught my eye—it was bigger than a squirrel. I motioned for Lewis to be quiet and look down. My first thought was a bear, but it wasn’t furry. It was slimy-looking and shiny. What kind of animals are slimy? I looked over at Lewis, but he didn’t look back. He kept staring below. I looked down again.

  The creature was bent over, doing something on the ground. Sniffing? Looking for food? Suddenly, it stood up. It was enormous, bigger than I was expecting. Its huge head turned back and forth, looking up and down the trail, and then very slowly it looked up. I froze. Seconds later its dark alien eyes stared straight at me. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t swallow. I knew what was next. I was going to die.

  I wanted to look at Lewis but I couldn’t. My body was frozen. The creature paced around to the other side of the tree and looked up again. I knew what it was doing. It was looking for a way up. It was going to come up to get us. I forced my eyes to look at Lewis. His face was white. This did not give me courage.

  When I looked down again, the creature had moved away from the tree and onto the path. It was still, and then suddenly its head spun around twice—360 degrees times two! How could it do that? I looked at Lewis. Did he just see that? His eyes widened. When I looked back, the creature was gone. I caught another glimpse of it through the trees. It was running down the path, headed for the road. I should have felt relieved, but I didn’t.

  I felt like I was going to throw up.

  What It Was

  Lewis and I were quiet for what seemed like an hour. We didn’t move, we didn’t speak, and we hardly breathed. At least I didn’t. Finally I felt safe enough to whisper, “Did you see that?” It was a stupid question. Of course he’d seen it.

  “What was it?” asked Lewis.

  “Alien!” I whispered. “I know about them. My dad has some books. That was an alien!”

  “We’ve got to tell someone,” said Lewis. “And we’ve got to get out of here. What if it comes back?”

  I hadn’t thought about that. Maybe it had gone to get help. Maybe a whole bunch of aliens were on their way back right now. Lewis was right—we needed to leave. Two seconds later, we were climbing out of the tree as fast as we could. Lewis was behind me. Three feet from the bottom, I let go and jumped. It was a clumsy landing. I did not land on my feet. When I got up, my pants were soaking wet.

  “Alien slime!” said Lewis. He pointed and backed away.

  I looked at my pants, and then the ground. Lewis’s juice box was squashed flat, right where I’d fallen. It wasn’t slime. I pointed. Lewis took a step closer.

  “That’s OK,” he whispered. “I wasn’t thirsty.”

  I brushed off my pants, but it didn’t make a difference. It still looked like pee.

  Lewis wasn’t paying attention to me. He was walking around the tree, searching the ground.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked. We didn’t have time for this. We needed to go. Any second now, a horde of aliens could show up. It made me shiver.

  “The chips,” said Lewis. “I can’t find them. It took them.”

  “Who cares?” I said. “Let’s go.” My backpack was on and I was ready to run.

  “OK,” said Lewis. He gave the tree a final look and then sprinted down the path ahead of me. Even though the path to the left was shorter, we went right—opposite from the alien.

  All I wanted to do was get home. I ran fast, faster than I’d ever run before—I even passed Lewis. If I hadn’t been so scared, I would have been impressed with myself.

  Home

  As soon as we got to my house, we ran inside and locked the door. After a few minutes of hard breathing, I started to feel normal. Now I was more excited than scared. I couldn’t believe what had just happened, and neither could Mom and Dad. They made us swear three or four times that what we were saying was the truth and not some kind of made-up story.

  Dad said, “I don’t want to call someone about this and then have it blow up in my face because you boys saw a possum and thought it was an alien.”

  Lewis shook his head. “It definitely wasn’t a possum!”

  I nodded in agreement and held out my arms to show how big it was. Mom didn’t say anything. She just looked worried. I caught her looking at my pants. I was about to say it was apple juice, but Dad grabbed me by the shoulder and pointed to some paper on a table. “Draw it! Each of you. I want to know what we’re dealing with.”

  Even though our drawings were different, Dad seemed satisfied.

  “It had three legs. You missed one,” said Lewis. He was looking at my drawing.

  “No, it had two,” I said. I pointed at his paper. “And you made the head too small. Don’t you remember? It was huge.”

  Lewis looked down and nodded. “Oh yeah. Can I do it again, Mr. Henry? Can I fix it?”

  “No time!” said Dad. “If this thing is still around, we need to tell someone about it right now. Let’s go.”

  Dad grabbed our pictures and hustled us into the car. It was a short ride to the police station, but it felt like forever.

  “It’s too bad you didn’t use your camera,” said Lewis. He was right. Our drawings were pretty bad. A photo would have been much better. Plus then Lewis would have seen that I was right—the alien had two legs.

  What Happened at the Police Station?

  When we got to the station, Dad went up to one of the police officers and said, “Gary, I’ve got something you might want to have a look at.” Dad motioned for Lewis and me to sit down on a bench that was against the wall, and then he and Gary walked to the other side of the room. I’d never been in the police station before. It was kind of disappointing. I thought it would be high-tech, but mostly it just looked like a big office, kind of like the post office, only not as busy.

  Lewis nudged me. “Look! He’s telling him about it,” he said.

  I looked over. Dad was holding out our drawings and pointing to them. He was excited. If there was one thing Dad loved, it was anything to do with aliens.

  When he was ten, he saw strange lights in the sky, and ever since, he’s been alien crazy. That’s probably why he didn’t think we were lying about the alien—we didn’t have to convince him. He was already a believer.

  “I bet they’ll be tearing out of here any second now,” said Lewis. He pulled his legs in from the aisle so the policemen would be able to get by. We waited, and waited, but nothing happened.

  “Maybe they need special uniforms or something,” said Lewis. I hadn’t thought about that. Getting ready probably took a while. Thinking about what we were going to see next made the waiting more exciting.

  Finally, after what seemed like forever, Dad came over. He was smiling.

  “They’re going to look into it,” he said. His smile wasn’t real. I could tell. I glanced around the station. Nothing was different than when we’d arrived. There was no rushing, no frenzy, no panic, no action … no nothing!

  “I know you wanted a SWAT team,” said Dad, “but I don’t think that’s going to happen. They’re sending a police officer out to walk the trail.”

  Dad was going to say more, but suddenly Officer Gary was standing next to him. He looked bigger close up. Maybe it was the gun. It was hard not to stare at it.

  Officer Gary looked down at us an
d said, “So you boys saw something in the woods.” Lewis and I both nodded.

  “Are you sure it wasn’t a coyote? We’ve had a couple of those around here recently.”

  “No, sir,” said Lewis. “It was an alien.”

  Officer Gary squinted and stared straight at me. I felt uncomfortable, and even though I wasn’t lying, I could feel my face getting red and my ears starting to burn. I didn’t say anything.

  Officer Gary cleared his throat, looked at our drawings one more time, and then handed them back to us.

  “I know where to find you if I have any questions,” he said. He smiled as he watched us get up, but there was nothing about him that was one bit friendly.

  How to Make Yourself Feel Better

  As soon as we got out of the police station, Dad said, “Let’s get some ice cream.”

  I had the feeling I wasn’t the only one disappointed by the no-SWAT-team thing.

  The ice cream place is next door, so we were there in about ten seconds. I always get chocolate, but it’s fun to look at the other flavors, just in case I change my mind. Lewis was having a hard time choosing. He wanted to taste absolutely everything.

  “Can I try banana fudge, bubble blast, and strawberry swirl?” he asked. “Oh, and chocolate brownie too?” I had a feeling we were going to be standing there for a while.

  “Well, at least they didn’t laugh in our faces,” said Dad. He was talking about the police station and Officer Gary.

  “I don’t think Officer Gary laughs at anything,” said Lewis.

  Dad nodded. Lewis was probably right about that.

  “I wish I’d been there with you boys,” said Dad. “I wish I’d seen what you saw.”

  “I wish we’d used the camera,” said Lewis. He was right—a photo would have changed everything. It was exactly what we needed. It would have been proof!