Alien Encounter Read online

  “Mr. Lee, how come you don’t need your cane anymore?”

  He looked at me and brushed his chin with his fingers. “Oh, you noticed. Very good, very good. It’s part of my disguise, but we don’t have time for that. Before we go any further, you must both promise that I can trust you.” Mr. Lee looked back and forth between us. “If not, there could be trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?” asked Lewis.

  “The bad kind!” answered Mr. Lee.

  Lewis waited for a second, and then he nodded. When Mr. Lee looked at me, I did the same. I tried to look calm like Lewis, but inside I was anxious, excited, and scared, all at once. It was hard to think straight.

  “OK,” said Mr. Lee. “Follow me.”

  “How?” I mumbled. The room was tiny. There wasn’t anywhere to go. I moved to the side so Mr. Lee could get past me and go back up the stairs, but instead he stepped toward the workbench, grabbed a handle on the front, and gave it two quick turns. Instantly, the stack of chairs disappeared into the wall, and in their place was a long, bright hallway. There wasn’t a mirror nearby, but I knew exactly what my face looked like. It looked the same as Lewis’s.

  The Surprise at the End of the Hall

  We followed Mr. Lee down the hall. It was hard to believe that all this was under his garage. At the end of the hallway was another door. What did it lead to? Another space?

  Lewis was ahead of me. He was going to find out first. But as soon as the door opened, he stopped moving.

  “It’s him,” said Lewis. His voice was raspy, barely above a whisper. He took a step back, pushing against me. Instantly the hair on my arms tingled, and my heart started racing. I didn’t want to look, but at the same time I wanted to know. What was he seeing?

  “Who’s him?” I whispered.

  Lewis moved to the side, and there in front of us was the alien. He was huge. I opened my mouth to scream, but I couldn’t make a sound.

  Mr. Lee was standing next to it. Was the alien controlling him? Mr. Lee reached over and tapped the alien. Lewis ducked and I cringed, but nothing happened. The alien didn’t move—not even a twitch.

  “It’s a robot,” said Mr. Lee. He patted the alien’s arm. “It’s not real.”

  Lewis straightened up and took a step forward.

  “Yes, yes,” said Mr. Lee. He motioned for Lewis to come closer. “You can touch it.”

  My head felt like it was about to explode, and then everything went dark.

  What Happened Next?

  Someone was patting me on the head and saying my name. I opened my eyes. It was Mr. Lee. He was leaning over me, staring straight into my face. What had happened? Why was I lying on the floor?

  “Oh good. You’re OK,” said Mr. Lee. He helped me sit up.

  “You fainted,” said Lewis. He was next to me with a plastic cup. “I was going to throw this water at you, but you can drink it instead.” He handed me the cup.

  I took a sip of water and looked around. No, it wasn’t a dream. I really was sitting in some kind of giant underground hideout, and there, standing in the middle of it all, was the alien.

  “It feels sort of slimy,” said Lewis. He pointed to it.

  Mr. Lee stood up. “I make costumes for movies. Mostly monsters and fantasy creatures.”

  I gulped down the rest of the water. It was hard to believe my eyes. Everywhere I looked, there were weird, creepy creatures. It was like characters from your worst nightmares, all staring at you at the same time.

  “Time to get up,” said Mr. Lee. He held my arm, and I stumbled to my feet. Mr. Lee’s words and the images from my eyes were swirling in my head like a giant tornado. It took a few seconds, but slowly they began to fit together. I looked around for Lewis. He was standing next to the alien.

  “Touch it,” he said. He gave it a pretend punch in the gut.

  I walked over and poked it. He was right. It was slimy—it felt cold but sort of alive. I wiped my hand on my pants. Maybe it was only a robot, but it was still creepy.

  What Mr. Lee Had to Do

  I don’t know if Mr. Lee was expecting it, but if you scare people in the woods with an alien robot, you’re going to have to answer a lot of questions. Both Lewis and I had a bunch of them.

  OUR QUESTIONS

  1) Why did you have the robot in the woods?

  2) Did you know we were in the tree?

  3) Why did you take our tortilla chips?

  4) Why do you need a disguise?

  5) Does Mrs. Lee know about this secret workshop?

  6) Do you have a bear suit?

  7) Are you famous?

  8) Are you going to tell everyone about the robot?

  Most of Mr. Lee’s answers were kind of a surprise, especially the last one.

  MR. LEE’S ANSWERS

  1) I was testing the robot to see how well it would work.

  2) Yes, I saw you in the tree because the robot has cameras in its eyes.

  3) I don’t like littering, especially in the woods. But I didn’t eat them.

  4) I don’t want people to know who I really am.

  5) Of course my wife knows about this space—she’s my wife.

  6) No, I don’t make animal costumes.

  7) Yes, with certain people. That is why I have to keep my workshop a secret. If I had fans coming here bothering me, I’d never get anything done. I like being private.

  8) No. If I did that, everything would be ruined. I might even have to move.

  My secret favorite answer was number six. It made me smile. I knew Marcus was wrong!

  The Studio

  After the questions, Mr. Lee gave us a fast tour of his workshop. There were models and creatures everywhere, and piles and piles of plans and drawings. I couldn’t read what anything said because it was all written in some sort of weird language. Mr. Lee said it was a special design language that movie designers used, and that it was really hard to learn. Mr. Lee was just like his house—regular on the outside, but super amazing on the inside.

  Lewis and I didn’t recognize any of the creatures from the movies we’d seen, but Mr. Lee said that was probably because he mostly made models and robots for movies in other countries.

  After the tour, Mr. Lee brought out chips and some water, and we all sat around a table in the back of the workshop. There was a big door behind us. I thought it might lead to another room, but Mr. Lee said it was an elevator so he could get his models out of the workshop.

  “Can we go out that way?” I asked.

  “Yeah, that would be super cool,” said Lewis.

  Mr. Lee shook his head. “No, it’s broken.”

  Lewis and I both wanted to talk about the elevator some more, but Mr. Lee said, “Forget about the elevator. Have more chips.”

  Lewis and I were inhaling the chips like we hadn’t eaten in days. It must have been all the excitement.

  THUMP. THUMP.

  We stopped chewing. The sound had come from behind the big door. Something was in there.

  “What was that?” asked Lewis.

  “What? I didn’t hear anything,” said Mr. Lee.

  “In there.” I pointed to the door.

  Mr. Lee looked at the door and shrugged. “Probably just the elevator gears,” he said. “They’re slipping. I told you—it’s broken.”

  Lewis seemed fine with that. He turned, s tuck his hand back in the bag, and pulled out a chip. I wasn’t so sure. I kept my eye on the door, just in case.

  Another Surprise

  Some surprises are good. Some are not. Mr. Lee’s next surprise was the worst kind—unexpected and impossible.

  And he told it to us right when I was in the middle of eating a chip. Mr. Lee said, “I want you boys to tell everyone that you made a mistake about the alien. I want you to help me keep my business here undercover. Maybe you could say you made a mistake and saw a coyote or some other animal instead.”

  I was so surprised I almost choked. I coughed and spit my chip across the table. It landed in front of M
r. Lee. He stared at it, made a face, and then flicked it off with his finger.

  I leaned forward. “We can’t do that! It’s impossible!” And instantly my brain thought of a million reasons why.

  It was hard to look at Mr. Lee’s face and say no, so I stared at the chip bag instead. That’s when I noticed they were the same kind of chips that Mom bought—less salt and sort of healthy. It made me wonder.

  I pointed to the bag. “Where’d you get those?”

  “They’re yours from under the tree,” said Mr. Lee. He motioned toward the robot.

  “The robot carried them?” asked Lewis. “Cool.” He leaned in, grabbed another chip, and saluted the robot. I looked over at it.

  Sure, it was only a robot, but I didn’t trust it.

  Helping Mr. Lee

  “I don’t know,” said Lewis. “We can’t really say we didn’t see an alien when we already said we saw an alien. I mean, why would we do that? You know, go to all that trouble.”

  “Maybe I could trade you something,” said Mr. Lee. “Something special.”

  “No way. Impossible,” I said. “There’s nothing that special.”

  “Except really cool Halloween costumes,” said Lewis. “Those would be special.” He looked over at me and smiled. “Awesome, right?”

  “No!” I whispered. “Not awesome!”

  “OK,” said Mr. Lee. “I’ll do it. I don’t like Halloween, but I’ll do it!”

  “No!” I stood up. “No deal! We don’t want a deal.” But both Mr. Lee and Lewis ignored me.

  “Why do you hate Halloween?” asked Lewis. “You like costumes.”

  “I like GOOD costumes,” said Mr. Lee. “Not cheap costumes. Bad costumes give me a headache. It’s painful.”

  Lewis shrugged.

  I kicked Lewis under the table a bunch of times until he paid attention to me.

  “Oww!” He scowled for a second, and then said, “OK. OK, fine.” I let out a sigh. Finally he was listening.

  Lewis held up his hand. “Morgan has one more thing for the deal.”

  “Wait!” What was he talking about?

  “Don’t worry, I got this.” Lewis smiled at me, and then looked back at Mr. Lee.

  “He wants you to turn on the alien robot so we can see it working again.”

  Mr. Lee looked relieved. “Oh, I can do that. I thought you were going to ask for something hard.”

  I punched Lewis in the arm. “I don’t want that!”

  “You will when you see it,” said Lewis. “It’s going to be worth it!” He rubbed his arm and mouthed a silent OW, but he wasn’t hurt. I should have hit him harder.

  Lewis was right. Watching the alien come to life was awesome, but it didn’t change the other things. I was still mad.

  What Lewis Did

  After the alien show, Mr. Lee said it was time to leave. Lewis was disappointed, but I was ready to leave. As soon as we were out of sight of Mr. Lee’s garage, I exploded. I couldn’t keep my words inside anymore.

  Lewis looked at the ground. He shuffled his feet. “You were right,” he said. “The alien had two legs.”

  WHAT? That was supposed to fix this? Was he nuts?

  Lewis turned to me and pleaded, “We can do this! And we won’t lie about seeing the alien. I’ll figure out another way, I promise. We have to help Mr. Lee. He needs us—plus don’t you want an excellent costume?”

  I didn’t answer. Of course I wanted an excellent costume, but more than that I wanted to NOT be in trouble. That was number one.

  “You’ll see,” said Lewis. “All we have to do is make everyone forget about the alien.”

  I didn’t bother to nod. We were doomed.

  The Worst Luck

  When we got back to Lewis’s house, Red was around back by the shed. He was doing flips onto the mattresses. At first we thought he was alone, but then we noticed a man watching him.

  “They’re home!” shouted Red. He pointed at us, jumped off the mattress, and ran over.

  “There’s a scientist guy here, and he wants to talk to you about the alien,” said Red. “Mom said it was OK, and I’ve been showing him my flips while we waited for you.” He was out of breath, but excited. “Isn’t that great? He’ll probably make you famous.”

  “OH NO!” I covered my mouth with my hands.

  “I’ll do the talking,” said Lewis. I didn’t argue. I was a terrible liar.

  “Hi there, boys,” said the man. “Red and I have been talking.”

  Red smiled at the man, and then us.

  “So, you boys saw something. I’d like to hear about it.” The man reached into his pocket and pulled out our newspaper article, a notebook, a pen, and three business cards. He handed one to each of us. “I’m Mr. Holland.”

  Mr. Holland opened his notebook and looked up, waiting for us to talk.

  I glanced over at Lewis. He was quiet. I guess he didn’t have any big ideas.

  “They saw an alien,” said Red. “It was in the woods.” Red was trying to help us.

  “Is that true?” asked Mr. Holland. “Did you see something like that?” He looked down at the newspaper article. “It says here that you saw more than one, and look, you even drew pictures.”

  “That was a mistake,” said Lewis. “We only saw one. But—”

  I interrupted him. “But maybe it wasn’t an alien. It was kind of hard to tell, because we were really high up in the tree.”

  “Yeah,” said Lewis. “It could have been something else.”

  “Something else, like what?” asked Mr. Holland. “A squirrel, a dog, a bear?”

  “But you said it had three legs!” cried Red. He had no idea what was going on, and was totally confused.

  “No, two legs,” said Lewis. “I found out I was wrong—” and then he stopped.

  “Found out how?” asked Mr. Holland. “Is this new information?” He wrote something down in his notebook.

  “No. I just remembered I was wrong,” said Lewis. “About the legs.”

  I stared at the ground. This wasn’t going well.

  Mr. Holland looked at me, and then back at Lewis. “Sometimes a bear can stand on two legs. Could it have been a bear? You know, there was a bear around here a while ago. Maybe it came back?”

  I looked over at Lewis. This was our chance. We could say it was a bear.

  “NO! It wasn’t a bear!” said Red. He glared at Lewis. “You told me it was an alien, and that it ran away on three legs. I mean, two.”

  “Alien ran away on two legs,” repeated Mr. Holland, and he wrote that down.

  “We’re not sure about the alien part,” said Lewis.

  “OK,” said Mr. Holland. “So it was an unidentifiable creature, but it ran away on two legs.” He looked at us. I felt like he could tell we were lying. I studied the ground and shuffled my feet.

  “Yeah,” said Lewis. “A running creature.”

  “Hmm,” said Mr. Holland.

  This was not good. Any second now, we were going to be in huge trouble. I could feel it.

  What Mr. Holland Said That Was a Complete Surprise

  “Could it have been a Sasquatch, a Bigfoot?” asked Mr. Holland. “Do you boys know what that is?”

  “Is it like a yeti, but instead of living in snow, it lives in the forest?” asked Lewis.

  “Sort of,” said Mr. Holland. “But the yeti lives in the Himalayas. The Sasquatch is the creature that lives here in the Pacific Northwest. There’ve been some sightings down the coast from here, so when I heard about your alien story, it was the first thing I thought of.” He clapped his hands together and held them in front of his chest. “To find proof of the Sasquatch is a life goal of mine.” He tapped his chest and smiled at us.

  Lewis was watching me. I nodded, just a little bit, just for him. This was it! Our ticket out of trouble, and it had a giant Sasquatch printed right on the front of it.

  The Start of the New Idea

  Lewis took a deep breath and said, “It could have been a Sasquatch, ri
ght?”

  Everyone was looking at me, so I mumbled, “Maybe.”

  “What exactly does a Sasquatch look like?” asked Lewis.

  Mr. Holland pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket. He handed it to Lewis. It was a colored drawing of a Sasquatch, and it looked nothing like the alien. I didn’t say anything, but my brain was busy thinking. I had two main thoughts.

  “Looks kind of familiar,” said Lewis. He handed the paper back to Mr. Holland. “That could have been it.”

  Now it was my turn to help out. “Yeah, I’m really into aliens, so maybe by accident I made the creature look more like an alien than a Sasquatch. I bet if we drew it again, it would turn out better.”

  There! I had done exactly what I said I wasn’t going to do. I’d lied.

  Mr. Holland tapped his pen on his pad of paper. “I know how that is. Sometimes a brain can add things that the eyes didn’t see, especially if the brain really wanted to see it. I’ve been waiting eleven years to see a Sasquatch. If I saw an alien, I’d probably do the opposite. I’d turn it into a Sasquatch.”

  “That would be crazy,” said Lewis.

  “Yes, it would,” said Mr. Holland, and we all started laughing. This whole thing was working out a lot better than I’d imagined. The only person who wasn’t happy was Red. He was scowling, but there was nothing I could do about that.

  What Happened Next

  “Are you a real scientist?” asked Lewis.

  Mr. Holland coughed and looked around. “Well, almost a scientist. I don’t have a degree, but I know as much as a scientist does, and you can’t really get a degree in Sasquatches. It’s something you have to learn yourself because—”