by Elise Allen
Copyright © 2019 by Elise Allen and Daryle Conners
Designed by Marci Senders
Cover art of lollipops © 2019 by JeniFoto/Shutterstock
Cover art of UFO © 2019 by Ket4up/Shutterstock
Cover design by Marci Senders
All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion, 125 West End Avenue, New York, New York 10023.
ISBN 978-1-368-05430-0
Visit www.DisneyBooks.com
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Fourth Dossier: Triple Trouble
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
WARNING:
The following chronicle details an incident so highly restricted, it has merited an entirely new classification level:
Supremely Sensitive Secret Hush Hush
a.k.a.
SSSHH
Only those members of the Worldwide International Government with clearance level Ultrillion-Cubed may even glance at the contents herein. Any leak would not only break the bonds of the Asset Recharacterization Program, but also risk lives in all corners of the Greater Galactic Cooperative.
With such dire consequences at stake, even those with the proper clearance should think twice before delving in. Should you feel you’ll have the burning inclination to reveal even the slightest hint of what you’re about to read, it is absolutely imperative:
DO NOT TURN THE PAGE.
ob, wait!”
Gabby Duran wiped the curls out of her face and ran even faster. Her sneakers pounded on the ground, and her purple knapsack bounced against her back as she raced across the massive lawn to catch up with her charge.
“BOB!”
Bob was nine years old, and he loved to run wild. Gabby had been babysitting him regularly for about six months, so she knew this about him, and had a million different ways to keep him settled and occupied. Yet sometimes none of them worked, and he’d bolt for the thick hedge surrounding his family’s property.
“Bob, come back! We’ll play tag! You’re it!”
That usually did the trick. Bob loved tag. But this time he didn’t turn around and start chasing her. Instead he leaped up and dove through the closely packed branches.
Gabby grimaced. Without breaking stride, she yanked a pair of gloves out of her jacket pocket, pulled them on, covered her face with her hands, and crashed through the bushes right after him. She felt the branches scrape over her body, but she’d dressed in jeans, her purple puffer jacket, and thick socks for just this reason, so it wasn’t a problem at all. It technically wasn’t even a problem that Bob had left his property, since the hedgerow abutted a public park with wide fields and a playground—the perfect place for a kid to run free.
What was a problem was that Bob was bright green, about half the size of a fire hydrant, and shaped like a comma, with a big, round bulb of a head and a long, thin, spring-curled tail. He had no discernible eyes, nose, or ears; a giant mouth splayed across his top like a headband; and as he bounced through the park on his coiled tail his voice rang out with a slight metallic clang, “BOI-OI-OI-OI-OING! BOI-OI-OI-OI-OING! BOI-OI-OI-OI-OING!”
Bob was an alien.
Specifically, he was a Boingle, from a planet in the Sproidelly Nebula. Gabby knew this not from Edwina, her boss at the Association Linking Intergalactics and Earthlings as Neighbors (A.L.I.E.N.), but from Bob’s parents, who always liked to chat as they were getting ready for a night out. Not that Gabby could understand their language—to her it sounded like the humming warble of a tuning fork. But the tones somehow communicated directly with her cell phone, leaving texts that Gabby could read, though A.L.I.E.N. always erased them mere moments after they arrived.
The park was crowded, and people were starting to notice the bouncing alien child. A girl in spiral curls who looked around eleven and her equally curly-haired younger brother looked up from their family picnic and stared, while a teenaged boy got bonked in the head by a Frisbee because he was so distracted. Even the dogs in the park took notice: a golden retriever and a wiry white terrier stopped chasing each other and raced in wide circles around Bob as he blithely bounced along.
This should have stopped Gabby’s heart. When Gabby started babysitting for A.L.I.E.N. almost a year ago, Edwina told her the one, vitally important rule: never let humans see aliens. Now here was Bob, bouncing in full view of a whole field of staring people, but Gabby wasn’t worried at all. The second she’d emerged from the hedges, she’d shrugged off her purple knapsack, yanked out a large remote control, then swung the bag back over her shoulder. Now she poured on speed, pressing buttons and adjusting the joystick while she chased after Bob.
“Daddy, look!” the picnicking curly-haired boy cried out. “That girl’s got a bouncing RC toy!”
“Sweet,” the Frisbee guy called as Gabby ran past. “Where’d you get that?”
“Dunno!” Gabby called back. “It was a gift. Online, I think.”
It was always a good answer. People knew you could find anything online. They also liked easy explanations. As long as Gabby had a reasonable excuse for the faceless bouncing creature, people would accept it.
At least, most people would. Even as she tried to act natural, the skin on Gabby’s neck prickled, and she kept her eyes peeled for anyone who looked suspicious—anyone who might be from G.E.T.O.U.T., or another organization eager to expose the aliens living secretly on Earth. If any of them saw Bob and tried to grab him…
“Gabby!”
Gabby looked up and saw a girl her own age racing toward her—a twelve-year-old with long, blonde hair so smooth and shiny, it billowed behind her like a silk curtain.
Madison Murray. What was she even doing here? This park was miles away from their neighborhood.
Gabby plastered on a smile. “Hi, Madison! I’m kinda doing something right—”
But Madison spread her arms wide and slammed Gabby into a hug that sent them both sprawling to the ground. The remote control popped out of Gabby’s hands and rolled away.
“I got it!” called the curly-haired boy. He looked about five years old, and Gabby didn’t even realize he’d been following her on his stubby little legs until he scooped up the remote and started pressing its buttons.
Gabby’s heart thudded. Kids were smart. It wouldn’t take him long before he realized the remote did nothing. Then Bob wouldn’t be a toy; he’d be a living creature Gabby couldn’t explain away.
With a mighty groan, she rolled out from under Madison, then leaped to her feet and snatched away the remote. Her heart hurt when the little boy’s face fell and his lip puckered out, but she had no other option.
“Sorry!” she cried, already running after Bob ag
ain. “My parents gave it to me. I promised no one else would touch it!”
“BOOOOOOOOING!” Bob bounced ten feet in the air, leaping over an elderly couple on a park bench. Gabby quickly slammed a remote button and hooted out loud, as if the feat had come from her.
The little alien was near the far edge of the park now, close to a copse of tall trees. Beyond those was a busy street. If he bounced out there…
“I can’t believe you made a little boy cry, Gabby.”
Madison Murray had gotten back to her feet and was already matching her step for step. While Gabby was breathless and sweaty, Madison practically f loated by her side. When she smiled, she lit up like the sun, and her words were filled with just as much warmth. “You must have had a really good reason. So where are we running, bestie?”
Gabby shook her head, hard. It had been ten months since A.L.I.E.N. had to erase parts of Madison’s memory, but Gabby still wasn’t used to the changes in her one-time-mortal-enemy’s personality. They’d lived across the street from each other their whole lives and both were dedicated to music—Madison to the f lute and Gabby to her French horn—but picture-perfect Madison had always looked down on her rumpled and klutzy neighbor and did everything in her power to bring Gabby down. It only got worse when Gabby started babysitting for aliens. It was like Madison could smell the secret, and she and her cell phone always showed up at the wrong time to try to bring it to light.
Then Gabby accidentally brought Madison onto an alien spaceship.
The memory wipe that came afterward was only supposed to affect those specific memories. It succeeded in that and didn’t really seem to touch anything else…except the way Madison felt about Gabby. Madison came out of the wipe with no memory of their antagonistic past. Now she adored Gabby to the point of hero worship. She had even traded in her frilly dresses for jeans with purple T-shirts and high-tops.
Honestly, Gabby liked nasty Madison better.
“BOI-OI-OI-OI-OING!”
Gabby had finally caught up with Bob and was only two steps behind him when he leaped to the highest branch of a tree. Craning her neck, Gabby saw his blank head turn left, then right, searching hopelessly for a way back down. She heard him start to whimper.
“I’ve gotta get him,” she said out loud, then tossed down her knapsack and tore it open.
“Him?” asked Madison.
“It,” Gabby corrected herself. “The toy. I got it stuck.”
She yanked two f lat, oblong pieces of metal from her knapsack. Each one had thick straps on it and fit perfectly over Gabby’s shoes. She grabbed the ends of the straps to pull them tightly, then shrugged her knapsack on again. “Be right back,” she said to Madison.
Gabby kicked her heels together. The metal f lats hummed to life, then powerful springs shot out of the bottoms and zoomed Gabby straight into the air. She wobbled and pinwheeled her arms to stay upright.
Zee, Gabby’s actual best friend, had made her the shoes. From the second she’d found out the details of Gabby’s new job she’d wanted to be involved, but since Gabby couldn’t actually let her help with the babysitting—except in emergencies, of course—Zee had settled for being Q to Gabby’s James Bond, outfitting Gabby with a zillion different gadgets she might need in case of alien emergency. The spring shoes had come in handiest, but Gabby still felt like she was one small lean away from breaking every bone in her body whenever she used them.
She bounced off the ground once…twice…three times, always keeping her eyes on Bob, until she finally reached his height.
“Don’t worry, Bob,” she said to the frightened alien. “I’ve got you.”
She reached out and wrapped her arms around the little guy’s coiled body, pulling him off the branch. As they sank back to the ground and bounced to a stop, he cuddled his head against Gabby’s chest.
“Great save, Gabby!” Madison cheered, waving her cell phone in its crystal-studded pink case. “I got the whole thing on video!”
“You what?!” Gabby was so shaken up she forgot she was holding an alien.
“Uh-huh.” Madison smiled proudly. “I already posted it to InstaChat!” Then she frowned. “Your toy is squirming. Is there a problem with the batteries?”
“No. It’s fine.” Keeping Bob tightly in her grip, Gabby kicked off her shoe covers, grabbed them with one hand, then walked quickly back across the park. “I’m sorry—I gotta go. Babysitting job.”
“I’ll come, too!” Madison chirped. “I’m waiting for my mom, but she’s shopping. She won’t be back for a while. I bet the kids you’re sitting would love to meet your best friend!”
“You’d think so, right?” Gabby said, walking even faster. Bob was still wriggling, and if she didn’t get him home soon, she’d lose him again. “But this family’s pretty serious about their privacy. And I know you wouldn’t want to get me in trouble, right?”
Madison’s eyes widened as she gasped out loud.
“Never!” she said. She stopped in her tracks and called after Gabby as the distance grew between them. “See you soon, BFF! Miss you till then!”
Two seconds later, Gabby felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. She was almost positive it was a text from Madison. Something with a lot of heart and smiley-face emojis.
Gabby ignored it. Instead she whisked Bob back through the hedges and onto his own property, where she set him down on the grass. He coiled up, ready to bolt away again, but this time Gabby was prepared.
“You could go…but then you’d miss these.”
She plopped down cross-legged on the lawn, unzipped her knapsack, and burped open a reusable container. The strong scent of fresh-baked bread wafted through the air, and Bob boinged right up to Gabby, gently nudging her with the front of his head, urging her to hurry up. Gabby laughed. She couldn’t explain it, but she had yet to meet an alien who didn’t go nuts for breadsticks from her friend Satchel’s family pizzeria. Once Gabby discovered that, Satchel made it his business to bring her a daily batch.
“Catch!” Gabby called, and she broke off a piece of breadstick and tossed it across the lawn. Bob bounced through the grass to get it. Then, since his mouth splayed over the top of his head, he somersaulted over the breadstick to chomp it down. Gabby giggled and drew back her arm to throw another piece.
It was that image that froze on a giant screen as Gabby Duran, A.L.I.E.N. Associate 4118-25125A, stood on trial for crimes against the Worldwide International Government and the Greater Galactic Cooperative.
tood” on trial was a bit of a misnomer, of course. Gabby was actually sprawled out in a large, plush recliner with a massage function that was probably meant to be relaxing, but instead just felt like someone was rolling a carburetor up and down her spine. The chair was tilted all the way back, giving Gabby a clear view of the planetarium screen above, which was still filled with her own smiling face.
“For the love of Zinqual,” a familiarly sharp voice rang out from somewhere to her left. Edwina sounded like she was right next to Gabby, but even though Gabby turned and squinted through the darkness, she couldn’t see anything at all. “I fail to see how Gabby feeding the child has any relevance at all. If anything, it strengthens her case that she’s an excellent babysitter.”
Gabby grinned. Despite the situation, it felt good to hear Edwina say something nice about her. Most of her compliments were backhanded at best.
“You really think I’m an excellent babysitter?” Gabby asked.
She could see nothing, but she swore she heard Edwina’s eyes roll. “Yes,” the woman said drily, “but you’re a terrible defendant. Now wipe that smile off your face; it’s wholly inappropriate.
“As for you,” Edwina continued, raising her voice to talk to others in the room—Gabby thought of it as a room, though she hadn’t walked in a door and had no idea if there were any walls or even a f loor—“if this footage is all you have, it’s both immaterial and remarkably unf lattering. Honestly, do you even own a hairbrush, Gabby?”
“There are
some things of material relevance in the clip,” a meek male voice interjected from somewhere near what Gabby imagined to be the ceiling. “Like the breadsticks. I was wondering, Ms. Duran, do you have any on you?”
“Any breadsticks?” Gabby asked, confused. “Um…
probably…I always have some in my knapsack….”
Gabby leaned over one side of the recliner, then the other, and felt around for her knapsack, but it wasn’t anywhere. Alarmed, she felt around more frantically. “That’s weird. I don’t see it. I never go anywhere without my knapsack.” Then she froze, feeling dizzy as a chill washed over her. “I don’t even remember coming here,” she admitted. “How did I get here?”
“You’re not here, obviously,” Edwina’s voice said. “You’re asleep in your room. It’s the electrical impulses from your brain that we’ve harnessed to bring your consciousness to this trial.”
Gabby squirmed in her seat as the rolling oil drum inside the recliner pressed against her rear end. It certainly felt like she was here. “Are you sure I’m still in bed?”
Edwina didn’t answer, but Gabby could easily imagine the white-haired woman glaring at her, one eyebrow raised. Yet when Edwina spoke, it wasn’t directed to Gabby at all.
“Even if she had the breadsticks,” Edwina called out to the voice up above, “they would only be a figment of her mind and impossible for you to eat. So if that’s all—”
“No that’s not all!” boomed a different male voice, this one loud and imperious. “We also have this!”
The image on the planetarium screen changed. Now it showed an open laptop computer, its screen filled with an article from something called The Third Eye. Below the screaming headline “GABBY DURAN: FLYING GIRL!” was a picture of Gabby from when she’d bounced up to retrieve Bob from the tree. It had been snapped from below, and from that angle it did indeed look like she was f lying. Gabby recognized the shot immediately and she rushed to explain.
“That’s the picture Madison took. She posted it on InstaChat and tagged me. That’s how the Third Eye people know my name. They messaged me, and I told them the truth—I’m just bouncing on the shoes Zee made. I even put them in touch with Zee and she told them all about it. She was excited to! She—”
