Aliens on Vacation

by Clete Barrett Smith

  “Okay, but wait one moment before you go.” Grandma led Mr. Harnox through the swinging door into the kitchen, then reappeared and came over to me.

  “Is that guy okay?” I said.

  “Why do you ask?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. He looks a little…you know?”

  Grandma sighed. “Oh, poor Mr. Harnox. It’s probably time to wash that suit again. He’s been here over two years, after all.”

  “Two years? At a bed-and-breakfast?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid he can’t go home. He’s…well, he’s a bit trapped.”

  I started to ask what she meant, but Grandma leaned in close and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Scrub, do you think you could do me a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  She glanced at the kitchen door, then back at me. “Did you happen to get a look at the house rules when you were settling in?”

  “Um…yeah. Yeah, I did.”

  She stepped even closer, her voice so low I could hardly hear it. “Could you keep your eyes open, let me know if you see any of the Tourists breaking a rule?”

  Sure, Grandma, I thought. The moment I see one of your customers attack a tribe of Native Americans, you’ll be the first to know.

  The skepticism must have made its way into my face, because she laughed and said, “I’m sorry, Scrub. I’ve been running this place for so long it all seems routine to me. Nothing much surprises anymore.” She used both hands to clear the hair out of her eyes, then whispered again. “My guests are…well, you could say, they are foreign to the area…and the rules help to protect them.”

  I nodded. Slowly. “Okay…”

  “Oh, that doesn’t help much, does it?” Grandma fidgeted with her hands. “It’s just I’ve never—”

  Dishes clattered and crashed behind the kitchen door. “Oh dear,” she said. “No time now.” She grabbed my hands and looked into my eyes. “Please just let me know if you see anyone breaking the rules.”

  She was looking at me so seriously, staring right at me with big round eyes, so I answered seriously. “Yeah. No problem.”

  “Oh, that’s such a relief. It is truly a blessing to have you here,” Grandma said, rushing toward the kitchen door. “Thanks again, Scrub.” She disappeared into the kitchen.

  “You’re welcome,” I called after her. I still had no idea what she was talking about.

  I woke up in the middle of the night with no idea where I was until a rush of cold air and the splatter of rain against the house clued me in. I was freezing, even under all of these thick quilts. I usually sleep under a single sheet back in Tampa.

  I climbed out of bed, and after tugging the win-dow closed, I raced to get back under the covers. But before I could shut my eyes, I noticed something.

  There was a blue circle the size of a dinner plate glowing in the center of that big metallic closet door. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and looked again. Still there. It pulsed, getting a little brighter, then dimming. A faint thrumming faded in and out in time with the glowing.

  I shivered. Only, I don’t think that had much to do with the cold night air. To be honest, I wanted to pull the covers over my head and forget all about that thing.

  But that was stupid. After all of the crazy things I’d done when Tyler Sandusky dared me, all our bets and competitions, checking out this closet door seemed pretty tame. And besides, I was going to officially be a teenager soon, and teenagers—not to mention potential starting point guards on the all-star team—did not let things like this freak them out.

  I finally talked myself into slipping out of bed.

  I knelt in front of the closet door, the circle at eye level. No letters or markings of any kind. Just clear blue light. I held my hand a few inches from it, testing it for heat, but didn’t feel anything.

  Finally, I closed the gap and placed my palm on the blue surface.

  “Unauthorized,” said a mechanical voice, and it startled me so badly I fell backward. The blue light faded until it was completely gone.

  I jumped back into bed, and this time I did pull the covers up over my head.

  A different kind of weird light woke me next: sun-light. The cloud cover had actually broken up. Maybe there was some type of summer here after all. I glanced at the closet, but it was just a door. It was easy to believe that the blue circle—and that voice —had all been a dream.

  I stared at the ceiling and wondered what I’d be doing if I were home. It was three hours later in Florida, so Tyler Sandusky and I would probably be down at the pool after morning basketball practice.

  About of homesickness hit me like a weight on my chest, so heavy it was actually hard to breathe.

  I grabbed my cell and checked the last text message Tyler had sent just before I left town: good luck w/the Challenge. u r goin down, sucka!

  The Great Weekly Challenges. Tyler and I invented them two years ago. Past Challenges included Who Can Do the Scariest Thing (Me: riding my bike through the cemetery at midnight; Tyler: putting his tongue on a wasps’ nest) and Who Can Do the Stupidest Thing (Me: throwing a water balloon at a group of high schoolers and running away; Tyler: sprinting across the driving range on Saturday morning when every retired person in Florida is smacking golf balls).

  Challenges must be completed in one week. The prize for winning is not really that exciting: you just get to pick the next dare. But there is no backing down from a Challenge.

  Since we wouldn’t see each other this summer, the Great Weekly Challenges became the Colossal Summer Challenge. It was Tyler’s turn to pick, and he came up with Who Will Be the First to Kiss a (Nonrelative) Girl.

  I think he just made this one up because he’d already come pretty close to kissing Amanda Peterson, and he wanted an excuse to go ahead and try to do it. In some ways, Tyler’s more like a brother than a friend. I mean, we’ve lived next door to each other since preschool, and just always hung out together. Even though he knew me better than anyone else, even my own parents, I was starting to wonder whether we’d even be friends if we met for the first time right now.

  Anyway, I also think he made up this Challenge because he knew the closest I’d come to kissing anyone was when the girl playing Maid Marian in that Robin Hood play tripped, knocked me over in my tree costume, and fell right on top of me. The sequins on her dress got all tangled up with the leaves from my costume, so she was trapped there, flailing away and lying right on top of me, in front of a packed auditorium. It took five minutes for Little John and Friar Tuck to get her off me.

  So Tyler knew I had no chance to win this Challenge. Besides, from what I’d seen so far, an Intergalactic Bed and Breakfast is not the best place to meet the ladies.

  At least Tyler agreed to waive the video-confirmation requirement that we normally use to validate the winner. Without Internet or cell phone service, it was not like I could report back to him anyway. He’d probably won already.

  My stomach rumbled. The last thing I had eaten was a packet of airplane peanuts too many hours ago. I pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and stepped into the hall, then trotted downstairs, where Grandma’s customers milled around the sitting room.

  It was a lot busier this morning. A couple sat on the couch, studying a map. They had pretty big heads but really short bodies. A woman, almost as tall as Mr. Harnox, studied the books on the highest bookshelf. A family of four, all very fat—almost entirely round, on second glance—were pulling on hiking boots by the front door. Everyone looked a little bit funny.

  But I was too hungry to pay much attention to the customers. I walked into the kitchen to find Grandma at the stove, cooking something that looked like greenish oatmeal.

  “Ah! A sweet and pleasant new day to you, Scrub.”

  “Morning.”

  The family from yesterday, with the shaky legs and oversized sunglasses, was sitting at the big communal table eating breakfast. The dad got everyone’s attention and jabbed his finger at me, smiling; then the entire family gave me double-armed waves
from across the room. I lifted a hand in return. It was pretty embarrassing, since everyone else at the table had stopped eating to look at me too.

  I turned to avoid all of those stares and found Grandma beaming at me. She gestured toward the table. “Those nice folks told me that you really helped them out yesterday, Scrub.”

  I shrugged. “Trust me, it really wasn’t that big of a deal.” I peeked over at the table, and the family was still smiling at me and flapping their arms so energetically it looked like they were trying to get the breakfast table to take flight.

  “Well, you trust me, it meant the world and then some to them.” Grandma poked me with her wooden spoon. “And I appreciate your being so kind to Mr. Harnox yesterday.”

  The kitchen door swung open and a lady walked in with a little kid. The polite term for the lady would be “big-boned” but, man, those would have to be some really big, round, squishy bones under there. The enormous dress she was wearing—more of a king-size bedsheet, actually—just barely covered all of that flesh.

  She looked at Grandma and gestured to the kid, a boy who looked to be kindergarten-age with a miniature version of his mom’s body. His faded Seattle Mariners baseball cap was about five sizes too big, and the bill drooped down to cover most of his face. “Is this head covering so necessary?” the woman said. “He cannot see his own feet. He will be smashing into every things if we go to the outside like this.”

  Grandma made a sympathetic face. “It’s truly sorry I am, ma’am. It was the smallest hat I could find this morning.”

  The lady looked upset at that. “This is not for acceptable.” Her voice was getting a little too loud. Grandma glanced anxiously at the guests at the table. “I will not allow you to—”

  “Maybe I can help,” I said. I felt sort of bad for Grandma, not to mention the kid. I reached out to grab the hat. Grandma gasped a little and put her hand on my arm. She studied my face for a moment, then lowered her hand and nodded. I pulled the hat off the kid’s head.

  Whoa. Poor little guy. He must have had some kind of birth defect or something, because he was totally bald and he had these golf-ball-size lumps all over his head. I remembered seeing something on TV, maybe the Discovery Channel, about diseases that could affect little kids like that.

  I could feel Grandma watching me, and I didn’t want to embarrass the kid, so I kept my face as neutral as possible.

  “Here you go,” I said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. I turned the cap around and set it on his head backward, tucking the sides behind his ears so that it would stay in place. “There. You can see now, plus it looks better. That’s the cool way to wear a cap.”

  The boy looked up at me. “Cool?”

  “Yeah. It means good. You look good. The best.”

  The boy’s smile was so big it threatened to split his round face in two. “Coo-oo-ool,” he said.

  The lady nodded once at me. “Thank you.” She looked back at Grandma. “We go out now.”

  Grandma patted the boy on top of his baseball cap. “My wishes to you for a most enchanting day, travelers.”

  They pushed out through the swinging kitchen doors. Grandma turned to me, and she had a look in her eyes like maybe she was seeing me for the first time. “Scrub, I must say, it’s a fine gift you have for dealing with my customers.”

  “Thanks.” My face got a little warm. “Again, not really a big deal.”

  “Bigger than you think, maybe.” She stirred the stuff in the pot. “Now, I’m sorry to make demands of you so early, especially since the jet lag must be making you exhausted, but I have a bit of a favor to ask you.”

  “No problem. What’s up?” That family had at last stopped their waving, but it would still be nice to get out of the kitchen for a while.

  “There are some things I desperately need at the grocery store.” Grandma took off her glasses and wiped them on her apron. “It’s a bit of a hike, but would you mind terribly going for me? You can borrow a grocery cart to bring back here, and I can return it later.”

  “All right.” It might be fun to check out the town a little bit. There had to be at least a few kids my age around here.

  And, okay, so maybe it was also a little bit nice to be asked. My parents never really asked for my help back home. Maybe to take the dog out or whatever, but not for something they really needed.

  “That’s wonderful. But please, enjoy a bit of breakfast before you go. You must be starving.”

  I looked at the bubbling mass of thick, greenish oatmeal.

  “Um, that’s okay,” I said. A grocery story meant real food, like Pop-Tarts and frosted fruit pies and grape soda. My stomach rumbled at the thought.

  A few minutes later I was out the front door and walking to town. Just after I passed the park, I ran into three guys. They were a couple of years older than me, maybe high schoolers. I tried not to seem too eager when I saw that one of them was bouncing a faded leather basketball.

  I never know where to look when passing someone on the street. Seems weird to look straight ahead and avoid eye contact. But then again, you don’t want to stare at someone and weird them out, either. I sort of looked down, and when they got close I lifted my head and tried the head-nod-with-raised-eyebrows combo, no smile, with some quick eye contact. I’ve seen other guys do that.

  They stopped right in front of me. My mood perked up a little with the hope that they might ask me to play ball. Maybe this summer wouldn’t be a total waste.

  “Hey,” said the one with the basketball.

  “Hey.”

  “Where’re you from?” said the tallest one.

  “Florida.”

  By the way they looked at each other I could tell that wasn’t the usual answer around here.

  “That’s cool,” said the third one, a guy with blond hair. “You ever been to Disneyland?”

  “It’s Disney World, dork,” the tall one said. “Disneyland’s in California.”

  “Well, have you?”

  That’s the first question anyone asks when they hear you’re from Florida. “Yeah. We only live a couple of hours away. We go all the time.”

  “Cool,” said the guy with blond hair. “I’m Greg. This is Brian, and the big guy there is Eddie. We’re gonna play ball at the park, but it gets boring with three people.”

  “Yeah,” said Brian. “The only game you can play with three is cutthroat. You wanna come with and make it two-on-two?”

  “Sure,” I said, trying to act casual. “I just have to run to the store really quick, but I can meet you back here afterward.”

  “Nice,” Greg said. “What’s your name, anyway?”

  I thought for a moment. Scrub is an especially brutal nickname for a baller, since it basically means second- or third-string. Now, I may not be the tallest guy in the world, but that doesn’t necessarily matter when it comes to getting playing time. It’s what I liked about being point guard: you can be the shortest guy and still be the leader of the team. Smarts are just as important as being athletic, maybe more.

  I decided that being away from home could give me a fresh start. Today I would begin my new life as David. David the mysterious out-of-towner could be a great basketball player and someone the girls of Forest Grove lined up to kiss, Challenge or no Challenge. I opened my mouth to tell them my real name when—

  “Yoo-hoo! Scrub! Wait a moment!”

  My grandma. Headed our way, pedaling an ancient Schwinn with a big basket on the front of the handlebars. The basket had sunflower decorations all over it.

  “You know the Space Place lady?” said Eddie.

  “Wait—your name is Scrub?” said Brian.

  “Yep,” I said. I could feel my face getting red.

  Grandma stepped off the bike and pulled a slip of paper out of her basket. “Here you go, Scrub. You forgot the grocery list.” She smiled at the older guys. “Greetings to you on such a pleasant morning, gentlemen. I trust that you are happily and well met with my grandson?”

  The guys didn
’t answer; they just looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes and smirked, just barely successful in not cracking up right in her face.

  Grandma watched them. Sometimes old people can be clueless when it comes to reading teenagers.

  When they still didn’t say anything to her, Grandma glanced at me. “Oh, and one other thing, Scrub. Mr. Harnox is giving lessons on common courtesy this afternoon.” She winked at me. “In case you know anyone who might benefit.”

  I had to stifle a groan. Her lame attempt to make fun of them went over their heads and just made her look more out of it.

  She climbed back onto her bike. “Time to return home. I’m afraid the plants in my spice garden become rather cross with me when they don’t get their drink of water first thing in the morning.” She turned her bike around to leave, and I thanked her with my mind. “Many blessings on your path today, gentlemen,” she called over her shoulder as she pedaled down the road.

  When she was barely out of earshot, the guys broke out laughing. “Did you see what she was wearing?” Brian said.

  “I know,” Eddie said. “She needs to crawl into one of those spaceships on her lawn and blast off to Planet Hippie, where she can live among her own kind.”

  My face got even hotter, but not because I was embarrassed. This time it was because I was starting to get a little mad. Sure, Grandma might dress weird, but I had to admit she’d been pretty nice to me so far. I felt like standing up for her, but I didn’t know what to say.

  “So, Scrub, is she totally stuck in the sixties like everyone says?” Greg said.

  “And is that place half as weird inside as it is outside?” Brian asked.

  This was my chance to defend Grandma, but I shrugged and chickened out. “Yeah, I guess,” I mumbled. “Look, I gotta go to the store.”

  “All right,” said Eddie. “I guess you could still come and play ball with us when you’re done. You know, as long as it wouldn’t make you miss your flight to Mars.” They all laughed, but then Greg punched Eddie in the arm.

  “He’s just messing around,” Greg said to me. “Come find us later. Cool?”