“How to start?” she said, glancing at the ceiling as if maybe the answer were printed there. “It all began when I got a visit from the most wonderful…no, that’s not the best way to begin.” She smoothed her hair down and bit her lower lip. “Well, it just so happened that…No. No, that’s not right either.” She stood, walked to the bookshelf, and grabbed something. “Here, it might be easiest if you read this.”
She handed me a thin brochure. The cover read Your Vacation on Earth. I looked up at Grandma with my eyebrows wrinkled. “Just give it a chance,” she said.
I opened the pamphlet. Instantly, several holographic images appeared, floating right in front of my face, about a foot above the brochure. My whole body flinched, and I snapped the brochure closed. The holograms disappeared.
Grandma patted my hand. “All is well,” she said.
I eased open the brochure again, and the images leaped into the air. A blue-green globe of Earth, about a foot in diameter, spun slowly on its axis in front of my eyes. It looked so real. The colors were bright and it was one of those globes where the mountains stick up and everything. Holding the brochure in one hand, I tried to touch the globe, but my hand slipped right through the image. “Wait a moment,” Grandma said. Pretty soon a red arrow appeared and pointed to the northwestern part of the United States with the words You are here! flashing next to it.
Beside this was a floating three-dimensional image of an overweight couple on a cruise ship, in brightly colored Hawaiian shirts and matching visors, with enough cameras and video equipment draped around their necks to drown them if they fell off the ship. The guy was even wearing dark socks pulled up to his bone-white knees.
The people waved. A floating caption underneath read, Two earthlings set out for a day of vacation. The following words scrolled by underneath the image like the headline ticker on those twenty-four-hour news channels:
STEP BACK IN TIME WITH A VISIT TO THIS QUAINT LITTLE PLANET HIDDEN AWAY IN A QUIET CORNER OF THE MILKY WAY GALAXY. EARTH IS THE ONLY INHABITED PLANET IN ITS TINY SOLAR SYSTEM, MAKING IT THE PERFECT RELAXING GETAWAY. THE TRANSPORTER RECEPTION AREA—LOCATED AT AN ESTABLISHMENT KNOWN LOCALLY AS THE INTERGALACTIC BED AND BREAKFAST—IS IN AN AREA LARGELY UNTOUCHED BY EARTHLING “CIVILIZATION.” THIS ALLOWS TRAVELERS TO ENJOY EARTH IN ITS NATURAL STATE WITH EASY ACCESS TO THIS PLANET’S ABUNDANT PLANT AND ANIMAL LIFE.
I stared at the holographs. I was about to say something like “This can’t be real” or “I don’t believe this”…but then I heard the gray dude in the kitchen, chomping and smacking his way through who knew how many rolls of aluminum foil. My fingers remembered touching that squishy, so-moist-it-was-almost-slimy hand, and I shuddered.
I leaned my head toward the kitchen door and whispered, “So…Mr. Harnox is…you know…an alien …really?”
Grandma nodded. “He’s visiting from the planet Shuunuu in the Andromeda galaxy,” she said. “Poor thing. He was only supposed to stay the weekend, but complications forced him into a rather extended visit.”
My mind went numb. If Mr. Harnox was really an…then that might mean they all were: the family on all fours…the kid with the lumpy head…and the people sleeping right next door to me all night long, and—
Grandma pulled me out of my thoughts. “Oh, and I don’t care much for the word alien. It sounds harsh.” She glanced at the kitchen door, then back at me. “It comes with such a negative connotation and denotes the ‘other.’ I try to focus on our similarities. I prefer the term Tourist, if you don’t mind.”
I nodded, as if I somehow understood. My mouth had gone totally dry. “So this brochure, who sees it?”
“Those are distributed at vacation centers throughout every galaxy in the cosmos,” Grandma said.
I took another long look at the tacky tourists, waving and smiling at me. “So the entire universe thinks we all look like dorks?” I said.
My mind flooded with a million questions. I picked one at random. “So how do the aliens—I mean the Tourists—get here? Do spaceships land in the backyard?”
Grandma laughed. “Oh, no. That’s an Earth myth about space travel. UFO sightings and crop circles and all the rest.” She took the brochure and put it back on the bookshelf. “Spaceships are used almost exclusively for trade cargo these days, trans-porting bulky goods from planet to planet. And for interstellar law enforcement, I suppose. But strictly business. When aliens travel for recreation, they use the transporter system pretty much exclusively.”
My mind buzzed. Grandma’s place doesn’t get cell phone service or the Internet, but she knows the secret to space travel?
“Transporters?”
“Yes. Each room here has one.”
I nodded. The closet door with the glowing blue circle. I didn’t realize how lucky I was when that thing wouldn’t open in the middle of the night. Where would I have ended up if I’d stumbled in there? I was going to have to be very careful around this place. “How do they work?”
“Well, it’s a bit complicated, and I don’t fully understand it myself. But basically a Tourist steps into a transporter on his home planet. He is scanned, then broken down into his most basic elements.”
“Elements? Like the periodic table?”
“Exactly. The elements are the same all over the universe. We are all of us—humans and space Tourists alike—made up of the exact same stuff. I have always thought that to be the most wonderful notion. It fills me with such hope.” Grandma looked sort of dreamy and far away again.
“So…the Tourists are broken down into elements.…” I said, hoping to get her back on track.
“That’s right. The elements are dissipated across the Tourist’s home planet. The scan is sent to our machines, and the same elements are drawn from our atmosphere and assembled to create the original being. The genetic information remains intact, and you get the same creature that shows up here, nearly instantaneously, even though the Tourist might live millions of light-years away.”
Yikes. “Does it hurt?” I said.
“Oh, no. Just a tickle. At least that’s what the Tourists tell me. Apparently it all happens instantaneously. Before you’re even fully broken down in one place, you’re being put back together in another.”
I thought of my room again. “That thing—the transporter—it went off in my room in the middle of the night.” I shuddered again. “Could something just pop out of there?” If so, I wasn’t going to be able to fall asleep for the next two months.
Grandma shook her head and patted me on the hand. “That one’s been on the fritz for years. It sparkles on and off every now and again, but no Tourists can use it. I’ve tried to get it fixed, but it’s so hard to get a repairman to visit a primitive planet. A couple of the others have been short-circuiting on me, but no one from the Interstellar Tourism Bureau can be bothered.”
Mr. Harnox walked through the kitchen door and smiled at us as he passed by. I gawked as he went up the stairs, his lanky legs taking them five at a time.
“His planet had a bit of an immigration problem,” Grandma whispered. “The government there completely overreacted and shut down the transporter system right after Mr. Harnox arrived here. He’s been stuck ever since.”
Poor dude. The questions kept coming. “Aren’t you worried about calling this place the Intergalactic Bed and Breakfast? With the space decorations and all? Aren’t you afraid someone will find out?”
Grandma smiled. “We’re hiding out in the open. Do you think anyone would believe me if I told them that actual aliens visited here?”
Good point. Unless you count Amy, I guess, but I had a feeling she’d be willing to believe anything you told her about aliens. “Well, what about your human customers?”
“Human customers?” Grandma said. “I haven’t had a human customer since…” She squinted and looked up. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a human customer.”
Wow. I was trying to soak it all in when the most obvious question of all occurred to me. “Does Dad know?”
Grandma took a deep breath. “I opened the inn when he was a baby, it’s true,” she said. “But things were different back then, when he was growing up. We didn’t have a brochure put together yet or even a blurb in the Interstellar Tourism Bureau guide, so business was very slow. We got the occasional honeymooners looking for an ultra-secluded getaway spot, but folks like that always spent most of the time in their room.”
Ugh. Thanks for that mental image, Grandma. I don’t want to picture aliens making more aliens. I must have made a face, because she looked at me and laughed a little bit before she continued. “And we had a few xenoscientists and planetary researchers, but they were always outside, taking pictures and collecting soil and water samples.” Grandma shrugged. “There was much that I was able to hide from him.”
She gazed out the window with a look on her face like she was seeing things that happened a long time ago. She sighed. “Poor little guy. His mother was the town kook, after all, and he wanted so badly to fit in. He threw himself into school, clubs, student government, sports. Created his own world, his own sense of reality. Worked on projects at school until all hours, stayed over with friends, but never brought them here. The older he got, the less we saw of each other.”
I was having trouble picturing Dad as a kid. It was easy to believe that he’d started life as a six-footer in a sports jacket with a cell phone attached to his ear.
Grandma shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Once he reached his teen years, certain things became obvious. But still I kept a few secrets. And then, before we took the chance to talk about everything, he was off to the University of Florida. It was the farthest away that he could go and still be in the same country.” She was quiet for a long time, then finally said, “I think you should to talk to your father if you have any more questions about his experiences here.”
I just sat there thinking about the fact that I was in on a secret that maybe only two other people in the world knew. My heart sped up. I wasn’t sure I was ready. The C-minus I’d gotten in science didn’t exactly qualify me to be humanity’s ambassador to visitors from the depths of space.
Grandma lifted her gaze from the floor, tears making her eyes shiny behind those pink lenses. “You look so much like him, Scrub, when he was your age. It feels like a chance for me to start over. I hope that makes some sort of sense.”
I sat up a little straighter and nodded. Nobody had ever trusted me like this before. I didn’t want to let her down. I had so many more questions, but before I could open my mouth—
Ding! Ding! Ding!
A series of chimes came from the cupboard with the keys. “Follow me, Scrub.” Down the hallway, Grandma opened the cupboard. Next to the key for room 3b, a little green light flashed in time with the chimes.
“Well, it looks like we’ll be able to give you some on-the-job training. One of the things I desperately need help with is GRADEs.”
“Grades?”
“Greeting and Review of Alien’s Disguise for Earth. A most important process.” Grandma opened a side door to a supply closet. She spoke to me over her shoulder as she rummaged around. “It’s essential that no one discovers our secret here, of course. You know how people treat those who are different. You can imagine what folks would do if they knew visitors from outer space were here.”
I had seen enough movies to get a clear picture. Guns, tanks, missiles. Secret experiments in underground labs.
Grandma stepped out of the closet and handed me a suitcase. A placard on the front read complete stage makeup and accessories kit. “But nosy humans are the least of my concerns, to tell you the truth. What’s worse is that if my secret is discovered, the folks at the Interstellar Tourism Bureau will take away my hotelier license. Probably permanently.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes. The bureau is already touchy about granting licenses to hoteliers on primitive planets, but I had a friend pull a few strings for me. It probably wouldn’t take much for them to revoke my license. I try to maintain a very low profile.”
I sat on the couch and set the suitcase across my knees. Inside was everything you might need for making disguises: face paint, fake noses, mustaches, that sort of thing. “What do you do with all of this stuff?”
“When Tourists arrive, we need to make sure they are ready to mingle with the people of Earth.”
“So we use this stuff to make sure they look…normal?”
Grandma sniffed. “‘Normal’ as it’s narrowly defined on Earth, anyway. Many of them have done their research and have already disguised themselves the best they can to fit in. But my heavens, some of the others think any old carbon-based life form can just drop in here and walk around unnoticed.” She shook her head. “They’re used to vacationing on planets where the citizens are more accustomed to off-world guests, I suppose.” She turned and walked up the first few stairs. “Bring the kit and follow me, Scrub. Those folks should be arriving in Three-B any time now.”
I followed Grandma up the steps. We were almost at the second-floor landing when someone knocked on the front door. Grandma glanced at her watch. “Oh, dear. That’s probably UPS with the weekly delivery. You see what I mean? Not enough time for one woman to do it all. Lately, it seems like GRADE jobs alone have been taking up most of my time.” She started back down the steps. “Do you think you could hold down the fort up in Three-B for a minute? Just until I can make my way up there?”
Me? Like, by myself, me?
“Is this…I mean, do you think…is all of this safe?”
“In forty years, I’ve never had a problem with a Tourist.” She waved me up the stairs. “Just make some small talk. Stall them until I can get up there and walk you through a full GRADE session.” Grandma headed down the stairs again, then turned when she reached the bottom. “See if they speak enough English to get by. That can be pretty hit-and-miss, I’m afraid.” Then she was around the corner and out of sight.
I swallowed. Maybe it’s easy for her to handle the sudden arrival of space aliens, but my heart pounded as I trudged up the steps. Sure, there are movies where aliens are friendly and want to help people, like E.T. or Superman. But I’ve seen way more movies where the aliens want to suck human brains out of their ear holes or hatch eggs inside their bodies. It took all my willpower to put one foot in front of the other and lug myself to the third floor.
By the time I made it up the second staircase to room 3b, I could feel cold beads of sweat on my forehead, and damp patches under my armpits. I knocked, but no answer. The door creaked as I eased it open.
I sat on the bed and waited, breathing deeply to calm down my heart rate.
A glowing blue circle appeared in the center of the “closet” door, pulsing faster and faster until it became a constant bright blue. That thrumming sound matched the pulsing lights until it turned into a steady whine.
I stood and took a couple of steps toward the door. This was crazy. And probably dangerous. I could not do this. I hadn’t done anything this dangerous since the last time Tyler challenged me to—
That’s it! The Challenges. Just think of this as one of the Challenges. Pretend Tyler’s Colossal Summer Challenge was Meet An Alien. No Wussing Out.
It probably sounds stupid, but this helped. My heart calmed down, and I was able to catch my breath. I’ve done all kinds of scary things because I had to, because there’s no backing down from a Challenge. I waited for the arrival.
The thrumming whine from the blue circle hit its highest note, then stopped suddenly. A cloud of steam seeped from underneath the door and curled toward the ceiling. There was a faint whoosh sound. The door slowly opened.
The steam cleared, and standing before me were two aliens.
They must have studied that brochure, because they matched the tacky tourists almost exactly, with too-bright Hawaiian shirts and visors and everything.
“Hel-lo,” said the male (or what I assumed was the male). “You are first Earth creature we are meeting.” He took a quick glance
at a book-shaped device in his hand, stuck his arm straight out, and said, “Would you enjoy to hold my hand and shake it up and down in the gesture of greeting?”
“Okay.” I shook his hand. It was really cold. And I don’t mean clammy, but freezing to the touch.
“That was great!” he said.
“Thanks…I’ve done it before.”
“Of course. You live here!” He barked out a series of high-pitched squeals. A big smile stretched his face, so I guessed he was laughing.
I tried to smile back. The three of us stared at each other for a minute. The male certainly seemed friendly, but I wasn’t sure about the female. She had only been here two minutes and already she had the Earth-sneer down perfectly. I strained my hearing, praying for the sound of Grandma’s footsteps coming down the hall. If you told me a week ago I would meet a space alien, I’m sure I could’ve come up with a thousand good questions for it. But I was a total blank now.
I kept staring. In an attempt to make this appear less rude, I started nodding. No idea why, except maybe it would seem reassuring, or at least nonthreatening. The male must’ve thought it was another Earth ritual, like shaking hands, so he copied me. And then it was like I didn’t know how to stop. So we just stood there, bobbing our heads at one another like a couple of mental patients.
The female looked annoyed. “Can we make the exit soon? Now?”
That pulled me out of it. I stopped nodding. “Uh…actually, you need to wait here for a bit.”
“For what reason?” she said.
“You need to be…ah…GRADEd.”
“What?”
“Well, your Earth disguises…they need to be reviewed or inspected or whatever, and then—”
“Inspected?” She spat the word.
“To make sure, you know, you’re ready. Ready to go out. Outside.”
She sighed heavily. “Hurry and be finished, then.”
“Actually, I’m not the one who—”
Aliens on Vacation Page 5
