“We paid real money for this little vacation. Get started,” she said.
I looked at the door, silently willing Grandma to appear. Nothing. The female tapped her foot on the floor in what must be the universal signal of impatience.
I’d better at least try to get started. Grandma wanted them to look “normal,” so I checked them out. They looked fine, overall…but with a closer look I noticed something that might count as out of the ordinary.
“Sir? You have sort of a bright purple patch on your cheek.”
“So sorry. You are the expert, yes? You can help?”
Expert. Right. At least he couldn’t tell I had only been on the job for five minutes.
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, looking back and forth between the aliens. They stared back at me. I nodded at them some more and cleared my throat, trying to fill the awkward silence. Maybe Grandma shouldn’t have trusted me so much after all.
“Well, what are you thinking to do about this?” the female said.
I noticed a box of Kleenex on the bedside table. In desperation, I grabbed a couple of tissues and approached the male. He bent down and offered me his cheek.
I rubbed at the purple spot. Bad idea. The purple patch grew. It was freezing, just like his hands, and sort of…scaly. I panicked, and rubbed harder. Rubbery, flesh-colored chunks fell from his face as the Kleenex scraped away the disguise to reveal his true skin. Another chunk fell away, and a third eye, set in the middle of his cheekbone, opened up and stared at me. I shuddered. Part of his lip had rubbed off, and a few sharp fangs poked out the side of his face.
I managed to stop my frantic rubbing and step back. I had turned a mostly normal-looking Tourist into an extra from a flesh-eating-zombie movie.
“I don’t know overly much about this little planet around here, but I don’t think you’re helping,” the female said.
“Nonsense, let the man do his duties,” the male said. He gave me a smile that was probably meant to be friendly but looked pretty gruesome, given his circumstances.
I was lost. Little beads of cold sweat popped out on my forehead. I put my hands behind my back so the aliens wouldn’t see them shaking.
Finally, Grandma glided into the room, a huge smile on her face. “Welcome to Earth, travelers,” she said, spreading her arms wide. “We are so happy you could visit with us today.” She gave each alien a big hug, then stepped back and put her arm around me. “I see you’ve met Scrub. He’s my grandson and new employee.” She looked at me. “How is everything going?”
“Oh, you know, fine,” I lied. “They just, um, I mean we need to maybe fix him up a little bit. Right around that region.” I pointed to the male alien’s face.
“Of course, no problem at all,” Grandma said. She was very calm, just like everything was perfectly normal. I realized that to her, at least, this was probably true.
She popped open the stage makeup kit and pulled out a vial of flesh-colored liquid. “I find this to be the best for cover-up work,” Grandma told me. She stepped in front of the male alien. “Close that lower eye, please. Thank you.” She tipped the vial upside down onto a tiny sponge, then rubbed the makeup over the alien’s third eye. It disappeared with a couple of circular swipes.
Grandma turned and handed me the sponge. “Here, Scrub. Do you think you could finish with the cheek while I touch up that lip?”
“Um, sure.” I stepped in beside Grandma and dabbed at the alien’s face. It took me a lot longer than her to get the makeup spread evenly, but eventually those purple scales faded.
Grandma reached inside the kit and pulled out a thin sheet of flesh-colored rubber. “Prosthetic skin,” she said to me. She cut a couple of strips using tiny scissors, then opened a short bottle. The cap had a little brush sticking out of the middle that dipped into the bottle when it was closed, which she touched to the rubber skin. “This is spirit gum,” she told me. “Very sticky, and long-lasting. Stage actors use it to attach false mustaches or a patch of scar tissue.”
I continued rubbing makeup on the alien’s face. Grandma nestled in next to us and pressed the rubber skin against his lips, re-forming the bits I had rubbed off. Then she dabbed at the new lips with some pink-colored paints. We finished up at the same time.
We stepped back for a look. Amazing. It had taken Grandma less than two minutes to clean up my hideous mess.
“Now, how do we look?” the male alien said. He spread his arms to present himself, and a third arm popped out from the middle of his shirt where one of the buttons had come undone. It was also purple and scaly. That would probably count as out of the ordinary for Forest Grove.
I waited for Grandma to answer, but she just looked at me, one eyebrow raised. “You, um, probably want to keep that out of sight,” I said, gesturing vaguely toward the arm sticking out of his chest. Grandma winked at me and nodded.
“Oh, yes, right you are,” he said, and the arm slithered back into the shirt. “Now I am remembering. Your people just have the two of them. But I am not being certain of how you manage with just two!” He let loose with that barking laugh again.
“Is that all?” the lady alien asked. Grandma had to help with her hair—her curly gray wig was a little lopsided—but otherwise she looked fine.
“You two look adorable. You’re all ready for a vacation,” Grandma said. “Let me give you some maps of the area. There are excellent hiking trails if you would like to explore the natural aspects of Earth. Follow me downstairs, and I can give you a full orientation on how to behave among Earthlings before you head out.”
Grandma held the door open and motioned for them to exit. As the male alien was walking toward the door, he held out his hand to me. I moved to shake his hand again, but instead he dropped a half dozen tiny cubes into my outstretched palm. They were a shiny metallic green, and when I touched them, neon colors flashed all over their sides.
“What are these?” I said.
“What’s the matter? Not enough for you?” the female alien said.
“Oh, no, that’s a most generous tip,” Grandma said. “I’m sure Scrub is quite grateful.”
I stared at the little flashing cubes, then up at the male alien. “Thanks,” I said. I didn’t bother to add, I’m sure this money will come in handy. You know, the next time I visit your planet.
Grandma ushered the aliens out the door. When they were in the hall, she turned and whispered, “Wonderful job, Scrub. I’m so proud.”
“But you did everything,” I said.
“You kept your cool, that’s the most important thing,” Grandma said. “You should have seen me at first. I was so nervous I let my first customer walk right out the front door with bright yellow tentacles sticking out the armholes of his shirt. I chased him down the street and hauled him back here after I realized. Trust me, you were terrific.”
“Thanks.” My face got a little hot. I wasn’t really used to doing any important jobs back home.
I looked down at my hands and remembered the chill of the alien’s bare skin against mine. I couldn’t help but shiver a little bit. “Those Tourists seemed pretty nice, but still…are you totally sure it’s all safe? I don’t mean that I thought they were going to attack me or anything. But is it, like, environmentally safe? I don’t know, with them bringing in alien germs or whatever?”
“I’ve been doing this almost forty years, and I’ve never caught a Venusian virus or gotten so much as the sniffles from a Saturnian sickness. It’s safe, all right.” She grinned at me. “Besides, I’ve seen some of the places that young boys put their hands right here on germ-filled Earth. A few dust particles from a distant planet should be the least of your worries.” I blushed at that, even though I wasn’t quite sure why. “But I can buy a couple of bottles of hand sanitizer to have around the house if it makes you feel better.”
I shrugged. “It’s okay. I trust you.”
Grandma moved closer and cupped my face in her hands. “I feel I can really trust you, as well. Now,
in all seriousness, our most important job is to make sure that no one finds out the truth about our guests. I sincerely hope there is a time when Earth can handle this knowledge, but I’m afraid that time is not now.”
I nodded, and my face got even warmer. “I promise to keep your secret.”
“It’s such a blessing to have you here, Scrub.” Grandma leaned in and kissed my forehead. “I’m glad we got some training in. While I was downstairs, the sensors went off to indicate three more arrivals on this floor. I think you are going to be very busy today!”
I rushed down the hall to room 5b, intent on getting the next GRADE job done without Grandma’s help. There was no chance to be nervous this time around; the transporter door opened as soon as I walked into the room.
The thing that crawled out of the transporter looked like a squid. It was about half as tall as me, but most of that height consisted of its enormous round head, which was purplish red with green swirls and covered on all sides with tiny blinking eyes. Maybe a hundred of them. It slithered along the floor with the help of at least a dozen snakelike arms, covered in tentacles, which sprang straight out of its neck.
I looked down at the stage kit in my hands. Somehow I didn’t think a touch of makeup and a fake mustache were going to enable this particular Tourist to blend in with the citizens of Forest Grove.
Suddenly all of the creature’s eyes slammed shut, except for four or five that looked directly at me. Then he started shouting.
What the…? I may not have understood the words, but even someone with only half an hour of training in greeting aliens could tell he was upset.
“I’m sorry, um…sir? I can’t tell what you’re saying.”
The alien stuck the tip of one of those snake arms into a hole in his head—an ear?—and twirled it around. Then he withdrew it with a sucking sound and tapped the side of his head a few times.
“What kind of reception chamber is this for an ocean planet?” he suddenly spluttered. “This is unacceptable!”
Gumball-size gobs of purple slime flew out of his mouth as he spoke, and splattered all over the front of my T-shirt. They smelled like low tide.
“Well…um…I’m not exactly sure that I—”
“What are you, some kind of snarffle-eating tumblerite? I must speak with management at once!” He was getting really loud. “Tell me that there is something approaching intelligent life on this planet. I demand that—”
“What seems to be the problem here?” Grandma asked as she glided into the room. I was half embarrassed and half relieved that she was here to bail me out again. “Oh, dear, it looks like someone must have been sent to the wrong vacation destination.”
“I should say so! I’m supposed to be arriving on the ocean planet of Krustacia. Where have I been transported to?”
“You’re on Earth, I’m afraid,” Grandma said.
“Earth? Never heard of it,” he scoffed.
I tried to think of something I could do to help Grandma, but my mind was blank. “Take heart, friend,” she said. “We can get you right back into the transporter and safely home in no time at all.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” the squid-thing shouted, his tentacled limbs working furiously as he slithered away from me and Grandma and backed into a corner. “I’m not transporting home yet. I have paid my money in the full and proper amount and I will be taking my rightful vacation.”
Grandma took me by the arm and pulled me toward the door. “No problem, sir,” she said as we headed out of the room. “We’ll get everything fixed right away for you. Just wait here for a moment.”
She whispered as she led me down the hallway. “More troubles with the transporters. I do wish I could get someone here to look at that one.” She unlocked a storage closet at the end of the hall and rummaged through it. “We need to get that Tourist in some water quickly. If memory serves, his kind is from the planet Mussatonia, and if he’s dry too much longer he’s liable to shrivel up and die.”
“That’s horrible,” I said.
“I know. You can smell a dead Mussatonian for miles around! I’d never be able to get that odor out of the carpet.”
Grandma gave me a wry smile. She might be old, but I respected how calm she was during this tense moment. I realized that, in a weird way, I could learn something from watching her; a good point guard needed the same kind of poise under pressure. I breathed deep and tried to get my jittery feeling to go away.
I pushed some boxes out of Grandma’s way as she moved toward the back corner of the closet. She searched quietly for a few moments, which allowed me to gather my thoughts.
“That Tourist’s English seems really good,” I said.
“Oh, I suspect he’s cheating,” Grandma said. She glanced up from looking through boxes, saw the confused look on my face, and continued. “He probably has a translator—a tiny computer crystal lodged in his brain that turns his thoughts into words we can understand. Lots of Tourists use them. Technically, that type of sophisticated technology is not supposed to be used on primitive planets, but I usually let it slide. Makes my job easier, to be honest.”
Whoa. Alien technology sounded pretty cool. “Could humans build something like that?” I said. Intro to Spanish homework would be a lot easier. “How do they work?”
She shrugged. “Honestly, I have no idea.”
“Really? Aren’t you curious?”
Grandma stopped rummaging for a moment and smiled at me. “If you went to another planet, could you tell them how a TV set really works? In enough detail so they could build one of their own? Or do you just accept the fact that it works somehow and watch TV shows?”
I grinned sheepishly. “Good point.”
Grandma went back to her search. “Ah, here we are!” She moved some blankets and uncovered a huge aquarium. “Perfect. I know it’s only your first day on the job, but we’re going to add Chaperone to your official title.”
Eeesh. I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that. “Chaperone?”
I helped Grandma push the aquarium—it was too heavy to carry—down the hall to the bathroom, where she started filling it up with water. “Yes. If we don’t give that Tourist some kind of vacation experience, he’s likely to fill out a negative comment form and send it to the Interstellar Tourism Bureau.” Grandma winked. “And I don’t want to soil my perfect forty-year record of service. So if you could just run him down to the river, let him splash around a little bit, I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
“Ummmm…are you sure that’s a good idea? Taking him outside?”
“Oh, the river trail is only a few hundred yards away. You shouldn’t see anyone. But if you do, just tell them he’s your pet squid or something.”
I was starting to think that maybe Grandma was getting a little too comfortable with the aliens after hanging around them for forty years.
But fifteen minutes later I was pulling a bright red Radio Flyer wagon down the front walkway. Perched on top of the wagon was the aquarium, half filled with water, with Mr. Squid-Man packed into it. It was a pretty tight fit, and a good part of his head stuck up and over the rim. The whole contraption weighed about a thousand pounds, but Mr. Harnox had carried it down the stairs for me, no problem.
When we reached the front gate, one of Mr. SquidMan’s arms snaked over a glass side to swat at the swarm of mosquitoes buzzing around his head. A woman—a human woman—was running down the road, pushing a toddler in a jogging stroller. The toddler pointed at the aquarium and laughed. The woman gave us a strange look and crossed to the other side of the street.
“Stop that!” I hissed. Now that I was actually outside with one of the aliens, I couldn’t stop thinking about the promise I had made to Grandma: I would do anything I could to help keep her secret.
The wheels on the wagon squeaked as I pulled it down the walkway. “This is an outrage!” Mr. Squid-Man said. “I have never heard tell of such a degrading form of transportation!”
“And no talking, either. You promised.” I h
ad to grab that slimy arm and sort of stuff it back into the aquarium.
When he was finally still, I opened the gate and dragged the wagon through. It was really heavy. I was able to move it pretty steadily on the asphalt, but when I turned onto the trail by the park, a little dirt path that led down to the Nook-sack River, I had to heave on it just to get it to roll a few feet before it lurched to a stop. Then I’d have to rest a moment before I gave another two-armed pull.
So when I saw some people walking over from the park, there was no possible way to run and hide.
“Hey, it’s Scrub the Space Boy!” Eddie called out as the three teens neared. Oh, no. I realized I hadn’t seen these guys since I bailed on them after promising to meet up and play ball at the park, and this was not the best time for a second meeting.
“Whatcha doin’?”
“Oh, nothing. You know. Just taking a walk.” What else could I say? I tried not to acknowledge the presence of the little kid’s wagon and the aquarium and the purple alien.
“What’s that?” Greg asked, pointing at the little kid’s wagon and the aquarium and the purple alien.
“Oh, you know.” I swallowed. “Just…a squid. He’s my pet.” I heard Mr. Squid-Man scoff at that, so I sort of nudged him in the head with my elbow to remind him of our agreement on silence.
“You have a pet squid?” Brian said. “And you take him for walks?” They all started cracking up. I sort of looked at the ground. “Let me guess, that was your grandma’s idea.”
Eddie had grabbed a fallen branch and was sneaking up behind Mr. Squid-Man, reaching out like maybe he was going to poke the alien. That would be a disaster. I had to—
“Oh, leave him alone, you guys.” My head jerked up at the new voice, and I saw Amy stepping out from behind some trees. “You just don’t know anything because you’ve never been out of Forest Grove in your whole life. I bet lots of people in Florida have squids for pets. Right, Scrub?”
“Ummmm, right,” I said. It wasn’t remotely true, of course, but I was grateful that she was sticking up for me.
Aliens on Vacation Page 6
