Aliens on Vacation

by Clete Barrett Smith

  The three teens looked at each other and then took a couple of steps backward, away from Amy. Eddie dropped his stick onto the dirt path. “Well, all right, Space Boy,” Brian said. “If your pet squid ever learns how to play fetch or catch a Frisbee, then maybe you can hang out with us at the park.” They turned and walked away, still laughing.

  I turned back to look at Amy. “Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  “You know, they almost seemed afraid of you.”

  “They know who not to mess with.” Amy shrugged. “Usually they’re not too bad. They just like to make fun of things they don’t understand.” She rolled her eyes. “Unfortunately, that seems to include almost everything.”

  “Right…” I just sort of stood there, pretending that I wasn’t hauling around a big, grumpy aquatic alien.

  Amy took a couple of steps forward and nodded at the aquarium. “That’s a lot of calamari you’ve got there.”

  Kala-mar-eee? Was that some kind of code word for extraterrestrial? My hands got all sweaty as my grip on the wagon’s handle tightened in panic. “Oh, no…it’s not, you know, what it looks like…it’s not anything…I mean, it’s just a squid, a pet squid…er, what does that word mean, exactly?”

  Amy laughed. “Relax, Scrub, I was just kidding. Calamari is a fried squid appetizer. It’s kind of rubbery, but really tasty.”

  Uh-oh. Mr. Squid-Man did not like that. He puffed himself up until his head rose all the way out of the water. He opened his mouth to say who knows what, when I put my elbow on top of his slimy head and scrunched him back down into the aquarium. I tried to make it look sort of casual, but I had to lean against that alien with all of my weight. He huffed into the water, sending a stream of bubbles to the surface. Amy watched us, eyebrows raised.

  “Oh, right, an appetizer,” I said. “That’s a good one. Ha-ha.” I patted the alien on the head a couple of times in what I hoped looked like an affectionate manner. “We could never do something like that to Grandma’s good old family pet here.” On the word pet, another angry rush of bubbles boiled in the aquarium.

  “Of course not. Absolutely out of the question, I’m sure,” Amy said, sounding much too serious to actually be serious. I continued to wrestle with the alien, trying to keep his head underwater. “I can see you’ve become quite attached to him.”

  I patted the alien some more. “Yep. I sure have.”

  “So what’s his name?”

  “His name?”

  “Yes, the name of this pet that you are so attached to.”

  “Right. His name. He has lots of names, you know? Nicknames.”

  “Okay. Would you mind telling me one of them?” The question sounded much too innocent to actually be innocent.

  My mind raced. “Sure…right now I call him…Squidly Bubblemaker.”

  “That’s quite a mouthful. Must be a challenge when you try to call him in for dinner.”

  “Yeah. Sometimes I just call him Bubbles for short.” Where was this stuff coming from?

  She nodded. “Good one.” Was she trying to hide a smirk?

  “Look, do you mind if we change the subject? There aren’t many people my age at Grandma’s place I can have interesting conversations with, you know?”

  “No problem.” Amy nodded. “So how have you liked Forest Grove so far?”

  “Oh, it’s been, you know”—I discovered the most amazing secret in the history of the Earth! I’m dying to share it with someone and you’d be perfect!—“pretty good.”

  Mr. Squid-Man had calmed down, so I eased up on the pressure I was applying to his head. He twisted around in his aquarium and faced the other way. I stepped away from the wagon and exhaled, glad for the chance to pay more attention to Amy.

  She was wearing a baseball cap, a pair of pink flip-flops, and a long tank top over a bathing suit. I usually didn’t notice girls’ clothing, but I sure did with her. I hoped I didn’t look too—

  “What’s all that stuff on your shirt?” Amy asked. I looked down. I had tried to wipe off most of the purple alien spittle, but I saw that it had stained my shirt with several dark blotches. I could feel my face turning the same color.

  “Oh…that. Right. I just, um, spilled some jelly on myself. At breakfast.” Awkward silence. “It happens.”

  “And it got all over the place on your shirt like that?”

  “Um…yep.”

  “Well, I can’t say I’m too surprised.”

  “Really. Why?” Did I look like someone who would be that klutzy?

  “We make our jelly with wild berries, and those can be very unpredictable. You’re probably not used to that, coming from Florida and all.” She said all this with a totally straight face.

  “Very funny,” I said. Even though I couldn’t stop embarrassing myself, something about the look in her eyes gave me the confidence to keep going. “I guess I need a guide, you know? Someone from the area who can show me the ropes so something like that doesn’t happen again.”

  Amy traced a circle in the dirt with the tip of her flip-flop. “Do you have anybody in mind?”

  I tapped my finger against my cheek, looking lost in thought. “Let’s see…I guess you’ve lived here a long time. Right?”

  “All my life.”

  “And you know the town pretty well, and the people who live here?”

  “I’m on a first-name basis with pretty much everyone.”

  “Perfect. I bet you could give me some great recommendations, then.”

  She laughed. And this time I think it was with me, not at me. I forgot all about my chaperoning duties for a second.

  Maybe this could work out. Maybe I could actually make a friend in this town. I opened my mouth to try and say something that would make her laugh again—when Mr. Squid-Man sloshed around impatiently in his aquarium, and a wave of water crashed over the side and drenched my face.

  I tried to be nonchalant about drying off with the sleeve of my T-shirt, but there really is no smooth maneuver for that. I shot Mr. Squid-Man a quick glare. “He’s, uh, he’s a little frisky this morning. Heh-heh.”

  “Maybe he’s just trying to help—you know, by washing off all that jelly,” she said.

  “Ha-ha. You’re on a roll this morning.”

  “Hey, do you mind if I do something?” She held up a set of keys. Hanging from the key chain was one of those tiny digital cameras. “Could I take a picture of Bubbles? He’s very colorful.”

  Uh-oh. My promise to Grandma echoed in my head. I suddenly realized that with this girl’s interest in UFOs and books about aliens, it might not be the best idea to have her spend any more time around Mr. Squid-Man. Certainly no pictures. No matter how cute she was.

  “No. No, no. That’s a bad idea. He’s…ummm…shy.”

  “Oh? Then why are you taking him out in public?” I didn’t answer for a minute. “Hmmm?”

  “Oh, he, ah, needs to get a certain amount of sunlight each day.”

  “Really? Sunlight, for a squid?”

  “Yeah, he’s a special type of squid. From Australia. They live on the Great Barrier Reef, you know, sit up on top of there and get some sunshine, and apparently the vitamin D helps their skin.” Wow, I was really babbling now. I wanted to turn things around and put some of the heat on her, ask her why she’d been taking pictures from behind the bushes the day I arrived; but right now it felt more important to put some distance between us. I started pulling the wagon.

  “Do you need some help? This is a pretty bumpy trail.”

  “That’s okay.” I heaved on the handle and pulled farther away.

  “Okay…” She sounded disappointed. “If you ever need any help around your grandma’s place, let me know.”

  I stopped and looked back at her, against my better judgment. “Yeah? You’d help me out?”

  “Well, I’d be happy to recommend someone,” she called after me.

  I smiled and turned to walk down the path. I waved at her over my shoulder as I tugged the wagon as q
uickly as I could. But as I marched along, my smile faded. As much as I hated to admit it, I was going to have to stay away from that girl.

  Mr. Squid-Man had his swim in the river—it wasn’t too difficult to find a secluded spot where no one would see us—and made friends with a family of beavers building a dam. When he finally returned to shore he looked at me, sniffed wetly, and said, “At least there is one species on this planet that has learned some manners.” Then he slid into the aquarium, closed all of his eyes, and started snoring. It took forever to haul him back to the bed-and-breakfast.

  After that incident, the rest of the week went much better. I spent nearly all day, every day, GRADEing our alien arrivals. Even though it had to be the strangest summer job in the history of underage employment, I fell into a routine after a while.

  And not to brag or anything, but I actually started to get pretty good at it.

  I hardly ever had to call in Grandma for backup anymore. Mostly the job was problem-solving through improvisation, and in that way it was like being a good basketball player. I always had to be on my toes and have my head in the game, ready to try a different tactic if the original plan didn’t work out. Each situation required some quick thinking and a different strategy, kind of like reading what the defense gives you and then adjusting on the fly.

  One time a trio of vacationing alien brothers showed up, each with a pair of devil-type horns growing out of their heads. Luckily, Grandma keeps a trunk of thrift-store clothing in each room. I cut holes in some old baseball caps and slipped them over the horns. They just looked like three goofy guys wearing novelty hats from a joke shop.

  Another time a Tourist came through the transporter with orange fur covering every square inch of his body. That GRADE job took a few hours. I shaved the parts of his face that weren’t supposed to have hair (nose, forehead, below the eyes) and dressed him up in a long-sleeved flannel shirt, denim overalls, gloves, and boots. He looked like a lumberjack with a bright orange beard, so I figured he’d fit right in around here.

  Then came a family of four Tourists with thick tails that reached the floor. For each alien I coiled the tail in a spiral down one leg, tied the tip around the ankle region, and used thick rubber bands to keep it from springing loose. Next I stuffed all of the Tourists into baggy sweatpants and sent them off to start their Earth visit.

  There was one time when I got the room numbers switched up and barged in on the wrong Tourists, and they weren’t wearing anything at all. (And just for the record, seeing a naked alien is a pretty strange experience. I mean, you know they’re naked…but it’s impossible to tell which are the bits that are supposed to be covered up, and which are okay for public viewing. I won’t go into too much detail here.)

  But overall, it was actually kind of a fun job. And Grandma was right. Even though the Tourists acted different and were bizarre-looking, they weren’t scary at all. With the exception of Mr. Squid-Man, most of them were pretty friendly, actually. I suppose it’s easy to be in a good mood at the beginning of a vacation.

  Grandma seemed really happy too. She was always saying how grateful she was to have so much more time these days. And she claimed the Tourists I GRADEd looked more human than most of the people walking the streets of Forest Grove. That wasn’t true, of course, but I have to admit it still felt good to hear all that stuff.

  And I collected a lot of tips. In fact, I had a whole drawer full of glowing cubes in my bedroom. I’m sure they’d be worth millions of dollars—heck, billions—to any research facility or museum in the world. But I couldn’t even use them to buy a peanut butter Twix at the Forest Grove General Store.

  One morning, after I finished dressing a group of three-foot-tall aliens in little kids’ clothes, someone knocked on the front door. That meant a rare human visitor, of course—maybe the mailman—since the Tourists arrived by transporter.

  But what I saw when I opened the door made my heart beat faster than it did during my first GRADE job: yellow baseball cap, brown ponytail, freckled nose, lopsided grin.

  “Hi, Scrub,” Amy said. “How’s it going?”

  My stomach went all funny, and a swirl of conflicting emotions took over my mind. On the one hand it was really good to see her, and I was excited that she had stopped by…but on the other hand, the weight of my promise to keep Grandma’s secret suffocated me. All I could think about was aliens, the one thing I couldn’t talk about. “Oh, it’s, you know. Good. Really…good.” I just knew that Mr. Harnox was going to walk into the sitting room at any moment, snacking on his tinfoil or smelling the bookshelves, and how would I explain that? I wedged myself into the doorjamb, then pulled the door nearly closed so she couldn’t see inside. What was she doing here, anyway?

  I think I might have said that out loud, because she looked kind of taken aback. She held up a box with the royal chocolate company printed on the side. “I’m selling candy bars. I know, I know, it sounds kind of lame, but I have to. It’s a fund-raiser for a trip to California my school science team is taking in the fall.”

  We stood there for a minute, looking at each other in silence. She finally leaned forward and whispered, “Now this is when you’re supposed to say, ‘Why, those look delicious, miss. I think I would like to purchase one of those from you. Or perhaps several.’”

  My face got hot. “Sure,” I said. If I bought one quickly, maybe she would go away.

  She straightened back up. “Great! We’re having a special today for out-of-towners and Australian-squid lovers. Seeing as how you’re in both categories, it’s a super-special for you: only a dollar per bar. You can’t beat that.”

  “Must be my lucky day.” I reached into my pocket for some change. But what I pulled out was a handful of alien currency, flashing like crazy. I jammed it back in my pocket, praying she hadn’t seen. “Oh, I mean no. No thanks. I don’t like chocolate.”

  “You don’t like chocolate?” She frowned. “Well, what about your grandma? Or her customers?” She stood up on her tiptoes and tried to look over my shoulder into the house. “Do you think I could maybe come in and—”

  “Nope. Bad idea. Sorry. We’re real busy.” I backed up and eased the door shut.

  “Wait,” she said. I paused, peeking out from behind the nearly closed door. Was her face turning red? “I also came by because they’re having the Pioneer Day Festival downtown today. The activities are pretty cheesy, but the food is always good. Do you want to come? With me?”

  I wanted to, of course, but I had five more arrivals and GRADE jobs scheduled for the next couple of hours.

  “Oh, sorry. We’re real busy. I, uh, have to work for my grandma. All day. We’re real busy.”

  “You mentioned that.”

  There was a creak on the floorboards. I turned my head to see a family of greenish Tourists bouncing through the sitting room and up the stairs. Literally bouncing. Amy must not see this. I eased the door even closer toward the frame. “Okay, I should probably go now. Bye.” I shut the door all the way and exhaled. Grandma walked through the swinging door that led to the kitchen.

  “Who was that at the door, Scrub?”

  “Oh, just, you know, someone. A girl. Selling chocolates.”

  Grandma hurried to the window and peeked out at Amy as she walked back down the road toward town. “Oh, I recognize her. She came here in the spring to interview me for an article she was writing for her school newspaper. The Independent Businesswomen of Forest Grove, or some such. We had a wonderful conversation.”

  “I bet you did.”

  “She certainly seemed like a nice girl. Very bright.”

  “Yeah, too bright for this place, if you know what I’m saying.”

  Grandma ignored that. “She’s such a cutie, Scrub. You should have invited her in.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Grandma, you know that wouldn’t be a good idea, right?”

  “Oh, nonsense. You’re just like your father. I always wanted him to bring his friends over, and he never would.”<
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  Can you blame him? I thought.

  Grandma nudged me in the ribs with her elbow. “Besides…that girl looks like maybe she could be more than just a friend, huh?” She sort of waggled her eyebrows at me.

  Gross. “Stop looking at me like that. I’d be worried that she’d see something suspicious, that’s all.”

  “Come, now. I’m sure we can all behave ourselves for at least one afternoon. You should invite her over. Maybe for one of my famous meals, eh?”

  But I want her to like me, Grandma, and I’m not sure your food is going to help. “I don’t know. We’ll see,” I said.

  I certainly had my chances. Amy showed up nearly every day after that, using some excuse or another. One time she was looking to add signatures to a petition asking the city council to renovate the ball fields at the park. Another time she was searching for a lost cat. She even tried the just-stopping-by-for-a-cup-of-sugar trick, though there had to be dozens of houses closer to her own than Grandma’s place.

  It was impossible to know whether she was stopping by to see me, or if all of that talk about UFOs and aliens meant that she was actually suspicious about what was going on inside here. Man, it’s hard enough to know what girls are thinking most of the time without adding interstellar intrigue to the mix.

  Even though Grandma usually greeted visitors at the front door herself, she always seemed to be too busy at the moment when Amy came by. Grandma would peek out the window, then say, “Oh, I just remembered I need to run upstairs. Could you answer the door for me, please?” Grandma thought she was good at being sneaky, but she wasn’t able to hide her mischievous smile as she hurried past.

  So I got to know Amy a little bit better, but only in five-minute snippets of conversation as she stood on the porch while I held the door almost closed, blocking her view of the inside.

  But one morning I came downstairs after a rare chance to sleep in, and I was jolted wide awake. There was Amy, sitting with Grandma in the front room, chatting away. Sheets of paper were spread out all over the driftwood coffee table between them.

  “Good morning, Scrub,” Grandma said. “I was just having a chat with this charming young lady. She walked by the house while I was in the garden and I invited her in. I believe the two of you have met?”