Sasquatch stood up, his head brushing against the ceiling. Tate took a step backward, and his face went several shades lighter. Sasquatch turned his shaggy head to Grandma. “I’ve always loved my vacations here.” He spread out his hands, enormous palms upward. “But if it’s going to cause problems for everyone now…”
“Oh, nonsense.” Grandma reached up to pat the alien’s arm, and her hand got lost in his fur. “You are always more than welcome here, you know that. Don’t pay him any mind.”
Sasquatch placed his hand gently on Grandma’s shoulder, and most of her back disappeared under a blanket of shaggy hair. “Thank you. I do enjoy my visits. My home planet is getting so crowded, and there’s just so much open space here.” He glared at Tate. I noticed that the ex-sheriff dropped his own hand to his belt, but there was no longer a gun there.
Sasquatch’s voice came out a little growly this time. “It would be a shame to stop these visits now. Especially when I’ve never been captured. Not even close.”
Tate shrank back a little against the wall. “Well, now, maybe we can work something out.”
“That’s more like it,” Grandma said. She smiled sweetly at Tate, but it was a little too big to be genuine. “I knew you were capable of seeing some sense.”
“But you can’t disguise him like you do the others, you know.”
“Oh, of course not. I don’t even try that. He’ll just slip quietly into the forest, like always.”
“I’m not gonna let him just wander out of the house by himself.” Tate stepped away from the wall and tried to reclaim some of his swagger. “We’re too close to town, could be some hikers real close by. Or people fishing at the river, kids building forts in the woods, whatever.”
Sasquatch crossed his arms over his barrel chest and loomed over Tate. Grandma stepped in between the two of them. “So what do you propose?” she asked.
“He can squeeze in the backseat of the Jeep, and I’ll throw a few blankets over him. Then I’ll drive him through the forest and up to the end of that old logging road. Nobody’s used it in years. He can hop out up there and have his vacation, as long as he promises to stay well away from any humans. But if—”
I couldn’t stay quiet any longer. “Can I come?” I said.
They all turned. “David!” Grandma said, throwing her arms wide. I scrambled through the window and she rushed over and gave me a big hug. “It’s so good to see you.”
I hugged her back. “You too, Grandma.” I stepped away and gave a little wave to the man in uniform. “Hi, Mr. Tate.” I wasn’t too excited to see him, obviously, but he was Amy’s dad, after all. It was probably a good idea to be polite.
He touched his finger to the brim of his hat. “Hey, kid.”
Grandma took me by the arm. “David, I’d like you to meet one of my most loyal customers. Sasquatch, this is my grandson. David will be here for the summer.”
Bigfoot stuck out a woolly paw and I shook it. “Hi there,” he said. “Any relation of your grandma’s is a friend of mine.”
“Thanks. I mean, hi,” I said. I had never met someone famous before, and I was a little nervous. “I’m…well, I’m a big fan.”
Tate rolled his eyes. “See what I mean?” he muttered to the ceiling.
“So, what do you do when you visit Earth?” I asked.
“I usually head up to Nooksack Falls first. The salmon up there are spectacular.” He licked his lips. “And there’s a great maze of deep caves near the top of Mount Baker. I’m a bit of a spelunker.” He glanced sideways at Tate. “Don’t worry, the humans can’t visit these caves. They’d have to come in by helicopter, and there’s no place to land.”
“That sounds fun,” I said.
“How long will you be staying with us?” Grandma said.
“It’s just a quick getaway this time—maybe a day or so. I’ll need to be back at work soon.”
Whoa. Bigfoot had a job? “What do you do?”
Sasquatch looked at the ground and cleared his throat. “You’ll laugh.”
I shook my head. “No way. I’m really curious.”
The huge beast shuffled his feet back and forth. “Well, on my home planet…I manage a shoe store.”
Tate chuckled. Sasquatch’s head jerked up and he pointed at the security officer. “But that doesn’t give you a license to perpetuate stereotypes by using my earthling nickname.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Tate said, smirking. He crossed to a trunk sitting against the wall and pulled out some blankets. “Time to head out. Getting dusky out there, and I don’t want to be on that logging road in the pitch black.”
“I’m coming with you,” Grandma said.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Tate said. “We’re not leaving him in charge of this place.” He tilted his head in my direction.
“I trust David’s judgment a lot more than that of some other people around here,” she said. Tate’s face went red again. He opened his mouth for a rebuttal, but Grandma cut him off. “Besides, the Director of Tourist Entertainment is on duty tonight. Practically running the whole show, as usual. And we do have additional adult help around here now, remember? This place will be in great hands, and we’ll only be gone a half hour or so.”
Director of Tourist Entertainment? How many aliens did she have working here now? Because there was no way she was talking about Skull Face. Or was she? Man, I couldn’t think of anyone less suited to a job like that. Except maybe Tate.
The security man harrumphed. “There you go proving my point again. This is just the kind of slapdash approach to security that I’m talking abou—”
“Oh, go use some of that hot air to warm up the Jeep.”
Sasquatch barked out a laugh but tried to disguise it as a cough. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from busting up.
Tate gave us both a sour look. “Here, carry these.” He thrust the armful of blankets at Sasquatch, fished the Jeep keys out of his pocket, and kicked open the back door.
Sasquatch looked at us with raised eyebrows after Tate stalked off. “I suppose I should follow. I’d hate to see what happens if he ever gets in a bad mood.”
“Have a good vacation,” I said.
“Thanks. Nice to meet you, David.” The big alien smiled and gave me a wave before ducking his head to get through the doorway.
Grandma put her hands on my shoulders and looked at me. “I’m sorry not to be able to welcome you properly. I just don’t trust that man to be polite to my guests if he’s out on his own.”
“It’s okay. I understand.”
She winked at me. “Thanks, David. We’ll have time for a nice chat later. It is so wonderful to see you again.” She gave me another hug.
“Oh, before you go, just one question,” I said. “I met an alien outside. Tall guy, white face? He said he works here?”
“Oh, yes. That’s Scratchull. He’s our new repairman.”
“Scratchull?”
“That’s a shortened version. His proper name is too long and complicated for us Earth types. I’m glad you got a chance to meet him, though.”
“But…he actually works here?”
“Yes. We were having so many problems with the transporters that I had to bring in some off-world help.”
“Really? What, did you put a classified ad in an alien newspaper or something?”
Grandma smiled. “Scratchull comes highly recommended from some administrative folks with the Collective. In fact, a group of them escorted him here for the interview, and then—”
“Let’s get moving,” Tate barked as he stuck his head back in the door. “Your friend’s all scrunched up in the backseat. You don’t want him to get a cramp, do you?”
“All right, all right,” Grandma said. “I’m sorry, David, we’ll catch up later.” She took a few steps toward the door, then turned back to me. “Amy is working tonight.” Grandma winked. “She’s around here somewhere. I’m sure she’ll be happy to talk to you again.”
Tate took his wet tooth
pick out of his mouth and pointed it at me. “You see that talking is all you do, boy. I’ll be back soon.” His eyes narrowed into slits. “Real soon.”
I wandered around, looking for Amy. A series of muffled bangs!, like a string of firecrackers going off under a pillow, came from the kitchen.
I nudged open the swinging door. There was Amy, overseeing pans of popping corn on three stove burners. She divided her attention expertly between all three, stirring this one, adding salt to that one, lowering the temperature on another one.
She looked great. It had been less than a year since I had seen her last, but it was like she had time-warped ahead to a much older version of herself. A more developed version. The same thing was happening to all of the girls in my grade back home in Florida.
It made me kind of nervous, actually. Because I had barely grown an inch since last summer. I know, because I measured myself every week of the basketball season. Sometimes twice a week.
But still, it was great to see her. I pushed the door the rest of the way open and watched her from the doorway. She had cut her hair shorter, and I think that’s part of why she looked so much older. She was wearing cutoff denim shorts and a tank top, and she looked taller even though her flip-flops had really thin soles. I hoped she wasn’t taller than me now. She also had—
“David!” Amy bounced over and hugged me around the neck. But before I had time to put my arms around her, she pulled away and hurried back to the stove. “Sorry, I have to make sure none of this burns.”
“That’s okay. It’s nice to see—”
“Can you grab a couple of bowls for me? Quick?” The lids on top of the pans were being pushed upward by the bubbling mass of popcorn underneath. I moved to the cupboards. “No, they’re over there now. I’ve moved things around a little bit.” I stopped and tried to see where she was pointing. I crossed to another wall of cupboards. “No, they’re right there.” I stopped again, confused. “Never mind, I’ll do it.”
Amy dashed away from the stove, grabbed a few oversized plastic bowls from a bottom row of cupboards, and thrust them at me. “Here, hold these.”
Freshly popped corn spilled over the sides of the pans and scattered across the stovetop. Amy wrapped her hand in a towel, then grabbed the pans and dumped hot popcorn into the bowls. I tried to keep them steady in my outstretched arms.
When the pans were empty she set them back on the stove and turned off the burners. “That’s great. Follow me.” She took one of the bowls and marched through the swinging door and down a side hall. But why bring all of this popcorn down here? If I remembered right, the only thing at the end of this hall was a dingy spare room full of cardboard boxes and dust.
Amy eased the door open, and I almost dropped the bowls. The room was so clean it was shiny, and the walls were painted in bright colors. They were also covered with crayon drawings on notebook paper. It looked like a kindergarten classroom…only here the simple, childlike pictures depicted alien beings of every shape and size standing in front of exotic planetary landscapes. The room was also filled with toys and stuffed animals and helium-filled balloons.
“I did a little decorating while you were gone,” Amy whispered.
“I guess so,” I breathed. The transformation of the room was amazing, but what really caught my eye was the group of aliens huddled around the TV. They were all very small, so I guessed that they were either from pygmy planets, or, more likely, they were kids. There was a big cozy pile of them on the floor, maybe a dozen altogether, lounging against beanbag chairs, pillows, and one another.
And it was pretty obvious that they were all from different planets. A little alien with fluorescent-orange skin rested his head and antennae against someone else’s scaly red shoulder as they watched TV together. Another young Tourist sat cross-legged (only she had three legs and a tail, so it looked like she was sitting on a big pretzel) and braided the long yellow tentacles sprouting out of the neck of the alien sitting in front of her.
“What the…?”
“It’s Movie Night,” Amy whispered, clearly not wanting to disturb the little crowd of Tourists. “I host it every weekend. The parents drop their kids off for the evening and then have a little time to themselves—dinner in Forest Grove, or a hike in the woods, or whatever.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It helps with repeat business for your grandma. I think some Tourists come here for the weekend just so they can get away from their kids for a little while.”
“So when did you—”
“Wait, watch this part. It always gets a big reaction,” Amy said. The TV screen was black and white and sort of grainy. “Alien kids love these old sci-fi movies from the fifties. They always get the biggest kick out of seeing what humans think aliens might look like. Or act like.”
On-screen a young couple stared wide-eyed at the mouth of a cave. The background music swelled to a crescendo, and the woman put her hand over her mouth in a close-up, stifling a scream. The alien kids all leaned forward as one, completely silent.
Suddenly the movie “alien” lumbered out of the cave. It was an actor in a ridiculous gorilla suit, only he was wearing what looked like a fishbowl on his head with two metal antennae sticking out of the top. Talk about cheesy. I wondered if kids in the fifties knew what they were missing with the complete lack of realistic CGI.
The alien kids erupted into an explosion of sound. Some were making squealing noises, and others sounded like they were barking, but it was clear by their faces that they were all laughing as hard as they could. They pointed at the screen and slapped each other on the back, and the whole colorful pile wriggled with their happy hysterics.
The woman on-screen finally let loose with her scream while the man picked up a stick and tried to subdue the shuffling, badly costumed space beast, and it all made the alien kids laugh even harder.
One of the little Tourists—he looked sort of like a cross between a big lizard and a small kangaroo—jumped up in front of the TV. He grabbed a container of Legos, dumped them out on the ground, then jammed the clear plastic tub over his head. He stuck his arms straight out in front of him and lurched toward the crowd in a perfect imitation of the actor in the stiff gorilla suit.
The kids let loose with fresh shrieks of laughter. Another alien, the one with the yellow tentacles, jumped up and grabbed a plastic Wiffle Ball bat to “protect” the others, swinging as wildly and inaccurately as the B-movie actor.
“All right, all right,” Amy shouted over the laughter and screams, stepping all the way into the room. “You could hurt someone there, you little space slugger.”
“Amy!” The whole mob converged, hugging her legs. They completely encircled Amy and jumped up and down in excitement. I just stood outside the circle and watched.
“And she brought Earth treats!” The little aliens reached for the popcorn.
“You know the rules: no snatching at the food.” She lightly swatted at red and scaly hands as they reached over the rim of a bowl. “And Xantork, no extending those grabby arms of yours.” The little red alien, who was the shortest of them all, let go of the bowl. He gave Amy a sheepish grin and sucked his wiry arms almost all the way back into his torso with a slurping sound. “Now, everyone sit down nicely, and you can have your snack.” The alien kids flopped back on the floor around the TV. Amy passed out the bowls. One roundish, greenish kid stuck his long snout right into the bowl and sucked up popcorn like a vacuum cleaner.
“Gross!” the orange alien said. “Amy, he’s hogging all of the corn explosions and getting his slimy spit all over them!”
Amy shook her head in mock sadness. “Oh, well…maybe I’ll just have to turn off the movie…”
“No!” they all cried.
“All right, then get along. And only take your fair share, you.” Amy pointed at the green alien, who began gingerly picking out one kernel at a time with the tip of his snout.
The kids turned back to the TV. The plodding movie alien was chasing the human
s and somehow gaining on them, even though they could have crawled away much faster than he could lumber around in that big rubber suit. The kids howled and pointed and crammed popcorn into various facial openings.
Amy motioned toward the door. We stepped out into the hall together.
“Wow. You do this every weekend?”
Amy nodded. “It’s kind of fun. They have a lot of energy and it can get a little crazy sometimes, but they’re great.”
“But none of them are in their earthling disguises.”
“Yeah. We decided that in the evenings, as long as they weren’t going outside for the rest of the night, they could take those off. Just inside the B-and-B. Let them be themselves, you know? It can get stuffy wearing a disguise and unfamiliar clothes all the time, especially for kids.”
Man, she seemed different. More grown up, or something. Definitely more confident. Had I changed that much? It didn’t seem like it.
We had e-mailed back and forth during the school year, of course, so why did it feel kind of awkward to see her again? It’s probably because I’m not the best e-mail correspondent—I’m mostly good for forwarding along funny videos or sharing music downloads, but that’s about it. I guess I’m just better face-to-face. And speaking of being face-to-face…
“So, do you have a little time to catch up while they finish the movie? We could sit out in the backyard.” She didn’t immediately say yes. I was sort of expecting her to immediately say yes. “The stars should be coming out pretty soon,” I added. I realized it was pretty shameless to use her obsession with astronomy to try to get some alone time with her, but it had been so long since I had seen her.
Amy made the Eeesh-I’m-really-sorry face. “I’d love to, David, but I have a few more jobs tonight. You can tag along if you want, though. Follow me.”
Tag along? That made me sound like someone’s little brother. But I found myself following her down the hall anyway. “More jobs? On a Friday night? Let me guess: you’re the official Director of Tourist Entertainment.”
“That’s right.” Amy smiled at me over her shoulder. “It’s a big job. Too bad I can’t put it on my college application.”
Alien on a Rampage Page 2
