by R. L. Stine
There was a wallet in the back pocket. Four dollars in it. I could buy a burger, or play Galaxy Gremlins for six or eight hours. I’m really good at Galaxy Gremlins.
But that didn’t totally solve the problem.
The mall closed at nine. Then what?
I had two friends from school I sometimes had sleepovers with. But I couldn’t go over to their houses looking like Chad and expect them to let me spend the night.
It was getting dark. It was supposed to be chilly tonight. I couldn’t think of any place to go that would be safe.
I didn’t want to do it, but I didn’t seem to have a choice.
I had to go back to Chad’s house.
* * *
The yelling started the moment I touched the door pad and walked in through the front door.
“Where have you been?”
“You know you’re not supposed to leave the house without permission!”
“You know you’re supposed to help with dinner cleanup!”
It was weird, all this harsh stuff coming out of people who looked like the perfect mom, pop, and son from a sitcom.
Then Mom’s voice went back to being sweet. “We know you don’t like the way skwiggers move,” she said. “But they’re better for you when they’re alive! Chad-One, you have to eat!” She waved a handful of wigglies at me.
“I know what’s wrong with him,” Chad-Two shouted. “It’s those slimy humans! You like them! You keep socializing with them instead of studying them! You’re starting to act like a human!”
Act like a human? What did he mean?
How could I not act like a human?
“You know how dangerous it would be for us if the humans found out we were here!” Dad shouted.
Mom went back to yelling, too. “You were hand-picked for this mission,” she scolded. “Picked because you could maintain distance from local life-forms! Do you want to get us all in trouble?”
I looked at Mom. I looked at the little monsters squirming in her hand.
Then it hit me. The only way you could act like a human was if you weren’t human!
These people were not just weird!
They were aliens!
9
Aliens!
I was trapped in a family of aliens!
Aliens who hate humans—who think humans are slimy!
What would they do to me if they found out I was one of the slimy humans? Would they take me back to their planet with them—whichever one that was?
Or would they do something even worse?
I had to get out of there! Faster than fast!
My palms were wet with sweat. I had trouble catching my breath. I stared at the aliens. How could I ever have thought they were humans?
I should have known. No one really looks like people on TV.
I couldn’t stay here! I had to get my body back!
Then it hit me. Chad was an alien, too. There was an alien in my body!
“Eat just one, Chad-One,” Mom crooned. “Come on. For Mommy. You’ve got to keep up your strength!” Mom picked one of the wiggling things out of her hand and held it out to me.
I almost spewed. Just looking at that thing made me sick.
But I had no choice. I had to eat it. I couldn’t let them find out that I wasn’t an alien! As I gagged, Mom stuffed it in my mouth. I swallowed before I could taste it much or feel it on my tongue.
I thought I could feel the skwigger move around inside my stomach. But not for very long.
The weird thing was that it stayed down, and I felt slightly better. Less hungry, anyway. And I didn’t feel like throwing up anymore.
“Good boy,” Mom chirped. “Now it’s time for bed!”
I checked my watch. It was about a quarter to eight. Aside from everything else that was awful in this house, early curfew!
What if I made a break for it? I knew I could run fast in this body. Chad-Two could probably run just as fast, though, and Dad might be able to run faster.
“Bed!” Dad announced. He grabbed my shoulder and pushed me toward the staircase. He was really strong!
Maybe I could sneak out after they all went to sleep.
I followed Chad-Two upstairs.
We trudged up the stairs to the weird pink second floor. I planned to watch Chad-Two very carefully. I didn’t want to make any mistakes. It would be a disaster if he found out I wasn’t the real Chad-One!
Chad-Two went to the first big touch pad on the floor and pulled on a pair of boots, then he stamped on the orange touch pad six times.
I waited for something to whoosh or glow. Nothing happened.
He walked over to the first green touch pad on the left wall and thumbed it. A long oval door opened, revealing another tiny room only a little bigger than a coffin. It was identical to the one I had seen before.
The next thing Chad-Two did surprised me. He grabbed the bars on either side of the little room and swung his feet up. They stuck to the ceiling!
He hung there upside-down like a bat, his arms crossed over his chest, and his hair hung straight down. He stared at me. “Go on,” he snapped. “Get in your own sleep chamber, will you?”
I crossed over to the big touch pad on the floor and pulled on the boots. They fit, but kind of grabbed my feet and ankles tight, and they felt prickly inside.
I stamped on the big orange touch pad six times, the way Chad-Two had, then went to the second green badge on the wall near his.
My thumbprint opened the closet I had guessed was Chad’s room. Now I knew why there were bars on the wall.
Trying to copy Chad-Two’s movements, I grabbed the bars and swung up. It took me three tries to get my feet to touch the ceiling. I hoped that didn’t make Chad-Two suspicious.
I nervously let go of the bars. I figured I would fall on my head any minute. But the boots felt as if they were welded to the ceiling.
I started to feel dizzy. I wondered if I would ever be able to sleep in a position like this.
But I didn’t want to fall asleep. I needed to stay awake so I could try to escape.
“What’s the matter with you, anyway?” Chad-Two grumbled.
“I feel sick,” I said. That was no lie!
“You act sick, but it’s not any illness I’ve seen before!”
“Maybe I caught something at school.”
“Not a chance. Not after all those vaccinations we had when we first got these bodies!”
When they first got these bodies? Oh, man! What do they really look like? Maybe they have six eyes and two heads and eight long arms! I shuddered at the thought of them in their true form.
“If you caught anything at school, it was a bad attitude! We should never have let you do this week! Except I couldn’t have taken that math test.”
So both Chads did go to school? And nobody noticed the difference? Wow. I still couldn’t figure out why there were two of them. But it’s not like I could ask Chad-Two!
“And your observations are better,” Chad-Two continued. “But now I know why. You like those horrible, slimy humans! And to tell you the truth, it’s beginning to give me the creeps!”
I was giving him the creeps?
“You have to stop hanging around with humans.” Chad-Two went on lecturing. “One of them might find out the truth! And you know what will happen to you if you let one of the humans get too close. We won’t have any choice.” Chad-Two’s voice lowered ominously. “You know what we’ll have to do with you—mind tailoring.”
10
Mind tailoring? Oh, man! What was that? It sure didn’t sound like anything good!
And mind-tailoring was something they did to each other for just getting close to a human.
“You remember Zoink from back home?” Chad-Two asked. “Well, after he explored the Quarex galaxy, they mind tailored him—and now he has no memories. No brain at all. He just sits in his pod with that blank look on his face. You don’t want to end up like Zoink, do you, Chad-One?”
I gulped. “No. I don�
�t.”
“Good,” Chad-Two said. “Then remember that story the next time you feel like hanging out with those slimy humans.”
I couldn’t believe it. If the aliens did things like this to each other, they were sure to do horrible things to me if they discovered what I really was.
My heart started pounding in my ears.
I had to get out of this house!
But I didn’t even know how to get off the ceiling!
I had a terrible thought. What if they already knew I was human? They lured me into hanging upside-down. I’m trapped. Now they could do anything they wanted to me!
“I’m watching you,” Chad-Two warned. “You’d better clean up your act soon! Shut your door and go to sleep.”
Even if I could get down off the ceiling, I couldn’t sneak out now. Chad-Two was still awake. If he caught me trying to sneak out, I’d be mind tailored for sure. I had to pretend I was going to sleep.
But first I had to figure out how to get my door shut. I stared at the three touch pads near my hand. One of them was green, like the other door controls I’d used before. On a hunch, I touched it.
Bingo. The door to the closet whooshed shut and disappeared.
I was in total darkness, hanging upside down from the ceiling like a trapped fly.
In a house full of aliens!
Great. Just what I had in mind for the weekend.
The darkness wasn’t quite total. The three touch pads glowed.
My Chad act was probably still working. Since I followed Chad-Two’s orders, maybe now he’d leave me alone.
I couldn’t imagine falling asleep with so much on my mind, and I wanted to stay awake and figure out what to do next. But a weird fizzing started in my head, and I conked out.
* * *
My eyes popped open. Why is it still dark? I reached for my alarm clock to see what time it was.
I noticed three floating bubbles of color off to my right. What are those things? I wondered.
Then I realized I was hanging upside-down from the ceiling. That really didn’t seem right!
In a heart-sickening rush, it all came back to me.
I wasn’t Will. I was in Chad’s body.
Only there were two Chads.
I was hanging upside down in a house full of aliens with sitcom damage and scary food!
And they were threatening me with mind tailoring! They said they’d take away my memories! That I’d have no brain at all!
I had only been awake for two minutes, and already I was shaking and sweating from fear! I had to do something, quick!
I touched the oval pink pad on the wall. Instantly my feet let go of the ceiling and I crashed to the floor.
Well, I had figured out how to get down off the ceiling!
The room was so small I didn’t fit on the floor. I ended up on my back with my legs stretched up the wall.
For a minute I felt just like my clumsy old Will self.
I must have fallen onto a touch pad, because when I landed a pale blue light came on.
I looked around and discovered some other touch pads. Maybe one of them opened a window! Maybe I could sneak out that way!
I scrambled around and stood up. These weren’t the touch pads that glowed in the dark. I was just reaching to touch a dark purple pad and see what it did when a hollow thunking sound came from the door.
“What’s with you?” Chad-Two yelled from the other side of the door. “It’s time for breakfast! Why aren’t you up?” He knocked again.
I pressed the green touch pad and the door opened. I stepped out into the pink windowless round area.
Chad-Two was already out of his boots, and he was wearing different clothes.
I wondered where he had gotten them, but I couldn’t search around now. Chad would know where his own closet was! Chad-Two stood in the pink room, watching my every move. Better to keep on these clothes and worry about changing later.
I slipped off my sleep boots and put my hightops back on. Then I followed Chad-Two downstairs.
The dining room table was already set. I guess breakfast wasn’t one of the Chads’ chores.
I peered into the bowl at my place. It was filled with dried-up nuggets shaped like starfish. They floated in blue milk, and smelled salty and rotten.
Mom and Dad were already seated at the table. Dad was reading the newspaper upside-down. Aliens made mistakes, too, I guess. Mom wore another frilly pink knee-length dress with a puffy skirt, an apron, and that dopey smile.
I glanced down at the bowl. At least these starfish things weren’t looking back at me!
I was starving by this time, so when I took my place at the table, I shoved a big spoonful into my mouth.
Mistake!
It was much worse than it looked. Like biting into totally salty, greasy, rotten cat food treats with crunchy bones in them!
And what was worse—the cereal stabbed like needles in my mouth!
I couldn’t spew them all over the table. This could be Chad’s favorite dish.
I drank something yellow and milky that was in the glass at my place. It tasted like hot glue! I thought it would help the cereal go down, but it just coated my tongue and made my throat close up.
I looked at Mom. Smiling. Dad. Behind his upside-down newspaper. Chad-Two. Wolfing down that poisonous cereal. Happy campers.
I couldn’t take it. I leaped up and ran!
I bolted from the house, not even closing the front door behind me. I didn’t want them to catch up with me!
I had to get home. I had to get Chad to switch back right now! I couldn’t eat that food. I couldn’t stay in a house full of aliens. I couldn’t wait around for them to tailor my mind!
I was so hungry I could hardly think. I needed some food!
I darted into the Stop ’n Shop.
I bought Twinkies and a Coke. Real food! Then I crossed the street to the park by the high school and collapsed onto a bench.
I tore open the Twinkies package and crammed a whole one into my mouth. I love the way they squish!
A second later I was gagging! It tasted like chalk. Dry chalk! It sucked all the spit out of my mouth and made me cough!
I spat it out.
My mouth was so dry from the chalky Twinkies, I chugged half the Coke.
The Coke tasted like gasoline!
My stomach hurt. I started sweating. I felt dizzy and sick.
I had to get home—fast!
I shook a little when I got up from the bench. My legs kind of wobbled as I tried to make it to my house. Will’s house.
I had to stop and rest a lot. I was feeling sicker and sicker. My stomach hurt, my muscles ached, and I was sweating so much my shirt was wet through.
I tried to run. I tried to walk. Then I couldn’t do anything but sit down. Right on the curb.
“What have you done?” somebody yelled.
I looked up. Chad-Two!
“That’s it!” he bellowed. “You’re coming home with me!”
I felt so sick, my head was spinning. But I still knew exactly what Chad-Two had planned.
He was going to mind-tailor me!
11
Chad-Two yelled at me all the way home. He was really mad. For one thing, he practically had to carry me. I was sweating and freezing and then sweating again. I couldn’t stand up by myself. Way too rubber-kneed!
He told me I was an idiot to eat Earth food.
“No wonder you’re sick!” Chad-Two shouted. “Everything on this planet is poisonous to us, even in these bodies! How could you forget?”
I hung on to his shoulders and tried to get my feet to walk. It didn’t work very well.
I wondered if I would die from eating Twinkies!
Chad-Two dragged me up the porch and into the front room of the aliens’ house. He dropped me onto the couch.
“Don’t move,” he ordered before going into the next room.
He came back a minute later, carrying a bowl.
“Eat some of these skwoos,
” he instructed, plopping a handful of live bugs into my shaking hand. They looked like giant cockroaches, only they had more legs.
I didn’t much care what I did now, I felt so terrible! I couldn’t feel any sicker than I already did!
I shoved the squirming bugs into my mouth and chewed.
I couldn’t believe it! They tasted like beef jerky. One of my favorite foods in the world. It was horrible the way their legs moved in my mouth, but they tasted so good, I ate them all.
A couple of minutes later I felt a little better.
“You are such a spidunk!” Chad-Two said. “Maybe this poisonous food is what’s messing up your mind. Take this box of skwoos with you, and take this pinter, too.”
He gave me two small boxes, a pink one and a brown one. Each had a little black touch pad on it.
“Put them in your pocket,” he said. “If you eat any more local food by mistake, take two skwoos right away, and then a pinch of pinter. Can you remember that?”
I nodded and put the boxes in my pocket.
He glared at me. “Earth food! What were you thinking? This place—these people—have warped your mind. We’re not here to make friends. Have you forgotten that?”
“No,” I mumbled.
“Well, make sure you don’t forget!” he snapped.
Chad-Two led me to the sleep chamber. I flipped upside-down and closed my eyes. That strange, fizzling sensation came over me.
As soon as I’m feeling better, I thought, I’m going to find a way out. Just as soon as I’m better.
* * *
My eyes shot open. Chad-Two stood in front of me—and he was upside-down. He looked right at me and said something in another language. It wasn’t like any other language I’d ever heard.
I stared at him. What was I supposed to do now?
“Whoops! I forgot.” Chad-Two smacked his forehead. “We’re supposed to speak in Earth languages only. Good job, Chad-One! You’re obviously returning to normal. Now, get out of bed and let’s go test the shink.”
I had no idea what a shink was, but I tried to act cool about it. “Why do we have to test it today?” I asked. “It’s Saturday!”
