Close Encounters of the Nerd Kind

by Kim Harrington

  Willa gave me a disbelieving look. “Then how do you explain Bodhi’s Diner? It was so wrecked, they couldn’t open for breakfast. And I really wanted their blueberry pancakes!”

  I eased onto a chair at the kitchen island. “Okay, slow down. What happened to the restaurant?”

  “Someone or something broke in overnight and made a huge mess. They put chairs on top of tables. They tossed flour all over the place like fake snow. And they ate all the fruit! Every last orange for the morning juice. Every last blueberry for the pancakes. And you know how I know it wasn’t a human?”

  “How?”

  “They left all the money untouched in the register’s drawer. So, admit it.” She narrowed her eyes and stared me down.

  “Fine,” I relented. “We have a problem. But it’s not monsters. It’s aliens.”

  Willa’s eyebrows rose halfway up her forehead. “Now there’s a twist I didn’t see coming.”

  “Believe me. I was taken by surprise as well.”

  Willa’s lips formed a small pout. “But why didn’t you and Charlie tell me? I thought that after this summer … ”

  Her voice trailed off, but I knew what she meant. After dumping me and bullying me for a year or so, she’d apologized this past summer and we were slowly becoming friends again. But that wouldn’t happen overnight. I needed more time. I didn’t want to get into all of that with her right now, though.

  Instead, I said, “Let me text Charlie. He has to come over and hear about the diner.”

  This was our first clue to the Vegans’ whereabouts. Five minutes later, Charlie came flying through the front door and we all went upstairs for introductions.

  “Willa, this is Vera. Vera, this is Willa.”

  I’d gotten so used to Vera’s upside down eyes and mouth that I hadn’t thought to warn Willa and, of course, she didn’t try to hide the shock on her face. She pointed a shaky finger. “Her eyes … in her neck … ”

  “Yes, anyway,” I spoke over her. “Willa goes to my school.”

  “Is she a friend to be trusted?” Vera asked. “Like Charlie?”

  “No, not a friend,” I said, without even thinking. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Willa’s face fall and felt a stab of guilt. “But she knows about you, and she has our first clue to the whereabouts of the other Vegans.”

  Willa crossed her arms. “So how many aliens are we dealing with here?”

  “Eight,” I answered. “There’s Vera, her class of six young Vegans, and the alien we’re calling Bob. The Vegans aren’t evil. They didn’t mean to wreck the restaurant. They’re just mischievous.”

  “And what about this Bob?”

  “Oh, he’s evil,” Charlie said. “And violent.”

  “Fantastic,” Willa said with a groan.

  “So should we head to the diner and see if one of the Vegans is still there?” I asked.

  “There will be two,” Vera said, matter-of-factly.

  “Interesting.” Charlie leaned forward with fascination. “Is that a mandate in your species?”

  “No. But we use the buddy system on field trips. The children may be mischievous but they would never break that one rule.”

  I paced back and forth, my feet echoing on the hardwood floor. “Okay, so let’s say there are two there and we catch them. We can’t bring them all to my room.”

  “I was thinking about that,” Charlie said. “We can’t keep Vera in here much longer either. But … Grandpa Tepper is away for a week.”

  “Where did he go?” Charlie’s grandpa was one of my favorite people in the world. I thought it was strange that he’d gone somewhere and I hadn’t heard about it.

  Charlie’s cheeks reddened. “He went on an over-seventy singles’ cruise.”

  Willa and I burst out laughing—bent over, grabbing our sides, uncontrollable laughing.

  “What?” Charlie snapped. “It’s not funny.”

  “Oh, yeah, it is,” Willa said between gasps of laughter.

  He scowled. “I don’t want to think about my old grandfather on some cruise on the prowl for a new woman.”

  I stopped laughing and went to Charlie’s side. “Your grandmother has been gone for ten years,” I said softly. “He’s all alone in that big house. Maybe he’ll meet someone he really likes.”

  Charlie softened. “I mean, yeah, but … I just don’t want to think about it.”

  A change in subject would be good right about now, I thought. “Anyway, that’s a great idea, but the little Vegans will destroy Grandpa Tepper’s house. We can’t do that to him.”

  “Then how about his garage?” Charlie suggested. “It’s pretty much empty now that he can’t drive anymore and doesn’t own a car. We can put a bunch of blankets and pillows in there. Some balls and stuff for them to play with.”

  “More math textbooks?” Vera asked hopefully.

  “Yes,” I said. “And dozens of oranges!”

  “And I know how to get them there,” Willa said, raising a finger into the air. “My parents have an old double stroller in the basement from when the twins were little. They wouldn’t notice if we took that out for a spin.”

  The plan was all coming together. I clapped my hands. “Okay, so we head to the diner. We find two Vegans, get them in the stroller, cover them with baby blankets, and bring them to Grandpa Tepper’s garage.”

  Vera stepped into the circle that Willa, Charlie, and I had made. “There is a problem. The children will not go with you. They will not trust you unless they see me.”

  The three of us looked at one another. How were we going to bring a four-foot alien downtown?

  This is a bad idea,” I said.

  Willa tossed her hair over one shoulder. “Relax. I saw it in a movie.”

  Charlie looked to the left and right as we walked out my front door. “Yeah, I saw that same movie, and the only reason it worked was because it was Halloween. Vera’s not exactly going to blend in on a pleasant September morning wearing a full-length winter coat and ski mask.”

  Willa stopped and stared at Charlie. “You got your braces off.”

  “Yeah, yesterday afternoon,” Charlie said.

  I cringed, waiting for the insult that would inevitably follow.

  “Looks good,” Willa said. And that’s all she said.

  “Anyway … ” I said, moving past that slice of weirdness. “I still think this is crazy.”

  Willa pushed the double stroller she’d gotten from her house. Charlie and I walked behind her, each holding one of Vera’s hands. The disguise covered her blue skin, and the long coat even made it so that you couldn’t see that she had three legs. But it was still super-suspicious looking. We just had to hope we didn’t attract any attention as we walked to the diner.

  I had the Alien Invasion app open in case Vera needed to speak with us, but we’d instructed her not to talk at all in front of strangers. Wearing a long coat and ski mask on a mild fall day was strange enough without having a robot voice.

  As we passed Mrs. Sweeney’s house, William Shakespaw began barking out the window as furiously as I’d ever seen him. William was a small white puffball of a dog and was normally very chill. That probably had a lot to do with him being sixteen years old, which was a bazillion in dog years. He never barked at kids walking by his house. So Vera’s disguise definitely wasn’t tricking him.

  Vera’s hand trembled in mine. “What is that?”

  “That’s a dog,” I explained. “Um, canine is the formal name, I think.”

  “Is it dangerous? Or benevolent like the bird species?”

  “Some dogs can bite, but not William Shakespaw. He’s the nicest dog ever.”

  “According to your communication device’s translation, the small furry species would like us to move away from his property.”

  My eyebrows rose. My phone just translated Dog to Vera? What couldn’t this app do?

  We scurried past quickly, and Vera’s tight grip on my hand loosened. Birds and small old dogs certainly weren’t sca
ry to me, but I guess if you’d never seen one before, they could be. I’d nearly peed my pants when Vera and Bob came out of the woods on Friday!

  And now I nearly peed them again. We’d almost made it to the diner without anyone coming too close, but a woman and her kid were strolling down the sidewalk toward us.

  “Stay cool,” I reminded everyone. This would be fine, I tried to convince myself. They’d walk on by. Three middle schoolers, one double stroller, and a child disguised as a cold bank robber is something you totally see every day.

  As they got closer, the mother looked us over but didn’t say anything. Then her kid pointed to Vera and yelled, “Look at that! He’s weird!”

  Leave it to four year olds to just say what they’re thinking.

  “We’re a babysitting club!” Willa practically shrieked. “Kids love playing dress up! You know how they are!”

  The woman put a protective hand on her child’s back, hustling him forward. I didn’t blame her. Willa’s forced chipper tone was scarier than her mean voice.

  But at last we were at the diner. It was closed, as Willa had said, but luckily the owners’ daughter, Vanya Patel, was one of my friends from school. I’d gone with her once to open the diner the morning after a sleepover and I remembered where they hid the emergency key.

  A small landscaped area surrounded a pretty bench near the front door. One of the rocks was fake. I bent down, squinting, and found it. The color matched the others, but it was too smooth. I picked it up and opened the secret hatch on the back.

  I held the key up in victory. “Shall we?”

  “We should hurry,” Willa said. “I talked to Vanya before I went to your house. After they finished cleaning up, they were heading to the store to restock the food they’d lost, then they were coming right back.”

  I unlocked the door, and we pushed inside. The place looked okay but smelled like cleaning products, and patches of flour were caked into the corners.

  “Okay, alien friends,” Charlie said, trying to use an authoritative voice. “Come out so we can help you.”

  I was suddenly worried that the Vegans weren’t here at all. I mean, if Vanya’s parents had spent the morning cleaning the diner, wouldn’t the little aliens have run off? Unless they were hiding somewhere …

  My eyes went to the cabinets beneath the counters. I marched over and knocked on the first one. A startled clicking sound echoed from a space farther down. I moved toward it and ripped open the cabinet door.

  Two little aliens burst out, squealing and running in circles around the diner. Vera was full-grown at five feet so I’d been expecting the Vegans to be small. But they were the size of toddlers!

  One picked up a glass from the counter and smashed it on the ground.

  Apparently they had the temperament of toddlers, too.

  Vera reached her hand out to grab the closest alien’s arm, but it jerked it and climbed on top of a table. It made a horrible noise like when you scrape a fork against a plate, except ten times louder.

  The second alien ran up and kicked me in the shin.

  “Ouch!” I yelled, doubling over and clutching my leg.

  It started running for the door. Ugh, I thought, now we’d have to chase it through downtown. Not very inconspicuous!

  But then Charlie jumped at the kid alien, wrapping his arms around it and tackling it to the floor.

  “Impressive,” Willa said, almost under her breath.

  “I guess all those hours at football practice aren’t for nothing,” Charlie said.

  I held my phone up so the Vegans could clearly understand me. “Hey! You need to listen to your teacher!”

  The alien with Charlie stopped squirming and the one dancing on the table froze in mid-move, both shocked that they were able to understand me.

  “Vera,” I began. “Um, your teacher, is just trying to keep you safe. Now, stop this nonsense and come with us before you get hurt.”

  Wow, that little speech made me feel all adult-ish. And it worked. Vera held out her hands and the little aliens each took one. I put my phone away and Vera dolphin-sounded some harsh words to the misbehaving kids as we strapped them into the stroller.

  I brushed my hands off on my jeans. “Two Vegans down, four to go.”

  Plus, you know, Bob the alien psychopath.

  We hustled back outside and were halfway down the street when the Patels’ SUV passed by. Vanya yelled, “Hi, Bex” out the window, and I waved back like everything was normal and I hadn’t just captured two aliens from her family’s restaurant. We turned down the next street, heading toward Grandpa Tepper’s neighborhood, when we ran—almost literally—into Charlie’s brother.

  “Hey,” Jason said, looking at us suspiciously.

  “Heading to the game?” Charlie asked, doing a poor job of hiding the nervousness in his voice.

  “Yeah.” Jason narrowed his eyes. “But what are you doing?”

  This wasn’t good. We’d asked Jason not to get involved in our monster drama this past summer, and he didn’t listen and nearly got himself killed. I really didn’t want him involving himself with our little alien problem.

  “We’re babysitting!” I yelled, with a little too much enthusiasm.

  Jason scoffed. “Since when? And whose kids?”

  As if in response, the two Vegans started chatting away to each other in their alien language. They were about as quiet as a school bus in reverse.

  Jason raised one eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like babies.” Then he reached forward and snatched the blanket off the double stroller, revealing two small upside down alien faces. One of them burped right at Jason’s open mouth.

  I froze.

  Charlie’s jaw dropped open.

  Willa let out a nervous giggle.

  Jason straightened, his face pale. “I don’t even want to know. Not this time. Nope. I’m out.” And then he continued down the road, whistling like nothing had happened.

  “Well that’s one less potential problem,” I said, letting out a breath.

  Charlie eyes focused on something over my shoulder. “But there might be another one.”

  I turned around, but didn’t see anyone else walking down the street. “What?”

  “That white van was parked outside the diner. And now it’s parked here.” Charlie spoke from the side of his mouth, like he didn’t want anyone to read his lips. “I noticed it slow to a stop as we talked to Jason. Like it was following us.”

  I looked back again. It seemed like a normal van. The windows were tinted just enough that I couldn’t see if anyone was in it. A plumbing company logo was on the side.

  “It’s a plumber,” Willa said. “He goes from job to job, so of course the van is going to move. Stop looking for problems where there aren’t any.”

  A drop of water fell onto my forehead. Oh, great. Was it going to rain? I looked up at the ominous gray sky, and another drop fell right onto my eyeball.

  “Vera!” Charlie cried. “You’re not allergic to water are you?”

  “This is what I’m talking about,” Willa said scornfully. “Looking for stupid problems. Who would be allergic to water?”

  “Aliens. I saw an invasion movie once where water killed them,” Charlie explained.

  Willa snorted. “How dumb do aliens have to be to land on a planet that’s seventy percent water if they’re allergic to water?”

  Charlie rolled his eyes. “Yeah, it was a total plot hole, but still—”

  “You guys,” I interrupted. “She drinks water. She’s fine.”

  “Yes, I enjoy the liquid water,” Vera’s robot voice said.

  “Okay, water’s fine,” Charlie continued. “But we still need to be careful when she’s introduced to something new. It could be okay for humans but harmful to her. Like dogs and chocolate!”

  Willa groaned. “I’m just saying you don’t need to overreact to every little—”

  “Can we stop bickering and move on before we get soaked?” I pushed everyone forward.
>
  We arrived at Grandpa Tepper’s garage without further incident. Charlie typed in the code to open the garage door and told it to Willa and me in case we ever needed it. The garage was pretty much empty. One corner had some house stuff—a shovel and salt for the driveway. But the rest was wide open.

  Charlie grabbed some blankets and pillows from inside the house. I parked the stroller and let the alien kids out. And Willa unpacked a bag of toys she’d taken from her basement. Her twin brothers were eight now and had outgrown them.

  “Math textbooks?” Vera reminded me.

  “Yes, I’ll get you more of those,” I assured her.

  “And oranges!” the Vegans yelled, jumping up and down.

  “They really enjoyed the oranges from the diner,” Vera explained. “They told me they ate every one. But they will need more by tomorrow.”

  “I’ll stop by the store, too,” I promised.

  Charlie piled up the blankets in the corner. “You’ll be safe here. But we have to go for now. We’ll be back.”

  The three of us headed back down the driveway. I’d thought all the drama was over when we’d successfully booted all the monsters from our town. But here we were, collecting aliens. At least I had a team. I wasn’t alone.

  Willa pulled an elastic out of her pocket and started to pull her hair up into a bun. “I’d love to spend the afternoon with you walking disasters, but I have dance class. Later.” Then she marched off in the opposite direction.

  “I have to go, too,” Charlie said, looking guilty. “The team is heading out to watch the varsity game together. It’s the whole team, you know? Plus, my brother’s playing in the game.”

  A lump formed in the back of my throat. “Of course.”

  “You don’t mind doing the errands by yourself?”

  I paused. Yeah, I minded. I was going to spend the rest of the day acting like an alien delivery service getting textbooks and oranges. Oh, and if I ran into any little Vegans on my way I had to somehow capture them all alone. Because watching a stupid game with his friends was more important than helping me.

  But I didn’t say any of that. I swallowed hard and forced out the words, “It’s no problem.”