The Summer Experiment

by Cathie Pelletier

  Downstairs, we slipped out into the yard, past the lilac bush and over to where our bikes were leaning against the toolshed. No way could we take the four-wheeler. We’d wake up the whole house if we did, and maybe all the ghosts on Peterson’s Mountain. The moon was now full and the backyard had turned to silver. I watched as Marilee slid a leg over the seat of her bike, and then I did the same to mine. We pedaled slowly out of the driveway, a few creaks that no one would hear.

  The meadow was silver too, and the frogs so noisy it sounded like a party was going on at their pond. We glided past and hit the recreation trail that carried us around to the foot of Peterson’s Mountain. The cave was only a third of the way up. We could walk our bikes there and use our headlights coming back down. If we came back down.

  The moonlight was so bright that we almost didn’t need headlights. Marilee got off her bike and began pushing it, so I did the same. Off in the distance a screech owl let loose a cry. I felt hair rise on the back of my neck. If you haven’t heard a screech owl before, let me tell you that it sounds like the whinny of a ghost horse.

  “Maybe we should forget about this,” Marilee said. I knew the owl had frightened her. “If we back out, no one would know but us.”

  “And that’s two too many,” I said. I took the lead, pushing my bike in front of hers. That’s when we heard the haunting fiddle music.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a ghost fiddler.”

  “Stop it, Robbie! What is it?”

  “It’s a dead tree,” I told her. “The wind is moving it like a fiddle bow across another tree. There’s the cave.”

  ***

  The full moon hung over the Allagash Valley like a silver dollar, sparkling and bright. The night was alive with expectation. We could see fireflies burning up the hayfields down by the river. Half of the lights in town were already out since most country people go to bed early. The gas station was still lit up and so was the police department. Houses here and there had yellow dots of light for windows. I assumed kids my age were watching TV or playing computer games. We leaned our bikes against the cave wall. I took the flashlight out of my backpack and put it on the ground where I could find it later. Marilee was quiet.

  “I’ll be glad when this night is over,” she said.

  “Me too.” I realized I meant it. So why was I doing it? Well, why did Columbus get on a creaky ship and talk two more creaky ships into following him halfway around the globe? Why did explorers freeze to death at the North Pole? Why did Amelia Earhart try to fly around the world? Why did Neil Armstrong walk on the moon? Why does Paris Hilton dress her dog up in clothes?

  I really don’t know why I do the things I do. Mom says I have the “wild gene” and that I didn’t get it from her side of the family. But everyone in Dad’s family seems normal. I guess this is just the way I was born.

  “Rub some of this on your face and neck,” I said, and handed Marilee the bug repellent.

  “Gross,” she said. “No way.” But a mosquito was buzzing close by, so she changed her mind. “I just thought of something, Robbie. If the aliens look like bugs, we have repellent!”

  “Silly,” I said.

  I got out the iPhone and clicked it on.

  “You think the message will work?”

  “I hope so,” I said.

  We heard a coyote howl from the top of the mountain, and I prayed a rabbit wasn’t going to die. Dad says the coyote has to live too, but it’s still sad. Marilee pulled her sweater tighter about her arms and watched me.

  “Remember that spaceship episode of Twilight Zone?” she asked.

  Marilee and I love watching old Star Trek reruns and Battlestar Galactica. Maybe it’s because we like science. We’re girls who want to “boldly go where no man has gone before.” Twilight Zone episodes were scarier but still fun. I remembered the episode.

  “‘To Serve Man,’” I said. But I didn’t want to think about it.

  “The Kanamits,” said Marilee. “Nine-foot-tall aliens who ate human beings for dinner.”

  “Supper,” I said. “Don’t think of that. Think about us winning the biggest science fair on earth and becoming rich and famous.”

  I keyed the two-word message into the iPhone and activated the code translator. Sure enough, the flash quickly started blinking out the message. I placed the phone on a rock at the edge of the cave so that it would be in the open and able to transmit. Then I sat next to Marilee in the mouth of the cave and put my hands in my jacket pockets. The flash kept sending my two words over and over again for all the heavens to see. I imagined them leaving the cave and going up, up, up into the dark skies overhead, traveling forever and ever…unless someone was there to receive them.

  Two little words from Earth:

  WE REMEMBER!

  WE REMEMBER!

  WE REMEMBER!

  WE REMEMBER!

  WE REMEMBER!

  WE REMEMBER!

  WE REMEMBER!

  WE REMEMBER!

  WE REMEMBER!

  WE REMEMBER!

  WE REMEMBER!

  WE REMEMBER!

  WE REMEMBER!

  WE REMEMBER!

  WE REMEMBER!

  WE REMEMBER!

  WE REMEMBER!

  WE REMEMBER!

  WE REMEMBER!

  WE REMEMBER!

  WE REMEMBER!

  WE REMEMBER!

  21

  A Smelly Encounter

  How do you fall asleep sitting in a cave with an iPhone flashing next to you? If it’s almost midnight and you didn’t sleep much the night before, I guess it’s pretty easy. But before we fell asleep, we shared some more secrets, which is what best friends are really for. I told Marilee that I still liked Billy Ferguson, even if he didn’t try to rescue us that night at the picnic table.

  “After all,” I said, “it’s not like we’re related. Johnny is my brother.” And then Marilee shared a secret with me that almost made me go rolling down the mountain. I just couldn’t believe it! I had never suspected, not in my life.

  Marilee had said, “Guess who I like, Robbie.” And I guessed every cute singer I could think of. Each time she said no. So I started going through the boys in our class. Davy. Noah. Evan. Nicholas. Robert. Billy. Kirk. Julian. Oliver. Justin. Michael. Logan. James. On and on I went, and yet she said no to each name. I was about to jump up a grade until we had this conversation:

  “I like Johnny.”

  “Johnny who?”

  “Johnny McKinnon.”

  “Johnny McKinnon who?”

  “Your brother, Johnny.”

  “Hold me from rolling off this mountain, Marilee.”

  That’s what I told her and it’s how I felt. My own brother! Johnny McKinnon. I never once suspected, even when she kept drooling over how brave he was. Or when she said good-bye to him in our video clip. This was going to change things big-time since I’d been known to say some nasty things about my brother. But other things had changed too. Johnny and I had grown closer since our close call.

  So Marilee and I had shared our hearts with each other, and then we had both fallen asleep. I was dreaming of swimming in the river when something hairy brushed against my hand. I stirred in my dreams. “Maxwell” is what I was thinking. I reached out my hand, still asleep, and sure enough, it felt like Max’s soft fur. I petted it a couple times down its back. This was when my brain started waking me up.

  “You are not in bed at your house, stupid,” my brain whispered. “You are in Peterson’s Cave on Peterson’s Mountain.” I opened my eyes and sat straight up. The flash was still flickering, my message still going off into outer space. Where was the cat I was just petting? I reached down for the flashlight. Ever so quietly, I snapped it on. I saw that Marilee was sound asleep beside me, her head resting on her folded arms. Slowly, I shone
the light around the cave. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Skunk.

  Skunk?

  I had been petting a skunk in my sleep? I watched with my breath trapped in my throat as it found the half sandwich I couldn’t finish before I fell asleep. It sniffed the bread all over, as if deciding whether it would taste good or not. And then its small jaws clamped down on the food and it was gone. I shook Marilee.

  “Wake up,” I said. “You won’t believe the close encounter we just had.” Not even the garbage truck would have abducted us if we’d been sprayed. Marilee sat up and rubbed her eyes.

  “Are we on Mars yet?” she asked. I told her how I’d just made friends with a wild skunk.

  “You weren’t sprayed?”

  “If I had been, you wouldn’t be sitting this close to me,” I told her. It’s hard to believe, but a skunk smells a lot worse than bug repellent.

  “Well, at least it’s in the cat family,” said Marilee.

  I looked down over the Allagash Valley and was amazed at how it glittered in the light of the full moon. Postcard beautiful is what Grandpa always called it. Marilee shone the flashlight on her watch.

  “It’s almost midnight, Robbie,” she said. “We really should go.”

  I stretched and yawned. I thought of my nice warm bed with its fat pillows and a cat curled on the end, instead of a skunk. She was right. We should go. But when did Roberta Angela McKinnon ever do what she should? The answer is not very often.

  “Marilee, use some logic,” I said. “Aliens don’t know it’s almost midnight on Earth. If we want them to get our message, we have to give our plan time to work.”

  “Your plan,” said Marilee. But she yawned and then rolled onto her side in her sleeping bag. I took that as a good sign. When we’re on our river rocks and Marilee rolls onto her side, she’s asleep in two minutes.

  “Otherwise,” I continued, “we’re going to see Henry Helmsby’s face peering out of Fiddlehead Focus, holding the trophy for Science Fair.”

  “There are worse things,” Marilee said, her voice trailing off.

  “Name one,” I said.

  Her answer was a soft little snore.

  I sat huddled with my back against the cave wall. I pulled my sleeping bag tighter about me. I could hear the wind shuffling through the trees below the cave. And the sound of a logging truck shifting gears down on the highway. Some of the men who cut logs for the P. G. Irvine Company start their day at midnight. I thought of Billy Ferguson asleep in his warm bed as I wriggled my toes inside the heavy socks I was wearing. Maybe a prayer wouldn’t hurt.

  “Now I lay me down to sleep,” I whispered, so as not to wake Marilee. Only I wasn’t lying down. I was sitting up. I yawned again and this time my eyelids felt as if someone had put rocks on them. I closed my eyes, thinking of how amazed Henry Helmsby would be when a blond girl and her best friend, Marilyn or Millicent, beat him to the finish line.

  ***

  It was probably a rock that rolled down the mountainside and bounced hard on the roof of the cave. Some noise, like a bang! woke me up. Marilee woke up too and grabbed the flashlight.

  “Did you hear that?” she asked. I did. She shone the light around the cave. Nothing. Not even a caterpillar, much less a skunk. “I’ve had enough excitement for one night, Robbie. I’m going home.”

  My feet were cold and my back hurt from sleeping sitting up. Home sounded pretty darn good right then. I looked at my watch.

  “It’s almost one o’clock,” I said. “I guess aliens don’t care to meet us.” I turned off the iPhone and slipped it into my jacket pocket. Marilee had picked up the sack we brought our food in and put it in my backpack.

  “Well, I wasn’t all that crazy about meeting them,” she said. “Having you as a friend is excitement enough.”

  I smiled as I grabbed the handlebars and backed my bike out of the cave.

  “Friend?” I asked. “We’re practically sisters.” Marilee punched my arm, and it wasn’t a fake punch.

  “You tell anyone what I said about Johnny and I swear I’ll run away forever.”

  “I won’t tell,” I said. “You know I won’t. Let’s go home.”

  Headlights on, we walked our bikes down from Peterson’s Cave. Riding was a little too dangerous, even with all that moonlight to guide us. The last thing I wanted to do was flatten a skunk.

  “I’m going to sleep for a year,” said Marilee when we reached the foot of the mountain.

  “Don’t worry,” I told her. “I’ll think of another way for us to win the science fair. But we’re back to regional.”

  We got on our bikes and pedaled slowly along the recreational trail. Next, we would have the meadow to cross, its clover and daisies and buttercups all asleep for the night. Sometimes, I was thinking, we’re lucky to live in such a safe place. It’s so beautiful, come autumn, when the mosquitoes and blackflies pack up and head for Florida. Boring, maybe. But safe, and safe is not bad.

  “Watch out for the big rock,” Marilee said, before I could warn her of the same thing. It had been at the edge of the meadow for as long as I could remember. Dad says someone must have farmed that field once and used a team of oxen or horses to pull that big rock out of the earth. We both veered our bikes around the rock.

  When we hit the meadow path, it was just safe, flat field ahead of us. Marilee pulled up alongside of me and we pedaled in unison. Side by side. Best friends for life. And that’s when something seemed weird. My legs felt like they were going around and around, my feet pedaling. But I didn’t seem to be moving. Was I dreaming again? Was a skunk riding the bike next to me?

  “What the heck is going on?” I heard Marilee ask. I looked over. She was outlined in moonlight. I saw that her legs were also pedaling but she wasn’t moving. We were making no headway at all. It was like being frozen. And yet, we didn’t fall over. Our bikes stayed steady and sure.

  “Marilee, what’s happening?” I was afraid. I was gone from that scary mountain and now so close to my safe home, and yet I was terrified.

  “I’m not moving!” I heard her say. “I can’t get my bike to move.”

  “Stop pedaling!” I shouted to her. “Let’s try to get off these things.”

  “Robbie?” Her voice sounded on the verge of tears. I knew her bottom lip was trembling. I’d seen it do that so many times. “Robbie, look up!”

  22

  The Second Allagash Abductions

  I did as Marilee asked, much as I hated to. I looked up, far up into the sky over our heads. Both of us sat on our bikes then, not bothering to pedal and yet not falling over. I thought I saw just stars at first, a heaven of white stars hovering over us. But then I could see the shape of the ship, triangular, twice the size of a football field, as Sheriff Mallory had described it.

  “Marilee?”

  “Robbie!”

  Suddenly, a wide beam of light shot down from the ship’s belly, lighting us up for the whole world to see, if anyone was awake and watching. But I knew better than that. It was midnight in Allagash, Maine. Five hours north of Stephen King. In the middle of the Allagash wilderness. But there we were, as lit up as Paul Ellory’s red tractor and his cows and his two silos.

  “We don’t remember!” I shouted up toward the light.

  “ROBBIE!”

  Our legs had lifted from our bikes and we were being pulled up toward the craft. It had to be three hundred feet above the ground, just as Sheriff Mallory thought when he saw it hover over the dairy farm.

  “This is too high,” I thought. “We have no parachutes. What if it drops us?” My long hair had risen with the wind that engulfed us, as if it were floating on water all around my head.

  “ROBBIE!” Oh, Marilee, why do you let me talk you into such crazy stunts? My best friend. I wish you were safe at home right now.

  A hatch slid open then, right where the beam was
coming from. A large door was opening into the ship. Oh no, we’re really being taken! Did this happen before? How can I get away from here without breaking my neck? I looked down and saw two tiny bikes lying in the meadow, just past the big rock. One was a Schwinn Girl’s Ranger, a pretty light blue, the bike Mom and Dad got me for my birthday. The other was a purple Pacific Exploit mountain bike. It once belonged to a girl named Marilee Evans. No one would ever know what happened to us.

  “I want to go home!” I shouted. But my words were lost in the night winds.

  Home. I could imagine it. My safe house. My safe bedroom. My wonderful family. I could almost smell the cool air up on Frog Hill just before the sun sets. I thought of four-wheeling across the meadow when the buttercups and clover are in bloom. An ice cream at Cramer’s Gas & Movie Rentals. School this autumn. My cat, Maxwell. My aquarium of fish. Billy Ferguson. How could I have been bored? How could I have taken all that for granted? I was so lucky. I’d be a new person just as soon as I got home.

  The beam of light had now pulled us just beneath the belly of the ship. Marilee’s face turned toward me then and I saw the fear in her eyes. Her hair was also floating about her head. It would have been beautiful if we were swimming underwater near our river rocks. I could hear a whirring sound.

  “You’re right, Grandma,” I thought. “It is a whirring sound.”

  And then we were sucked up into the spacecraft. I heard the huge door slide, and then clamp shut beneath us. Marilee was grasping my hand so hard it would hurt if I could feel it. But I was too scared to feel anything. The room we were in was filled with gray mist, like the early fog that covers the Allagash River before the sun rises. I heard a loud whooshing noise and the mist began to disappear. As we watched, it was sucked into openings in the floor until it was all gone. That’s when I saw a silver band that encircled the entire room. It had strange writing on it, symbols and scratches and dots. I remembered that writing!

  “Marilee, we’ve been here before!” I told her. “The four of us, that night on Peterson’s Mountain, this is where they brought us!”

  “How do you know that, Robbie?”