by Marty Chan
The footsteps stopped. I peeked around the corner and saw my parents’ bedroom door swing shut. Mom had gone to get something from her room. It was now or never. I grabbed the wooden doorstop, but it was stuck. I pulled harder. It inched out, but still held tight. Then I saw the bedroom door creak open. Mom was on her way out. I yanked on the doorstop with all my might. The triangular block screeched against the wooden door, but finally came free. I scrambled back and hid against the wall. I heard Mom’s footsteps in the hallway. Soon, the sounds of chopping began again. She hadn’t noticed the door swing shut.
I tiptoed to the back doors. I carefully turned the deadbolt and opened one of the doors. Remi barged into the store and stamped his feet on the tiled floor, making a huge racket.
“What took you so — ”
I clamped my hand over Remi’s mouth. He struggled as I dragged him behind a stack of boxes and kicked the door shut.
I whispered, “My mom’s down the hall. If she hears us, we’re done.”
Remi nodded. He pulled my hand away from his mouth. For a few minutes, all I heard was our breathing. I silently counted to ten. No sign of Mom.
I squirmed around Remi and stuck my head out from behind the boxes. The door to the kitchen was still closed. I quickly locked the back door. Then I motioned Remi to follow me down the hall.
“This is so cool,” he whispered.
I gave him a thumbs up, then I zigzagged from one side of the aisle to the other, just like I had seen cops do on television shows. Remi copied me move for move. I guessed he must have seen the same shows. We snuck out of the backroom and crept into the main part of the store. I looked up and down the aisle. The coast was clear. I led Remi along the aisle toward the cookie section.
“What are we looking for?” Remi said.
“You’ll see.”
I knelt in front of a shelf full of dusty oatmeal-raisin cookies. No one ever bought these stale cookies, but my dad refused to take them off the shelf. He believed that they would sell one day. He came close to selling a package one time, when Jacques Boissonault needed a hockey puck for a pick-up game. I joked that he could use the super stale and hard oatmeal-raisin cookies. Dad jumped on the idea. Jacques growled that my dad would sell dust bunnies for a quick buck and stormed out of the store. No one wanted to buy these cookies, which meant that this shelf was a perfect hiding place.
I cleared the shelf and shoved my arm into the dark space. Remi looked at the cookie package and licked his lips.
“Mmm, good looking cookies.”
“Are you nuts?” I said. “They’re oatmeal-raisin.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, the name’s right on the package.” I pointed at the giant letters across the cookies which looked deceptively tasty.
Remi shook his head. “I must have missed the title.”
“How could you miss it?”
He avoided answering my question. “Ugh. Who eats oatmeal-raisin? It’s like chewing mouse poo.”
My hand fumbled along the wood grain of the shelf until it rested on something flat and smooth. I pulled out a glossy magazine.
“Put the cookies back,” I told Remi. “Then I’ll show you the proof.”
Remi shoved the packages back on the shelf, then he followed me around the corner of the shelf unit so that no one would see us. Safely out of sight, I showed Remi the magazine — proof of my real origins. The cover showed a giant flying saucer hovering over a farm house. Remi looked at the picture and scratched his head.
“It’s a U.F.O. magazine,” Remi said. “That’s all you got?”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s all I need.”
“It looks kind of lame.”
“Read page 17. There’s an article about how to spot a real alien.”
I had dog-eared the page so it didn’t take Remi long to get to the article. On the page a drawing of a naked wrinkly alien with a big bald head and giant black eyes stared out at us. Underneath the sketch was the article I wanted Remi to read.
“See,” I said. “I told you.”
“So?”
“What do you mean so? The article will tell you everything you need to know about aliens.”
Remi studied the picture. “It doesn’t really look like you.”
“Read it.”
“This is dumb.” Remi pushed the magazine away.
“What’s the matter? This is my proof. Read it.”
“It’s too stupid.”
“Just read it.”
Remi threw the magazine on the floor. “Forget it!” He started to get up.
“Are you too dumb to read it?” I said.
“Shut up.” He headed down the aisle.
I realized that I was the dumb one. Remi couldn’t read the article because he didn’t know how to read English. That’s why he missed the label on the oatmeal-raisin cookies. He was too proud to tell me. I wished I could take back what I had said, but it was too late.
“Why don’t I read it to you?” I offered.
He stopped and turned around. “You don’t think I can read it myself? Is that what you think?”
“No, I don’t want to waste your time. Come on, I’ll just read you the important stuff.”
Remi shrugged. “Whatever.”
I picked the magazine off the floor. Remi sat down beside me and pretended to follow along in the article. I told him the high points. The magazine reported that aliens walked the Earth right under everyone’s noses. They had disguised themselves. I stressed the word “disguised.”
“Hold on. Wait a minute,” he interrupted. “If you’re in disguise, let’s just pull it off.”
“You don’t think I’ve already tried?” I said. “I’ve spent hours in the bathtub trying to scrub off my skin.”
“And did it work?”
“No. I think my parents used some kind of transformation ray. My disguise is something more than just a costume or a mask.” I kept reading. “The magazine says if you know what to look for, you can see past an alien’s disguise. There are three telltale signs. Number one, the eyes. Even if they wear a human disguise aliens can not hide their black, cat-like eyes. These dark orbs will instantly give away an alien. To compensate, most aliens wear glasses to make their eyes look wider.”
I took off my glasses and showed Remi my narrow, black, cat-like eyes.
“It’s just a coincidence,” he said.
I kept reading the article. It stated that aliens built flying saucers that traveled across many galaxies in the blink of an eye. They constructed special tractor beams to lift cows up to their space ship. They made invisible clothes, which is why they always looked naked. The article said that only super-intelligent beings could build such incredible inventions.
I put the magazine down and said, “If they’re super-smart, then they can read really fast. Just like me.”
“It’s another coincidence,” Remi said, but he did not sound so sure of himself this time. “Keep reading.”
The third telltale sign about an alien was their size. They were short and skinny so they could fit through their tiny spaceship doors, which had to be small to keep air from leaking out. The magazine stated that an alien looked like a small sickly child.
“Everyone thinks I look like a small sickly child,” I confessed. “What other proof do you need?”
Remi shook his head. “I was hoping you’d show me a spaceship. That’d be real proof.”
“I got something even better.”
“What?”
“My mom,” I said.
“How’s that going to prove you’re an alien? You said you’re all in disguise.”
“When you see how she behaves, you’ll think differently.”
“I don’t think so.”
“She might give us ice cream for dessert.”
Remi’s eyes lit up. “Well, maybe I can stick around and do some investigating of my own.”
At the dinner table, my mom stared at Remi with the look she reserved for my dad when
he came home late. She had reluctantly agreed to let Remi stay for dinner, after I told her that I was helping him with his homework. Mom never stood in the way of schoolwork, but she didn’t trust Remi. She watched him closer than she watched potential shoplifters.
Remi didn’t help matters. He took an instant dislike to my mom when she said only lazy people do poorly at school. He grumbled behind her back and
grunted short answers to any questions Mom asked him. Finally, she gave up talking to him about her beliefs on school work.
“Set the table Marty,” Mom ordered.
I went to the counter beside the portable stove and grabbed a handful of chopsticks from an empty peach can. I laid three pairs around the table and put one on the kitchen counter for Dad. He never ate with us because he had to mind the store. Mom always brought his dinner out to him.
Remi examined the wooden sticks. “What the heck do I do with these?”
“You eat with them,” I said.
Remi held one chopstick in each hand and tried to figure out how to pick up food with them. At first, he thought they were spears, and he jabbed at imaginary bits of food. Then he thought he could use them like a warehouse forklift.
I picked up my chopsticks and showed him how to hold them properly in one hand, like two pens. He copied me, but his chopsticks jumped from his clumsy hand and spun to the floor.
“Aiya, give your friend a fork,” Mom said.
I nodded and headed to the kitchen drawer. Remi jumped up from his seat and joined me.
“What did she say?” he whispered.
“Didn’t you hear her?”
“Yeah, but it was in Chinese.”
“She said to get you a fork. Didn’t you understand her?”
“Duh, I don’t speak Chinese.”
Something dawned on me. “How do you know it’s Chinese and not an alien language?”
“I don’t know. You’re the one who’s Chinese.”
“Yeah, but isn’t it weird that there are no other Chinese families in town?”
“I guess but what does it matter?”
“This way, my parents can speak alienese and people would just think it was Chinese.”
Mom often used this language to talk about customers, so that my dad could understand her, but they could not. Most times she didn’t have anything good to say about them.
“Maybe they’re making notes on Earthlings,” I said. “That’s why they need to speak in alien code, and being Chinese is just a cover.”
Remi took a long look at my mom.
I added, “And that’s why there can’t be other Chinese families in town. Because if there were, they’d learn that my family are really aliens.”
Remi nodded his head slowly as the truth started to sink in. Any doubts disappeared when he saw what my mom served for dinner. She slapped two plates down on the dinner table. On one plate, chicken feet stewed in brown juices. The claws curled like little fists with sharp spurs. Octopus tentacles infested the other plate. They did backstrokes in a murky sauce.
“That can’t be what I think it is,” Remi said.
“What is wrong?” Mom asked.
“Where’s the sweet and sour pork?” Remi asked. “Where are the dried spareribs? The pineapple chicken?”
I kicked Remi under the table, then smiled at Mom. “I told Remi we might get some of that here.”
Mom glared at Remi, “This is all you get.”
“But I can’t eat all of this by myself,” he squeaked.
“You don’t have to,” I said. I picked up my chopsticks and plucked a tentacle and deposited it on my bowl of rice. Then I plucked a chicken foot from the other plate and plopped it on top of the tentacle.
“Are you kidding?” Remi asked as if I had just grown a third eye.
I whispered, “Just eat before my mom gets suspicious.”
Remi gulped and looked from the plate of chicken feet to the plate of octopus tentacles.
“Your friend not like my food?” Mom asked.
“He’s not used to it,” I said.
“Silly boy. Why did he want to eat with us then?”
“What did she say?” Remi asked.
“You don’t want to know,” I said.
Remi jabbed his fork into a chicken foot and held it up for inspection. He took one look at my mom and smiled. Then he tried to put the foot in his mouth. His hand shook and the foot fell on the dimpled card table. Remi scooped it up with his fork and tried again.
Mom hissed, “Make sure he doesn’t stay too long.” She put Dad’s dinner on a tray and added her own dinner to it.
“Okay,” I mumbled.
“I eat with your dad tonight,” she said in English for Remi’s benefit. Then she left.
Once Mom was gone, Remi dropped his fork and pushed away from the table. He looked white as a sheet.
He said, “I’ve been to Uncle Wong’s Buffet Palace. I know what Chinese food is supposed to be, and it’s not this.”
“So now do you believe me?”
“This is so gross.” Remi picked a tentacle off the big plate, but it slipped out of his grip and fell on the floor. He picked it up carefully.
“I saw this in my sister’s science book. It’s the arm of an octopus,” he said. “And you eat it?”
“It’s not that bad tasting,” I said. “Try it.”
Remi brushed the dirt off the tentacle and then popped it into his mouth. Suddenly, his face scrunched up and he spit the tentacle out. It bounced on the table and landed in the claw of a chicken foot. Remi scraped his tongue with his fingers.
“Yuck,” he gasped. “Give me some water so I can wash the taste out.”
I grabbed a pitcher from the kitchen counter and poured a glass for Remi. He took one gulp and spit the water back into the glass. He put it on the table and pushed it as far away from him as possible.
“It’s warm. Why is it warm?”
“It’s boiled.”
“I want cold water from the tap.”
“We’re not supposed to drink water from the tap,” I said. “Mom says that tap water is unsafe. I can only drink boiled water.”
Remi examined the glass of water, then eyed the food on the table. He shuddered. “Your family have to be aliens to eat this stuff. I believe you now.”
FOUR
After dinner, Remi and I went to my room to look through the U.F.O. magazine. I propped a chair against the door in case Mom decided to check up on us. Remi couldn’t get enough of the articles. He made me read them to him and he hung on every word.
“They cut up cows in the night?” he asked.
“Yes. But there’s no blood or anything. Sometimes pieces of the cows are missing. And there’s mysterious burn marks on the grass. Probably from the landing gear.”
“Cool. What else do aliens do?”
I read Remi an article about how aliens were responsible for the Bermuda Triangle.
“I heard about that place. It’s where all the boats and planes go missing. What do the aliens want with them?”
“It doesn’t say.”
“I’ll bet there’s a race of giant aliens, and they use the boats and planes as bath toys for a big alien baby. What do you think?”
“I think they . . . we . . . study them. Especially planes.”
“Why?”
“Because no plane can ever catch a U.F.O. Maybe the aliens want to stay ahead of the humans.”
“Yeah,” Remi nodded. “That makes so much sense. They don’t want to be caught.”
“The magazine says that people only see the mysterious lights in the sky. No one has ever caught one of the flying saucers.”
“Wow. What else?”
I read an article about how cars wouldn’t start if a flying saucer hovered nearby. The magazine said that motors would mysteriously die.
“They sure like to use the word ‘mysterious’ a lot,” Remi noted.
“Oh, check this one out,” I said.
I showed Remi a drawing of
two men in long black trench coats, their faces behind pulled-up collars. The men wore weird hats, which reminded me of the hats detectives wore in old black and white movies. The men wore sunglasses to hide their eyes.
“Who are these guys? They look mysterious.”
I read the article aloud. “The greatest mystery about the aliens is the Night Watchmen. These seemingly normal human beings travel the globe to investigate U.F.O. sightings. Witnesses report that these Night Watchmen, always dressed in black, come out whenever a U.F.O. is spotted. They tell the witnesses to forget they saw anything, often intimidating the witnesses. Soon after the Night Watchmen leave, the U.F.O.s are never seen again in that area. However, witnesses do report the uncomfortable feeling of being watched.”
“Wow,” Remi said. “Does it say who the Night Watchmen are?”
“I think they’re agents for the aliens. They make sure no one ever finds out that aliens are around. They protect the aliens.”
“Are they from my planet or yours?”
“The article doesn’t say.”
“And they all look like this?”
“Yup.”
“Cool. You ever see one?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think I want to see one of them either. They sound pretty scary. The magazine says the Night Watchmen can be really mysterious.”
Remi took the magazine and stared at the drawing of the Night Watchmen, trying to get a look at their hidden faces.
He turned to me. “There’s one thing I still don’t get. How come you didn’t know you were an alien before you found the magazine?”
“I think I was born here.”
“Then why didn’t your parents tell you that you’re from another planet?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “That’s what I’m hoping to find out.”
“Maybe they thought you couldn’t keep a secret.”
Remi’s comment reminded me of the time when I blabbed to Mom where Dad had hidden his bottle of rye. He had stashed it behind the diapers in the store, hoping no one would find it, especially Mom. He had promised her that he would stop drinking. When I saw him with the bottle of rye, Dad ordered me to keep his hiding place secret. I tried to do it, but when Mom saw me, she noticed a guilty look on my face. She asked what I was hiding. I tried to lie, but she read my mind. She told me that if I didn’t tell her what I was hiding, I would be in big trouble. I spilled the beans. Mom went to Dad’s hiding place and took away the bottle. Dad was mad at me for a week, and Mom was mad at him for a month.
