Aliens for Dinner

by Stephanie Spinner

  “Besides,” he said, “you can have all the time you like and talk about anything!” No matter how incredibly boring it is, he wanted to add. But he didn’t.

  “Well …” Mr. Felshin picked up a pencil and put it down. He took a drink of water, which made his bow tie wiggle. Richard held his breath.

  “Well … all right,” said Mr. Felshin finally. “I suppose the tango can wait … And Edwina will understand … This is for a good cause, after all.”

  “Oh, thank you, sir,” said Richard. His knees were shaking. “You’ll never know what this means to everyone,” he added.

  And this time he was telling the absolute truth.

  “I can’t believe you fell asleep!” Richard said to Aric. It was later that day, and they were back in his room.

  “I could not help it. He has the most boring voice I have ever heard,” said Aric. “It is more boring than Graxian folk singing. Or Drane poetry.” The little alien was silent for a moment.

  “Now,” he said quietly, “we must discuss Phase Three.”

  “Phase Three?”

  “We must make sure that the Dwilbs come to the recycling center on Thursday night,” said Aric.

  “How do we do that?”

  “We must invite them.” Something in Aric’s voice made Richard uneasy. Then he got it.

  “You mean, I have to invite them, don’t you?” he said. Aric nodded. Richard’s heart started pounding. He wanted to stay as far away from the Dwilbs as he could. But, he realized, Aric was right. They had to be sure the Dwilbs were there on Thursday. Otherwise their whole plan would fall apart.

  “Remember, you are an honorary member of the Brigade,” said Aric.

  “How could I forget?” said Richard. He took a deep breath. “Let’s go.”

  Richard spotted the three Dwilbs in the bus station parking lot. They don’t look mean, he thought. Big, yes. Nerdy, yes. But not mean. So why am I shaking? he wondered.

  He forced himself to walk a little closer. They were at the back of the lot, where the buses were lined up, wearing baseball caps with fake ponytails. They were crouching close to the buses, breathing in exhaust fumes. They were smiling.

  Richard’s throat closed up. His hands, clutching a stack of flyers that announced the opening of the recycling center, were clammy. When the Dwilbs noticed him, he fought the urge to run.

  “Hi! Hi!” they called together, jumping to their feet. Richard took another step toward them.

  “Hi,” he said. He had never been this close to them before. They smelled. Richard gagged. They smelled like a fish tank with dead fish in it.

  “Hi,” he managed to say again. “Come to the recycling plant tomorrow night?” He handed one of them a flyer and all of a sudden he was staring into three sets of Dwilbian eyes. Richard found himself thinking of a movie he had just seen with a scary Tyrannosaurus rex in it. The rex was a killer, and its eyes were like these—bright and empty.

  “Wouldn’t miss it! Wouldn’t miss it!” said the Dwilbs.

  “Great,” said Richard. “Great! I, uh … I have to go,” he added weakly.

  “Stay with us. Stay with us,” said the Dwilbs, leaning a little closer. Richard swallowed. They smelled horrible, but he couldn’t seem to move.

  “Richard!” Aric’s voice was a shock. “Get away right now! Move it!”

  Somehow, Richard moved it.

  By eight o’clock on Thursday night the recyling plant was crowded. There were people sitting on rows of folding chairs, and people standing around talking. The noise was really loud. The plant had cement floors and a high ceiling, like a warehouse. A banner hung over the speaker’s stand at the front of the room. “We recycling!” was painted on it in big green letters.

  Richard sat near the back of the hall. He had come to the plant with his mother and Bob in Bob’s van. He had told his mother he wanted to sit in back to watch out for Henry. But he was really watching for Dwilbs.

  He checked the clock on the wall. 8:05. He checked the audience. No Dwilbs. Richard tried to stay calm, but worries dive-bombed his brain like mosquitoes. What if the Dwilbs didn’t show up? What if Mr: Felshin didn’t show up? So many things could go wrong!

  Bob walked to the speaker’s stand and picked up the microphone. There was an earsplitting screech, and the room went dark. Now the only light in the room was on Bob.

  “Hello, hello,” he said to the audience. “I’m Bob Baxter, and I’d like to welcome you here this evening …”

  Bob introduced Mr. Felshin and Richard sighed a small sigh of relief. At least The Sandman had made it. Then he heard a shuffling noise from the back of the room. He turned.

  There was no mistaking them, even in the dark. Thirteen oversized guys, all wearing hats with earflaps, were filing in. They sat down right behind Richard, so close he could smell them.

  As Mr. Felshin stepped up to the stand, they all began whispering something. Richard could just make it out. “Are you ready? Are you ready?” They whispered it over and over again, rocking back and forth in their seats. Richard’s heart thudded. The Dwilbs were whipping themselves into a frenzy. They were getting ready to strike!

  “Come on, Sandman!” he wanted to scream. “Get boring! Talk about the copy machiner!”

  Mr. Felshin did even better. He cleared his throat and told everyone the title of his speech— “101 Ways to Reuse Plastic Bags.”

  “One,” he said, in his slow, droning way. “Used plastic bags … make wonderful storage containers. They will hold everything … from paper clips … to rubber-bands… to pushpins.

  “Two,” he went on. “Used plastic bags make excellent gloves. They can be used to pick up … all kinds of things … Things … you don’t want to touch … with your bare hands. I am sure all you pet owners … know what I mean.

  “Three,” he said. “Used plastic bags make fine … emergency rain hats.” He smiled. “Many is the time … I have used an old plastic bag … this way.

  “Four …”

  Richard heard a noise behind him. He turned. The Dwilbs were giggling—strange, high-pitched giggles that didn’t fit at all with their big bodies. Then one of them stood up and began to bounce—up and down, up and down. The rest watched for a moment. Then they, too, jumped to their feet and started bouncing. Soon they were all bouncing together. They bounced so hard that the earflaps on their hats flew up and down, too, just like wings.

  “Aric!” thought Richard. “It’s working! They’re bored silly!”

  Richard heard a tiny snuffling noise from his shirt pocket. Aric was laughing. This had never happened before.

  “You put your right foot in,

  You take your right foot out,

  You do the hokey pokey

  And you shake it all about—”

  The Dwilbs were lined up now, and singing the hokey pokey song. They had big goofy smiles on their faces. By the end of the first line the whole audience was staring at them.

  Mr. Felshin, though, kept right on talking. It was just like assembly, when he talked and talked and talked even though nobody was paying attention. “Six,” he said. “Did you know that … you can sprout seeds … and grow plant cuttings … under used plastic bags?” He didn’t wait for an answer.

  “Seven. You can blow them up like balloons … and then … pop them. This appeals to young children … probably because they make a very loud noise … almost like a pistol shot … when they are popped. The plastic bags, I mean … not the children.” Mr. Felshin smiled at his little joke.

  The Dwilbs, meanwhile, had stopped singing. They were still standing in line, but suddenly they looked surprised. Then they all started to cry.

  “Yow!” Richard started to feel a little giddy. The Dwilbs were bored to tears! They definitely had boredomitis!

  But they were attracting too much attention—sobbing and sniffling and blowing their noses so loudly that hardly anyone was listening to Mr. Felshin anymore. “Boo hoo!” they cried. “Boo hoo hoo!” Their faces, once so weird
and scary, were now dripping with tears.

  “Aric! The audience is watching! How are we ever going to get these guys out of here? Everyone will see us!”

  As he sent the thought to Aric, the Dwilbs stopped crying. They stood there quietly, their eyes wide and a little frightened.

  “Ten,” droned Mr. Felshin. “They make wonderful mitten liners for … tiny little hands …”

  The Dwilbs didn’t move. They stood absolutely still. Richard realized they were getting bored stiff.

  “I will use the Ganoobian Mind Control Inducer.” Aric’s voice came into Richard’s head.

  “What’s that?”

  The little alien climbed onto Richard’s shoulder. He was holding a silver object that looked like a tiny dog whistle. “A device that causes mass brainlock,” he said. “Everyone within hearing will be affected.”

  “You mean they’ll stop thinking?”

  “Their minds will stop working. For eight Earth minutes—no more,” said Aric. “And all memory of those eight minutes will be erased.”

  Richard was indignant. “How come you didn’t use it before?” he demanded.

  “It costs a small fortune,” said Aric sternly. “And you know this mission is on a tight budget. Remember how I came here? In a cookie? Please do not complain to me!”

  Richard knew there was no point in arguing. “All right, okay,” he said. “Just hurry. They’re already stiff as boards.”

  It was true. All thirteen Dwilbs stood there motionless. They looked like the life-size cardboard figures of actors that sometimes stand in movie lobbies.

  “Hold your ears,” said Aric. And then he blew.

  It was like the game Statues, thought Richard, when everybody freezes. Aric raised the Mind Control Inducer to his lips, and the audience froze. Now not only were the Dwilbs stiff, but everyone else was stiff, too. Mr. Felshin stood at the podium, mouth open. He couldn’t say another word about plastic bags, at least for now. The scene was completely strange. For a moment Richard was frozen, too, staring at it.

  “Hup! Hup!” Aric’s voice boomed in the silence. “Snap out of it! We have aliens to move! Let us go!”

  “Yes, master,” said Richard. He couldn’t believe how bossy Aric could be sometimes. “I obey.” He picked up a bored-stiff Dwilb. To his surprise, the creature was very light. And now that it was stiff, it didn’t smell so bad. He picked up a few more.

  “To the parking lot!” commanded Aric. “To Bob’s van!”

  With Aric on his shoulder and four Dwilbs under each arm, Richard hurried outside. Bob’s van was unlocked. Richard stashed the Dwilbs in the van, ran back inside to get the rest, and carried them out to the van, too.

  “Now what?” Richard was panting.

  “Get into the van,” said Aric. “We are going to the beach.”

  Richard headed for the passenger door. “Not there!” barked Aric. “You are driving!”

  “What?” Richard wasn’t sure he’d heard right.

  “You will guide the van. I will guide you,” said Aric. “And hurry! You must be back at the center before the program ends. Your mother will be looking for you.”

  Richard climbed into the driver’s seat. He fastened his seat belt. He could just reach the steering wheel. But his legs weren’t long enough to touch the gas or the brakes. Richard had often dreamed of driving—usually a roaring red sports car—but now he felt like a midget.

  “Keep your hands on the wheel and stay calm,” said Aric. “I will do the rest.”

  Richard knew he didn’t have any choice. He gripped the steering wheel and looked at Aric. The little pink alien was sitting on his shoulder, eyes closed. He made a high-pitched noise that rang in Richard’s ears and then traveled through his whole body. It felt like pins and needles, only better.

  At the same instant the van’s engine started thrumming. Richard’s hands tightened on the wheel. The van was moving!

  It shot out of the parking lot, lurched into a U-turn, and charged down a back street. It was going fast—too fast. The needle on the speedometer said seventy-five miles an hour!

  “Slow down, Aric! We’ll hit something, or get stopped for speeding! They’ll throw me in jail for life!”

  “Oh, all right.” Aric sounded grumpy, but he did slow down. Soon they were going along at forty-five miles an hour, and Richard’s heart stopped racing. But then, about a mile from the beach, he heard a strange rustling in the back of the van. He looked in the rearview mirror.

  Oh, no! The Dwilbs were moving! They were starting to unstiffen! Richard thought fast. Then he started talking just like Mr. Felshin.

  “There is nothing like … a used plastic bag for sorting marbles,” he said slowly. “Yellow in one bag. Green in another. Blue in … yet another. Then red. Then purple. And let’s not forget multicolor marbles … They can go … in their own special plastic bag….”

  He checked the mirror. The Dwilbs were stiff again. And it was a good thing, too. They were at the beach.

  The engine stopped and Richard heard the slow rumble of breaking waves. He climbed out of the van. There were no lights on the beach and the night was foggy. He couldn’t see much.

  “We must get them onto the sand,” said Aric.

  We? thought Richard. But all he said was, “Yes, master.” Then he carried the Dwilbs onto the beach.

  “Stack them in a pile,” Aric shouted over the crash of the waves. “The Brigade is ready for pickup.”

  But where is the Brigade? thought Richard. He peered up into the sky. At first, all he saw was fuzzy gray darkness. Then he spotted a tiny glowing speck far overhead. “Is that it?” he asked.

  Before Aric could answer, the speck flashed and grew bright. Then it turned into a laser-thin orange beam, and streaked down through the sky to the sand. It found the stack of Dwilbs, danced, hummed, and crackled like lightning. The beam was so bright that Richard had to close his eyes.

  When he opened them, the beam was gone. So were the Dwilbs.

  “That is it,” said Aric.

  “Richard, have another egg roll,” said Mrs. Bickerstaff.

  “Okay. Just one more,” said Richard. Bob passed him the container. It was Friday night, and they were eating takeout Chinese food. Bob had brought it. He’d also brought over the first three Space Lords of Gygrax comic books, the ones from his collection. They looked totally cool. Richard couldn’t wait to read them.

  “So how was school today, sweetie?” asked Richard’s mother.

  A lot better, thought Richard. Now that the Dwilbs are gone. But all he said was, “Fine, Mom.”

  He smiled as he chewed on his egg roll. Life had definitely improved. No more Dwilbs in the schoolyard selling Sludgies. No more Dwilbs snorting exhaust fumes. No more Dwilbs pushing pollution. The streets looked cleaner. So did the beach. And Henry was acting like his old self again! He was back to eating weird vegetarian food and back to leading the Green Patrol. Richard had even volunteered in school today. Now he knew—they needed all the help they could get.

  “How was your day?” he asked politely.

  “Great!” said Mrs. Bickerstaff. “We finally got a trial date for the chemical dumping case—after all this time.” She grinned. “Should be some trial,” she said. “I can hardly wait. We’re gonna whup those guys good!”

  “Harriet! You’re such a tiger!” said Bob admiringly.

  Mrs. Bickerstaff blushed. “Well, you’re no slouch, either,” she said. “Last night went so well. Everyone was impressed with the recycling center. And they liked the program too.”

  “They did. They did,” said Bob. He put down his chopsticks. “There’s one thing that puzzles me, though,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Marge La Farge,” said Bob. “She acted so strange after Phil Felshin’s speech. So strange. Just marched right on stage and started talking.”

  “That was strange,” said Richard’s mother. “Didn’t you tell me she had called saying she was too sick to speak?”
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br />   “That’s right,” said Bob. “That’s right. Then she showed up. Completely healthy!” He gave a confused laugh. “I don’t get it. I don’t get it.”

  Richard figured he’d better change the subject. “Uh, Bob!” he said hastily. “Where did you put those Space Lords comics?” He jumped up. “I really can’t wait to read them. Where are they? In the living room?” He headed for the door.

  “Richard!” said his mother. “Where are you going? We haven’t even had dessert yet.”

  “Oh, that’s okay, Mom,” said Richard. “I can eat dessert later, can’t I?”

  Bob smiled. “They’re on the coffee table, Richard,” he said. “On the coffee table. Go ahead and read them. I want to help your mother clean up.” He took Mrs. Bickerstaff’s hand and they smiled at each other. “I’ll be in later.”

  Now it was Richard’s turn to blush. He hadn’t seen his mom look at anyone that way for a long time. Little hearts were practically flying out of her eyes!

  He hurried into the living room. There, just as Bob had said, were the Space Lords comics.

  Richard kicked off his hightops and stretched out on the sofa. As he settled down to read the very first Space Lords comics ever published, he heard his mother and Bob laughing in the kitchen. He smiled. It was a nice sound.

  The next day Mrs. Bickerstaff and Bob went out bike riding, so Richard and Aric had the kitchen to themselves. They were at the table, and Aric was climbing onto a saltshaker. From here he would be beamed back to Ganoob.

  “Don’t you want to stay, even for the weekend?” asked Richard. He hated to see Aric go.

  “I cannot,” said the little alien. “Cosmic terrorism is at an all-time high. Entire galaxies are at risk. The Brigade calls. And besides, I miss Ingbar.” Ingbar was Aric’s girlfriend.

  He stood up on the saltshaker. “Before I forget,” he said, “I have something to give you. A token, to show the Brigade’s appreciation for your excellent help.” He held out his hand. In it was a small, shiny object.

  Richard’s mouth fell open. “The Mind Control Inducer? Aric! Are you kidding?”