Grandma placed a palm on her chest. “You mean you’re asking me to…?” The oversize lenses of her pink glasses made her surprised eyes look huge, and it was easy to see the light of recognition turning on in her head. “The transporters…? You actually want me to go through one of the…?”
If Snappyfalls’s smile got any bigger, his lips were going to meet in the back of his head and the whole thing might fall right off his neck. “Yes! We’re taking you on an all-expenses-paid trip to Callabans!”
Tate stood up, his belly banging against the table. “You’re not taking her anywhere,” he said, but was drowned out by the reaction of the aliens.
“Callabans!” Frog Face nodded enthusiastically. “I’ve been dying to go, but it’s so expensive.”
Cottage Cheese Head squealed and leaned over to tell me, “They call Callabans the Planet of Perpetual Celebration, you know.”
The Arkamendian Air Painters chattered in their fuzzy voices. “The atmosphere there is perfect for our creations! Remember how bright the colors were?”
A few of them started waving their hands around, lost in remembrance, and some rainbows drifted up until Tate stood on the chair and waved them all away with his hand. “None of that, ladies,” he growled.
Snappyfalls finally broke his stare at the tall “camera” Mailboxes and saw Grandma’s expression, a mixture of confusion, excitement, fear, and wonder.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll have you right back here before Callabans has time to make a full revolution around its triplet tropical suns.” He directed his smile at the Tourists around the table. “Why, they’ll hardly know you’re gone.”
Grandma looked around at us humans, a question in her eyes.
Tate crossed his meaty arms over his chest, frowning and shaking his head slowly.
Amy was equally easy to read. She was bouncing up and down and doing little air claps, as if Christmas, her birthday, and the start of summer vacation were all happening on the same day.
Grandma looked at me last, and I guess I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. I mean, it would be really weird if she wasn’t here, right? I knew she’d probably have fun, but Grandma was the only one who ever—
“Right this way, my dear.” Snappyfalls took her by the elbow and led her toward the door.
“Wait a moment.” Grandma slipped her arm out of his and smoothed her long hair into place. “This is all quite flattering, but I’m afraid I can’t leave. There’s simply too much to be done around here.”
“Spoken like a true Intergalactic Hotelier of the Year,” Snappyfalls said, pretend-chuckling at his own little joke. “I think it’s time to introduce you to the folks who are eagerly awaiting your arrival.”
He nodded at one of the taller Mailboxes, then swept his hand toward the far kitchen wall with a flourish. The Mailboxes aimed their feelers, and light came streaming out in a thin beam like a projector. The wall instantly became a screen.
Only it was so much better than a screen. It was as if the entire wall had disappeared, and we were peering directly into a cavernous auditorium filled with hundreds of aliens of every color and shape imaginable. With antigravity streamers floating overhead and the crowd decked out in flamboyantly silly outfits, the whole place was so fancy that it didn’t seem real. Kind of like an awards show on Earth, I guess.
When all of the aliens waved at us and cheered, it made my parents’ high-def, 3-D entertainment system with surround sound look like an ancient black-and-white job. I don’t know if it was holograms or what, but it seemed like I could step right into that auditorium and touch those aliens. (Man, I wish Earth would hurry up on the technology development. How cool would it be to watch the NBA playoffs like you were sitting right in the middle of the court?)
I just stared, but Tate rushed over and placed himself in front of Grandma, blocking her from the wall screen. The Head of Security put his hands on his hips, standing guard, as though the well-dressed aliens were going to start an invasion of the planet in our kitchen and applaud all the earthlings to death.
Snappyfalls ignored him. “These are your peers, my good woman. Intergalactic innkeepers from every reach of the cosmos,” he said. “They have voted for you to receive their most prestigious award and are now waiting to congratulate you in the flesh.”
Grandma peeked out from behind Tate’s shoulder at all of those aliens. She reached up with one hand and gave a tentative little wave. The crowd went wild, cheering so loudly that the coffee cups shook on our table.
Tate winced and clamped his hands over his ears. “You’re not going anywhere. You can’t!” he shouted over the noise. “You just can’t.”
When the cheering died down, Amy rushed over to Grandma, unable to control herself any longer. “Oh, you have to go. You just have to!” It looked like she was in a smiling contest with Evanblatt Snappyfalls.
“Do…do you really think so?” Grandma said.
“Just think about it—you won’t have to hide anything at all while you’re there! You’re forced to waste so much of your time keeping all of this a secret. If you went off-world, you could just relax and enjoy everything. Oh, it would be the best time ever!” Amy sighed and got a faraway look in her eyes. “In fact, if it’s okay…I mean, if you don’t mind…maybe you could even ask if you could take—”
“You’re not going anywhere, young lady,” Tate said.
Amy crossed her arms over her chest and glared. She was almost as good at it as her dad. “Fine.” She spat the word. “But you have no right to keep her from going.”
Snappyfalls wedged himself into the middle of the little scrum. “Before you decide”—he waggled his slick triple layer of eyebrows and paused dramatically—“perhaps you would like to say hello to one of your former guests. After all, he is the one who nominated you for this award.”
He gestured to the wall screen. An alien in the front row of the auditorium stood up. He was very tall, impossibly thin, and still wearing the fedora and shabby suit from Grandma’s trunk of used clothes.
“Mr. Harnox!” Amy and I spoke at the same time, waving at him. He was the first alien I had ever met around here. (Or, you know, anywhere.)
He smiled and waved back. Then he cupped his long gray fingers around his mouth and shouted, “Please to come and say the hello. Such good time we will be having!”
Grandma blew him a kiss. This was met with confused looks from the alien audience. I guess that gesture would look pretty weird if you’d never seen it before.
“Mr. Harnox wrote the most glowing review of you and this establishment and sent it to the nomination committee,” Snappyfalls said. “And he’s quite right, you know; there will be good times. Very good times, indeed. An event like this is a great opportunity to talk shop and compare notes with hoteliers from all over the universe.”
Grandma looked up at the ceiling, thinking things over. Snappyfalls pressed on. “And don’t forget the big Intergalactic Social, all of the great food, and the guided tours of the most fun planet in three galaxies.… Need I say more?”
Grandma turned to me. “Well, what do you think, David?”
It was a really good question. I know this might sound stupid, but I had always been so busy dealing with what came out of the transporters that I had not given much thought to going into one of them.
It would be hard to have her gone. Totally. Because Tate would be in charge, and that’s definitely not something that sounded like very much fun. For anyone.
But it’s like Amy and I were talking about last night—we totally had things covered around here.
And as I really thought about Grandma, I realized she had spent almost her whole life being the only human on the planet to hear firsthand accounts of the wonders of a thousand different galaxies…and yet she had always been stuck here in this house. It would kinda be like watching basketball from the bleachers but never getting to go out and actually play in a game. Only, you know, way worse, since we’re talking about the entire u
niverse here. That would stink.
“I think you should go,” I said. “You deserve it. Besides, he said it would only be for a little while, right? Just long enough for the planet to do something with its three suns?”
Cottage Cheese Head nodded, his lumpy white face quivering. “That’s only about a week in Earth terms.”
Tate groaned. “A whole week?”
Grandma got a little fidgety with her hands. “That is kind of a long time to be away.…”
“But you can’t possibly pass up an opportunity like this!” Amy blurted out.
“Yeah, Grandma, a week will fly by around here like nothing ever happened.” I shrugged. “I think we can manage to keep the b-and-b from floating away into the atmosphere for seven days or so.”
Grandma looked at me. “You only get to come out on your summer vacation, David. I hate to leave while you’re here.”
“There’s over a month of summer left. We can still hang out when you get back. You should go. Really.”
Grandma leaned in and kissed my cheek. “Thank you, dear.” She straightened up, took off her apron, and draped it over the back of a kitchen chair. “Yes,” she said, looking up at Snappyfalls. “I’ll go with you.”
The alien audience went crazy again. Their reaction startled me—I was so focused on Grandma that I had forgotten about the wall screen for a minute. Getting used to stuff like that so easily was the weirdest part about working at the Intergalactic Bed & Breakfast. I mean, being on a TV broadcast for aliens in a distant galaxy was only the third or fourth strangest thing to happen to me this week.
Grandma took a deep breath, and when she exhaled she looked more like herself: happy and hopeful. “I suppose I should pack a bag if I’m going on a trip.”
“Oh, no, my dear, everything will be provided for the guest of honor.” Snappyfalls put his arm around Grandma and led her away from us. “The finest clothing, the choicest foods—the bounty of the cosmos will be yours to…” His voice trailed off as they exited the room.
We were all silent for a few moments, taking in what had just happened. A hush fell over the auditorium aliens too, as they watched and waited.
Tate shifted uneasily, crossing and uncrossing his arms, and tugging at his mustache. He couldn’t decide where to direct his glare: at the empty kitchen doorway, or at the auditorium, or at the Mailboxes. Finally he settled on Amy and me. “I can’t believe you two would…” he spluttered, shaking his head and looking away. “I mean, it’s just not possible that…” He threw his hands up in disgust. “Don’t look at me, because I certainly won’t be the one who tries to…”
Then he dashed past the stove and out the kitchen door. When Tate was motivated, he could move his bulky frame with astonishing speed.
“He’s going to try and stop her,” I said to Amy.
“I know.” Was she smiling a little bit?
“Are you going to try to talk him out of it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I think it’s sort of cute that he’s so worried about her.”
“Worried about her?” I gestured to the Tourists sitting around the kitchen table and whispered, “He just doesn’t want to be here alone for a week, in charge of them.”
Amy sighed and shook her head. “Boys don’t understand anything.”
Whatever. “I wonder if he’ll be able to get to her in time for—”
I was cut off by the wildest ovation yet from the distant crowd of aliens.
Tate was too late—Grandma had already been transported to Callabans! We watched the kitchen wall as she walked out in front of the raucous crowd, waving and blowing kisses to the audience. Evanblatt Snappyfalls paraded her to the center of the stage. It seemed like the entire universe was cheering for her.
She stepped down into the audience, in front of Mr. Harnox. He extended his long gray arms, and she got lost inside his hug. Snappyfalls motioned to the Mailboxes in the auditorium, and the triumphant music started up again. The Tourists around our kitchen table started up a cheer of their own, and the Air Painters whipped up a mini rainbow-tornado.
Grandma stepped out of Mr. Harnox’s embrace, turned, and looked right at us. There were tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes (seriously, the high-def on this screen was amazing), but I don’t think I’d ever seen her so happy.
Snarffle started up a confused whistle-whining. He looked back and forth from Grandma’s usual spot at the stove to where she was standing in the auditorium. When Grandma lifted her hand to wave at us, Snarffle took a running leap at her…and crashed face-first into the wall. He grunted in surprise and scampered back to us, whimpering.
Amy dropped down and put her arm around him, scratching at his blue dots. “It’s okay, boy,” she said. “She’s going to be just fine.”
When I lifted my hand to wave back, the auditorium and all of its aliens suddenly disappeared, leaving a blank kitchen wall.
The Mailboxes turned off their lights and sucked those snaky appendages back into their bodies with a slurpy hiss. Then they hopped single file out the door. No more music, no more screen. No more Grandma.
For the first time in forty years, she was not in charge of the Intergalactic Bed & Breakfast.
“Attention! I need every vision sensor or antenna or whatever-you’ve-got focused on me, understand? There’re going to be a few changes around here.” Tate pulled a slip of paper out of his shirt pocket and waved it around. “Maybe more than a few.”
He marched back and forth in front of the Tourists assembled in the main room, a drill sergeant addressing new recruits. Grandma had barely been gone an hour and here he was, already establishing his new regime.
Tate unfolded the paper. “Rule Number One: No leaving the premises in groups larger than three. Attracts too much attention.”
“Excuse me?” Mrs. Crowzen, seated in the middle of the couch and surrounded by her students, clacked her claws together nervously. “That will eliminate all field trip opportunities. I have promised the children’s parents that I will provide the best—”
“Rule Number Two: No discussion of the new rules.” Tate leveled his gaze at her, waiting for a challenge that didn’t come, and then resumed his pacing. “Rule Number Three: No leaving the premises between sunset and dawn.”
The Arkamendian Air Painters, huddled together in the corner, buzzed with indignation. “But that is the ideal time for our creations. A night sky, softly illuminated by only moonlight and starshine, is the best backdrop for—”
Tate snorted. “There’s an old adage in law enforcement, ladies: Nothing good happens after dark. It’s my intention to eliminate problems before they even start. Ounce of prevention and all that.”
“But just look at this.” One of the Air Painters stirred her hands in the air until a pale, see-through rainbow appeared. “In full daylight, the beauty of our creations is so diminished that it hardly—”
“No, no, no!” Tate rushed at the light-ribbon, but it floated above his head. He clambered up onto the arm of the couch and batted the air all around the rainbow, breaking it up like smoke. He huffed and wheezed and almost lost his balance. It might have been funny if the whole situation wasn’t so messed up.
When the light had fully dissipated, Tate dropped back to the floor and picked up his rule sheet again, smoothing it out against his chest.
The Air Painters shook their fluffy heads, green fuzz fluttering to the ground, but they remained silent.
“Rule Number Four: No more unhygienic messes all over the house. Too many deep-space germs and microbes and who-knows-what are being spread around here.” He pointed a thick finger at the slime-dripping boys, who were sitting in front of the couch, their yellowish-green puddles of goop spreading out on the surrounding floorboards. “That means you two don’t leave your rooms—for the rest of your stay here.”
“Dad!” Amy jumped out of her chair, hands on hips. “They came from millions of light-years away to observe our planet.”
Now it was my turn to protest. “What? Seriously? With his level of energy? In two days he’ll burn holes right through the walls with all of his racing around.”
“It’s your job to see that he don’t.”
“But how am I supposed to—”
“Was there something about Rule Number Two that you didn’t understand, boy?” Tate took a step toward me and puffed out his chest.
I slumped back in my chair, and Snarffle whistle-growled deep in his throat beside me. There was really nothing we could do except lie low and wait for Grandma to get back.
Tate continued his pacing and reading. No more of this. No more of that. All trips to town had to be chaperoned by a human and take place between the ungodly hours of six and seven thirty a.m. (before Forest Grove’s “rush hour,” I guess). Then he said something about a firm lights-out time every evening. To be honest, after Rule Number Twenty-three I sort of zoned out.
As my eyes drifted around the room, I noticed that the bricks in the fireplace were shaking. Were we having an earthquake?
Then I realized only a small patch of bricks was moving. It was Kandeel, once again blending in perfectly with the background. Except she was shivering all over as she cringed on the mantel. Poor thing. Tate must have been terrifying to her.
What would she tell her parents about earthlings when she went back to her home planet? She’d probably grow up to write scary stories about grumpy, shouting, big-bellied creatures that could bore you to death with their lists of stupid rules.
I eased out of my seat and slid over to maybe, I don’t know, try to comfort her or whatever, but Kanduu beat me to it. He leaned across his little sister and whispered to me, “Is he from a skin-changing planet, like us?”
Aliens in Disguise Page 5
