“I wonder how they’re transmitting the message.” I tilted my head and studied the TV. “That’s so cool.”
Tate stared at us as if we had just suggested he set fire to the house.
“Don’t you get it?” he said. “That was a distress call. Plain and simple.”
“You think?” I said. “She looked pretty happy to me.”
“Come on, Dad. Not everything is a crime scene.”
Tate pulled a mini spiral notebook out of his pocket, a holdover from his law enforcement days, and then he waved at the TV. “This keeps repeating. I watched it three times before I got you two. Took notes.” He ran a finger over the paper. “She says they’re keeping me, then it cuts out, and then she says something about a shortage of food.”
He paused dramatically and stared at us, eyebrows raised, apparently inviting us to connect the invisible dots.
“So?” I finally said. “That could mean anything. Or nothing.”
“Probably nothing, Dad.”
“Oh, come on!” He threw his hands in the air. “Didn’t you ever watch those old Twilight Zone shows? The classic episode where the UFO comes, and everyone thinks the aliens are all nice and friendly just because they have a book called To Serve Man, so a bunch of humans get on the UFO to go see the aliens’ home planet, only the main guy figures out that To Serve Man is really a cookbook, and that means—”
Amy and I burst out laughing.
“Dad. Do you really think they want to eat her? Seriously?”
“It’s not funny, young lady. I wouldn’t put anything past that shiny Sillyfalls fella; didn’t trust him one bit. Why, this whole awards scam could be a way to lure folks off their planets for a big feast. Shortage of food, indeed.” Tate consulted his notes again. “And he kept saying they wanted to see her in the flesh. You notice that?” He jabbed at his notebook. “Said it two or three different times. In the flesh. Like she was some kind of delicacy.”
“Dad, it’s a figure of speech, that’s all, and besides—”
“And they didn’t give her any time to pack. That’s mighty fishy to me, sending someone away for a week with no time to pack any clothes.” His frown deepened. “Of course, you don’t worry about what somebody’s wearing when you’re fixing to eat them.”
“But Dad, it looks like they found her an outfit that would be suitable for—”
“Then she spells it out for us.” He jabbed his finger at the TV again for emphasis. “Can’t wait, she says. Like we can’t wait to do something for her. We’ve got to do it now.”
“Mr. Tate, that might not be—”
“But it’s the last part that kills me. Forget about me, she says. She wants us to forge ahead with the business, be good caretakers of her life’s work. Forget about me,” he repeated, shaking his head slowly and looking at the floor. “We’ve had our differences, to be sure, but I have to say that is one brave lady.”
What was wrong with him? “You have to admit, Mr. Tate, she didn’t look like she was in danger. You know…the smiling? The waving?”
Tate harrumphed. “Haven’t you ever seen those phony messages from prisoners of war on the news? Never trust a video. If you were being held hostage and some space creature had a laser gun pointed at you off-camera, I reckon you’d do or say whatever it wanted.”
“But Dad, she’s not a hostage,” Amy said. “Think about it: Mr. Harnox was there. He’s, like, the nicest guy in the universe. It couldn’t have been a trap.”
Tate sniffed and shook his head. “Those were holograms or something. Can’t be trusted. No fancy-pants alien is going to snow me with a lot of shiny technology like I was some kind of country rube.”
“Okay, whatever.” I shrugged. “I guess we’ll just have to wait until Grandma gets back and she can settle this.”
“Negative. The situation is dire. Can’t wait, remember? She may need help immediately.”
“What do you plan on doing from here, exactly?”
“Nothing can be done from here.” Tate hiked up his belt and squared his shoulders. “That’s why I’m going to get her. Right now.”
Amy and I stared at each other while Tate stomped off toward the staircase.
“Did he just say—?”
“Do you think he’ll really…?”
Tate’s boots hit the first step with a boom. He called to us over his shoulder as he pounded up the stairs. “Follow me. We’ve got a couple things to talk about before I leave.” Soon he was on the second floor, out of sight.
We had no choice but to obey. When we were halfway up I noticed the group of alien kids, with Snarffle packed in the middle of their colorful circle, peeking at us from around the corner of the hallway.
“Is the puffy, red-faced human angry again?” Kanduu whispered.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Just wait for us in the rec room.”
“But no rodeo until we get back,” Amy said in passing. The kids groaned.
Tate was rummaging through a chest of drawers in the guest room he used as an office/bedroom. We stopped in the doorway.
“Mr. Tate—sir—maybe you should, you know, slow down. Think about this for a minute,” I coaxed. Something told me he wasn’t going to be as good as Grandma at fitting in off-world. “You’re probably jumping to conclusions. I mean, it doesn’t seem like she’s in any real danger.” And she’s certainly not going to be too happy to see you in the middle of her big alien celebration.
But wait—was I actually trying to talk Tate out of leaving? Wouldn’t it be a lot better with him gone?
It was pretty easy to decide to stop trying to persuade him.
“Dad, maybe we should wait and see if her message comes through any clearer. Or if she tries to send another one.”
Tate ignored her as he continued to rifle through the drawers.
I know Amy was just as confident as I was when it came to running this place, but she must have been worried about her dad. She took a few small steps into the room. “Please stop and think. This whole thing could just be a big misunder—”
“Here it is!” Tate held up a shiny badge. “Let’s see if they want to mess with an official employee of the Intergalactic Police Force!” An alien law enforcement authority named Commander Rezzlurr had given that to Tate last summer when he was hired to be Grandma’s Head of Security. Tate proudly pinned it to his chest.
Then he took his old wide-brimmed sheriff’s hat down from a peg on the wall and placed it on his head just so, checking his reflection in the mirror.
“But how do you even plan on finding her?” Amy said.
“Oh, I’m prepared on that account.” Tate gestured to the transporter in the corner. “I’ve interrogated more than a few alien Tourists about these things. A good lawman learns everything he can about his environment.” He took out his little notebook again. “Let’s see…so when you step through here, apparently you end up at some central processing station, and from there you can catch another transporter to anywhere. And I wrote down the name of the planet that Slippyfangs was talking about, you bet I did.”
Tate looked at the transporter, took a deep breath, then turned his attention to us. “Now listen good. I won’t be gone long. Just gonna grab her and come back, no foolin’ around.” He rapped the transporter door with a knuckle. “From what I gather, these things work lickety-split. I don’t expect to be gone more’n an hour or two.” Tate patted his wide belly. “Why, it wouldn’t surprise me if your grandma cooks us up a nice big meal tonight, right here where she belongs.”
“An hour or two?” Amy said. “I don’t know, Dad, that might be too optimistic.”
“Yeah, Mr. Tate. I’m guessing interplanetary travel is a little more complex than that, even by transporter.”
Tate raised his eyebrows. “Only took your grandma a few seconds to get there while you all just milled around in the kitchen and let it happen.”
“But those were aliens who knew what they were doing—they’ve probably used the transporters a hun
dred times,” I said.
“For all we know they rigged the system to take her directly there,” Amy added. “It could be set up totally different now.”
But he just waved us off. Tate had obviously made up his mind in that way adults do when they stop listening to reason.
“I’ll be back with your grandma before she even has time to thank me.”
I doubted thank would be the right word. “Mr. Tate, you better hope she really is in danger. Because if she’s not, and you go barging in there…”
Tate’s eyes narrowed. “You let me worry about that, boy.” He took the toothpick out of his mouth and pointed it at us. “Now, here’s the one rule that matters: None of these aliens puts so much as one scaly foot outside the b-and-b until we return, you follow me?”
“There’s hardly anyone left around here, anyway,” I muttered under my breath.
I thought maybe Tate heard that, because he glared at me, but then he looked back and forth between Amy and me a few times. “And you”—he leaned down until we were face-to-face—“don’t go getting any ideas.”
“About what?”
He straightened back up and looked at Amy again. “About anything.”
Yikes. Awkward. I pretended to study something on the floor until Tate turned and faced the transporter.
Amy sighed. “If you’re really going to go through with this…then good luck, Dad.”
“A good lawman doesn’t rely on luck,” he said. Then he took off his hat, bent down, and kissed her on the forehead. “But I appreciate the sentiment, little lady.”
He faced the door, took a deep breath, and grabbed the handle. He grunted. It wouldn’t budge.
“Dad, you need to—”
“Give me some room.” Tate pulled again, first with one hand and then two. He stopped, wiped his palms on his pants, then lifted his leg and put one of his big boots on the wall next to the door for leverage. He leaned backward and yanked on the handle, putting his whole body into it. His face contorted into a grimace, and his shoulders shook while sweat dripped down his temple. There was much gasping and wheezing. He finally let go, taking off his hat to wipe the beads of moisture off his forehead.
Amy stepped forward. “You have to turn this little latch. Right here.” She did, and the door swung open easily.
“I knew that,” Tate said. Then he stepped inside the transporter, the circle on the front of the door flashed blue, and he was gone.
We just stood there for a few moments. It seemed extra quiet without Tate blundering around.
Amy sighed. “Isn’t he sweet?”
“Who?”
She elbowed me in the ribs. “My dad, obviously.”
“Ummm…sweet isn’t really the first word that comes to mind.” It’s not really in the top one hundred, either.
“He’s actually going to a different planet, filled with all of those”—she did a gruff impersonation of her dad—“alien germs and microbes and who-knows-what he’s always complaining about. Think about it: even though stepping through that transporter has to be the thing that freaks him out the most, he’s going through with it because he’s worried about her. I think he really cares for her. That’s as romantic as my dad ever gets.”
O—kay…that was not somewhere my mind was going to let itself go. Time to just change the subject.
“So…what are we going to do now?” I was suddenly very aware that her dad was no longer lurking around, watching us like a big, sweaty hawk.
Amy looked at me and smiled, a really big one that crinkled up the cute little freckles on her nose. Wait—was she thinking what I was thinking?
“We’re all alone,” she said.
She was thinking what I was thinking!
“Do you know what this means?” she said.
Yes, I did! “I think so…” I said, moving a little closer.
“It means that we are officially in charge of the bed-and-breakfast.”
Oh. So I guess she was not thinking what I was thinking.
“It’s like a dream come true!” She twirled around, sweeping her hands through the air to indicate the entire house. It was—eerily—a very Grandma-like gesture.
And suddenly not even I was thinking what I was thinking anymore.
“Let’s go check on the kids,” Amy said. “Then I’ll get started on dinner. You can visit the adult Tourists and tell them what’s going on.” She beamed, her smile almost too big for her face. “We’re really in charge!”
She was right.
It was just us, all alone, completely in charge of the biggest secret on the entire planet.
This was going to be awesome.
When we walked down the stairs, the first thing we saw was the group of alien kids huddled around the TV. Kanduu was standing on Lizard Boy’s shoulders, fiddling with something on top of the screen.
“What are you guys doing?” I said.
“Fixing your primitive little communication toy,” one of the slime-drippers said.
“It wasn’t equipped to deal with the volume of information streaming in, so we made a few modifications,” the other one said.
It’s always nice to feel like a moron because you can’t follow what a second grader is saying.
Kanduu hopped down, and we could see their handiwork. Sticking up from the top of the TV was a multipronged antenna made from a pile of silverware and metallic kitchen appliances, all held together by duct tape and aluminum foil.
“It should work better now,” little Kandeel squeaked.
They backed away from the screen, and there was Grandma in that bizarre getup, smiling and waving, only this time the image was crystal clear.
“Hello, everyone! I don’t know if you’re receiving this, but I wanted to tell you that I’m having a fabulous time! They’re keeping me entertained, and there’s certainly no shortage of food, friends, or fun! I miss everyone terribly—yes, even you, Tate—and I can’t wait to see you all again! I know I’m truly blessed, because I can relax and enjoy it all, knowing the b-and-b is in good hands. But I’ll be back soon, so don’t you dare forget about me!”
Amy clapped her hands and gave me a quick hug. “Oh, I’m so glad to know she’s all right.”
“Of course she is.” I couldn’t help but laugh. “And I hope your dad is enjoying his little excursion.”
The rest of that afternoon was about as fun as it could be, given that we were still trapped inside by Tate’s lame orders. Amy made sandwiches and lemonade for everyone, and then the alien kids taught us a game called Lammaarang, which involved lots of random hopping and a big puddle of mayonnaise for some reason.
I think Mrs. Crowzen was glad for the break. She slopped mud all over her shells and lounged under some giant ferns in the woods out back. She told me she was doing it to cool off, but I think she just wanted to hide from the kids. And the rest of the adult Tourists seemed to be in a better mood (probably because no oversize earthling was shouting at them).
It was nothing special, I guess, but it seemed more fun because Amy and I were in charge. After everything we’d been through together, we were good at taking care of the Tourists by now. We could run this whole operation by ourselves, and that was a pretty cool feeling.
But then it started to get dark. And Tate hadn’t returned yet.
Now, I haven’t been afraid of the dark since I was a little kid. But, as I watched the world fade to black outside the windows, something about knowing we were responsible for protecting intergalactic visitors from whatever might be out there, was—okay, I admit—a little freaky.
And I was wondering if Amy was starting to worry about her dad, who had definitely not returned after an hour or two. She kept it together while we helped the kids get ready for bed, and later, when we delivered tea to the adult Tourists in their rooms. But after the house was all settled down, I found her in the second floor lounge, crouched down in front of a window with just her eyes peeking above the sill.
“What are you doing?”
“Come over here.” She kept her voice very low and didn’t turn around to look at me. “But stay down.”
I crawled over to the window and knelt beside her.
“Do you see that station wagon parked down there? Just before the street curves toward town?”
I could make out the windshield, but the rest was hidden behind the trees in the bend of the road.
“Yes,” I said. “But why are we whispering? Can the car hear us?”
She smacked me in the arm by way of an answer. “Don’t you think it’s weird for a car to just be sitting there? It’s not like it belongs to one of our customers.”
I thought for a few moments. “Maybe whoever was driving it is at the park? It’s a short walk from here.”
“At night? I don’t think so.”
“Good point.”
“Plus, it’s been there since I woke up this morning.”
“Oh.”
“And I swear I saw it yesterday too. Same place.”
“Oh.”
Another smack in the arm. “Good observations, David. Very helpful.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Okay, don’t laugh. But I can’t help shake the feeling…” She trailed off and chewed on her lower lip.
“What?”
She shook her head. “Never mind. You’ll just laugh. You won’t believe me.”
“Amy, we just put a dozen space aliens to bed with tea and footie pajamas. I’d believe almost anything.”
“Okay…for the last couple of days…I can’t help feeling that we’re being watched, somehow. I can’t prove it or anything, but I—”
“Oh, I’m so glad it’s not just me.”
“Really?” She clutched my arm. “You feel it too?”
I told her about the hot air balloon that had been hovering around, with maybe somebody up there taking pictures.
Her eyes got wide. “That is not good. Do you think it’s the same people we met on the Fourth of July?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” I snuck another peek at the car. “I’m not always the biggest fan of your dad’s tactics, but I’m pretty glad he put up all of those fake security cameras outside. Maybe it’ll keep them away.”
Aliens in Disguise Page 7
