My Cousin, the Alien

by Pamela F. Service

  We headed straight for the pizza place. Guzzling down extra-cheese pizza and sodas, we watched puppies climbing over each other in the pet store window. Then we went to the bookstore. Ethan got himself a couple of game books and bought me the latest in the Spacerats series.

  Next came a computer store. “I’m looking for a new screen saver,” he explained. “Dad got me the stupid fish, but I’d like the one where you’re flying through space at warp speed. It’d make me feel at home.” He stopped to examine a display.

  “You’re on the Internet, I guess?” I asked with a pang of jealousy.

  “Of course. Aren’t you?” He looked at me like I was the alien.

  “Not yet. Not at home, anyway. My dad says you can waste a whole life that way.”

  He snorted. “Or you can get a whole life. It’s great what you can learn on it.”

  “Ever look up websites about UFOs?” Maybe that’s where he got his ideas.

  Ethan grunted. “I wouldn’t log onto anything like that.”

  “Why not?”

  Again, I got that how-dumb-can-you-be look. “Because aliens would have ways to trace what people log onto. I’m in hiding, remember? If the bad aliens are looking for me on Earth, they’ll check which people are interested in aliens and UFOs. I can’t risk it.”

  I laughed. “Wouldn’t they have better things to do?”

  He looked around, checking to make sure nobody could overhear. “We don’t know what information they already have. Suppose they know the Imperial Prince is hidden in this country, or even this town? I’ve got to be careful.”

  I felt myself slipping into his game again. “Careful of what?”

  “Of attracting too much attention—particularly from strangers. Like those two guys over there. No, don’t turn around! I noticed them outside the pet store, and now they’re outside this place. Forget the screen saver—that’d be a dead giveaway anyhow. Let’s go.”

  Abruptly he left the store and began striding down the mall. I followed, wanting to look behind, but I didn’t. I remembered the time years ago when Ken and I played we were secret agents and followed people around the mall, pretending they were foreign spies. We thought we were pretty secretive until a couple of jerks threatened to call mall security on us.

  Ethan was good at this. He weaved through the crowd then dodged into a department store. Turning right at the perfume department, he pushed through racks of flowery blouses as if they were jungle plants and we were being chased by raptors.

  Then we broke into a clearing. Housewares.

  “Too exposed here,” Ethan whispered. He ducked into the towel section, keeping to the valleys between shelves until we reached lingerie, and bolted for the store’s other doorway. A couple of ladies pursed their lips as we rushed by, but nobody called security.

  “Did we ditch them?” I asked as we moved back into the flow of people. I’d totally surrendered to the game.

  “For the moment,” Ethan whispered. “But let’s hide in here for a while.”

  A toy store. Good plan. At the action figures, Ethan concentrated on superheroes, avoiding aliens and spacemen. He sure took this thing to extremes.

  After moving to computer games and checking those out, Ethan said, “Come on, we’d better keep moving.”

  Out among the river of shoppers again, I was about to suggest we could keep moving just as easily with ice cream cones in our hands when Ethan whispered, “There they are again, on that bench. Act casual.”

  As we walked by, I casually glanced at the benches. On one, a mother was changing a baby’s diaper. On the other, a couple of guys were sitting, both bald and bulbously fat. They looked like better candidates for foreign spies than aliens, but this was Ethan’s game.

  We strolled to the food court, ideal for losing ourselves in the crowd. Also ideal for ice cream. Armed at last with cones, we found a bench concealed by a drooping potted tree and concentrated on our chocolate swirl and blueberry crunch. We’d slurped down to cone level when Ethan whispered, “There they are again. They’re persistent.”

  I looked where he gestured with his dripping cone. A couple of fat, bald guys were buying egg rolls. They looked a lot like each other, but I wasn’t sure if they were the same ones we’d seen before. That made them a good choice for the game, I guess. The world is full of fat, bald guys.

  Ethan stuffed the last of his cone into his mouth and headed down another branch of the mall. As I caught up, he said thickly, “This calls for evasive maneuvers.”

  Darting sideways, he pushed through a doorway marked “Employees Only.”

  I nearly panicked as the door shut behind him. He’d be caught. Someone would call security for sure. Still, he was my younger cousin, crazy or not, and if anyone ever needed protecting, even from himself, it was Ethan. Glancing around, I slipped through the door too.

  It was a narrow hallway, drab and dim compared to the bright bustling mall outside. No smell of nachos and scented candles in here— just damp cardboard and cleaning fluids. On my left was a small closet with sink, buckets, and mops. “Ethan,” I whispered urgently as I walked on. No answer.

  The hallway turned a corner. A single ceiling bulb lit the empty stretch in front of me. “Ethan?” A faint noise came from somewhere ahead.

  Scarcely daring to breath, I tiptoed on. A door on my right was partially open. Pushing it, I saw a forest of bristly Christmas trees. Nestled among them was Santa’s gold throne with cousin Ethan perched upon it.

  “Cool hideout, huh?” he said cheerily. “We could stay here until the aliens stop looking for me. Or better yet, we could stay until the mall closes and then walk around it at night.”

  “That’s a bad idea, Ethan,” I said stamping out a sudden spark of temptation.

  “Sure is,” said a gruff man’s voice. “A really bad idea.”

  I spun around and stared. A fat, bald guy stood in the doorway.

  Agent Sorn looked at herself critically in the dressing room mirror. Her lovely purple skin was now boring native beige, but at least it wouldn’t clash with the hideous clothes she’d picked up as an excuse to use the store’s dressing room. Not that she planned to try them on. She just needed someplace private to transmit her report.

  After disabling the security camera, she brought out her sender and began.

  “I’ve located our Agent. He and another youngster, a relative, spent part of the day in a large commercial complex. I also believe I have identified two Gnairt agents. They seem to have a device by which they can home in on our Agent, but apparently it is not precise. It led them only to his general vicinity. I don’t believe they have identified him yet. I will attempt to misdirect them with a diffuser.”

  Sorn examined several other devices in her satchel, lingering briefly on a trim silvery laser gun.

  She continued. “Hopefully violence can be averted. Oddly, our Agent may have some sense of danger. He and his relative carried out impressive evasive maneuvers when near the Gnairt. Possibly, the earlier encounter you reported with our feline agent had some lingering effect. I will attempt to manipulate situations to move our Agent beyond the Gnairt’s detection range in hopes that they will abandon their pursuit. Agent Sorn out.”

  Slipping the sender into her satchel, Sorn again examined one boldly-patterned garment then fought down a laugh as she imagined Chief Agent Zythis wearing the thing. It would need a lot more arm holes.

  She held the native garment up to herself, studying the mirror. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to try it on. Might even help with her disguise. Gnairt were a tricky enemy and always suspicious. She had to be careful not to tip them off. This assignment could be more dangerous than she’d first thought.

  Minutes later, looking at herself in the human dress, she shrugged. Not bad really. This assignment could also have its compensations— if she didn’t get herself or her charge killed.

  Ethan leaped from the throne and looked around like a trapped animal.

  The fat, bald man leaned his broom
against a wall and said, “What are you kids doing in here anyway? Didn’t you read the ‘Employees Only’ sign?”

  He was looking at me like I was the responsible adult. “Er, yes . . . sort of. But we were . . . looking for restrooms and figured there’d be some in here.”

  “Sure there are, but they’re for ‘Employees Only. ’ Get it? Come on, I’ll point you to the public ones.”

  He stood aside so we could squeeze out past his belly. Then he herded us down a different hallway to a closed door. The fat, bald, and probably very human guy in the janitor’s uniform opened the door to the bright, bustling mall.

  “Public restrooms by the exit. And kids, don’t try staying here overnight. We’ve got security men patrolling the place. You’d get in big trouble.”

  “Don’t worry, we won’t,” I said. “It was just a game, anyway.”

  And it had been a fun game, I admitted to myself as we headed home. The one thing that kept nagging me was that I wasn’t sure my crazy cousin thought it was a game.

  Weeks went by, and I was definitely not upset that I didn’t see much of Ethan now that he was being tutored after school. You can only take so much of crazy people, family or not. Then came the invitation to “the Big Show-Off Party.” My dad called it that, ranting that it was just Uncle Paul’s “showing off his posh new house to all the other snobs in town— and showing how much better he’s done in life than his brother.”

  “Stop talking like that,” my mom objected. “You know very well that Paul loves you and you love him.”

  “Of course I love him! He’s family. I just think he’s a jerk!”

  We went, of course, despite Dad’s blusterings. When Mom tried to help in the kitchen, she got chased out by cooks and maids. Then she and Dad were whisked off by Aunt Marsha for a grand tour, leaving me in the hall facing Ethan under a huge light hung with crystal blobs.

  “Four hundred and thirty-nine,” he said, catching my stare. “I counted. Yeah, I know, this house is majorly ostentatious. But it’s got some okay stuff too. I’ll show you.”

  Ethan always liked using big words. An “ostentatious” habit, but I didn’t point that out.

  And his room was pretty cool with its floor-toceiling windows and massive computer equipment. I noticed that among all the posters covering the wall there wasn’t a single scene from a space movie. A pretend alien in hiding sure loses out on a lot.

  After showing me the wonders of his room, the rest of the mansion, the four-car garage, and the formal gardens, Ethan led me to the food tables beside the swimming pool. Despite disapproving glares from the guys in white coats serving the food, Ethan demonstrated how to build a cracker wall around the edge of the little plastic plates so they could hold more food. With scientifically piled plates, we settled into a couple of deck chairs half-hidden by a giant outdoor umbrella. Around us, the talking, laughing, posing adults were paying attention only to themselves.

  After a while of silent stuffing, I asked, “So how’s this tutoring thing? Really bad?”

  “No,” he said, sticking black olives on all his fingers. “I can ignore the tutor just like I ignore teachers. But it’s infuriating—a waste of time.” One by one, he sucked the olives into his mouth. “My parents and I keep fighting about it. Last night, Mom yelled that if I loved her, I’d try to learn something, and I yelled that if they loved me, they’d stop trying to make me learn that stuff. Our two species don’t communicate very well.”

  I tried not to sound too nerdy. “Maybe they think that wanting you to do well in school shows they do love you? I mean, adults are always lecturing about getting good grades so we can get good jobs. Your dad probably wants you to make lots of money like he does instead of like my dad.”

  “But I don’t care about all that. See? That’s another way I’m not like them. My real parents would love me without always bringing money into it.”

  He suddenly lowered his voice so I could barely hear it above the chattering crowd. “Even throwing a party like this is dangerous. If they loved me and cared about keeping me safe, they wouldn’t do it.”

  “What do you mean?” The party looked harmless to me. Just a bunch of adults standing around talking and trying to impress each other.

  “They’re calling attention to us. They invited all the town’s bigwigs, but they don’t know half of these people. An alien looking for the hidden Imperial Prince could slip in easily. It could be any of those people—like that fat, bald guy by the bar.”

  I checked the guy out and almost choked laughing. “Not that one, Ethan. That’s the Mayor.”

  “Could be a cover identity,” he huffed.

  Standing up, he threw his empty plastic plate like a Frisbee into the garbage can. “Never mind, let’s go swimming.”

  The rest of the evening was okay. Ethan didn’t accuse any other prominent citizens of being aliens. And his indoor/outdoor pool was amazing.

  Next morning my dad made a surprise announcement over our cheese omelet breakfast. Our kitchen wasn’t as grand as Ethan’s, but our crowded little breakfast nook was cozy. “Believe it or not, want it or not,” he intoned, “we’re taking a vacation.”

  “What?” my mother asked, nearly dropping her fork.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “And why?” my dad grumbled. “Because my little brother wants to show off again.”

  After a long pause, my mother prodded him. “Meaning . . . ?”

  “Meaning Paul told me last night that he won some surprise drawing, and his company is giving him an all-expense-paid stay at Deer Springs Resort for his family and another family of his choice. He chose us.”

  I let out a whoop. Mom and I exchanged big grins. I didn’t have a clue about Deer Springs Resort, but it sounded better than our usual vacations in run-down motels.

  Mom cocked an eyebrow. “I hope you had the good sense not to turn him down.”

  Dad glowered. “Yeah, I swallowed my pride and accepted. But I only did it for you two! Otherwise I wouldn’t go near that rich snobs’ playground—particularly not on my brother’s charity.”

  “It isn’t charity, dear, it’s family togetherness. When do we go?”

  Turns out we were going the week after school let out and staying in the place for five days with our rooms, meals, and use of all the resort facilities paid for. Maybe five solid days with my crazy cousin would be a little too much togetherness. But once Dad showed me the resort brochure, I figured I could stand it. Horseback riding, swimming pools, incredible gardens, and a building right out of fantasy stories. Fantastic and very Earthly looking.

  Maybe we would spend the whole time without thinking about aliens.

  Amazing how wrong I could be.

  It took several hours to drive to Deer Springs Resort. The brochure said that it was once one of the poshest hotels in the country, and lots of rich, famous people bathed in its mineral springs to get healthy, then drank bottled “Vulcan Wasser” to cure just about everything.

  Maybe I’d been thinking too much about aliens lately, but Vulcan Wasser reminded me of TV space people. The brochure said Vulcan was the old Roman god of volcanoes, and wasser was German for water. Whatever.

  The hotel was really big, or as Ethan called it, “gargantuan.” It had columns everywhere like a huge wedding cake. Guys in red uniforms hauled our luggage up the wide front stairs. The enormous lobby sprouted potted palms, thick marble columns, and crystal chandeliers.

  Once we’d checked in, a young guy in a uniform piled our luggage onto a cart and led us into a creaky elevator that, after a slow, noisy, and very cramped trip, opened again on the top floor. Our rooms were at one end of a long hall. Each family had a huge master bedroom with a bathroom grand enough for an emperor. Ethan and I each had our own bedrooms next to our parents’ with our own doors to the hall. The windows showed rambling gardens and another wing of the hotel that was covered with scaffolding.

  We unpacked and went downstairs to a restaurant so fancy I was sure I’d do
something wrong. There were white tablecloths, candles, cloth napkins folded like peacocks’ tails, and pieces of silverware I hadn’t a clue how to use. The menu prices were scary too, but since it was already paid for, I ordered lobster. It looked gross but tasted okay. Ethan had steak. Maybe he thought lobsters looked too much like aliens.

  He certainly did not like the fat, bald waiter and whispered dire warnings to me. He watched the guy like a hawk when he served our food in case he pulled out some paralyzing weapon or sprinkled radioactive poison on our salads. But in a hotel that, like my dad said, caters to rich, middle-aged golfers, Ethan would either have to get used to seeing fat, bald guys or pick another game. After dinner even Ethan relaxed, and the six of us were so stuffed we just sat in rocking chairs on the big hotel porch and made plans for tomorrow.

  Turned out, it rained buckets the next day, so Ethan and I stopped arguing about whether to go horseback riding or swimming and explored the hotel instead. Our moms took mud baths at the hotel spa, and our dads went bowling.

  This hotel demanded a lot of exploring. Ethan might be scared of enemy aliens, but he sure wasn’t scared of doing things we probably weren’t supposed to. We took back stairs, slipped through unmarked doors, and explored areas roped off for renovation.

  In one corridor, we saw a heavy guy who was kind of balding step out of his room. Like a scared cat, Ethan ducked into an alcove, opened a window, and stepped onto the fire escape.

  “Hey, you can’t do that,” I whispered sharply.

  “Why not? These things are made for people to escape from danger.”

  “Yeah, but they look plenty dangerous themselves.” And they did. All rusty and covered with pigeon droppings.

  “You scared?” He was already climbing down. I was scared, but even more scared that Ethan would hurt himself, and it’d be my fault for not watching out for him. So I followed. You could see through the slatted metal steps all the way to the ground. They swayed and creaked with every step. It wasn’t raining just then, but the rusty steps and hand rails were wet and slippery.