by Ruth White
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had to put up with this thing. It happens most often when I’m overanxious. You don’t want to know how folks look at me when I flip out this way—like I’m a real flake. At one time David had the same disorder, but being the perfect kid he is, he outgrew it.
One time I heard a teacher referring to me as “the girl with Tourette’s.” Another time a neighbor called it “the most abnormal stutter” she’d ever heard. That made my face burn, but I knew this was not Tourette’s and not a stutter. It was something else entirely. The middle school principal recommended therapy for my “speech defect,” but Mom would have none of it.
“There’s nothing wrong with her,” Mom told him. “It’s just a nervous tic that runs in our family. I’ll work with her myself.”
She did that very thing, and in time I learned to control my outbursts to some degree, but on this day I find myself losing it again. I know all the talk about aliens has something to do with it.
David yanks my arm hard and practically yells, “We gotta go!”
Finally I clap my free hand over my runaway mouth and end the tirade. David pulls me to my feet. Mr. Bleep has struggled to a standing position also, and now gapes at me.
“What kind of gibberish was that?” he cries, but David is dragging me away.
As we leave, I see that Mr. Bleep’s pale knobby hands have started to flutter.
We hurry across the street, and David whispers to me, “We can’t take you anywhere, can we?”
“Let go of me!” With one mighty jerk, I manage to wrench myself free of him.
David takes off like he’s going to put out a fire, and I have to run to keep up with him. At the video store he acts like I’m some stray he can’t shake. I find a documentary about Niagara, and we each choose one movie for fun. My pick is Marley & Me. I love any movie or book about dogs. Mom and Gramps have promised me a golden retriever puppy for my birthday this summer.
Mr. Alvarez, who manages the video store, rings up our selections and tosses a box of microwave popcorn into the plastic bag along with the videos. “Enjoy a treat with your movies tonight.”
“Sorry to decline,” David says as he removes the popcorn, “but Mom didn’t give us permission.”
Mr. Alvarez throws back his head and laughs. “ ‘Sorry to decline’?” he mocks David. “Leave it to this kid to use ten-dollar words, and to always mind Mom. The other young’uns around here just grab the grub and run.”
With a tinge of satisfaction, I watch David’s face go red. He doesn’t know what to say. It’s not the first time somebody has commented that his way of speaking is different. That’s what he gets for being so proper. I know he can talk ordinary and even use slang when he wants to, so why doesn’t he? Because he likes to put on airs.
“But it’s free, child,” Mr. Alvarez insists, and shoves the popcorn toward us again. “I’m giving a box to all my best customers today. Take it, and enjoy!”
David stands there thinking for a moment, then says in a mock Southern drawl, “Well, by cracky, in that case, my good feller, much obliged, much obliged!”
And in spite of being annoyed with David, I have to admit he does have a gift for impersonations. I would never tell him how good he is at it. Now his performance makes Mr. Alvarez laugh again. At the same time, we hear a siren from the street. Mr. Alvarez follows us out the door to see what’s going on. Walking back the way we came, David and I see that an ambulance is parked in front of the post office across the street. Along with everyone else, we watch as someone on a stretcher is lifted into the rear of the vehicle.
Mr. O’Reilley, who delivers our mail, crosses the street and walks toward us.
“Who is it?” David calls to him.
The mailman glances behind him. “You mean on the stretcher? It’s Mr. Bleep, poor old guy. I’m no doctor, but it looks to me like he’s had another stroke.”
David and I gape at each other in astonishment.
“W-we were just talking to him,” David sputters. “He seemed fine.”
Mr. O’Reilley lays a sympathetic hand on David’s shoulder.
“Sometimes these things come without warning, my lad. I’m sorry.”
Then Mr. O’Reilley pats me on the head and moves on to continue with his deliveries. We watch the ambulance drive away with Mr. Bleep, before walking back to the parking lot to meet Mom. On the way home, we tell her all that happened.
• 3 •
The next day David and I are playing basketball in the backyard when the county sheriff pulls his official car into our driveway, emerges in his spiffy blue uniform, and tips his hat to us. Sheriff DuBois is a pleasant-enough man, I suppose, but the sight of a uniformed officer always brings that echo back to me.
He goes to the back door and knocks. Mom, who is in the kitchen preparing lunch, invites him in. David and I drop the ball and go inside to see what’s going on, and Gramps comes up from his workshop in the basement, where he’s been tinkering.
Mom motions the sheriff toward the living room. “Will you sit with us?”
“Naw,” the sheriff says as he props one foot on the bottom rung of a kitchen chair and removes his sunglasses. “I won’t keep you long. I want to ask your children some questions.”
“David and Meggie?” Mom says, obviously surprised. She gestures for us to stand by her. “What about?”
David and I walk over to stand beside Mom.
“Well, I was informed that they were seen talking to Mr. Bleep yesterday right before he had a stroke.” The sheriff looks at us. “Is that right, kids?”
“Yes,” David responds. “We were talking to Mr. Bleep before we went to the video store, and when we came out again, the ambulance was there.”
“Unfortunately, Mr. Bleep himself is not able to answer any questions right now,” the sheriff says. “It seems he’s had another stroke, but he may recover. In the meantime, maybe you can help me out. Can you tell me what you talked about?”
“Aliens,” I blurt out. Mom lays a warm hand on my arm.
“What about aliens?” the sheriff inquires.
David and I by turns recount as much as we can remember of our conversation with Mr. Bleep, including his descriptions of the aliens.
“Hmmmm” is all the sheriff has to say as he scratches his head.
“Why do you need to know this, Sheriff DuBois?” Gramps asks.
“Just trying to put the puzzle together,” the sheriff responds. “Mrs. Raskin told me she saw these kids talking to Mr. Bleep, and according to her, when they left him and crossed the street, Mrs. Raskin walked over to speak to him herself. When she got to where he was, she found Mr. Bleep to be in an agitated state. He was flailing his arms around and mumbling about alien kids. Then the stroke hit him. The Romano sisters said they saw it all from the post office window, and that it looked like Mr. Bleep was scared nearly to death.”
I don’t want to hear this. Because I know. I know it was my speech problem that scared poor Mr. Bleep. It may have caused his stroke. That makes me feel so bad. And did he think …? Yes, he thought … He thought … Was he calling me and David alien kids?
“Well, it appears to me that the old man was having a senior moment,” Gramps says.
“Yeah, it looks that way, but just ’cause he’s old don’t mean he’s crazy.”
“What do you mean?” Mom asks.
“I mean we’ve had these reports circulating for some months now, from many different sources, and a great flurry of them just lately.”
“What reports?” Gramps says.
“Well, people say they’ve been seeing things, and they’re scared.”
“What things?” Gramps persists.
“Oh, you know, they’re just your average alien sightings. I reckon people get on these kicks. Haven’t you heard the UFO rumors?”
“I’ve heard!” Gramps snorts. “And I can’t believe you’re taking them seriously.”
Mom laughs softly. “Aliens, Sheriff DuBois? Really,
now …”
“I didn’t say I’m a believer,” the sheriff says, chuckling a little himself. “But I have to go through the motions. People are depending on me, you know.”
“What did you expect to learn from the children?” Gramps asks.
“Anything that might give us a clue as to what scared the old man,” the sheriff says. “It was Mrs. Raskin who suggested I come out here and talk to y’all.”
“Mrs. Raskin?” I say. “But why?”
“Why indeed?” David says, unable to hide his irritation.
The sheriff chews on the earpiece of his sunglasses and studies David carefully for a time. Then he turns to Mom and says, “Your boy seems awful bright.”
“Yes, quite bright,” Mom agrees. “They both are.”
“I mean, he has an unusual way of talking,” the sheriff continues. “Around here you don’t hear folks saying things like ‘Why indeed?’ Especially kids.”
It’s obvious that Mom is at a loss for words. She shrugs.
“Where was it y’all come from, up north somewhere?”
“California,” Mom says. “But you see, their father—my late husband—grew up abroad. They both picked up idioms from him.”
“Yeah, I reckon they would,” the sheriff says.
“And both Meggie and David read a great deal as well,” Mom adds. “I’m amazed sometimes at the expressions they pick up from their reading.”
“Right,” Sheriff DuBois says, and puts his sunglasses back on. “Anyhow, I’m awful sorry to bother y’all on a Sunday afternoon.”
In a few minutes he’s gone, leaving the four of us standing in our kitchen, just looking at each other, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
That night I dream of an alien family who live in a round silver house high on a cliff among the clouds. And they have blue hair.
• 4 •
It’s officially the first day of summer, and I am at the front screen door trying to enjoy the smell of the summer rain. David is catching his daily show of man harassing alligator on Animal Planet. Gramps has been in his workshop for days, but today he has come upstairs to talk to Mom. I hear them whispering together on the front porch. They’ve been doing this a lot lately, and their secrecy really bugs me.
Our trip to Niagara Falls has been postponed for reasons unknown. Something wicked this way comes, but I am not in the loop to know about it.
“Why not just tell me and get it over with!” I suddenly yell, exasperated.
The whispering stops, and David clicks off the TV. Silently Mom and Gramps come inside, and the four of us scrunch up together on one couch. Gramps hugs me to him. Hanging on a cord around his neck is a silver object that looks like a long whistle.
“Yes, you’re old enough to hear hard truths without falling apart,” Gramps says.
“I am,” I say, but my heart is thundering. “Tell me.”
“It’s all the talk in town—of aliens,” Mom says softly.
“But what about it?” I say irritably.
“It grows worse and worse,” Gramps says. “People are wild with fear. We must take precautions. Just in case … You know.”
“What kind of precautions?”
“We must have a plan,” Mom says.
I touch the whistle, and a vague memory stirs. We’ve had this thing for many years, and once it was used for … what? When?
“It’s called the Log,” Gramps says. “You were only three the last time we played it, and in case you’ve forgotten, it sounds like this.” He props the whistle against his lips.
As he blows softly into it, a flimsy mist floats out of the air holes and circles our heads. It’s gray and smells a lot like smoke, and there’s another odor that’s pretty bad, but I can’t quite place it. At the same time this really lovely mystic music that sounds almost like a pan flute fills the house. I have to say, there’s such a pang of longing and sadness in the sound that I feel like crying. I’ve almost remembered the last time I heard this whistle, when Gramps interrupts my thoughts.
“At full volume, it will be heard all around our property, and it’s our danger signal,” he says. “If you ever hear it, drop what you’re doing and get to the basement pronto.”
“We’ll all meet there in Gramps’s workshop,” Mom says.
I can still smell the whistle mist, and feel the sadness in its music.
“And there we’ll be safe from them?” I say.
“Utterly and completely,” Gramps says. “They can’t touch us there.”
We fall asleep on the screened porch with moonlight washing over our faces. It’s long after midnight when I wake up with a start, to the uncomfortable feeling of a hand being placed over my mouth.
Before I can react, Gramps whispers, “It’s just me. Let’s go quickly, quietly.”
My body stiffens with fear.
When he takes his hand away from my mouth, I squeak, “Are they here?”
“Yes, in the cornfield.”
I can’t resist looking out at the corn in the full light of the moon. There I see dark figures moving without a sound among the stalks. I shrink against Gramps, fearing they might see us. But we have the advantage, for at this hour we are in the moon’s shadow, and they are in its light.
I see Mom and David tiptoeing through the French doors into the house. With Gramps holding my hand, we follow.
In our bare feet we step down the stairs to the main floor, with Mom and David ahead of us. Nobody speaks as we hurry toward the basement stairs near the kitchen. Then I hear sounds outside the house, and my breath starts to come in gasps. Mom and David reach the basement stairs and disappear down them. When Gramps and I are inside the stairwell, he turns and locks the door behind us.
We hear something that sounds like angry growls outside our kitchen, and a thumping against the back door. I freeze in my tracks. Gramps scoops me up under one arm and carries me down the rest of the way. His workshop is enclosed within the full basement. Once inside this inner room, he sets me down and locks that door behind us.
And standing there before us is the Carriage. Shaped like a child’s paper airplane, it has standing room of around seven feet, and an approximate width of eight feet at the base. The Carriage is also transparent, so that I can see Mom at the control panel and David on the floor behind her, against the wall. I step inside and crouch beside my brother.
Gramps follows and quickly secures the door of the Carriage. Mom points to a small computer screen and reads aloud to Gramps in our native tongue. Gramps looks at the screen, then begins working the controls.
The commotion I heard outside is now tumbling down the basement stairs, now pushing against the inner door. Terrified and fascinated at the same time, I watch that door while Gramps and Mom concentrate on the controls. Finally a little swoosh tells us the Carriage is in operation.
When the workshop door bursts open, I cry out. I can’t help myself. David clutches me to him, and I hold on.
Through the transparent walls, we can see clearly the faces of the townspeople surrounding the Carriage, and they can see us as well. Among others, we see Mrs. Raskin, Mr. Alvarez, Kitty’s grandpa, the Romano sisters, Mr. O’Reilley—people we have grown to care about. But they have become a mob of strangers, and there is so much fear and anger and hate in their eyes that I hardly recognize them. Furiously they begin beating on the sides of the Carriage with sticks and stones and bare fists.
Then someone—Mr. O’Reilley, I think—grabs a hammer from Gramps’s workbench and begins beating on the sides of the Carriage. Others take up heavy tools and do the same. Though the Carriage is soundproof, we still can hear muffled noises. The screams and curses get louder and louder and more ferocious as the people hammer the sides.
Gramps is frantic as he strikes the palm of his hand against a wide bar, which reads in English: OPEN THE GATE.
Instantly the Carriage is enveloped in a white vapor. The Gate has opened for us, and like a spear cutting through water, we move swiftly through it, to safe
ty on the other side.
• 5 •
David Speaks
According to legend, at the dawn of time, in the distant world of Chroma, when the life-forms there were not highly evolved, much of the planet was shrouded in darkness. During those dark periods, luminescent streaks began to appear, as if by magic, in the hair of the planet’s inhabitants, who were my ancestors.
For females the color was a whimsical periwinkle, and for males a deep royal blue. The streaks were attractive, and both shades glowed in the dark, though they could appear in daylight as well. Subsequently, our race, for eons, was known by a Chroma word meaning “blue.”
That’s the reason my mother chose the name Blue for herself, and for me and my sister, Meggie, when we traveled from our homeland of Chroma to Earth.
In a more enlightened age, Chromian anthropologists studied the phenomenon of the blue hair and declared that, in the beginning, its main purpose was to help the people identify one another in the dark, but it was also apparent that a person did not begin to glow until he or she had come to a certain degree of maturity in body, mind, and spirit. Most Chromians were proud to reach this plateau around the age of twelve, give or take a year, but some rare individuals, sadly, never arrived. I achieved blue at the age of eleven, but Meggie, being very immature in many ways, did not.
Once, our home planet was a land of many bright colors, thus the name Chroma, but by the time Meggie and I were born, it had become a bleak and dying world, with its air, soil, and water contaminated beyond salvation. In fact, pollution poisoning killed off our people in great numbers, with Dad and Grandmama being among those who perished.
Though Chroma’s technology was highly sophisticated, our fine scientists could not reverse the damage done to the environment. Attempting to make amends for this dismal failure, they developed the ultimate vehicle for dimensional and space travel—the Carriage. This grand creation was unique in that it was programmed to seek out the hidden passages and secret gateways of the universe, making it possible for its occupants to navigate astronomical distances in short periods of time.
