My Gym Teacher Is an Alien Overlord

by David Solomons

  “Luke Parker. Well, well, well.” Miss Dunham eyed me from the center of the multipurpose court. I couldn’t help staring at her—it was like being face-to-face with the Overlord all over again. The gym was empty. We were the only people there. She stood bouncing a basketball without looking at it, which was highly impressive. “Where’s your partner in crime?”

  I told her that he’d be along in a minute. I didn’t mention that he was meeting the school’s resident smuggler, Fred “Long John” Lobb, to acquire contraband. As part of a new health kick, some of Serge’s favorite chocolate bars had been banned from school premises. But there wasn’t a healthy eating campaign in the world that could get between him and a Kit Kat.

  “We’ll start without him,” said Miss Dunham. “Something tells me that you were the ringleader anyway. Fetch a couple of mats from the storeroom,” she ordered. “We’ll warm up.”

  Still bouncing her basketball, she watched me as I crossed to the storeroom and opened the door. I reached for the light switch.

  Harsh fluorescent light spilled across ranks of hockey sticks, crash pads, scoreboards, mini-trampolines—and a figure tied to a chair. I let out a gasp.

  Jump ropes bound her ankles and were wrapped around her chest. She squirmed in vain, her cries for help muffled by a gag fashioned from a pair of sports socks.

  It was Miss Dunham.

  My first thought was to free her. My second was that the noise of the bouncing basketball had stopped. Miss Dunham’s eyes widened in fright as she stared past my shoulder.

  I spun around only to find myself looking up into the face of the other Miss Dunham. Except, of course, it wasn’t her at all.

  My gym teacher was an alien overlord.

  She fixed me with cold lizard eyes. “The Show is over. My crew and my command ship are gone. I was lucky to escape. And I know now it was you who brought an end to a thousand years of uninterrupted viewing pleasure. Not Star Guy, not the little girl with the furry animals, not that annoying girl with the bow. Not even that double-triple-crosser Christopher Talbot. You were the ringleader.”

  I tried to swallow, but my throat was dry. “I prefer ‘leader of S.C.A.R.F.,’” I croaked.

  She began to work her jaw like she was chewing a particularly sticky toffee. There was a terrible cracking sound as bone joints popped and tendons stretched. Her tracksuit bulged, and then two gelatinous orange tentacles tore through the material beneath her armpits. They swayed like king cobras. Her jaw wiggled and opened wider than humanly possible, until it gaped like the maw of some creature from a nightmare. Rows of sharp teeth shone from a mouth big enough to swallow me whole.

  Behind me the real Miss Dunham’s screams were muffled by her gag.

  The Overlord’s voice rumbled from the black pit of her mouth. “Once you asked me if we came to Earth to gather food.” Her breath was hot and sour-smelling. “We did not.” A long tongue darted out and caressed her stretched lips. “But I shall make an exception for you.”

  I glanced past her shoulder. I’d never make it across the court to the door before she caught me. The fire exit was just as far away. And there was no other way out through the storeroom.

  I was trapped. And she looked hungry.

  “Zack!” I shouted in my head. “I’m in trouble.” I hoped he could hear me, but I had a horrible feeling he wasn’t close by. I vaguely recalled him mentioning some math field trip.

  A flash of light caught my eye, and I glanced up to see the sun reflecting off the glass ceiling. A skylight window was open. It wasn’t as if I had any other option.

  The Overlord lunged. I ducked and at the same time grabbed a hockey stick. Dropping to one knee as the real Miss Dunham had demonstrated to us in class, I swept the alien’s legs out from under her. She crashed to the floor, and I sprinted to the foot of the climbing rope.

  It rose above me like Mount Everest. I’d never managed to make it to the top before. Today would be a good day to change that.

  I reached as high up the rope as I could and began to climb.

  “There will be no escape this time, Luke Parker of Earth.” The Overlord hauled herself to her feet and limped toward the wall. At least my hockey shot had slowed her down.

  I was halfway to the top. I struggled on, desperately inching my way up toward safety. From above came an unexpectedly soft sound. At the window perched a cooing pigeon. The Overlord let out a roar, and with a squawk of alarm, the bird flew off.

  I glanced down. The Overlord had reached the rope. Using a combination of arms and tentacles, she slithered up after me, her body undulating like a snake moving through grass.

  I was almost there. A few more feet and— I lost my grip and slid. My chin grazed the rope on the way down; my hands, greasy with sweat, scrabbled as I vainly tried to slow my fall. Somehow I found a grip.

  But now the Overlord was right behind me. I wasn’t going to make it.

  And then I saw it. Lodged in the ridge between the window and the ceiling was a basketball—quite possibly stuck there as a result of one of my own wayward free throws, left forgotten over vacation.

  As I stretched out an arm, my fingertips touched the ball. I had enough leverage to move it. The ball shot free. I juggled it in my palm, tensed in horror as it started to slide from my grip, and then somehow managed to control it in one hand.

  The Overlord’s gaping mouth rushed toward me, a shark rising from the deep.

  There is a theory that an ordinary person can turn himself into an expert at anything with ten thousand hours of practice.

  In basketball, I’d had two.

  I had one shot.

  Instinctively, I threw.

  I knew as soon as it left my hand that I’d hit the target. The ball flew toward the Overlord’s cavernous mouth, heading right down her throat.

  But just when it looked like I’d scored the point of the century, another tentacle wriggled out of her mouth and, with a soft squelch, caught the basketball in its suckers.

  The Overlord’s laugh was deep and gloating. She wallowed in her imminent triumph. I gulped.

  Suddenly, there was a crash and a tinkle from overhead. The Overlord and I looked up to see, through the falling shards of the shattering skylight, a masked figure swooping down, on full pigeon power.

  Dark Flutter glided into the gym, coming to a stop in a perfect hover between me and the Overlord.

  “Luke,” she whispered. “Hold your breath.”

  Before I could ask why, Lara took a deep breath and filled her cheeks. Her hair stood up like needles, the ends glistening with some kind of liquid. And with a flick of her head she sprayed it into the Overlord’s face.

  Even from a distance, holding my breath, I could smell it. It was the worst thing that had ever gone up my nose.

  The unfortunate Overlord took the full brunt of the attack. She inhaled the evil odor and began to gag. As she fought for breath she inadvertently sucked down the basketball.

  It jammed in her terrible mouth like a hamster in a vacuum cleaner.

  Slam dunk!

  The combination of skunk attack and basketball in the cakehole gave her no chance. She began to choke. Arms and tentacles grasping for the obstruction in her throat, she lost her grip on the rope and fell to the floor with a crunching thud. She lay there between the volleyball lines and the tennis baseline, still and silent.

  I turned to Lara. She was blushing furiously beneath her mask, and wouldn’t meet my gaze. “Zack couldn’t make it in time. He sent me.”

  “Never mind him,” I said. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

  “So embarrassing,” she muttered, snatching a bottle from her utility belt. “Dry shampoo,” she explained. She looked around at me nervously as she pumped the contents onto her hair. “You don’t think it’s . . . weird and icky?”

  “Well, yeah, obviously it is,” I s
aid, nodding enthusiastically. Her face fell. “But that doesn’t take away from it being a totally awesome superpower.”

  “You really think so?” She perked up. “That’s what I’ve been trying to talk to you about all this time. I knew if anyone would understand, it’d be you.”

  Well, that was a major relief. “So you don’t want to be my girlfriend?”

  “Uh, now who’s being weird and icky? Luke, you’re like a brother to me.” She paused. “Or at least a first cousin.”

  There was a shout from below. It was Serge. I hadn’t seen him come in. He stood as close to the stricken Overlord as he dared, pinching his nose. “She is still alive.” He knelt down. “I think she is trying to speak.”

  Lara floated to the floor, and I climbed down to join them. Even with the basketball in her gullet, the Overlord managed to summon a few words. Her voice was a rasp. “Luke Parker of Earth, you may have defeated me, but there will be others. I am merely an overlord. Above me are executive overlords. And co-executive overlords. You have not seen the last of the sue-dunham. We will be back. After this break . . .”

  One tentacle pried the whistle off her chest and stuck it in her ear. With the last breath from her strange alien physiology, she blew into it. An awful screeching filled the gym, and the Overlord was bathed in an intense white light. I threw up a hand to shield my eyes, and when I lowered it again, she had vanished. All that remained was her whistle. It fell to the floor with a clink.

  There Is Another

  “We can rebuild him. Better, stronger, faster,” said Dad in a growly voice, and then he began to hum. “Ner ner ner-ner . . .” He noticed we were all staring at him. “The Six Million Dollar Man? No? Classic.” He ruffled my hair. “Oh, you’ve got a treat in store, son. Five seasons.”

  It was a few weeks later, and we had just finished rebuilding the tree house. The workers—me, Dad, Grandpa Clive, Zack, Serge, and Lara—stood in the garden after a long, hard day, admiring our achievement. We’d started at first light (OK, after breakfast), and now the sun was low in the sky. Dad said it was like a scene from a film where Han Solo and a bunch of farmers build a barn in a single day. That sounded like the most boring Star Wars film ever.

  “We should break a bottle of champagne over her,” said Grandpa Clive.

  “I thought that was for launching ships,” I said.

  “No, she’s not a ship,” said Dad. A wistful look came into his eye. “She’s a castle in the air.”

  Although I had mourned its loss, I think in all honesty, Zack and I had outgrown the tree house. Dad was the one to suggest rebuilding it. I’d gotten the distinct feeling as the work progressed that he wanted it more than we did. Not that I was ungrateful. After all, S.C.A.R.F. needed new headquarters, and the tree house fit the bill, or would just as soon as I’d installed a few security measures. I wondered if we could also put in a toilet. That way, in the future, there’d be no danger of me missing Zorbon the Decider.

  When everyone else had gone home, I sat alone in the tree house. I’d completed my homework for the evening, and now turned to the important job of setting down the S.C.A.R.F. code. Every secret superhero crime-fighting organization needed a set of guiding principles. I glanced down at the sheet of paper on my clipboard. It was blank. I tapped a Faber-Castell 9000 against my lip. Aha! I put pencil to paper and began to write.

  1. Always follow orders, unless your superiors turn out to be a secret cult of evil cyborgs.

  There was a rustling at the door. Maybe it was Zorbon the Decider—we were due for another visit.

  “Hello, son,” said my dad.

  “Oh.”

  “Were you expecting someone else?” He squeezed inside and took a seat beside me.

  “Not really,” I said, tucking the clipboard out of sight beneath my English workbook.

  “I wanted you to be the first to know. Your mom and I have looked at the numbers. We’re going to buy the comic store.”

  “You are?”

  “I’ll need you and your brother to help on weekends.”

  “That would be amazing!” My head was a whirl. “I have some fairly firm ideas about which comics we should stock, how we should display them, the launch party, obviously, and—” I grabbed the clipboard and tore off the top sheet. “I should make a list.”

  Dad smiled. “I think you should.”

  • • •

  “Wake up,” Zack’s voice hissed in my ear.

  I opened one eye. My Green Lantern alarm clock glowed on the bedside table. It was the middle of the night. I turned to my brother. He was wearing his Star Guy costume.

  “What’s happening?” I asked, sitting up with a start. “Is it another invasion?”

  “Put this on and follow me,” he said, flinging me a bathrobe. I pulled it around me, stuffed my feet into my slippers, and padded after him.

  It had to be Zorbon the Decider! This would be his third visit to us now. I’d missed him the first two times, when he’d given superpowers to Zack and Lara. I tried not to get excited, but I couldn’t help myself. Tonight was surely my turn. I had proved myself against the sue-dunham invaders. What higher reward could there be than to make me a superhero? But if not me, I really hoped it wouldn’t be Serge. I wasn’t sure that our friendship could bear it.

  We slipped out the back door without waking Mom or Dad, and made our way across the yard. I glanced up into the night sky. The sue-dunham’s fiery countdown still blazed overhead, permanently stuck at two seconds. No one had figured out a way to clean it up yet.

  My heart beat faster as we reached the foot of the rope ladder. Zack shot to the top, and I hauled myself after him.

  I had yet to add superhero lamps like the ones destroyed in the alien attack, so my eyes adjusted slowly to the darkness. I could make out the outline of two figures standing side by side. They were the same height. I recognized one as my brother, which meant that the other had to be . . .

  “Zorbon?”

  “Luke,” said the figure.

  “Zorbon?” I repeated.

  “Luke,” he said again. Something about his voice seemed uncomfortably familiar.

  Zack threw open the wooden shutters on the new window. Light from the alien countdown made the inside of the tree house glow, and at last I could see who I was talking to.

  He wore a mask and cape like Star Guy’s. A superhero sigil blazed from his chest. Gloved hands lifted the mask.

  He was me.

  Not like me. Actually me. It was like looking into a freaky talking mirror. Apart from our height difference, he was my identical twin. Then I noticed that he wasn’t taller than me after all. He hovered inches above the floor.

  “You’re . . . you’re . . .” I stuttered.

  “Yes,” said the other Luke, placing his hands on his hips, puffing out his chest. “I am Stellar.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  One does not organize an alien invasion alone. Thanks to my editor, Kirsty “We come in peace” Stansfield, publisher Kate “Your weapons are useless” Wilson, Dom “Nuke ’em from orbit” Kingston, Fiona “No one can stop us now” Scoble, and the rest of the hive mind at Nosy Crow; thanks again to illustrator Laura “Destroy all humans” Anderson and designer Nicola “It’s a trap!” Theobald for the stealth technology cover to fool the earthlings. I am grateful as ever for the invaluable strategic advice of Agent “My mother ship is bigger than yours” Stan. And finally, a world-flattening laser destructor blast of thanks to the woman whose existence ensures I always know where to direct the aliens when they say, “Take me to your leader,” my wife, Natasha.

  DAVID SOLOMONS has been writing screenplays for many years. My Gym Teacher Is an Alien Overlord is his second book for children. His first, My Brother Is a Superhero, won the 2016 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize. He was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and lives in Dorset, England, with his wife, novelist Natasha
Solomons, and their son, Luke, and daughter, Lara.

  When Luke Parker’s boring, teacher’s pet brother Zack gets turned into a superhero, Luke can’t believe the unfairness of it all. But when Zack—aka Star Guy—gets into super-size trouble, it’s up to Luke and his intrepid neighbor Lara to rescue his big brother and, with a little luck, help him save the world.

  “A non-stop action-packed, laugh-out-loud winner of a story.”

  —School Library Journal, starred review

  “As genuinely open-hearted as the genre that inspired it.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Solomons demonstrates that he’s equally at home with high-octane comic-book action and more ordinary topics like the pain of being overshadowed by an older sibling, superpowered or otherwise.”

  —Publishers Weekly

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