Alien Encounter

by Charise Mericle Harper

  “Do you want to see where it happened?” interrupted Red. He was over being grumpy. “We could take you there tomorrow.”

  “We could?” Both Lewis and I said it at the same time.

  “That would be perfect!” said Mr. Holland. “But I can’t go tomorrow. How about Monday, at one o’clock?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Sometimes they come back, if they really like an area. Maybe there’ll be signs of it—broken branches, crushed leaves, a footprint. It would be great to get some proof that they’re in the area.”

  “What kind of proof?” asked Lewis. “Like a photo?”

  “Well, that would really change my life,” said Mr. Holland.

  “Oh,” said Lewis, and then he smiled. I knew that smile—Lewis had a plan.

  After the man left, Lewis sent Red to get some snacks. “This time you have to eat whatever Red brings back,” he said, “or he’ll get suspicious. He’ll know we just ask for snacks to get rid of him.”

  I started to protest, but then agreed. I just hoped it wasn’t going to be muffins.

  Lewis’s Plan

  What Was Wrong with Lewis’s Plan?

  EVERYTHING!

  I had to change Lewis’s mind. “We can’t make a fake Sasquatch. First, we don’t know how to, and second, we have only three days to do it, and third, he’s an expert. He’ll totally be able to tell our Sasquatch isn’t real.”

  Lewis shook his head. “What’s the one thing we needed that we didn’t have when we saw the alien?”

  I shrugged. “A weapon?”

  “NO! A PHOTO!” shouted Lewis. “And that’s because a photo would have changed everything. So we don’t need to show him a Sasquatch. We just need a picture of a Sasquatch. We make a fake Sasquatch, take a picture of it, and we’re done. It’ll be proof, and after that, everyone will forget all about the alien. They’ll be excited about the Sasquatch and just think we made a mistake.”

  Lewis pulled out Mr. Holland’s card and studied it. “All we have to do is show Mr. Holland the photo. It fixes Mr. Lee’s problem, gets us super-great Halloween costumes, and doesn’t get you into trouble.” Lewis was happy with himself. He jogged over to the pile of mattresses, jumped, and landed in the middle with his arms spread wide.

  I walked over to him. I was finished arguing.

  “I want my costume to be a dragon,” said Lewis. “With real smoke coming out. Do you think he can do that?” He sat up. “Make real smoke come out?” And then he smiled. “Out of both ends!”

  I thought about it for a second, and then shook my head. Lewis was getting distracted. This Sasquatch thing was important. We had to figure it out. I had a lot of questions.

  My Questions

  1) Do we really need a photo?

  2) Why can’t Mr. Lee make the Sasquatch costume?

  3) Don’t you think there was something about Mr. Lee that was strange?

  4) Do you think we can trust him?

  Lewis was Mr. Positive. He had an answer for everything.

  I sat next to Lewis and we talked more about Mr. Lee, but Lewis wasn’t like me. He wasn’t suspicious. He wasn’t excited that Mr. Lee was famous. His brain could think about only one thing—getting his dragon costume.

  After a while, I gave up arguing with him about the plan. Lewis’s idea was probably not going to work, but it was all we had. I couldn’t tell Dad that I’d made up the alien story. A switch was the only way to solve everything. Maybe Dad would believe a mistake.

  When Red showed up with the snacks, I felt sick.

  Not much happened the rest of the afternoon, and for the first time since meeting Lewis, I was glad when Dad picked me up to go home. As soon as Dad pulled into Lewis’s driveway, I ran to the car.

  “Don’t forget to come early,” yelled Lewis.

  I waved and we were gone. Maybe I’d feel better about stuff tomorrow. I was pretty sure of one thing—I wasn’t going to feel any worse.

  The Good Things

  The day started out OK enough. When I got up, Betty was already gone. “Over to a friend’s house,” said Mom. It was nice to eat breakfast without the sweater hanging around. That thing could really take your appetite away. After breakfast, Mom asked if Lewis was coming over.

  “No. Can you drive me to his house?” I asked.

  She sighed and picked up her car keys. I knew what she was thinking. She wanted us to hang out at our house, but there was no way that was going to happen. Not when we were trying to be sneaky. Mom’s like one of those spy drones—she sees everything.

  When I got to Lewis’s house, he had good news. Red was leaving.

  Having the day to ourselves was a good thing. It made our plan less complicated.

  What Is Easy to Do?

  Decide you are going to make a fantastic Sasquatch costume.

  What Is the Opposite of Easy to Do?

  Make even a slightly good Sasquatch costume.

  It probably would have been easier if we had fancy supplies like Mr. Lee, but we didn’t. All we had were old pillowcases, cardboard boxes, brown paint, and tons of duct tape. The making part was fun, but when Lewis put it on to test it, I knew we were in trouble.

  “It’s hopeless!” I shouted. I was watching Lewis. He was walking around, trying to look like a Sasquatch.

  Lewis shook his big head. “You’re wrong,” he shouted. “If you take a blurry picture, it’ll work.”

  It was a disaster, and he needed to see it. I ran up to him and pulled on his arm.

  “Hey,” I said. “Let me try it on, and then you can stand back and see how great it looks.”

  He liked that idea. In two minutes, he was out of the costume, and we were switching places. I pulled everything on, and then jumped around until Lewis yelled at me to stop. It took only about a minute.

  “OK,” he said. “It’s bad.”

  I took the costume off and dumped it in a heap.

  “It looks like a giant brown poop!” said Lewis. He was right. It was funny, but it didn’t help. That blob was not going to save my life.

  As terrible as it looked, we were stuck with it. We had to make it work!

  “It needs to be furry,” I said. “Sasquatches have fur.”

  “Where do we get fur?” asked Lewis.

  And then I had the answer. It was crazy, dangerous, and risky, but it was our only choice.

  “My house!” I shouted. “Follow me!” And I took off running.

  The Mission

  Before we went inside, I explained the plan to Lewis.

  “Just remember, we have to be quiet,” I whispered. I didn’t want to get caught. Betty was out with friends, but Mom was home, and she had ears like a superhero.

  Lewis and I crept up the stairs to Betty’s room. The sweater she’d made for Jason was lying on her desk. When Lewis saw it, he gasped. I was right—it was perfect! It looked exactly like Sasquatch fur. All we needed to do was find Betty’s leftover wool. Betty’s like me—if she doesn’t need something, she shoves it under her bed. Seconds later, I had the bag of wool, and Lewis and I were running to my room. The mission was a success!

  What Was Disappointing?

  Lewis and I dumped the wool out onto the floor. Right away I could see that I’d been wrong. This wasn’t going to save us.

  “It doesn’t look as good as the sweater,” I said. I picked up a clump and shook it.

  “You’re right,” said Lewis.

  We tried sticking it on paper in a bunch of different ways, but everything we did looked bad.

  The Solution

  “It’s only going to look like fur if we knit it,” said Lewis. He grabbed Betty’s bag and dug around inside it. “We have to use these.” He pulled out two knitting needles and tied a piece of wool to one of them. “Watch me. It’s kind of easy once you get started.”

  I wasn’t sure about the easy part, but it was cool to watch Lewis’s hands. They moved fast and knew exactly what to do. But then I thought about what we were doing.

  “Lewis, stop! We
can’t do this. It’s going to take too long! There’s no way we can knit a whole suit.”

  Lewis ignored me and kept knitting. I grabbed the wool and held it until he stopped pulling back. He dropped the needles.

  “You’re right,” he said. “We’re going to need help.”

  I can’t usually read minds, but today was different. I knew exactly what Lewis was thinking.

  I had three things to say.

  “NO WAY! We can’t! She’ll kill me!”

  “Yes, we have to,” said Lewis, and he drew out his plan on a piece of paper.

  What Can Sometimes Happen?

  Sometimes, even if you know that something is a bad idea, you can still agree to do it. Lately, I was having lots of those times. I should have said, “Absolutely not! NO CAN DO!” And even though that’s what my brain was thinking, my mouth said, “OK, but I don’t know how we’re going to get away with it.”

  “We’ll figure that out later,” said Lewis. He dug around in Betty’s bag for some more needles. “Right now I’ve got to teach you how to knit.”

  Knitting wasn’t as easy as Lewis said it was going to be, or as easy as it looked when he did it. It was surprisingly hard, and every couple of seconds, I did something wrong. Finally, after about twenty minutes, I sort of got the hang of it.

  “These are going to be ugly mitties,” I said.

  Lewis smiled. “That’s OK, Sasquatches probably have ugly hands. Plus we’ll make the picture sort of blurry, so it won’t matter. It’ll be perfect.”

  I kept knitting. Now that I knew what I was doing, it was actually kind of fun.

  Knitting

  Lewis was good at knitting. After about two hours, he was finished with the hat and working on the second mittie.

  He put his needles down. “I’m going to get the sweater and see how it looks with the hat.”

  I nodded, but didn’t look up. I wanted to finish my mittie. Could you get injuries from knitting? It sounded stupid, but my fingers were killing me.

  The Costume

  When Lewis got back with the sweater, I had just finished the mittie. I waved it around in triumph. “Not bad, right?”

  Lewis handed me the sweater. “Try it on.”

  I didn’t want to be the one to wear the costume, but I knew I’d be more careful with it than he would. And if we didn’t want Betty to find out we’d touched it, being careful was important. I pulled on the sweater and mitties, and then Lewis helped me with the hat. I couldn’t see him, but I heard him take a few steps back. It was impossible to see anything with the hat on.

  “You’re a furry blob,” said Lewis. “But a blob who needs eyes.”

  He was right. We’d forgotten about the eyes.

  Lewis tapped me on the shoulder. “Stay still. I’ll find something.”

  I mumbled an OK. It was hard to talk with the hat on—the wool kept getting in my mouth. I’d been right about the sweater—it was itchy. I hoped Lewis was going to be fast. After what seemed like forever, I heard him coming toward me.

  “These will work,” said Lewis. He grabbed my head and shoved something hard onto the outside of the hat, right by my eyes.

  “OW!” I yelled and tried to push him away. “Are you trying to blind me?” I thrashed around, but missed hitting him. I pulled the hat off to see what he’d done.

  The eyes weren’t great, but they were better than nothing.

  “Where’d you get those?” I asked. They looked kind of familiar.

  “I just found them,” said Lewis, and then he pointed.

  What I Said to Lewis

  “YOU KILLED BINKY!!!!!”

  Lewis apologized a lot, and I could tell that he felt bad, but it was too late. Binky was blind! It was something I would have to forgive him for, but it was not going to be easy.

  I tried to be cool about the whole Binky thing, but I wasn’t very good at pretending. I knew Lewis could tell I was upset.

  After we put Betty’s sweater back, and hid the mitties and the hat under the bed, Lewis said he had to go home.

  Mom drove him home and I went along for the ride. I thought Mom might be surprised when we found her and asked her to drive Lewis home, but she said she’d heard us come in. I crossed my fingers and hoped that we’d been quiet and that she hadn’t heard anything else. A Mom/Betty angry team-up was not something I wanted to experience.

  Lewis and I didn’t say much on the ride to his house. It was hard to be chatty after what had just happened.

  Sunday

  Sunday should have been called surprise day because the surprises started even before I woke up. Lewis

  came over extra early. Mom might have made him go back home, but Dad was the one who answered the door, so he let him come up to my room.

  Seeing Lewis’s big face staring down at me when I first opened my eyes was a surprise. I screamed, sat up, and smashed him on the chin with my head. It was an accident, but I could tell that he was hurt and upset. He was quiet the whole time I was getting dressed, and usually he’s a complete chatterbox. He didn’t say anything until we walked downstairs and into the kitchen. And then the first thing he said was about food.

  “Can we have cereal?” he asked.

  I pulled out the Cheerios and Froot Loops. He pointed to the Froot Loops. I poured out two bowls.

  As we were finishing our cereal, Betty came down. She didn’t seem surprised to see Lewis. I guess she’d heard him talking. She made herself some toast and sat down with us.

  “How’s Jason?” asked Lewis. I cringed. He wasn’t supposed to ask her about that. He wasn’t even supposed to know about it.

  “It’s too early for boyfriends,” complained Betty. “Can we talk about something else?”

  “OK,” said Lewis. “What’s up for today?”

  “Why?” asked Betty. “Are you spying on me?”

  I held my breath. If she was going to be hanging around the house all day, we were doomed.

  Lewis smiled and said, “Maybe.”

  “Well, you’ll have to come to the mall, and then Sophie’s house, because I’m going to be gone all day.” Betty popped the last bite of toast into her mouth.

  “Bummer,” said Lewis.

  Betty rolled her eyes. “Yah, whatever. I have to get ready.” She pushed herself away from the table, put her plate in the dishwasher, and went upstairs.

  “Your sister likes me,” said Lewis.

  “Well, I wouldn’t take that as a compliment,” I said. “She likes a lot of weird things.”

  Binky Can See!

  Lewis and I went up to my room to wait for Betty to leave. As soon we got there, he pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to me. I looked at my hand. Two eyeballs were s taring back at me.

  “I’m going to fix your friend,” he said.

  Lewis dug around in his pocket again and pulled out a little tin. He opened it and pulled out a needle and some thread. I didn’t know what to say.

  “Hand over the Binkster,” said Lewis.

  “You can sew too?” It was hard to believe.

  “Just a little, but I can fix him.”

  I pulled Binky off my bed and handed him over.

  “Where did you get the eyes?” I asked. They had pieces of blue fur around them.

  “I just had them,” said Lewis. And then he ignored me and sewed new eyes on Binky.

  The Woods

  After Betty left, Lewis and I grabbed the sweater, hat, and mitties, and snuck out of the house. It didn’t take long to get to the trail. And it took us no time to get to the tree. When we got there, Lewis stopped and looked up.

  “Can you believe how much stuff has happened near this tree?” he asked. I nodded. It was odd.

  Lewis pointed to an area off the trail that was thick with bushes.

  “If you get in the middle of that big bush over there, it’ll be perfect. It’s high enough so we won’t see your legs. That way all we’ll see is the Sasquatch costume.”

  “I hope there’s no poison
ivy in there,” I said. “Do you know what it looks like?”

  “No.” Lewis shook his head. “But I’m sure there’s none. They wouldn’t put a trail next to poison ivy.”

  I wasn’t so sure. “But it’s not next to the trail. The trail’s over there and—”

  “Just go,” interrupted Lewis.

  “Fine.” I grumbled and took a step off the trail. Slowly I picked my way through the weeds and prickles to get to the bush that Lewis had pointed out. Halfway there, I stopped and waved to Lewis. “Hey! I found something! Come look!”

  Lewis tried to ignore me, but I called him until he finally trudged over to where I was standing.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  I pointed to the ground and moved the bushes to the side so he could see.

  “It’s our hotel sign!” he shouted. “The Stay On Inn sign!” He leaned over and tried to lift it, but it wouldn’t budge, not even an inch. “It’s too heavy!” he complained.

  “How did it get here?” I looked around. It didn’t make sense. The path was too narrow for a truck or car, and the sign weighed a ton, much too heavy to carry. It was a mystery.

  “I don’t know how we’ll get it out of here,” said Lewis. “I’ll have to ask Dave.” He hesitated for a minute, and then walked back to the path.

  I wanted to go back to the path too, but I couldn’t. I continued forward.

  What Was Not as Easy as Lewis Said It Was Going to Be

  Getting into the middle of the giant, prickly bush was tricky. Every time I moved a branch, my hands got scraped up, and if I didn’t move the branches, the rest of me got scraped up, but finally I made it. I waved to Lewis.

  “Great! Now put on the costume!” he shouted.

  Putting Betty’s sweater on was almost impossible. Every single prickly branch wanted to grab hold of it and not let go. It took forever, but finally I had everything on—the sweater, the hat, and the mitties. It was like a torture suit, and I was sweating.