There's an Alien in My Backpack

by Bruce Coville

  He also removed several truly dismaying food items, some of which seemed to have sprouted life-forms of their own.

  “Do you think I will be safe in there?” asked Beebo nervously.

  “I’ll disinfect it for you,” said Mrs. Tompkins, taking the pack and giving Tim a look that might have caused a weaker person to crumble into dust on the spot. Then she brought some milk and cookies—Mrs. Tompkins makes very good cookies, and they are something I am going to suggest to the Fatherly One that we consider for export to other planets—and we had a snack while she went to clean the backpack. After a few minutes McNally went out to help her. I could tell that Tim wanted to go check up on them but did not dare.

  While they were gone, I motioned for Tim to come close to me.

  “Take this,” I said quietly, handing him a small device.

  “What is it?”

  “A portable comm-device. I really shouldn’t be giving it to you, but until this crisis with Beebo is over, I think we need a way to make direct contact despite the Fatherly One’s disapproval.”

  “Good idea,” said Tim.

  I had just finished showing him how to use the device when Mrs. Tompkins returned with the backpack.

  “Here you go, Beebo,” she said cheerfully. “Fresh as a daisy!” She turned her attention to Tim, and her smile faded. “And it wasn’t easy, I want to tell you. We’re going to have to have another little talk about this kind of thing, bub.”

  Tim sighed.

  I took the backpack from Mrs. Tompkins and installed the shield I had created. “Here,” I said when I had finished. “Try it on for size.”

  Beebo climbed into the pack. It was a perfect fit.

  “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Pleskit,” he said happily. “You’ll be really glad you helped me. I won’t be any trouble. You’ll see.”

  CHAPTER 12 [TIM]

  BEEBO AGAINST THE DARK SIDE

  Monday morning I helped Beebo get settled in the backpack, then hopped on my bike and rode to school.

  Jordan must have taken one of his obnoxious pills before he came to school that day, because his rottenness was in full bloom. “Hey, look!” he said when Pleskit and I walked into the room. “It’s Pleskit and that other kid—the one from outer space.”

  For a horrifying moment I thought he knew I had Beebo in my backpack. Then I realized he was talking about me.

  In case I’d had any doubts, Jordan immediately clarified his statement. “Yeah, monster maker, I’m talking ’bout you. I’ve been taking a poll. Turns out only ten percent of the people in our class think you were actually born on this planet.”

  Brad Kent snorted in approval. “Good one,” he said, slapping Jordan on the back.

  I could feel myself start to blush. “If you guys are typical Earthlings, I’d rather be an alien anyway,” I said.

  Jordan scowled, but before he could do anything, Ms. Weintraub ordered us all to our seats.

  I carefully hung the backpack with Beebo in it on the back of my chair. “You okay in there?” I whispered, bending close to the top as I adjusted one of the straps.

  “Oksey-dokery!” said Beebo happily. “By the way, your classmate is disgusting. His humor is extremely low-grade.”

  I sat down.

  The first part of the morning was pretty quiet. It wasn’t until a little after ten o’clock that Jordan made his first wisecrack at my expense.

  No sooner had the words left his mouth than his pencil rolled off his desk.

  When he bent to get it, it rolled away from his fingers.

  With a growl, he snatched it up.

  I should have figured it out then, of course. But I was daydreaming about Linnsy… Linnsy vec Bur… and wondering where they were. So it wasn’t until the third time Jordan’s pencil hit the floor and I heard Ms. Weintraub snap, “Jordan, will you stop fooling around?” that I realized Beebo must have been causing it to happen.

  I let out a little snort of laughter.

  “Something funny, Tim?” asked Ms. Weintraub sharply.

  “Sorry,” I said quickly. “Just a little gas.”

  Several of the guys laughed, and Chris Mellblom gave me the thumbs-up sign. Most of the girls, on the other hand, rolled their eyes as if they thought I was too crude to live.

  As funny as Beebo’s prank was—and I was certainly glad to see Jordan getting frustrated and embarrassed—the situation did nothing to improve my own life, since Jordan was pretty sure Pleskit and I had something to do with it.

  The thing was, whenever Jordan was steamed at either of us, I was the one he took it out on, since I don’t have a personal bodyguard like Pleskit does—not to mention a sphen-gnut-ksher that can zap anyone who tries to hassle me too much. So I knew there was trouble coming.

  About halfway through the morning I felt something jab me in the shoulder. After a minute I realized it was Beebo’s finger poking me through the material of the backpack. At first I thought he was just trying to be annoying. But after he had poked me several times, I got up and opened the pack, as if I were getting out a book or something.

  Beebo was sitting in the bottom of the pack. He had his legs crossed, and he looked very unhappy.

  “I gotta pee!” he whispered.

  Yikes! Why hadn’t we thought of that earlier? Of course, with alien biology, who could tell if they even needed to pee? For all I knew, Beebo had a metabolism that would let him get through a whole day without having to go to the bathroom. Heck, for all I knew, he didn’t pee at all.

  Except that now I knew he did.

  But now what? Even if I got permission to go to the boys’ room, I couldn’t just pick up my backpack and head out the door. Ms. Weintraub would be sure I was up to something.

  I bent closer to the opening of the pack and put my hand in, as if I were trying to find something. “You’ll just have to wait!” I hissed.

  Beebo’s big eyes got even bigger. He didn’t say a thing, just nodded and squeezed his legs together. He looked so pathetic, it nearly killed me.

  I sat down, trying to figure out how to get Beebo out of the room.

  A minute later Ms. Weintraub came down the aisle, checking on people’s work.

  Beebo whimpered as she walked past.

  Ms. Weintraub gave me a funny look. “Was that you, Tim?”

  “Sorry,” I said. “My sneaker squeaked on the floor.”

  I noticed that Rafaella was staring at me suspiciously.

  “Oh, geez,” I said quickly. “I just remembered! My mother asked me to give something to McNally. I’d better take it to him before I forget. You know how I am.”

  Ms. Weintraub nodded. “Indeed I do,” she said. But she had a funny look on her face, and suddenly I wondered if I had made a mistake by saying my mother had sent something to McNally. But I didn’t have time to worry about it. I bolted out of my chair, grabbed the backpack, and scurried to the back of the room. “There’s something in here for you,” I said to McNally, speaking quietly.

  McNally knew what was in my backpack, of course, though he couldn’t say anything. But I could tell from the way he rolled his eyes that I was going to pay for this sooner or later.

  I went back to my seat. I saw McNally peek into the backpack. A few minutes later he went to speak to Ms. Weintraub. Then he slipped out of the room, taking the backpack with him. He came back a few minutes later, still carrying the pack, and when I looked at him, he nodded. So, that was one problem solved.

  Now all I had to worry about was Jordan.

  It didn’t take long for him to make his move. When the class went outside for a break later that morning, I retrieved the pack from McNally. Pleskit and I had gone to the spot where we like to hang out, when Jordan came storming up and said, “All right, what’s going on, Tompkins? I know you and Pleskit Purplepants were making that stuff fall off my desk.”

  “We had nothing to do with it,” said Pleskit sincerely.

  “Come on, think about it, Jordan,” I said. “Has Pleskit ever d
emonstrated telekinetic powers?”

  That slowed him down just a little.

  “So there’s no reason to think he’s doing it now,” I said. “No reason to think anything other than that you’re having a sudden burst of clumsiness.”

  “You’re pressing your luck, monster maker,” said Jordan. He glanced at McNally, who was standing nearby. I didn’t have to look myself to know that he would be pretending to ignore us while he was, in reality, watching like a hawk. Jordan’s lip curled into a truly masterful sneer. “You won’t always have that big lunk behind you, you know,” he said, just softly enough so that McNally couldn’t hear.

  He turned to walk away.

  As he did, Beebo struck again.

  CHAPTER 13 [TIM]

  THE WITNESS

  Jordan happened to be wearing baggy pants that day. So when all the buttons popped off the front, it wasn’t surprising that his pants dropped down to his knees.

  He stumbled and fell.

  The sight of Jordan lying flat on his face with his pants halfway down his legs and his plaid boxer shorts in full view filled me with a weird combination of amusement and terror. There was no way he could blame the event on me and Pleskit. Even so, it was a dead cinch he would be convinced it had been our fault.

  Which, in a way, it was.

  It didn’t help that most of the rest of the sixth grade experienced only the amusement. The gales of laughter that greeted Jordan’s depantsing were only going to feed his fury.

  Jordan does not like to be laughed at.

  “Beebo!” I hissed over my shoulder. “Don’t do anything like that again!”

  “Just trying to help,” replied his tiny voice, sounding hurt.

  “You’ll help me get killed!” I said.

  I spent the afternoon in a state of terror, wondering how my enemy would try to get his revenge. The worst part of it was that even though Pleskit offered to give me a ride home, I still had to stay after school to work with Ms. Weintraub.

  “I would come back and get you if I could,” said Pleskit miserably. “But the Galactic Inspection Team is arriving today, and the Fatherly One insists that I be present.”

  “I understand,” I said gloomily. “Just make sure you can come to my funeral.”

  * * *

  The after-school session seemed to last forever, mostly because I had a hard time focusing on how to multiply decimals while simultaneously worrying about how soon I was going to die.

  When Ms. Weintraub finally gave up and let me go, I hurried into the hall, looked around to make sure no one was nearby, then opened the backpack.

  “You okay in there?” I asked.

  “I gotta pee again,” said Beebo miserably. “I think my eyeballs are starting to float.”

  I sighed and took him into the boys’ room. He went into one of the stalls. A few minutes later I heard a flush. The door opened, and he strolled back out—an odd sight, since he was barely as tall as the toilet.

  “Feezle dee-goopus!” he said. “I feel better.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m afraid I’m not going to feel so good pretty soon.”

  “Why not?” asked Beebo, looking so genuinely concerned that I almost forgot he was the one who’d gotten me into this trouble.

  “Because Jordan’s gonna kill me for what you did to him on the playground today.”

  Beebo looked shocked. “They warned me that this was a savage and terrible world, but I did not think it was that dangerous!”

  “I don’t mean he’s really going to kill me—though I might wish he had by the time he’s done with me. I don’t know what he’s gonna do, actually. Most of the time he just hassles me by teasing me. But he was so mad this time, I think he’s probably gonna punch my lights out.”

  “What lights?” asked Beebo.

  “It’s just an expression. It means he’s going to beat me up.”

  “Well, it may not be murder, but I still find that shockingly violent,” said Beebo.

  “You must not have studied our world that much,” I muttered.

  “I’m here to study humor, not tragedy.”

  I sighed. “Just get into the backpack,” I said.

  * * *

  I left the school through the back door. I was looking from side to side, checking for any sign of Jordan.

  My caution didn’t do me any good. As I walked past the dumpster, he stepped out from behind it and said, “All right, Tompkins. What’s the deal?”

  “Yeah,” said Brad, who was, not surprisingly, right there beside him. “What’s the deal?”

  “No deal,” I said. I held out my hands. “See? I don’t even have a deck of cards.”

  “Ha very ha,” said Jordan, stepping toward me.

  Brad had gone a little to my left and was approaching from that side. I felt like an elk that’s been cut out of the herd by a pack of wolves.

  Jordan’s fists were clenching. “Talk, Tompkins,” he said, stepping even closer.

  “Yeah,” said Brad. “Talk!”

  I wondered if I should slip out of the backpack. Odds were good that the three of us were going to be rolling on the ground soon, with me mostly on the bottom, and I didn’t want to squash Beebo. On the other hand, if I did take off the pack, the very action might draw attention to it, make Jordan wonder what was inside.…

  I was dying to say, “Beebo, if you’ve got any tricks in mind, now’s the time to use them!” Except that would have made it clear what was going on. Besides, depantsing Jordan again at this point would do nothing but prove I had had something to do with it the first time. And I knew Beebo’s powers weren’t strong enough to lift Jordan and Brad and drop them into the dumpster.

  I swallowed hard.

  Jordan and Brad moved closer, making a slow circle around me. Then Jordan stopped right in front of me. He reached up to grab me. I hadn’t been this scared since we’d been attacked by those terrible pod creatures on Billa Kindikan.

  “Time for us to have a little talk, Tim,” said Jordan.

  He grabbed the front of my shirt. His right hand balled into a fist.

  Then, to my astonishment, Rafaella stepped out from the far side of the dumpster. She was holding a camera.

  “Well, well, well,” she said, her voice deadly serious. “What a perfect photo op.” She lifted the camera and looked through the eyepiece. “Everybody smile!”

  “Get out of here, Rafaella,” said Jordan. “This is none of your business.”

  She pressed the shutter button, and the camera clicked. “You’ll look better if you smile, Jordan,” she said grimly. “Of course, this probably isn’t a good time to do anything you might not want people to know about. Pictures do have a way of getting around.”

  Then she smiled at him.

  A long moment passed while the four of us—Jordan, Brad, me, and Rafaella—stood as if frozen.

  Finally Jordan looked at Brad and made a Get out of here gesture with his head. Brad started to back away.

  “This isn’t over, Tompkins,” said Jordan. “You either, Rafaella.” Then he turned and stalked away.

  Maybe it wasn’t over, but the crisis had passed for the moment. I felt my knees wobble, and it was all I could do to keep from falling down.

  I turned to Rafaella. “Thanks,” I said.

  She shrugged.

  “How did you happen to be here?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I didn’t just happen to be here, Tim. After what went on outside today, I knew Jordan would be planning to hassle you after school.”

  I looked at her carefully. “So why did you decide to do something about it?”

  She turned off her camera and put it into her own backpack. “My father has a saying he likes to quote. He says that all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to remain silent.” She gestured in the direction where Jordan and Brad had disappeared. “I guess I just couldn’t stay silent any longer.”

  “You’re the first person besides Linnsy who’s ever helped me with J
ordan,” I said.

  She shrugged. “Today was worse than usual. Besides, it’s the first time I figured out something to do.”

  I smiled. “I owe you a favor.”

  “Good. You can repay it right now.”

  “How?” I asked, suddenly feeling nervous.

  “Tell me what’s in your backpack.”

  I was trying to decide whether I could lie to someone who had just saved my life, when Beebo coughed.

  It was just a tiny cough.

  But it was unquestionably a cough.

  Equally unquestionably, it was coming from my backpack.

  Rafaella looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

  I sighed. “Promise you won’t tell?”

  She nodded solemnly, then put a finger on her lips. “Consider me sworn to silence.”

  I shrugged out of the shoulder straps and pulled the backpack around in front of me. “Come here,” I said.

  She walked over to join me.

  I undid the buckle and lifted the top of my backpack.

  Rafaella peered in, then cried out in horror.

  CHAPTER 14 [PLESKIT]

  THE INSPECTION TEAM

  I could not stop fretting about Tim as McNally and I traveled back to the embassy after school that day. However, once we reached the embassy, I had to turn my attention to my own problem—the Inspection Team from the Interplanetary Trading Federation.

  “They’re he-e-e-e-e-re!” sang Shhh-foop as McNally and I entered the embassy kitchen. At first I thought she was referring to the two of us. But she was sliding frantically about the floor, her tentacles twirling around her head, and after a moment I realized she meant that the Inspection Team had arrived. I could tell she was in the midst of preparing some grand meal for them.

  “Don’t worry about us, Shhh-foop,” I said. “I can get a snack for myself.”