It was amazing how two such simple sentences could teach me whole new levels of fear.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - Teacher Conference
The other kids had left. I was alone with the alien.
At least Stacy had lingered at the door for a few minutes—until Mr. Smith turned to her and said, "It's time for you to go, Miss Benoit. I want to speak to Miss Simmons in private."
Stacy looked at me with an expression that said, "I tried." Then she hurried away.
Broxholm/Smith walked over and straddled the chair in front of my desk. He leaned toward me. "I know what you did today," he said.
"Oh" was all I could manage. I felt as if someone had dropped an ice cube into my heart. The worst thing was, I couldn't even be sure what he meant. Did he know I had skipped my piccolo lesson? Or did he know I had been inside his house?
I looked at the door and wondered if I would ever go through it as a living person again.
"Well?" said Broxholm.
"I'm sorry," I whispered. It was about all my voice was good for at that point. It was also just as vague as his first statement. I wasn't about to say what I was sorry for.
Broxholm looked at me. "I don't understand why you dislike me so much, Susan," he said. "I'm just trying to do what is right for this class. Yet you've been hostile to me from the moment I walked through the door."
What an actor! I wondered if I would ever be that good. It was amazing how he was still pretending to be just a teacher who was having trouble with one of his students.
Suddenly he rose and crossed the room to close the door. "Now," he said, sitting down in front of me again, "let's be honest with each other, shall we, Miss Simmons?"
Should I say something? Should I tell him I knew his secret?
"Why are you here, anyway?" I said at last, still playing his game of not saying anything that couldn't be taken at least two ways.
"I'm here to learn," he said smoothly. "After all, isn't that what school is for?"
Creep! I thought. But out loud I said, "I thought you were supposed to be the teacher." I tried to keep my voice from cracking. But it did, anyway.
Broxholm shifted in his chair. "A good teacher is always learning," he said. "Education is a process of give and take. I have to take certain things in order to learn. Look at all I've taken from this class already. I've taken a lot of nonsense. I've taken a lot of snottiness."
Suddenly he turned and looked directly at me. "And I'll have to take a few more things in order to learn all I can—if you take my meaning, Miss Simmons."
I shrank back in terror.
I don't know how he did it, but I could actually see his alien eyes beneath his mask, as if they were burning with a light of their own.
"And I won't take kindly to any interference with my educational mission," he said in a voice without any emotion.
He had picked up a copy of Rockets and Flags as he talked. Now he began to squeeze it. I watched his fingers sink right into the cover, compressing the paper with the power of his grip.
I heard a horrible thumping sound. I glanced around to see where it was coming from, then realized it was the beating of my own heart.
"The universe is a very big place, Susan," said Broxholm gently.
He dropped the book. His fingers had left dents half an inch deep in the cover. If only I could get the book out of there, I would finally have proof of what he was. But, of course, he had no intention of letting me have the book. He picked it up and carried it to his briefcase.
"A very big place indeed," he said. "And there are more things going on in it than you can possibly imagine. It's important to learn all we can. Otherwise, terrible things can happen. Terrible things. That's my job—to prevent terrible things. Can you understand that, Miss Simmons?"
I shook my head. Maybe I should say I shook my head harder, since I was already shaking all over.
He sighed. "Well, perhaps someday you will," he said. "For now, I simply want you to know that it is wisest—and safest—not to interfere with your elders."
He closed his briefcase. "I will see you tomorrow, Miss Simmons," he said. "I trust that you will spend the entire day here in the classroom— and not enter my home again!"
I almost fell off my chair. He knew. He had known all along! Before I could say anything, he went out the door, leaving me alone.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - Concert Concerns
It took me almost twenty minutes to get home. I cycled along the sidewalk slowly, watching every corner. I kept expecting aliens to leap out of the bushes and grab me.
When something did jump out of the bushes, I screamed so high and so loud, I was surprised I didn't break the glass in the street lamp overhead.
But it was only Peter.
"Are you trying to give me a heart attack?" I asked, straddling my bike and glaring at him.
"It would serve you right for bringing Duncan along today," he said.
I wasn't up for a fight, and I said so. Peter was mad enough that he might have kept it going, anyway, but when I started to tell him what had happened after school he got so interested he forgot about being angry. He insisted that I try to remember every word Broxholm had said.
"Where's Duncan?" I asked when I finished my story.
"Hiding in my closet/' said Peter with a wicked grin. "We called his folks, and he's going to spend the next couple of days at my house."
"Didn't they ask any questions?"
Peter laughed. "If you were Duncan's mother, wouldn't you be glad to have him out of the house for a while?"
I didn't think that was very nice, but I let it pass. "Will you be able to stand him till this is over?" I asked.
"My problem is trying not to take advantage of him," said Peter sadly. "It's not easy. I'd really love to get back at him for some of the things he's done to me. But he's so terrified I don't dare have any fun with him. I really think if I popped a bag near his ear he would have a heart attack and die."
I laughed in spite of myself.
"What about your father?" I asked.
Peter grimaced. "He won't even notice Duncan is there," he said. "By the way, I took the pictures to the drugstore. We can pick them up after school tomorrow."
"If we live that long," I said.
"Relax," said Peter. "Broxholm and his friends are here to collect people. I'd be really surprised if they actually kill anyone."
That made me feel a little better. But it was only the thought that this whole mess might be over when we got the pictures that kept me from losing my mind that night. Even so, I was so frazzled I couldn't think about anything else.
By morning I was such a wreck that my special session with Mr. Bamwick was a total disaster.
"No, no, no!" he kept yelling. "It's B flat, Susan. B flat!"
"Well, I can't get it right if you keep screaming at me," I said, trying not to cry.
I couldn't blame poor Mr. Bamwick. The concert was only a day away, and I was getting worse by the minute. But I just couldn't concentrate on the music. How could I, when I knew what else was supposed to happen? Could you play the piccolo, if you knew some of your friends—or maybe even you—were about to be kidnapped by aliens?
"Aren't you worried?" I asked Peter that afternoon on the playground.
"Not really," he said. His pale face split into a wide grin. "I told you, I've got an alternate plan."
"Listen, Peter," I said, taking his arm. "This isn't one of your science fiction books. And you're not Buck Rogers. Don't get carried away."
He shook my hand away angrily. "This is the greatest thing that's ever happened in this town," he said. "And don't you forget it, Susan!"
At that point Stacy and Mike went running by, yelling bad words at each other.
We started to laugh. "I heard Stacy say that her mother is going nuts," said Peter. "I bet Mike's mother is, too."
I nodded. I almost felt sorry for them. It can't be easy to have a kid who hasn't been in trouble since kindergarten suddenly turn into a
maniac.
"Of course, Stacy and Mike don't have much choice," I said.
"Sure they do," said Peter.
"What do you mean by that?" I asked.
But he wouldn't answer me. "Just watch," he said. "You'll figure it out soon enough."
CHAPTER NINETEEN - Peter's Choice
That afternoon I finally began to understand Peter's "alternate plan."
Actually, it took me a little while to figure it out. I knew there was something strange going on when Peter—the kid who always knew the answer but never bothered to give it—started raising his hand for every question that came along.
And suddenly it all came clear to me. Peter wanted, to be picked by Broxholm. He had decided that this was his big chance to live the kind of science fiction adventure he had been dreaming about. He figured if he really tried, he might just be able to make it from "bright, but unmotivated" to being, without question, the best student in the class.
You could almost see the gleam in Broxholm's alien eyes when Peter unleashed his mighty brain.
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We were having a history lesson at the time, and Peter started to answer every question perfectly.
Broxholm started asking harder questions, but Peter never blinked; he just kept reeling off the answers. Even I had no idea how smart that kid was. (And as for Broxholm, I swear, that alien must have memorized an encyclopedia; or maybe he had one transplanted into his head. Who knows what these people could do?)
When school was over I dragged Peter off to the side of the playground. "Are you crazy?" I hissed. "What are you doing?"
"Plan B," said Peter. "If we can't unmask Broxholm, I want to be one of the ones to go on the ship."
"Forget Plan B!" I yelled. "You don't know what they're going to do to you up there. They're bad!"
"You don't know that," said Peter.
"They kidnapped Ms. Schwartz!"
He shrugged. "That still doesn't mean they're bad. They may be so far above us they think of us like we think of ants or something."
I didn't say a word. But he could tell by my expression that I thought that was stupid.
"Maybe they're scared of us," he continued.
That made me laugh.
"I'm serious," said Peter. "Think of that conversation you had with him yesterday."
"I can't," I said. "It still scares me."
"No, think about it," said Peter again. "Maybe these people are really peaceful. Maybe they've seen how much we fight, and they're afraid if we get much farther into space, we'll cause some huge war."
"You don't know that," I said stubbornly. "Anyway, maybe we won't have to worry about it. Let's go to the drugstore to get our pictures."
It took all our money for the pictures. I thought about explaining to the girl behind the counter that we were trying to stop an alien invasion, but I figured she probably wouldn't buy it.
We forced ourselves not to open the envelope until we were in th,e park.
"You open it," I said, handing the envelope to Peter.
He hesitated for a moment, then tore the envelope open and pulled out the pictures.
His face fell.
"What is it?" I asked.
Without saying a word, he handed me the photos.
My heart sank as I flipped through them. Peter had done a good job. The beams and timbers of the attic showed up perfectly. The focus and exposure were fine. But the force field with Ms. Schwartz in it had come out as nothing but a blue streak—
that was all, just a blue streak down the middle of each picture. It looked like a flaw in the film, or maybe some trick of the light. You couldn't see Ms. Schwartz at all.
"These aren't going to do us any good," I moaned.
Peter nodded. "I'm sorry," he said.
"It's not your fault," I replied. But I knew he didn't believe me.
By Thursday the whole school seemed to be on the brink of nervous breakdowns. Stacy got caught drawing dirty pictures on the blackboard. Mike tried out a new word he had learned from his uncle, who was a sailor. And Peter waved his hand like crazy every time Broxholm/Smith asked a question.
The ones who were really having a hard time were the kids in the middle. See, by this time, everyone was starting to believe the rumor about our teacher being an alien. I think the fact that Peter and I knew it was true, combined with the fact that we weren't trying to convince them was what really did convince them. They figured if it was a joke, we'd be trying to fool them. Since we weren't, it had to be for real. Or something like that.
Anyway, the kids in the middle were going nuts because they knew Broxholm wanted the three
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most average kids in the class. But what was an average kid? No one knew. So none of them knew how to behave to keep from being kidnapped. Most of them just acted the same as usual, except that they were really nervous. Every time one of them answered a question, you had the feeling they were trying to decide whether they should answer it right or wrong. It was like they were asking themselves: "Will a right answer get me a one-way trip in an alien spaceship?/'
"I'll be glad when this is over," I said to Peter that afternoon during recess.
"Me too," he said. But I didn't like the kind of dreamy way he said it.
"Aren't you scared?/' I demanded.
"I'm terrified," he said. "But that doesn't change my mind."
School just got wackier as the day went on. By the time the last bell rang I got the feeling every kid had heard there was supposed to be an alien invasion at the concert that night.
If I wasn't so worried, it would have been funny. "Did you hear about the invasion?" kids would say. "Did you know that the aliens are coming tonight?"
I wanted to say, "No, the aliens aren't invading. They're just coming to kidnap some of us." Although, for all I knew, the reason they wanted to
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study us was so that they could invade sometime in the future.
I felt sorriest for Mr. Bamwick. He had hoped to have the best spring concert ever. Now it was beginning to look as if it would be the biggest disaster of his career.
"I'm cutting 'The Stars and Stripes' from the program/' he told me that afternoon. He was trying to be nice about it, but I could tell that he was really disappointed.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I just couldn't get that trill."
"No, it's not just you," said Mr. Bamwick sadly. "The whole band has fallen apart. I don't know what I've done wrong."
How could I tell him that he hadn't done anything wrong—that his concert was just another casualty of the alien invasion.
CHAPTER TWENTY - Piccolo Power
The alien-invasion rumors had reached the adults, too—as I found out that night at dinner.
"My goodness, Susan," said my mother as she was dishing up my broccoli. "I hope you don't believe any of this nonsense."
Believe it! 1 thought. I started it!
But I didn't say that. Instead, I put down my soup spoon and looked at her. "What if I did believe it?" I asked. I tried hard to sound like I was interested, not like I was challenging her.
"Well, I suppose we'd have to get you counseling," she said.
I could have cried. Obviously, there was no point in asking my parents to help out with this mess.
I went upstairs to get ready. Which ones will it be! I wondered as I slipped into my dress, fust who is the alien going to steal!
I looked in the mirror and crossed my fingers, praying that it wouldn't be me.
My parents drove me to the school. They dropped me off and went to find a parking place.
I wonder how he's going to do it, I thought as I walked through the door. Will he just freeze everyone here on the spot{ Will his ship use some sort of tractor beam to lift up his targets! Or will he wait until later, when everyone is asleep, and then sneak into their homes and snatch them?
The school was fairly zinging with nervous energy. The rumors about the alien invasion had spread to all the grades. The third graders were wa
lking around in pairs, checking over their shoulders every other step. If I hadn't been so scared myself, I would have laughed. I wanted to grab them and say, "Stop worrying. The alien's not after you."
"Hey, Susan," called Peter. "Wait up!"
Peter was in the chorus. The chorus was bigger than the band; almost every kid in the sixth grade was a member. They would be singing last of all.
Peter looked very nice. He had on a white shirt and a red tie. His pale blond hair was slicked down.
"Is your father here?" I asked.
He just stared at me. "Are you kidding?" he asked.
We walked on until we came to a private place. "What are we going to do!" I asked.
Peter shrugged. "What can we do? Keep our eyes open. Be ready to call for help when there's something we can prove. Other than that, I can't think of anything. Is Broxholm here?"
I nodded. All the teachers had to come to the concert to keep us under control while we were waiting to perform. I figured Broxholm wasn't ready to blow his cover yet.
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