My Teacher Fried My Brains

by Bruce Coville

  I stared at them in horror.

  Normally, I might just have been kind of upset. But I had spent a lot of time the night before thinking about who the alien might be. I had even asked Patrick which teachers were new to the school since last winter. I asked that because I figured that, like Broxholm, this alien would be someone who hadn’t been around for a long time.

  Patrick’s response had been typical. “What do you care?” he snarled.

  “Eat dog meat, fuzzhead,” I replied.

  I said that because if I told Patrick why I really wanted to know, or even let him think that it really mattered, he wouldn’t tell me. This way he just punched me, and then told me what he knew.

  As far as he could remember, our school had four new people. The first was none other than Manuel “the Mancatcher” Ketchum, who had started working there last January. The other three were teachers—Mr. Black, the math teacher; Betty Lou Karpou, who I had for home economics; and Andromeda Jones, the science teacher.

  The same Andromeda Jones in whose class I was sitting at that very moment.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A Hand Out

  I began to pluck at the strands of fleshlike stuff around my wrist, hoping I could get rid of them before the bell rang. I didn’t have a chance to find out if I would have made it. Ten minutes before the period was over the phone on the wall started to buzz.

  Ms. Jones picked it up. She listened for a moment, then turned to me and said, “It’s for you, Duncan. You’re wanted in Mr. Ketchum’s office.”

  I swallowed. It wasn’t that I had never been sent to the principal’s office before. The secretary in our old school used to say that she saw more of me than she did of her own kids. She claimed that if I ever left for the junior high, she was going to have a special “Duncan Dougal Memorial Name Tag” put on the chair where I used to sit while I was waiting to see the principal.

  Unfortunately, Mr. Ketchum was a lot tougher than our old principal. And he had already taken a dislike to me.

  My plans for doing better this year were going down the toilet fast.

  “Duncan,” said Ms. Jones sharply, “they’re waiting for you!”

  I sighed and stood up.

  “Ee-yew,” said the girl sitting next to me, when she saw the stuff around my wrist. “What’s that?”

  “Skin disease,” I snapped. “But it’s not catching, unless you get too close to it.” Then I lurched toward her so I could watch her jump. I figured it was the last fun I would have that day. Maybe that week. Maybe forever, considering that Mr. Ketchum was one of the people on my alien suspect list.

  As I walked out of the science room I wondered if I was being called to the office for the fake fire drill, because of the alien glove, or for some other reason altogether. More important, I wondered if I would ever leave Mr. Ketchum’s office alive. It would be easy enough for him to do some alien nastiness to me and then claim that I had never showed up after he called for me.

  Suddenly not showing up seemed like a good idea. I turned and headed for the back door of the school. I had only gone about four feet when I heard a deep voice say, “Thinking of leaving us, Mr. Dougal?”

  I swallowed. Hard. Had the Mancatcher read my mind? Or did he just know the kind of thing I was apt to do? Either way, things were getting worse by the moment.

  “Me? Leave?” I asked, trying to sound innocent. I turned to face him, then started a story about going to the bathroom before I came to the office. I could see by the look on his face that he knew it was baloney, that he knew I knew it was baloney, and that he knew I knew he knew.

  So I shut up and followed him down the hall.

  “Take your hand out of your pocket,” he said once we were inside his office.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Skin disease,” I said. “It’s really awful. You don’t want to see it.”

  The Mancatcher gave me a look of disgust. “I have a strong stomach. Take your hand out of your pocket.”

  “No!”

  The Mancatcher looked frustrated. “All right, we’ll come back to that. Right now I want to move on to other things. This morning I received a phone call from a woman named Honey Flint. Do you know her?”

  I was so excited about the fact that Honey had called the school, I didn’t stop to think. “Sure!” I blurted out. “I met her last night.”

  The Mancatcher nodded. “And when you met her, did you tell her about what happened here last spring?”

  I nodded. I started feeling nervous again. Something was wrong, but I wasn’t sure what.

  Mr. Ketchum steepled his fingers in front of his face. His dark eyes glared at me. “That was a very foolish thing to do, Mr. Dougal.”

  Yikes. Was he mad because the school was trying to keep it a secret—or because he was the alien?

  “I’ve got a right to tell the truth,” I said.

  The Mancatcher laughed, as if the idea of me telling the truth was too silly to even discuss. “No one is questioning your right to tell the truth, Mr. Dougal. What I want to know is if you consider spinning some cockamamie story about alien hand masks and an ongoing invasion part of telling the truth!”

  I got mad. “You call this cockamamie?” I shouted, pulling my hand out of my pocket and waving it in front of him.

  “No,” said Mr. Ketchum, “I call it purple ink, the mark of a person who has pulled a false alarm. Two false alarms in this case, since the nonsense you spun out for that newspaper woman counts as a false alarm as well.”

  I stared at my hand in horror. The glove was gone; every last shred of it had disappeared. The only thing left on my hand that didn’t belong there was the purple stain.

  “Did you do that?” I asked, staring at the Mancatcher.

  He looked at me in puzzlement. “Do what?”

  “Make the glove disappear. You know it was there. You know it.” I was shouting now, partly because I was frightened and partly because that’s what I do when I get in trouble.

  The Mancatcher stood up from behind his desk. “Settle down!” he said sharply.

  “You leave me alone!” I shouted in terror.

  “Duncan, sit down!” he bellowed.

  I sat.

  Then the talking started. First the Mancatcher lectured me about the danger of false alarms. Then a policeman came in and lectured me. Then a fireman came and did the same. By the time they were done we all knew that I was an antisocial jerk with no sense of responsibility and that I was probably going to wind up in prison.

  By then I knew even better than they did how dangerous false alarms can be. Because of that stupid fire drill, no one was willing to believe me about the alien. Every time I tried to bring it up, Mr. Ketchum accused me of trying to take advantage of a “tragic situation” (meaning Peter’s kidnapping) and told me to shut up.

  Was he doing that because he didn’t believe me—or because he was the alien?

  After the police department and the fire department were done with me, Mr. Ketchum brought in my mother. Mom was crying, which I hate, and she asked me why I did it, which I couldn’t really explain since I wasn’t sure myself. Then she went on about how she didn’t know what my father was going to do. I knew that was true. Based on past experience he would either beat me, or laugh and say, “Boys will be boys.”

  When they finally let me go I wasn’t sure whether I should go home or run away. It would have been nice if I had had someone to talk to. But when you’ve been the class bully for several years, there aren’t too many people who want to hear your problems.

  I was walking down Pine Street, trying to figure out what to do, when I spotted Susan talking to Stacy Benoit and Mike Foran. It was like a little convention of good kids. I should have known I didn’t belong there, but I tried to join the conversation anyway. (Stupid, right?)

  “Hey, it’s the Mad False Alarmer,” said Mike when I walked up.

  So I punched him in the nose.

  Susan and Stacy were still
yelling at me when I started to run. I didn’t stop until I got home. I ran up the stairs and into my bedroom. But I couldn’t cry because Patrick was there.

  So I just lay in my bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering why I had been born.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Andromeda Jones

  Even though I went to school every day, I didn’t see the inside of a classroom again until the middle of the next week. That was because I had to sit in the Mancatcher’s office for the next five days. The teachers sent down work for me, but I didn’t understand it, so I don’t know what the point was.

  On Wednesday Mr. Ketchum decided he had had enough of me, and said I could start going to class again. Like it was a big gift or something.

  He personally delivered me. I was hoping we would go during first period, so I could go to home economics. I didn’t hate the class as much as I had expected to, and I really liked Miss Karpou, since she was a little goofy and made funny mistakes. I think she liked me, too, which was a nice change from most teachers, I want to tell you.

  As things worked out, I had to wait until second period, because first period the Mancatcher was busy bawling out Orville Plumber. I thought this was pretty funny. Only I didn’t laugh about it because if Orville had heard me, he would have plugged me good later.

  “Ready for your grand return to society, Mr. Dougal?” asked the Mancatcher when he was done with Orville.

  I nodded. The Mancatcher nodded back and gestured toward the door. I went out first.

  When we got to science class, the teacher, Andromeda Jones, was getting ready to do a demonstration of static electricity.

  “Now, class, I need a volunteer,” she was saying as we walked in.

  I had no intention of volunteering. After all, Ms. Jones was one of the new people to come on staff since last year, which meant that she was a prime candidate for being the alien. So who knew what that machine was really for?

  Besides, I thought the way she dressed was silly. She wore a lot of that safari stuff—you know what I mean, khaki clothes with more pockets than an eighth grader has zits. I had heard a rumor that she claimed she dressed that way because teaching junior high was more dangerous than making a trek through the jungle, but I don’t know if that was true or not.

  Anyway, after about twenty seconds went by without anyone volunteering, the Mancatcher pushed me forward. “Duncan will be glad to participate in your demonstration, Ms. Jones,” he said cheerfully.

  “Not me! Uh-uh. No way.”

  The Mancatcher leaned down next to me and whispered, “Duncan, you haven’t begun to learn how unpleasant I can be. Unless you want to spend the next five days in my office learning a new definition of misery, get up there and participate in this experiment.”

  I sighed and walked to the front of the room. People started to giggle and snicker, which only made things worse. I started to blush. It’s just as well the Mancatcher was there. Otherwise I probably would have bopped someone.

  “Listen up, everyone,” said Ms. Jones. “The purpose of this demonstration is to give you an idea of how free-flowing electricity can affect things.” She motioned to a black kid sitting in the second row and said, “Marcus, I want you to crank the generator.”

  Marcus smiled. “Sure thing, Ms. Jones.”

  I wasn’t surprised that Marcus was smiling. One night last spring my father had gotten drunk and done some things that were pretty mean. I was still in a bad mood when I came to school the next day, and when Marcus had said something to me that I didn’t like, I knocked him down and jumped on his lunch pail. So of course he was happy to crank the generator for Ms. Jones.

  Once Marcus was in place, Ms. Jones put a huge helmet over my head. It was made of clear material, with a couple of jagged lightning bolts painted on the front. Lumpy knobs extended from the sides and the top.

  Once the helmet was in place, Mr. Jones told Marcus to start cranking.

  My scalp began to tingle. My hair started to move, as if a slight breeze were blowing through it.

  Within a few seconds everybody was laughing like crazy. I suppose I did look pretty funny, with my eyes wide and my hair standing straight up.

  Funny or not, I hate it when people laugh at me. I was so mad I wanted to bop someone. Only I couldn’t, because the Mancatcher was right there.

  So I held what I was feeling inside. But I had had it. Forget trying to save the world. For all I cared, the aliens could come and take everyone away.

  Suddenly I stopped thinking about people laughing at me. Something else was going on, something weird. The inside of my head was starting to tingle. I felt like I had ants walking around inside my skull.

  “All right, Marcus,” said Ms. Jones. “That’s enough.”

  Marcus gave the machine an extra crank or two for good measure.

  “Marcus!” snapped Ms. Jones. “I want you to stop now!”

  Looking like someone had just stolen his candy, Marcus stopped cranking. I promised myself I would bop him as soon as I got a chance.

  The class was still laughing. My cheeks were burning as I headed for my seat.

  I sat down and tried to listen, but my head was still tingling from the demonstration. I don’t think they should be allowed to do things like that to kids.

  After school I had an idea. That was kind of neat, since it didn’t happen all that often. I decided I would go talk to Ms. Schwartz over at the elementary school. Since the alien had put her in a force field last spring, she might believe me when I told her about what I had found in the dumpster.

  On the way, I saw a bunch of kids from the seventh grade standing in front of Sigel’s Pharmacy. They were talking and muttering, but when they spotted me they began to hoot and holler.

  Susan Simmons stepped out of the group and walked over to where I was standing. She poked her finger into my chest and said, “I knew you were a creep, Duncan, but even I never thought you would sink this low. I’ve met earthworms that I respect more than I do you.”

  I looked at her in shock. Now what had I done?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Duncan Dougal, Boy Hero”

  “Don’t give me that look,” said Susan.

  “What look?”

  “You know what I mean,” she said. “Your ‘What? Who, me? What did I do?’ look. I’ve seen you use it on teachers a million times. All it means is that you’re guilty.”

  Sheesh. You know you’re in trouble when you can’t even get a look on your face without people deciding you’re guilty of something.

  Before I could protest, Susan shoved a newspaper in front of my face. “Look at this!” she ordered.

  I looked. I groaned. It was the National Sun. Across the top, in huge letters, it said, “TEEN HERO SAYS ALIENS STILL LURK IN SMALL TOWN!” Next to the headline was my picture.

  “Listen to this,” commanded Susan. “’Duncan Dougal, the heroic teenager who foiled last spring’s attempt by aliens to take over a typical American town, says that the entire planet remains in danger of an alien invasion.’”

  “It’s true!” I said.

  “Oh, really?” said Susan. “You stopped the invasion? If I remember correctly, about the only thing you did was stand in front of Broxholm’s viewer and scream.”

  I tried to explain that I meant it was true about the invasion. But before I could say anything Susan was quoting the newspaper again. “ ‘My friends were pretty scared last spring,’ Dougal told Sun reporter Honey Flint. ‘But I kept my cool. That’s how I was able to figure out how to drive off the alien.’ ”

  She looked at me. “You figured out how to drive off the alien?”

  I blushed. Susan was the one who had done that, of course.

  “Duncan Dougal, boy hero,” called Stacy, her voice mocking.

  “Oh, Duncan, save me!” shouted another girl.

  “Shut up!” I yelled. “Just shut up, all of you!” Then I started to run.

  What was I going to do? I knew one of our teachers was still an alie
n, but after Honey’s article, there was no chance that anyone would believe me. I didn’t mean to lie when I talked to Honey. I just tried to tell my side of things. I guess I got carried away.

  “Duncan Dougal, boy hero!” The mocking words still rang in my ears as I raced through the front door of our house.

  Patrick was already there. He was reading a copy of the Sun. “Nice bunch of lies, buttface,” he said when he saw me come in. “Your friends are going to love you for this one.”

  What friends? I thought miserably. I don’t have any friends.

  But I wasn’t about to say that to Patrick. So I told him to shut up, and ran up the stairs into our room. I could hear him laughing downstairs.

  It was even worse when my father came home and saw the paper. He was thrilled. He went out and bought twenty copies of the paper, and started calling all our relatives. It was the first time he ever acted like he was happy that I had been born, and it was all because of a bunch of lies I had told some stupid reporter.

  Patrick was jealous about Dad being excited, so he spent the evening giving me noogies when no one was watching.

  I had terrible dreams that night. People I knew kept turning into aliens. I woke up sweating and terrified.

  I wanted to skip school the next day, but I didn’t have a chance because my father insisted on driving me.

  “I want to have a little talk with your principal,” he said.

  Actually, Dad’s presence saved me for a little while. As we walked down the hall I could tell that kids were laughing. But with my father there, they didn’t say anything out loud. They knew you didn’t mess around with my dad.

  Our visit to the principal’s office was really embarrassing. We didn’t see the Mancatcher, since my father insisted on going straight to Dr. Wilburn, the head principal.

  “Look, what are you going to do about this alien situation?” asked Dad once the secretary had shown us in.