by Bruce Hale
I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment. Aliens at Monterrosa Elementary? My brain was as muddled as a Mongolian spy movie without subtitles.
Mrs. T laughed again. “Look at you two, like a couple of stunned mullets. You’ve seen actual were-hyenas.”
“Yeah…” said Benny, gnawing a fingernail.
“Then why are aliens so hard to swallow?”
“Um, I guess it’s…possible,” I said. My limbs felt shaky. I didn’t know which was worse, huge hungry insects or evil aliens on a mission. If they caught us, would they take us to their leader or fry us on the spot?
Benny’s face looked paler than usual. “So, uh, if they’re aliens, how are they impersonating our lunch ladies?”
The store owner spread her hands. “If they were giant bugs, how would they be doing it?”
He cocked his head. “In other words, who knows?”
“In other words,” Mrs. T agreed.
“Whatever the heck they are,” I said, “we need to do two things.”
“Bag ’em and tag ’em?” asked Benny, trying to muster some bluster.
I shook my head. “First, find out whether they really are impersonating our cooks, and why. Second, locate the real lunch ladies.”
A boy’s voice cut in on our discussion. “A little help over here?” one of the middle schoolers hollered from the counter.
“Duty calls,” said Mrs. Tamasese, pushing the alien book into my hands and pointing to the shelf. “Good luck, boys. Let me know if you want to talk about it some more. I love this stuff.”
We watched her roll smoothly away, then plunked ourselves down and flipped through the section of the book she’d showed us. Benny and I read about aliens abducting humans, aliens dissecting humans, aliens using us like cattle. It began to give me a serious case of the oojie-woojies.
“Anything helpful?” Benny asked. “Anything about how to stop ’em?”
“Nope. Just this: ‘There are good aliens and bad aliens, so if you meet one, try to learn its intentions.’”
“Brilliant,” said Benny. “I’ll be sure to ask them while they’re slicing me open.” He shivered. “Now I’ll never get to sleep tonight.”
I placed Aliens Among Us back on the shelf next to I Married an Alien. “What now?” I asked.
“Now?” said Benny. “Now we come up with a brilliant plan. And pronto.”
“A plan,” I said, rubbing my chin, “involves heavy thinking.”
A weak grin began to break through Benny’s worried expression. “And heavy thinking calls for…”
“Brain food!” we said together.
“Great minds think alike,” I said, leading the way out of the comics store.
Benny nodded. “And fools rarely disagree.”
SOME PEOPLE TRY to tell you that fish is brain food. That’s a bunch of baloney. For sheer inspiration and mental stimulation, I’ve found that few things on Earth can match my abuela’s chicken mole nachos.
When Benny and I blew through the front door at my house, something that sounded like a goose with a sinus infection was honking out Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.” I know the song—and that noise—because my grandma plays sax for a ska band called Marley’s Ghost. It’s kinda cool and kinda weird at the same time. But my dad says it keeps her out of trouble.
“Abuelita, we’re home!” I called.
Instantly, my shaggy dog, Zeppo, galumphed into the room and leaned against me, wagging his tail—his signal that he wanted to be scratched behind the ears. I obliged him.
“¡Hola, mijo!” Abuelita called. “Just let me finish this riff.”
A few honks, a squeak, and a snort later, she appeared in the living room doorway carrying a golden saxophone. Abuelita lives with us during the week while my mom is down in LA with Veronica. On those days, I miss my mom something fierce, but to be honest, my grandma is the better cook. This week they were both here, because Veronica was home on hiatus—that’s Hollywood talk for a short break in filming.
After her usual kiss and hug, Abuelita said, “Your mother’s off running errands with your sister. Are you boys hungry?”
“Always,” said Benny.
“We’re working on an important project,” I said. “Any chance of some nachos with the leftover chicken mole?”
“Mmm, mole,” said Benny, perking up.
She beamed. “It’ll be ready before you know it.”
We always have snacks over at my place and not Benny’s because his mom only offers the kind of healthy snacks that contain no molecules of actual food in them.
Zeppo followed Benny and me into the family room and flopped down on the floor. We did searches for aliens in Monterrosa and giant bugs in Monterrosa on my dad’s computer. (Mr. Chu would’ve been proud of our research skills.)
Unfortunately, we didn’t turn up anything that was useful. Our giant-bug search uncovered insect-collecting articles from the natural history museum, a photo of a titan beetle (as big as your face!), and a review of Hotel Monterrosa that mentioned someone finding a huge cockroach in the bathroom.
The alien search results weren’t any better—just a blurry video of a UFO that might have been a motorcycle headlight, and a letter to the editor complaining about the newspaper using the words “illegal aliens” in a headline. (As someone whose grandma moved here from Mexico before she was an American citizen, I had to agree with the letter writer. Abuelita was no alien. She may be a little unusual, but she didn’t come in a spaceship.)
While we worked, the house began smelling better and better. Finally, Abuelita showed up with a massive plate of nachos, and we took a break. Several bites of cheesy goodness later, I realized two things: (a) my abuela was a truly awesome cook, and (b) why do a web search when we had a longtime Monterrosa resident in the same room?
“Hey, Abuelita?” I said.
She looked up from rubbing Zeppo’s belly. “Hmm?”
“We’re doing this, um, report on aliens and giant bugs in Monterrosa.” I glanced at Benny, uncomfortable about fibbing to her.
He crunched down on another cheese-drenched chip. “Yeah, and we’re not really getting anywhere.”
I scratched my cheek. “I was wondering, have you ever heard of aliens in Monterrosa?”
“Aliens?” Abuelita ruffled the thick fur on Zeppo’s chest. “I think the way they say it these days is ‘undocumented immigrants.’”
“No, the other kind,” said Benny. “Like E.T.?”
My grandma snorted out a laugh. “Seriously? A few years back, a couple of people claimed they saw UFOs. But it was just airplanes.”
“Okay, scratch aliens,” I said. “How about great big bugs?”
“Like las cucarachas?” Her eyes twinkled.
“Bigger than cockroaches,” I said.
“Really big bugs,” Benny added. He spread his arms as wide as he could, a nacho chip in each hand.
Abuelita stood and stretched. She frowned slightly as she stared out the window.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s crazy,” she said.
Benny glanced over at me. “We’re used to crazy,” he said.
“We’ve spent a lot of time there,” I added.
Dipping a chip into her own gooey concoction, my abuela said, “It’s just a rumor—and an old one, from twenty-five years ago.”
“Well?” I prompted.
She nibbled thoughtfully. “Back before that old army base closed, some people used to say they were doing experiments with insects out there.”
“With insects?” said Benny. “What, like trying to cross a pill bug with a tank?”
Abuelita chuckled. “Who knows? We had no proof—just rumors of giant bugs.”
“That’s all?” I asked.
Her eyebrows lifted. “Oh, I almost forgot. My friend Elena once claimed that she saw an ant the size of a coyote running off with someone’s pet cat.”
I sat up straight.
Benny’s eyes got big. “Wow. Really?”
My abuela shrugged. “Of course, Elena also claimed that she was secretly going out with Robbie Dungworth, but that was just tonterías—nonsense. Robbie was secretly going out with me.”
Benny and I just gaped.
She popped the rest of the chip into her mouth. “Enjoy!” And with that, Abuelita strolled off to continue practicing.
“Wow,” Benny repeated.
“You said it.” I rubbed my jaw. “I don’t know which is weirder—rumors of giant ants or my abuela dating someone named Robbie Dungworth.”
“Do you think there really could be huge insects out there?”
“Who knows?” I said.
Since it was getting late and so far Benny and I had uncovered only spooky rumors and unsettling tales, we decided to revisit the whole thing later. In the meantime, we dedicated ourselves to polishing off the nachos.
Hey, even heroes deserve a break every now and then.
By the time we reached the last cheesy clumps, Benny and I had seriously slowed down. We sprawled on the sofa with the platter between us and Zeppo at our feet.
Studying the cheese dangling off a chip in his hand, Benny said, “Back at the comics store, you said something.”
“I do that sometimes. Which something do you mean?”
“Before we figure out whether the lunch ladies are bugs or aliens or garden gnomes, we first have to prove that they’re not really themselves.”
I set my uneaten chip back down on the platter. “That sounds like me.”
Benny gently thwacked his cheese strand and watched it sway. “I think I may have figured out a way to do that.”
Too stuffed to eat another bite, I said, “Ugh, must you play with your food?”
“That’s it exactly,” said Benny.
“Huh?”
And then he told me his plan.
THE KEY TO any successful food fight is finding the right participants. Victims won’t fight back. And bullies? They’ll just whack you over the head with a tray and stuff a hot dog in your ear.
At lunchtime the next day, after loading up with junk food on the boys’ side of the serving line, Benny and I carefully chose a table with more guys than girls. I know, I know. As Tina would probably remind me, girls can food-fight just as well as boys. But in my experience, they’re not nearly as willing to get messy.
Benny and I sat across from each other, to maximize our target coverage. We checked that AJ had gotten his fellow lunch monitors occupied in helping him with some bogus problem. (He wasn’t thrilled, but he went along with us.)
And then we went to work.
“No way could Thor beat Superman in a fair fight,” snapped Benny.
“Come on!” I said. “Superman is just some dude in tights. Thor is a god!”
“Oh yeah?” Benny snarled. “He doesn’t have super speed.”
I faked being offended. “Oh no? Thor can swing his hammer at twice the speed of light, but Superman can only move at ninety-nine percent of it. Suck on that, Spandex Boy!”
“You doodle-brained mouth breather!” Benny cried, half rising from the bench. He grabbed a chunk of lasagna, cocked his arm, and let fly, deliberately missing me. It flew to the next table.
Splat! went the casserole against the back of Aiden’s head.
“You bubbleheaded ding-dong!” I cried, launching the Jell-O from my plate. It soared past Benny and spattered into Egberto’s face.
“Food fight!” Benny bellowed, leaping up onto our table. He turned, scooped, and sent a fistful of cookie nuggets sailing at the kids to his left.
“Food fight!” I answered, hurling bite-size brownies at the kids on the right.
True to the scientific law of action and reaction (See? I do pay attention during science lessons), Aiden, Egberto, and the other kids who’d been hit sounded their war cries and fired back. I took a lasagna clump to the forehead, and Benny was brained by an oatmeal cookie.
With whoops and squeals, the lunchroom erupted into a free-for-all of waving arms and flying food. It was as if someone had turned off the gravity, and everyone’s lunches began floating through the air.
Jell-O jumped, lasagna levitated, and french fries flew. I saw Amrita splattered with succotash and Cheyenne drenched in gravy. I saw several fifth graders bombarded by spinach casserole.
All well and good. All as planned.
But what I didn’t expect was the good girls—girls like Amrita, Cheyenne, and Zizi—joining the fight with total gusto. They hooted and hollered as loud as the boys, flinging food left and right. I took a cheese enchilada in the face from Gabi, who hurled it with glee.
So much for girls being cleaner.
Tugging on Benny’s T-shirt, I shouted over the din, “Can you see them? What are they doing?”
The whole point of our food fight (aside from pure fun) was to see how the cafeteria workers would react. If they responded with horror, shock, and anger, we’d know they were themselves.
But if they reacted differently? That would tell a tale.
From his post atop the table, Benny scanned the mob, searching for the lunch ladies. I could tell when he spotted them by the way his face scrunched up.
“What?” I yelled.
He pointed. “See for yourself.”
When I climbed up to join him, I spotted AJ in the corner, shaking his head in dismay. I looked farther and felt my own face crinkle in confusion. “Huh?”
As we stood watching (and occasionally getting hit by food), we saw Mrs. Perez and Mrs. McCoy going from table to table. They didn’t lift a finger to stop the boys—in fact, they completely ignored us. But with every girl they met, the lunch ladies gently but deliberately took her lunch away.
All the while, gusts of grub sailed past them like an edible hurricane.
“Weird,” said Benny. “They’re punishing the girls by taking away their food.”
“So much for girl power,” I said. But then I noticed Mrs. Perez ducking down and scraping some of the girls’ thrown lunches onto a separate tray she carried.
“What’s she doing?” said Benny.
A thought struck me. “They care about girls’ food, but not boys’ food,” I said. “What’s up with that?”
Benny shrugged. “Beats me.”
“Well, I think we’ve proved one thing for sure.”
“How easy it is to start a food fight?” said Benny, wiping a smear of tomato paste off his cheek.
“That,” I said, “and that these are not our normal lunch ladies.”
Later that same lunch period, we found ourselves sitting on visitors’ chairs covered with newspaper outside the principal’s office. (The paper came courtesy of the school secretary, Mrs. Garcia, who said she didn’t fancy cleaning lasagna off the upholstery. Go figure.)
Sure, we were aware of the risks of starting a food fight. And now it was time to face the music. As I knew too well from comic books and movies, heroes always ended up paying the price.
Stern as a sheriff facing down gunslingers, Mrs. Johnson loomed in her office doorway. This impression was reinforced by her kangaroo-skin cowboy boots and her Texas twang. She stared down at us for a long stretch, her expression wavering between disappointment, disgust, and downright anger.
“Boys,” she said at last, “I was wondering when I’d see you again.”
My face went hot and I looked down at my sneakers. I always hated disappointing her, and yet somehow, when Benny and I got together, I often did. Someday I’d have to take a look at that.
Ushering us into her office, Mrs. Johnson shut the door. We stood before her desk in the about-to-be-disciplined position. Without a word, our principal stalked all the way around us, lips drawn tight and eyes narrowed.
My imagination supplied all the painful ways she could punish us, from dipping us in boiling oil to feeding us to the crocodiles. I even checked the carpet for bloodstains, my mental images were that real.
At last, she rounded the desk and sank into her chair with a whisper of a sigh.
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“A food fight? Really?”
Benny and I gave an apologetic shrug. It didn’t sound like the kind of comment that needed a response.
“Are you deliberately trying to give me gray hair?”
Again we said nothing. We’re not particularly wise, but it seemed the wise thing to do.
Our principal examined us with a gaze more powerful than the Hubble Telescope on steroids. “Has your cheese slid plumb off its cracker?” she asked. “What on earth possessed you to start a food fight?”
“Spring fever?” said Benny, working on an ingratiating smile.
“It’s fall,” said Mrs. Johnson.
“We’ve always been ahead of our time,” I said.
She shook her head in that slow, serious way that lets you know you’ve nearly busted her disappointment meter. I examined the carpet again.
“Honestly, boys,” said Mrs. Johnson, “if children are the future, I’m getting worried about it. I can’t imagine why you’d do what you did.”
Even Benny winced at that, but we couldn’t very well tell her the real reason for the fight, could we? A hero doesn’t go to the principal for help—to say nothing of the fact that she’d send us to a shrink if we tried.
“The truth is, we were, um, protesting,” I said.
She frowned. “Protesting?” Benny looked confused.
“Yeah,” I said, “protesting the, uh, separate food for boys and girls. It’s not right.”
“And it’s not fair,” Benny chimed in, catching up. “We demand equality.”
Mrs. Johnson turned a skeptical gaze on us. “You’ve got a funny way of asking for it.”
“Everyone should eat the same food,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Benny. “Why two separate meals all of a sudden?”
Steepling her fingers, Mrs. Johnson gave us the Principal Stare. As stares go, it was a good one, right up there with the Green Goblin Glare and the Cruella de Vil Sneer.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” she said, “but girls and boys have different nutritional requirements. So the cafeteria staff came up with this as a way to fine-tune our food delivery and save money.”