But where were they?
Low sunlight slanted across the trees, turning the snow orange and yellow. A blue jay called from the woods, the very first hint of spring, which was still a long way off. But it was coming.
Then a movement. The two tall strangers stood at the edge of the woods.
“Boy Who Is Known as Alex,” came the squealed voice.
“I’m here,” Alex answered.
“The Other, Boy Who Is Known as Alex. Put it on the snow.” Alex unzipped his backpack and placed the sandwich bag with what was left of his evil twin on the snow. He backed away.
Gladly.
Suddenly, the green fog swirled around the strangers. Their long overcoats fell to the snow, and their sunglasses, too. Two squealing piglets appeared. They stared at Alex for a moment, then turned and trotted through the woods toward McGregor’s farm.
Their mother, Bella, would be very happy to see them.
Where the piglets had been stood two tall, skinny creatures. Their green eyes glowed at the side of their heads, and they nodded at Alex.
He heard a voice in his head. Not a raspy, squealing pig-voice this time. More like a musical note. Or the voice of a friend.
“This is what we really are, Boy Who Is Known as Alex. Thank you for helping us capture The Other. We have chased her, and others like her, across the galaxy to this planet many times. But she is the last of her kind. They won’t trouble you again.”
“We will not return,” the second voice said.
“Never?” Alex said.
“Never. Never is a long time, even for us, Boy Who Is Known as Alex,” came the voice.
Then the strangers wrapped their long arms around each other and slowly melted together. A green ball glowed at the edge of the forest, rose slowly above the trees, then shot into the dark sky.
In moments, the aliens were a speck among the stars.
Alex heard the voice in his head one last time.
“Enjoy your gift, Boy Who Is Known as Alex. She is only slightly changed. She will live a long, long life, a life as long as yours. A helpful reminder, perhaps, of what matters most to you.”
Alex turned around.
The sandwich bag containing his evil twin was gone. In its place stood a fluffy, beautiful, yellow-eyed cat, raising her tail to say hello.
Chapter 21
Alex for Real
You know the rest of the story, don’t you?
Alex and Needles leapt and played in the snow. They batted snowflakes. They laughed a lot. How often do you get to see your best friend again, after you think she’s gone for good?
Then they went to the barn and said hello to Pins.
Soon Carl had dinner ready and called Alex from the barn. The brothers ate delicious spaghetti and meatballs. (Alex didn’t even care that dinner looked a lot like the contents of a certain sandwich bag he’d just got rid of. He gobbled it up, anyway.) Later, Alex talked to his parents, who were coming home early in a week. Then he went up to his room, tossed the pajamas that The Other had worn into the garbage … and started his new life.
As himself. The non-invisible, real Alex.
The next morning the school bus stopped for him.
School that day, and every day afterward, was better than ever. His teachers counted him for attendance and called on him in class. He read The World Book of Cats, which he found in his desk. His bean sprout was the biggest in the science classroom. He played on the basketball team and was the most generous and unselfish captain they’d ever had (even Mr. Timbert said so). When it came to music, Alex couldn’t stand to watch Ram stand so sadly beside the triangle. So he and Ram shared the drums in music class.
And became friends.
More than that, though, kids noticed him. In the halls, in the lunchroom, in the playground. He got invited to parties and sleepovers. He was still a little shy, and all the attention took some getting used to, but it only made people like him more.
Some said he was nicer than ever.
It took a little while to accept that he was stepping into a new life. The life that The Other had made for him. But really, what choice did he have? He wasn’t fake. He was the real Alex. It was his life, after all.
The Other had just made it a little bigger for him.
Better than all that, though, the first day and every day afterward, he got off the school bus, walked up the laneway, and stuck his head into the barn. Pins was in her stall, waiting. Alex ran his hand over his horse’s nose and gave her an apple from his lunch. And Needles sat waiting for him on a straw bale, too. As soon as she saw him, the huge cat yawned, stretched, then trotted over to rub against Alex’s legs.
“Pins and Needles and me, the three of us together again. No one will ever know the truth, though, will they?” Alex said one afternoon. He looked down at his beloved cat, and for a second, just a second, her eyes glowed bright green.
He scratched her behind the ears, and she purred. It was okay if a tiny bit of The Other lived on. If Alex ever worried about fading away, all he needed to do was look into a mirror at the boy looking back at him.
Or into the occasionally bright green eyes of his cat.
They reminded him of who he really was. Likable, kind, shy. Lover of cats and horses, a wonderful basketball captain, great at sharing the drums, a good friend, little brother, and son, plus a lot more.
He was the real Alex, that day and every day for the rest of his life.
And he was anything but invisible.
This Part Is (Also) Mostly True
Welcome to the end of the story, and if you’ve made it this far, congratulations! I told you at the beginning that it was scary and more than a little weird, and yet here you are. I bet you’ll never look at fog the same away again. Especially if there’s even a hint of green around the edges. People with green eyes might be off your list for a while, too.
You’ll probably never look at pigs quite the same way, either.
But I suspect you’re asking yourself a few questions.
Such as what was all that with the pigs? Well, they are very smart creatures. I think it makes perfect sense that visiting aliens would borrow pig bodies to walk around in. I mean, if you even believe in aliens, that is. Besides, who knows what secrets lie in the heart of a pig? Maybe they enjoyed turning into slightly human creatures who walked on their hind legs and wandered around with sunglasses on. But really, next time the aliens should ask before they borrow a budy.
You might also be wondering who, or what, exactly, was The Other?
An alien outlaw, for one thing. A stealer of people’s lives, a thief, an evil twin, a doppelgänger, call her what you will. She wasn’t very nice about it, either. There are many ways to make someone feel small, or invisible, and she was good at it.
It takes a lot of self-esteem to stand up and say: I’m me. The real me.
I know who I am.
And what about the two tall strangers? Aliens? Yes. The good guys? Also, yes, although you didn’t think so at first, I bet. Friends? Very definitely. You never know where you’ll find friends, though, sometimes in the most unlikely of places.
You have to ask for help once in a while.
Sooner or later, everyone does. Just don’t stop asking until you find the right people (or aliens) to help you.
Finally, though, you’re likely wondering what really happened to Alex? Did an evil twin really try to steal his life? Did his teachers, classmates, Dr. Philips, his brother, and everyone else controlled by The Other really burn with bright green eyes?
Or was the whole an-alien-stole-my-body and my-town-is-going-crazy thing just him cracking under the pressure of his parents being away for so long?
Well, let’s just say that we can all feel alone and different sometimes.
And if Alex learned anything, it’s this: when all else fails, you can a
lways count on the person you see in the mirror for sound advice.
It’s a good place to start, anyway.
You might be interested to know that Alex became a wonderful farmer. He grew up, inherited the farm, and kept pigs. He also had lots of friends, including Bertram (Ram for short). They started a band together and filled the barn with music, which made all the animals very happy.
There are only two things that were a little odd about Alex as he grew up.
One: Every now and then, he’d look in the mirror for a long time. If he thought no one was around, you might even hear him talking to his reflection. He talked to his pigs from time to time, as well. As far as I know, no one ever heard them talk back.
Two: He never, EVER, went out on foggy nights. In fact, when the fog curled up around the house on cold, snowy nights, he would take to his bed and whisper, “Beware The Other! I won!”
Also by award-winning author Philippa Dowding
The Lost Gargoyle Series
The Gargoyle in My Yard
What do you do when a 400-year-old gargoyle moves into your backyard? Especially when no one else but you knows he’s ALIVE? Twelve-year-old Katherine Newberry can tell you all about life with a gargoyle. He’s naughty and gets others into trouble. But if you’re like Katherine, after getting to know him, you might really want him to stay.
Commended for the 2009 Resource Links Best Books, for the 2010 Best Books for Kids and Teens, and shortlisted for the 2011 Diamond Willow Award.
The Gargoyle Overhead
What if your best friend was a naughty 400-year-old gargoyle? And what if he just happened to be in terrible danger? Its not always easy, but thirteen-year-old Katherine Newberry is friends with a gargoyle who has lost his greatest friend. Gargoth’s greatest enemy is prowling the city, and it’s a race against time to find her first!
Shortlisted for the 2012 Silver Birch Express Award.
The Gargoyle at the Gates
Christopher is astonished to discover that gargoyles Ambergine and Gargoth are living in the park next door and that Katherine, a girl from his class, knows the gargoyles, as well. When the Collector steals Ambergine, it’s up to Christopher and Katherine to get her back, as long as something else doesn’t catch them along the way.
Shortlisted for the Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Award, the 2013 Diamond Willow Award, and commended for the 2013 White Raven Award.
More Books by Philippa Dowding
The Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden
Book 1 in the Night Flyer’s Handbook series
This morning, I woke up on the ceiling …
So begins the strange story of Gwendolyn Golden. One perfectly ordinary day for no apparent reason, she wakes up floating around her room like one of her little brother’s Batman balloons.
Puberty is weird enough. Everyone already thinks she’s an oddball with anger issues because her father vanished in a mysterious storm one night when she was six. Then there are the mean, false rumours people are spreading about her at school. On top of all that, now she’s a flying freak.
How can she tell her best friend or her mother? How can she live her life? After Gwendolyn almost meets disaster flying too high and too fast one night, help arrives from the most unexpected place. And stranger still? She’s not alone.
Everton Miles Is Stranger Than Me
Book 2 in the Night Flyer’s Handbook series
I wander around like any normal, paranoid, self-absorbed teenager. Do we all think we’re being chased by deadly entities, I wonder? Probably, but how many of us actually are?
Gwendolyn Golden, Night Flyer, floats over the cornfields all summer. What draws her to the same spot, night after night? All she knows is that change is coming: she’s starting high school plus there’s a strange new boy in town.
He’s Everton Miles and he’s a Night Flyer, too.
Soon the mismatched teenagers face dangers they never imagined, including a fallen Spirit Flyer, kidnap, and the eternal darkness of The Shade. How will Gwendolyn handle her new life and grade nine? With help from The Night Flyer’s Handbook and her strange new friend, it might not be that hard.
CCBC’s Best Books for Kids & Teens (Spring 2017) Selection
Copyright © Philippa Dowding, 2018
Illustrations © Shawna Daigle, 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cover image: Shawna Daigle
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Dowding, Philippa, 1963-, author
Alex and the other / Philippa Dowding.
(Weird stories gone wrong)
Issued print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-4597-4063-1 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-4597-4064-8
(PDF).--ISBN 978-1-4597-4065-5 (EPUB)
I. Title. II. Series: Dowding, Philippa, 1963- . Weird stories gone wrong
PS8607.O9874A44 2018 jC813’.6 C2017-904951-8
C2017-904952-6
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country, and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation, and the Government of Canada.
Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
The publisher is not responsible for websites or their content unless they are owned by the publisher.
dundurn.com @dundurnpress dundurnpress dundurnpress
Alex and The Other Page 7