Kell, the Alien

by Darcy Pattison

  KELL, the ALIEN

  By Darcy Pattison

  pictures by

  Rich Davis

  MIMS HOUSE / LITTLE ROCK, AR

  THE ALIENS, INC. SERIES

  KELL, the ALIEN

  Text Copyright © 2014 by Darcy Pattison.

  Illustrations Copyright © 2014 by Rich Davis.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Mims House

  1309 S. Broadway

  Little Rock, AR 72202

  www.mimshouse.com.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Book design © 2013 by BookDesignTemplates.com

  Kell, the Alien/ Darcy Pattison — First Edition

  Paperback ISBN 978-1-62944-021-7

  Library Paperback ISBN 978-1497316133

  Hardcover ISBN 978-1-62944-020-0

  Ebook ISBN 978-1-62944-022-4

  Lexile 510L

  Printed in the United States of Ameica.

  For Haileigh.

  “Kell, did you know my birthday party is next month?” Bree Hendricks said to me. She swiped a splash of blue with her paintbrush. “Do you like my bowl?”

  Mrs. Crux, the art teacher had put a blue bowl of fruit on each table and said, “Paint this.”

  I needed red for the strawberries. But the lid of the red paint jar was stuck.

  Bree said, “My nine-year-old birthday party will be special. I want an Alien Party.”

  "Oh." I don't have to say much with Bree, which is nice.

  The paint jar was narrow. I tried to bite the lid to open it. Still stuck.

  Bree nodded. “Our principal, Mrs. Lynx doesn’t like aliens, but I do. Aliens are so weird that they are magnificent. Wouldn’t you like to be an alien? You could fly around Jupiter or something.”

  “Yes, Jupiter is magnificent.” I turned the red paint jar upside down and shook it. Then I tried HARD to open it. Stuck.

  Bree smeared yellow for lemons. “How do you know Jupiter is magnificent? You’re not an alien.”

  Bree was wrong.

  Jupiter is the fifth planet in this solar system, and it’s huge. My family spent a week flying around it. We took pictures and measured scientific stuff. Until Dad leaked his dovitch. Dovitch is like space-coffee, and Dad drank it every morning. Except one morning, he left the cup open, and the dovitch floated out and onto the ship’s control panel. Mom says that Dad is forgetful, which he is. But here are the facts. Dad’s dovitch bubbled out, our spaceship went crazy, and then we crash landed on Earth. We hid for a year to figure things out, but we finally sold our spaceship and bought a house. And here I am, my first week in an Earthling school.

  But I can’t tell Bree all of that.

  Now she was painting orange in a big circle.

  I took a deep breath, held the jar to my chest and twisted the lid. Come on, open up. Suddenly, it gave way, and the lid went one way and the jar the other. Paint flew across my paper, across the table. One paint glob floated straight for Aja Dalal, straight for his head, straight for—oh! Right in his ear.

  Aja’s dark eyes went wide with shock. Kids looked up, groaned—and turned away. Oh, I was the alien here: that was clear.

  Mrs. Crux looked up from Freddy’s painting with a smile. “Again, mate?” She talks different because she is from a place called Australia. I wonder if she feels like an alien sometimes, too. From her desk, she handed me an instant camera.

  I snapped pictures of the table and of Aja’s ear. I thumbtacked the pictures to the Accidental Art bulletin board. In just one week, this was my seventh Accidental Art. The rest of the class had zero Accidental Arts.

  Later, when Aja and everything else was cleaned up, I sat at the art table with Bree again. It was too late to start a new painting.

  Bree dotted brown on her yellow banana and talked about her party again. “Mom will pay somebody to do an Alien Party.”

  Now I really listened. My mom and dad didn’t have jobs, yet. “How much will she pay?”

  “Enough so it will be a special party,” Bree said.

  I thought about that.

  WHO? Bree and her friends.

  WHAT? An alien birthday party.

  WHEN? On Bree’s birthday next month.

  WHERE? I didn’t know.

  “Where will you have the party?” I asked.

  “Is my back yard big enough for an alien space ship to land there?”

  She lived next door to me. “Oh, yes,” I said. Back on Bix, there were spaceships large enough to fill up three of Earth’s football fields. There were spaceships large enough to carry a dozen Earthling blue whales, the largest animals on Earth. But my family’s spaceship was so small that it made a school bus look like a mansion.

  I was confused, though. “Where will you get a space ship?”

  “You know. A blow-up space ship,” she said. “Like a balloon.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t know what she meant. I had to put that on my Look Up Later List.

  I thought some more. Who? What? When? Where?

  WHY? To make Bree happy on her birthday.

  HOW? I asked, “How do you do an Alien Party?”

  Using a small brush, Bree dotted pink around the edge of her paper. There was nothing pink in the bowl of fruits. Bree just liked pink, like her pink fingernails. “Oh, you know,” she said. “Alien music. Alien games. Alien space ships. Alien cake.”

  I started to get excited. A Bix party on Earth could be fun.

  “Your Mom can’t do those alien things?” I asked.

  “I know—lawyers are aliens. But my mom is just too busy.” Then Bree held up her picture. “Do you like it?”

  Buzz! Buzz!

  An Earthling bug! Bix has no bugs. But there are more bugs on Earth than any other kind of creature. And they all bite. Or sting. I hate all Earthling bugs.

  And that black bug was right over out table. I ducked, but it dove at me. It was going to sting me!

  I slapped at the bug.

  I hit it!

  And I knocked it straight into Bree’s painting.

  It stuck.

  There it was. Right there on the yellow banana. It was a huge brown spot.

  Oh! I ruined her painting.

  Bree called, “Mrs. Crux.”

  Bree was mad, now, I thought.

  Mrs. Crux came over, “What’s up, mate?”

  “See the fly on the banana?” Bree held up her painting for everyone to see. “My first Accidental Art!”

  Kids clapped, and Mrs. Crux thumbtacked Bree’s painting to the Accidental Art bulletin board.

  Bree fist-bumped me. “We are the best Accidental Artists in third grade.”

  Other kids fist-bumped Bree. And me. And I was flying high—my first Earthling friend.

  Then this idea bubbled up in me. “I can do your Alien Party, if your mom pays me.” I added, “Of course, my mom and dad will help.”

  Bree turned and smiled at me. Her eyes are blue like the Earth sky. When she smiled, it was like the Earth’s sun was shining inside me.

  That surprised me a lot, and it was a nice surprise. Of course, I wouldn’t tell anyone else. Earthling boys don’t talk to Earthling girls. I don’t
think they like each other.

  “Really?” Bree said. “You can do it? You will do a magnificent party.” She added, “Oh, thanks to your parents, too.”

  I grinned. My parents would help. Bur really, what on Earth did they know how to do?

  But then, I frowned. Bree didn’t know she was looking at an alien from Bix. Sure, I can see in the dark, and I shed my skin once a month and other things like that. But I look Earthling. Would Bree be friends with an alien?

  The bell rang, time for homeroom.

  Bree waved at the paintings. “Which do you like best?”

  I really liked Aja’s Ear best. But I told Bree, “The Fruit Fly.”

  “Thanks.” Bree punched my arm and then skipped out of the room.

  Wait. Why did she hit me? Earthling girls are strange.

  “Mom, Dad! I’m home,” I called.

  The house smelled green. Mom was at her plant research again.

  “OUCH!” From outside somewhere, Dad yelled.

  I rushed out the back door. “What happened?”

  Dad held his left foot with both hands and jumped around on his right foot. “I dropped the hammer.” It lay beside a pile of boards.

  That’s my Dad. He does astro-physics, but he can’t hold onto a hammer.

  “I’m glad you’re home,” Dad said. “You can help.”

  “What are we building?” I asked.

  “A tree house,” Dad said.

  When we crash landed, we sold our broken space ship to the Weirdest Tales Museum. It took us a year to buy a house because on Bix, we live in tree houses. Now, I counted. There were eleven trees in the back yard. So that’s why Dad agreed to buy this house.

  “Does Mom know?”

  “She will.”

  “Do we have enough money to build tree houses?” I asked.

  Dad’s gray eyes twinkled. “Well, after buying our house, we are almost out of money. But we have enough to start a tree house.”

  I nodded, then said, “I have to tell you about school today. First, I have to tell you something else—Earthlings are born, not hatched.”

  “I know.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?”

  I helped carry wood to the biggest tree. While we worked, I explained about birthday parties, how they are joyful.

  We put the silver ladder against the tree. Dad carried the wood up the ladder and stuck it in the crook of a branch. Heaving wood up a tree is hard work. We don’t do telekinesis much here because it would scare Earthlings that we can move things with our minds. But here, we used just a tiny bit of telekinesis to make the wood feel lighter.

  I explained about Bree’s birthday and how she wanted an Alien Party. And how I said I would do it.

  Dad said, “No.”

  Which made me mad. Bree was my first Earthling friend, even if she was a rich girl and spoiled like a Princess, like Freddy and Aja said. I was going to do her party.

  About then, I smelled something. Mom was home and was cooking and—Surprise!—it actually smelled good.

  Dad was fast building that tree house now. I sat beside him and handed him nails. With every nail, Dad had a reason not to do the party.

  “We don’t know anything about birthdays.”

  Bang! Bang! Ouch! He sucked his banged thumb.

  “We don’t know what Earthlings think aliens are like,” Dad said.

  Bang! Bang! Ouch! He sucked his first finger.

  “You put lots of Earthling children together, and they are unpredictable,” Dad said.

  Bang! Bang! Ouch!

  Hey! That was my hand! Now, I sucked my thumb.

  And the floor of the tree house was already done.

  Then I smelled something not so nice. My Mom doesn’t smell good. Well, she smells good. But her nose doesn’t work good and tell her about Earthling smells.

  “Mom!” I yelled. “Is supper burning?”

  Sure enough, a minute later, Mom stomped out with a smoking pan. She scraped the burned food into the trash can. Again. Then Mom looked around.

  Dad held still.

  But I called, “Hi, Mom.”

  Now, Mom tilted her head and frowned. “John, what are you doing?”

  “Now, Jane. We can talk about this later.”

  No one can say our Bix names, so we use easy Earthling names. My name is part of a word on a cereal box: Kell-oggs. Kell Smith is my name.

  “We will talk later,” Mom promised. “But right now, it’s time to eat.”

  The kitchen table had blue plates and blue glasses. On my plate was a surprise. Carrots and lettuce. What was Mom thinking? I needed FOOD!

  Just then, the doorbell rang. I raced to the door and brought Bree’s Mom back to the kitchen.

  “I just got out of court, but Bob is grilling hamburgers,” Mrs. Hendricks said. “It’s our chef’s night off. Would you like to join us?”

  “Yes!” Dad and I said at the same time.

  “Thank you!” Mom and I said at the same time.

  So, we ate magnificent burgers with the Hendricks. We ate on their back deck under the eighteen trees in their back yard.

  After eating—and eating—Mrs. Hendricks said, “Jane, my Bree says you know how to do birthday parties.”

  “Oh, yes.” Mom was completely confused. Her blue-grey eyes were too shiny, like aluminum foil.

  “Well, Bree wants an alien birthday party.”

  Dad said, “Sounds like fun.”

  “Well, the principal, Mrs. Lynx, doesn’t like aliens—she’s a UFO chaser. But we think it will be fun,” Mrs. Hendricks said. “How much?”

  Bree added, “You name a price.”

  Dad touched Mom’s arm, and she clutched at his hand.

  “Kell told me about the party,” Dad said. “But we didn’t discuss—money?”

  Mrs. Hendricks said, “We can work out a budget. I know that Bree wants a blow-up space ship.”

  Dad’s eyes got giant-sized. “She wants to blow up a space ship?”

  “You know,” Mrs. Hendricks said. “A bounce house.”

  “Oh, I see,” Mom said. But of course she didn’t see or understand.

  My head was spinning. Now I needed an Alien Party List, not just a Look Up Later List.

  Dad said, “We’ll get back to you on a price. But this party will be as easy as flying from star to star.”

  Mrs. Hendricks laughed. “Nice alien joke.”

  Could I do a birthday party? No. This was a bad idea. But—money!

  Bree whirled around and around. “Hurrah!”

  When she stopped, she was facing our yard. “Mr. Smith, what are you building?”

  Mom said, “John is building a tree house. He’s good at starting things.”

  “I’m going to sleep up there tonight,” Dad said.

  Mom and I glared at him. It wasn’t fair that he got to sleep in a tree house and we had to sleep in the 100-year old Earthling house.

  “Wow, a treehouse! I want a tree castle,” Bree said. “But if you sleep outside, will bugs bite you?”

  And then, I was glad I wasn’t going to sleep in Dad’s tree house.

  frowned, “I don’t know. But I’m going to do it anyway.”

  Later, I would have to explain everything to Mom and Dad and we would have to talk about money. But for now, we just visited. Mom and Mr. Hendricks talked about recipes. Dad and Mrs. Hendricks talked about Earth trees and tree houses.

  And later, when the stars came out, Bree showed me all about an Earthling bug named the firefly. She wasn’t even scared of those bugs.

  Earthling girls are strangely brave.

  The next day, right before lunch, my class went from homeroom to music class.

  Mr. Vega, the music teacher, said, “Today, we will start practicing for a Parent’s Night concert. Mrs. Lynx is here today to help choose a soloist.”

  Mrs. Lynx, the principal, sat on a stool beside the piano.

  Mr. Vega said, “Who would like to try out for a solo?”

  Besid
e me, Bree raised her hand.

  I like to lie on my bed and sing Bix music to the stars and constellations and galaxies out my window. On Bix, Dad and I often sang duets. So I raised my hand, too.

  It made me look at my wrist.

  I had just shed my skin yesterday, and there was still one patch with old skin. I pulled my hand down and peeled off the skin and stuck it in my pocket.

  Had Bree seen? Or Mrs. Lynx? Or anyone else?

  No one said anything or looked at me funny.

  Mr. Vega said, “Bree, Kell and Cherry. Come up, and we’ll see what you can do.”

  Bree smiled at me. “I’ll get to do the solo, of course.”

  But I wanted to do it, too. I followed Bree to the front to stand by the tall, red piano.

  Mr. Vega said, “Kell, could you sing first, please?”

  I started singing and let me tell you, I can hit a note. I stay on the right notes all the time.

  My country t’is of thee

  Sweet land of liberty

  Of Thee I sing.

  Land where my fathers died

  Land of the Pilgrim’s pride

  From every mountain side

  Let freedom ring.

  Of course, my grandfathers didn’t die on Earth. They died on Bix. And I didn’t know what Pilgrims were. But I could add Pilgrims to my Look Up Later List.

  “Kell, I must say, your voice is out of this world,” said Mrs. Lynx. Then she used her loud voice to tell me to sing soft. That means, she yelled at me, “Please, sing softer!”

  Uh-oh. Mrs. Lynx, the UFO-Chaser, was on my tail. So I just stopped singing.

  Mr. Vega frowned. “Thanks, Kell. Let’s hear Bree and Cherry try it.”

  While Cherry and Bree sang, I looked at the top of the piano. Mr. Vega had statues of famous musicians like Mozart and Bach.

  I always felt sorry for really good Earthling musicians. None of them had arms or legs.

  Mrs. Lynx frowned at me, so I turned back to the singing.

  Cherry’s voice bounced around. She sang loud and soft, but she could not stay on the right notes.