by Jean Fischer
“Digger is starting to blow up the helium balloons,” Carolyn added. “And I thought Bailey might want to see.”
“Can we?” Sydney asked her grandparents as she picked up her plate and Bailey’s to carry to the dishwasher.
“Go ahead,” Grandma said. “But when he takes off, you girls stay a safe distance away. I don’t want you getting hurt.” Grandma sipped her coffee. “Cluster ballooning is dangerous, even when it’s done the ordinary way, but when Nate does it, it’s even more dangerous. He takes too many risks if you ask me and is even a bit crazy. And that son of his is an odd duck, too.”
Grandma poured a little more creamer into her coffee. “Why, you wouldn’t believe the junk that boy picks up on the beach. One day, I was near their house in the village, and you should have seen the junk piled up by their equipment shed!”
“One night, our dad had to go to the village, and he saw Mr. Wright and Digger welding stuff in their yard,” Marilyn said. “The sparks lit up their place like fireworks on the Fourth of July. He said he heard that they get real busy at night moving stuff around in the dark—”
“And using hammers and power saws, too,” Carolyn added.
Grandpa buttered a piece of bread for himself. “Nate says he’s an inventor, but the only invention I’ve seen so far is that silly balloon chair. He thinks he can use that idea to someday create travel that’s fast, clean, and inexpensive. Can you imagine all of us flying around in chairs tethered to party balloons?”
The girls laughed.
“Let’s go,” said Sydney. “Are we walking or taking our bikes?”
“Walking,” said the twins.
The girls joined a small crowd that had gathered on the beach just off the sandy beach access lane. Nate Wright was checking the chair, adjusting the straps and making sure they were secured. The seat looked like it came from an airplane cockpit. It had lots of instruments and a big joystick.
“It’ll never get off the ground,” Bailey said. “It’ll be too heavy with all that stuff on it.”
“No, it won’t,” said Sydney. “You won’t believe your eyes.”
An old beat-up school bus was parked at the edge of the beach on the end of the access road. On its side was a hodgepodge of words:
LASERS
LEVITATING
ELEVATING
WRIGHT &
SON
ORIENTEERING
RACING
“What does it all mean?” Bailey asked.
“I guess it advertises things they’re working on. I don’t really know,” said Sydney.
“Why don’t we ask them?” said Bailey.
“Because they don’t talk to anybody,” Sydney replied. “The only time the Wrights say anything is if they think you’re getting close enough to get hurt.”
Drake Wright, Digger, was on the roof of the bus with a helium tank. One-by-one, he filled balloons with helium and fastened them to big hooks on top of the bus roof. Each hook held several dozen colorful balloons.
“What’s he doing?” asked Bailey.
“He has to have a place to store the balloons until they get attached to the chair,” said Marilyn. “So he ties them to the bus, because anything lighter than a bus would lift right off the ground.”
“No way!” said Bailey. She took her cell phone out of her pocket and snapped a few pictures. “I’m going to send these to Kate right now,” she said. “She’ll love this!”
Once Digger had filled all of the balloons, he helped his dad slide the chair to the front of the school bus. Then they chained and locked it to the bumper. Mr. Wright sat down, strapped himself in, and put on a helmet, the kind the astronauts wear.
“Now what?” asked Bailey.
“Watch,” said Carolyn.
“Watch,” Marilyn echoed.
Methodically, Digger carried the balloons from the rooftop to his dad’s chair, one bunch at a time. He attached them to special fasteners on the chair frame and the chair soon began to rise.
“Awesome!” Bailey gasped, snapping more pictures.
“You haven’t seen anything yet,” said Sydney.
When all of the balloons were in place, the chair hovered near the hood of the school bus. It strained to break loose.
“Get back!” Digger yelled at the crowd.
Everyone took several steps backward.
Drake shook his dad’s hand and released the chains. The chair shot up into the air like a rocket. It kept soaring up and over the water.
“Oh wow!” said Bailey.
Digger disappeared from sight.
“Where’d he go?” Bailey asked, snapping a few more pictures.
“He’s probably gone to get the boat,” said Carolyn.
“Mr. Wright can only go so high before the oxygen gets too thin,” said Marilyn, “so he has to start popping balloons to slowly come down. When he splashes down in the ocean, Digger will be there to pick him up.”
“But Digger has to go down the shore a bit to get the boat in the water,” Carolyn explained to the girls. “There’s no dock or boat ramp here, and you have to have a boat with some power to withstand the waves.”
“He usually flies over the sound side of the Outer Banks,” Marilyn said. “That’s where most of the smaller boats and jet skis are because the water is calmer.”
Bailey’s cell phone rang. It was a text message from Kate: READ THE FIRST LETTERS OF EACH WORD ON THE BUS FROM BOTTOM TO TOP. THEY SPELL ROSWELL! K8
“Check it out,” Bailey said handing the phone to Sydney. “What’s Roswell?”
Sydney read the message. “Roswell is a town in New Mexico famous for UFOs,” she explained. “People think one crashed there years ago.”
Pop! Pop-pop! Pop!
As a series of a loud bangs rang over the ocean the girls wondered about UFOs as they watched Nate Wright’s chair fall slowly toward the sea.
Aliens
Dear Syd and Bailey,
Kate e-mailed me about the Wrights and the Roswell connection. How creepy! Do you think that the Wrights are connected with the UFO you saw this morning? I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but in the movie people tried to make contact with a spaceship by using a code—five musical notes, re-mi-dodo-sol. I wonder if that flashlight thing you found on the beach is some sort of signaling device. Do you think the Wrights are trying to communicate with aliens?
Be careful,
Alex
Alexis’s e-mail, marked HIGHEST PRIORITY, was waiting for Sydney and Bailey when they got back from the beach.
“Now do you believe me?” Bailey asked flopping on her bed in the guest room. “Even Alex thinks we’re being invaded by spaceships.”
Sydney sat on her bed fidgeting with her cornrows. She was trying to find a practical explanation.
“I don’t know what to believe,” she answered. “I mean, Roswell is another unsolved mystery like the ghost ship. According to the story, a UFO crashed in Roswell, in the desert. A rancher found pieces of metal scattered all over his property. He called the authorities and even the army got involved. It was a very big deal back then. They roped off his land and didn’t let anyone inside. At first the government said they found pieces of a flying saucer. Later they said that the pieces were from a weather balloon. No one knows for sure, but just like the ghost ship story, rumors have kept going around.”
Bailey lay on her bed thinking. She was sure the UFO she saw was not a helicopter, boat, or other ordinary thing. If the Wrights were involved, it would make sense, because they were so different and secretive.
“Hey,” said Bailey. “Maybe they’re aliens!”
“Huh?” said Sydney.
“Mr. Wright and Digger,” Bailey answered. “Maybe their spaceship crashed in the ocean, but they survived. That would explain Drake Digger picking up stuff along the shore. He’s picking up pieces of the spaceship!”
Sydney sighed. “Oh, Bailey, your imagination is getting away from you again.”<
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“No, it’s not,” said Bailey sitting up on the bed. “At night, when most people are asleep, the Wrights are trying to reconstruct their spaceship from the pieces Drake finds. That’s why they’re welding and stuff. And meanwhile they’re trying to create an alternate vehicle that could go high enough to meet a rescue ship, or something. That’s why they’re experimenting with the cluster balloons. And that thing we found on the beach? Alex is right. It’s a signaling device.”
“Bailey!” said Sydney.
“And you know what else?” Bailey went on. “I think Captain Swain is one of them. He was on the beach this morning when the UFO was there. He saw the whole thing! He knows what that thing was hovering over the ocean, and he knows what scooted past us in the dark. He knows about those footprints, too!”
“Oh, Bailey, stop,” said Sydney. “Yesterday, you thought the captain was a ghost.” She got up from her bed and got the coffee mug from the bookshelf.
“I don’t think he’s a ghost anymore,” said Bailey. “Now I think he’s a space alien.”
Sydney shook the coffee mug, but nothing happened. She shook it again. Still nothing. Then she tossed it into the wastebasket. It landed with a thud. “Enough of the alien stuff already!” she said. She slid open the glass doors to the deck and went outside.
Bailey screamed at the top of her lungs.
“What’s the matter?” Sydney exclaimed, hurrying back inside.
Bailey was sitting on the bed, her knees pulled tight to her chest with her arms wrapped around them. She looked terrified.
“Bailey, what’s wrong?” Sydney asked again.
Bailey pointed to the wastebasket. The inside of it was lit with an eerie, flashing light. Sydney looked more closely and saw that it was coming from the hole in the lid of the mug.
This was too weird. For the first time, Sydney believed no logical explanation existed for the mug, the UFO, or any of the other strange things that had been going on. She bent to take the mug out of the trash, but then she stopped.
Better to leave it alone, she thought.
“Count ’em, Syd. Count ’em,” said Bailey.
“Count what?” Sydney asked.
“Count the flashes of light,” Bailey answered. “One, two, three, four, five … One, two, three, four, five …”
The mug sent out five quick flashes of light. Then it stopped briefly and sent out five more.
“So?” said Sydney.
“So, remember what Alex said in her e-mail?” Bailey answered. “In the Close Encounters movie, the signal was five musical notes. One, two, three, four, five notes. One, two, three, four, five flashes of light. It’s a code, Sydney.”
Bailey’s phone dinged. It was another message from Kate. Bailey read aloud. “BAILEY, DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE LAKE MICHIGAN TRIANGLE AND THE FOOTPRINTS? IF NOT, LOOK IT UP ONLINE. K8.” There was a URL address.
“What’s the Lake Michigan Triangle?” Sydney asked.
“Never heard of it,” said Bailey. “Let’s check it out.”
Sydney typed the URL address into the browser window on her computer. An article from a Michigan newspaper appeared on the screen. She read, then explained.
“This says the Lake Michigan Triangle has a history similar to the Bermuda Triangle. The lines of an imaginary triangle run from Ludington, Michigan, down to Benton Harbor, Michigan, then across the lake to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and back across the lake to Ludington.”
“I know where Manitowoc is,” Bailey said. “Our family rented a cottage near there one summer.”
Sydney continued. “Ships have disappeared inside the triangle. This even says one of them is seen sailing on the lake from time to time, but then disappears.”
“Another ghost ship!” said Bailey. “And that’s not too far from where I live. Do you know what, Syd? I just remembered something.”
“What?” Sydney asked.
“A couple of years ago, there was a report of a UFO over O’Hare International Airport, in Chicago. Pilots saw it, and some other people did, too. They said it was shaped like a saucer and spun around slowly, but didn’t make any noise. The air traffic controllers couldn’t see it on the radar. Then, zoom! It shot straight up into the sky.”
“For real?” asked Sydney.
“Really,” Bailey answered. “It was in the Chicago Tribune and on the TV news, too. Nobody ever found out what it was.”
“Check this out,” said Sydney, reading the article. “There have also been reports of strange footprints on the beach near the points of the triangle.”
Bailey gasped. “Footprints! Syd, maybe those footprints were like the ones we saw this morning. Alien footprints!”
Sydney logged off her browser. “You know, Bailey,” she said, “maybe UFOs do exist.”
Bailey got up the courage to walk to the wastebasket and peer inside. The flashing light had stopped. Once again, the thing looked like an ordinary travel mug. “So what do we do now?” she asked.
“We put the mug back where we found it,” said Sydney. “Then we stay up tonight to see what happens.”
At sunset, the girls took the mug to the beach. They tried to find the exact spot in the sand where it had been buried. They put it there and hoped children hunting for ghost crabs would leave it alone. After that, they set up the deck for spying. Sydney hung a pair of binoculars around her neck. Bailey had a mini audio recorder in her pocket, a gift Kate had given her for her birthday. The girls had their digital cameras, flashlights, and a notebook and pencils. Now they only had to wait.
Two hours later, Sydney wrote in the notebook:
UFO Log
9 p.m. Kids on beach with flashlights looking for ghost crabs.
“Can you see if our mug is still there?” Bailey asked.
“I think so,” Sydney answered from a folding chair set up near the hammock. “I can only see when one of the kids shines a flashlight in that direction, but so far, it’s there.”
Bailey settled into a chair next to Sydney’s. She opened a bottle of water and sipped. “So did you talk to Beth while I was in the shower?”
“I did,” Sydney answered.
“What did Bettyboo say when you told her what was going on?”
“She already knew about it,” said Sydney as she took the cap off her water bottle. “McKenzie heard about it from Kate, and she e-mailed Beth. And don’t call her Bettyboo. She hates that.”
“What did she think about the UFO?” Bailey asked as she put her feet on the deck railing.
“She doesn’t believe in UFOs, and she sure doesn’t think the Wrights are aliens. She said we should be careful, and she suggested that we look for a logical explanation instead of thinking about UFOs and spirits.” Sydney gulped her water.
“What do you think, Syd?” asked Bailey. “Do you think that God created UFOs?”
Sydney put her feet up on the railing and settled back in her chair. “In my heart of hearts, I don’t,” she said. “I mean, the Bible says that He created the heavens and the earth and humans and animals, but it doesn’t say anything about UFOs.”
Bailey looked up at the stars. “I don’t want to believe in UFOs and ghosts and stuff, Syd. I don’t think that God would create anything bad. But, I know what I saw, and I don’t see any other explanation for it.” She sighed.
“Tomorrow, Gramps is taking us to the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum,” said Sydney. “Maybe we’ll find some answers there. And do you know what, Bailey? We both need to get some sleep. Otherwise we’ll be really tired tomorrow. We should watch the beach in shifts. One of us sleeps while the other one watches.”
Sydney wrote in the notebook:
Sydney—10 p.m. to midnight
Bailey—midnight to 2 a.m.
Sydney—2 a.m. to 4 a.m.
Bailey—4 a.m. to dawn
At ten o’clock, Bailey stretched out in the hammock and was soon asleep. Sydney had a hard time staying awake. The beach was deserted except for a couple of four-wheelers heading back up
north. She watched the moon dodge in and out of clouds. Besides it, the stars, and an occasional airplane flying above the ocean, nothing was in the sky.
When the little travel alarm clock she’d brought on the deck said 12:00, Sydney wrote in the notebook. Midnight and all is well. Then she woke Bailey.
“What time is it?” Bailey groaned.
“It’s midnight,” Sydney said. “I didn’t see anything, and it’s your turn. Try hard to stay awake. It’s easy to get bored.” Sydney and Bailey traded places, and Sydney fell asleep.
At first, Bailey scouted every inch of the beach with the binoculars, but she couldn’t see anything in the darkness. There was no sound except the waves rolling up on shore. She tried to occupy her mind by singing songs in her head and reciting scripture verses Elizabeth had taught her. Finally, it was 2 a.m. She wrote in the notebook 2 a.m. Nothing to report.
“Syd?” she said, shaking her friend awake. “It’s your turn.”
Sydney rolled over in the hammock. “Anything?” she sighed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
“Nothing,” said Bailey. Then the girls again traded places.
By 3:30 a.m., Sydney was ready to give up. She was bored out of her mind sitting on the deck looking at nothing. She felt her chin hit her chest as she fought off sleep. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw something. At least, she thought she did. She thought she saw a flash of bright, white light in the ocean. It flashed briefly and then it disappeared. She waited a few minutes, but there was nothing. Then it flashed again. Five quick bursts of light!
“Bailey! Bailey! Get up. I see something,” she urgently whispered.
Bailey rolled so fast in the hammock that she almost sent it flying upside down. “What?” she asked, trying to sit up.
“Sshhh,” Sydney whispered. “Look out there.” She pointed at the ocean in front of where they sat. After a few seconds, the light flashed again. Sydney noticed that the bursts of light were sometimes long and sometimes short. “It’s a code!” she said. “See? Sometimes it flashes longer than others. Write it down, Bailey.”