Close Encounters of the Nerd Kind

by Kim Harrington

  I wondered if they’d notice if I just slowly backed away while they argued about something in their own language. But after only two steps Bad Hair’s head snapped toward my direction. Then it hissed.

  This was not good.

  It stepped closer to me, hands raised in the air, with claws where its fingernails should be. Every muscle in my body tightened in panic. Bad Hair snarled and clawed at the air between us. This was bad. Very, very bad. I got scratched by a cat once and had to get a tetanus shot. If this thing drew blood, who knew what kind of intergalactic disease I’d end up with.

  Then I remembered that I’d saved myself from monsters using the Monsters Unleashed game over the summer. If these aliens had anything to do with Alien Invasion, maybe I could put them back where they came from by using the game. Simple!

  I still had the phone in my trembling hands, though the app had closed. Heart racing, I opened it back up. Instead of pointing the phone toward the sky, I aimed it at Bad Hair in front of me. I centered the alien in my laser-sights and hit the Fire button. The game made its usual beep-boop sound effect, and I saw the laser like I always did on the screen, but nothing happened in the real world.

  What the—? This worked with the monsters! I lined the alien up again, imagining that it was one of the hundreds of UFOs I’d shot down in the game, and frantically hit the button over and over. But Bad Hair didn’t get zapped away in a ball of light. It didn’t disappear from the real world and land back in my game.

  It moved closer.

  Its eyes flared underneath that messy mop of hair, and its translucent skin glowed. I think I made it mad.

  “Um, okay.” I put my hands up in surrender. “I can see that we’re having a miscommunication. I wasn’t trying to harm you. I just had the dumb idea that I could send you back where you belong with my phone. I was trying to do you a favor. But now I see that I was wrong.”

  My words didn’t seem to calm it at all. In fact, it took a large, terrifying step closer.

  Upside-down Face, however, seemed more chill. That alien was looking at me with a new expression on its face. I didn’t know what any of it meant, though. I didn’t know why two aliens showed up in my backyard. I didn’t know why one seemed intent on eating me (or whatever it had planned—definitely nothing good). I didn’t know why the one that was scarier-looking seemed nicer. All I knew was that standing there in terror wasn’t helping me at all.

  I aimed a thumb at my house. “Okay, this has been a good talk. But I’m going to go now.”

  Taking a chance, I turned around and started speed-walking toward the back door. I figured running was a bad idea. Some animals had prey instincts that automatically kicked in when they saw something run. I’d seen it myself with William Shakespaw and an unfortunate squirrel. But speed-walking was fine, right? No reason to chase me, Mr. Alien. Nothing to see here. I’m just escaping is all.

  The alien roared and charged toward me.

  Uh-oh. Speed-walk plan failure. Time for Plan B: straight-up running.

  Even at my fastest speed, Bad Hair was faster. My heart pumped wildly. I felt like one of those gazelles you see on animal shows, with the lion charging toward it. I risked a glance over my shoulder. It was catching up. I was done for!

  And then, like a WWE wrestler, Upside-down Face came flying out of nowhere and dropped an alien elbow into Bad Hair’s face. I gasped as the two aliens fell to the ground, rolling and fighting. Actually I would have loved to stick around and watch,. How often do you get to see an alien brawl? But midfight, Upside-down Face spoke to me. In my language. It was only two words, but they were all I needed to hear.

  It said, “Get away!”

  I didn’t think it would be possible to sleep after experiencing a real altercation with multiple forms of alien life, but I managed. I was probably exhausted from shock. Saturday morning, I opened one eye to glance at my clock and realized I’d overslept. I wouldn’t make it to Charlie’s game. Groaning, I buried myself deeper under my down comforter. I would have to explain to Charlie later about oversleeping due to alien trauma.

  Eyes closed and slipping in and out of sleep, I reran the previous night’s events through my mind. Real aliens showed up in my backyard. One of them seemed curious, and the other, just plain mean. Upside-down Face saved my life and told me to get away. And after I’d escaped to safety and risked looking out the window to check on the alien fight, they were gone. Maybe if I stayed in bed under this warm blanket all day, I could convince myself it had all been a dream.

  Someone nudged my foot, which hung over the side of the bed.

  I rolled over, groaning. “Five more minutes.”

  I didn’t want to get up, because then I’d wake completely and have to somehow deal with what happened. The person nudged me again, harder. It was strange. Mom usually woke me with a kiss on the forehead, and Dad with his general loudness and clomping footsteps. I opened my eyes and peered over my shoulder.

  The alien from last night—Upside-down Face—stood by the side of my bed.

  I shot up and jumped off the bed, taking a tangle of blankets and sheets with me. The alien was blocking the path to the door, so I dashed to the opposite corner.

  Okay, I was definitely all the way awake now.

  This was the nice alien who’d saved me, but I still didn’t like the fact that it was hanging out in my room, waking me up.

  “Wh-what do you want?” I stammered.

  The alien made its strange clicking sounds again, but softly, like it didn’t want to attract attention from anyone else in the house.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “You spoke to me in English last night.” Well, two words, but still. “Can you do that again?”

  The alien turned its blockhead back and forth, like it was looking for something in my room. Then it held a hand out and pretended to press buttons on its hand with its finger. I couldn’t believe an alien had traveled all the way to Earth just to play charades with me, but I’d roll with it.

  “Buttons! Tapping! Morse code?”

  The alien let out a burst of air that seemed sort of like a sigh and dropped its upside down face into its hands.

  Then something clicked in my brain. Could it mean my phone? I’d had my phone in bed with me last night. It had to be in this pile of bedding on the floor. I held up one finger, which I’d hoped was a universally-known sign for “hold on a second.” Then I tore through the pile of sheets on the floor.

  “Found it!” I called, holding the phone in the air.

  The alien enthusiastically bowed its head. So I’d done something right. But now what? I thought through the events of last night. I had my phone with me in the backyard. The Alien Invasion game was off when the aliens did their angry click-talking. But then I’d reopened it to try to laser Bad Hair back to its home planet. And after that, Upside-Down Face seemed to understand me and had even told me to get away.

  My eyes widened. Did the game work as a translator app?

  I excitedly tapped on the icon and waited for the game to open. Then I spoke. “Can you understand me now?”

  “Yes, thank you,” the alien said. Its mouth moved the same way as before, but its strange clicking sounds were now words. Robotic-sounding words that came from my phone’s speaker. I hadn’t even noticed last night that when the alien said, “get away,” the sound had come from the phone in my hand.

  But now … this was amazing. The Alien Invasion game was working as an actual alien translator. I was probably about to have the first human–alien conversation in the history of time! What would its first question about Earth be? Adrenaline shot through me. I couldn’t take the suspense!

  A knock came on my bedroom door. “Bexley? Are you awake?”

  My mother. My eyes nearly popped out of my head. And the alien’s eyes did, too. Except, you know, they were on its neck.

  “Um, yeah, I’m awake but, uh,”—fake cough, fake cough—“I’m not feeling super-great. I’m going to keep resting my eyes.”


  “You didn’t come down for breakfast. You must be starving.”

  Mom labored under the delusion that if I skipped one meal I would immediately drop dead. And then everyone would say it was her fault and call her a bad mother because I didn’t eat a bowl of cereal.

  “I’m fine,” I called. “Not hungry at all.”

  “Okay,” she said in her I’m clearly concerned voice. “I’ll check back on you later. Get some rest.”

  I waited until her footsteps echoed back down the stairs. Then I turned to the alien. “We can talk now. What would you like to know?”

  The alien cleared its wrinkled throat. “Are you the leader of this world?”

  I blinked. “Um, what?”

  The alien pointed to the phone in my hand. “Is it not working correctly?”

  “No, it’s working. I just—why would you think I’m the leader of Earth?”

  “Because you were the one who summoned us.”

  My head spun like a bad carnival ride. I summoned aliens to Earth?

  “How? What? Why do you think that?” I asked, fumbling for the right words.

  The alien pointed a long finger at my phone. “That is your device, correct?”

  “Yes, it’s my cell phone.”

  “That device summoned us. And since it is your device, therefore, you summoned us.”

  Okay, solid logic. “I didn’t mean to summon anyone. I play a game called Alien Invasion, but it’s just a game … ” Until it landed in an astronomer’s mystery machine right as I’d pressed the Summon button.

  I hung my head. Oh, no. I’d done it again.

  But I had no time for self-pity. I had to get some answers before my mom came back. “Where are you from?”

  The alien aimed a finger at the sky. “A planet that orbits the star you call Vega.”

  That’s what the equipment was pointed at last night. It all made sense.

  “Are you a boy or a girl?” I asked.

  “Things aren’t that simple. But for your purposes, you can call me a woman.”

  Okay, so she was a grown-up. I couldn’t really tell because she was four feet tall and—though she had more wrinkles than a Shar-Pei—that could’ve been their norm.

  “My name is Bexley, but my friends call me Bex.”

  “What should I call you?” the alien asked.

  “Bex,” I said. “And what’s your name?”

  “It does not translate.”

  “Okay, then please say it yourself in your natural language.”

  The alien’s mouth released a bunch of clicks and high-pitched whistles, kind of like dolphin talk.

  I shook my head. “Yeah, that’s not going to work. I need to give you a name because I can’t pronounce whatever that was. If you’re from Vega, how about Vera?”

  “That will work,” the robotic translation said. “I am Vera.”

  I always tried to look people in the eyes when I spoke to them, but I was used to the mouth being underneath. Watching her mouth move above her eyes was disconcerting and made me feel like I was hanging upside down. I was glad that we were at least on a first name basis now, though.

  “May I touch your skin?” Vera asked.

  Super creepy question, but I had to admit I was curious, too. “Sure.”

  Vera reached out and touched my arm. And then I reached out and touched hers. She looked like she would feel rubbery and weird, but she felt okay. Different, but okay. It reminded me of the time we were at the zoo and they let us all line up to touch a snake. I’d expected it to be slimy and gross, but it wasn’t. Things aren’t always what you’d expect.

  A bird chirped loudly outside my window and Vera jumped a foot into the air like a startled cat.

  “What was that?” she asked, neck-eyes bulging.

  “That’s a bird. No reason to be afraid.”

  “You have other species on this planet?”

  “Yes, millions.”

  Vera pointed at the window. “Is that species predatory?”

  “Only to worms.”

  “Please explain,” Vera said, still nervous.

  I chuckled. “Not to us. Don’t worry about it.” But speaking of predatory things. “What was up with that other alien last night?”

  Vera’s shoulders sagged. “Our home has multiple species, just like you and your birds.”

  “How does it differ from you?”

  “My species is known for its intelligence and curiosity.”

  “And its?”

  “They are known for their propensity toward violence.”

  Oh, wonderful. We had the serial killer of aliens hiding somewhere in town. Fantastic.

  Vera sadly shook her giant blockhead. “We would never have brought him to your planet on purpose. I don’t know how any of this happened.”

  I waved my hand. “I know. It’s not your fault.” Then I stopped. “Wait, we?”

  “Yes, the group I came with.”

  There was a group?! I’d thought I only had to deal with two! They had to go back. Immediately. Enough with the Intergalactic United Nations meeting. Time to get down to business.

  “Okay, where’s your spaceship?” I asked.

  Vera looked at me in confusion.

  “Your UFO? Your … ” My hands flew through the air, and I made weird airplane noises.

  “Ahh,” Vera said, finally understanding. “We have no … space ship.”

  “Then how did you travel here?”

  “You.”

  “What do you mean, me?” I’d summoned her UFO; we’d already established that. But I didn’t have it hidden in the garage or anything.

  “You brought us via your communications device.” She pointed again at the phone in my hand.

  “Are you saying that I … teleported you?”

  “Yes, that translates accordingly.”

  “But if you have no spaceship, how are you going to get back to your planet?”

  “That’s why I came to you. We need to go home. Since you brought me here, you can send me back.”

  “Well, then we have a problem,” I said. “Because I have no idea how to do that.”

  Footsteps clambered up the stairs, and my mom’s voice carried down the hall. “Bexley? I’m coming in.”

  Get in the closet!” I whisper-yelled at Vera.

  Thankfully closet translated correctly. Vera had just sunk into my pile of shoes and closed the door when Mom poked her head into the room.

  “You’re up,” she said, gazing with confusion at the sight of me standing in the middle of my room in my pajamas.

  I realized that my blanket and sheets were still piled on the floor from my abrupt launch out of bed. “I’m, um, making the bed.”

  “Well, are you up for some company? Because Charlie’s here to see you.”

  I gulped. Charlie, who had a morning football game. A game I’d promised to go to.

  “Yeah, sure, send him in.”

  “Would you like some chicken noodle soup for lunch?”

  Not really. I only ate that when I was sick. But I had to play the part. “That sounds great. Thanks, Mom.”

  She left smiling, and Charlie stomped into the room, not smiling.

  He was still wearing his Wolcott football jersey, and his blond hair was sticking straight up from all the sweat. His face was dirty and red and scrunched up in anger.

  “Listen,” he said between gritted teeth. “I know you’re not a big fan of me joining the team. But today’s game was important to me. I needed a friendly face in the stands. I thought my supposed best friend would be there!”

  “But—”

  He interrupted, “Did you hear that Robbie got hurt? I ended up playing! In my first game! I was so nervous. And you weren’t there.”

  I put one hand on my hip. “I have a pretty good excuse.”

  He huffed. “I don’t want to hear it. Unless you were in the hospital, nothing else excuses you.”

  I’d have to just show him. That would be easier than trying to explai
n. I calmly walked to my closet and opened the door. Vera peered out from between the hangers.

  Charlie’s red face turned ghastly white. “Is that an alien in your closet?”

  “Yes, it is,” I said. “But don’t worry, she’s friendly.”

  “Okay, you’re excused.” He slowly sat down on the end of my bed, his face frozen in shock.

  “Vera, this is Charlie. You can trust him.” I motioned with my hand for her to come out of the closet. She did, slowly, her neck eyes focused on him.

  “You are sure he is a friend?” she asked.

  Charlie’s mouth dropped open as he looked from Vera to my phone and back again.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “The Alien Invasion game also works as an alien translator. You get used to the robot voice after a while.”

  I put a gentle hand on Vera’s shoulder. “And, yes, Charlie is my best friend.”

  Then I turned to Charlie. “This is Vera. Actually, her name is more like a bunch of dolphin sounds, but I named her Vera because she came from a planet near the star Vega.”

  Charlie looked up at me. “The star we were looking at last night?”

  “Yeah. About that … ” I proceeded to tell him how my Alien Invasion game had somehow teleported Vera and others to our planet. To our town, specifically, because they were drawn to my mobile device.

  As I spoke, Vera explored my room, staring at my posters and looking through my books.

  When I finished filling Charlie in, he asked, “Can you just …” he mimed tapping the laser button on the phone.

  “I tried that last night when the scary alien with the bad hair tried to kill me. I was hoping it would get zapped away like the monsters, but the game did nothing to it.”

  Charlie nodded, taking it all in. “So we have Vera, who is good, and another alien who is bad. What’s that one’s name?”

  I looked at Vera, who’d taken a sock out of my dresser drawer and decided to try it on her hand.

  “His name does not translate,” she said, ripping the sock off and stuffing it back in the drawer.

  “Bob,” Charlie said.