by Marty Chan
“You might be right,” I said. “They never let me go to anyone’s house for dinner. They always want me to come home right after school. It’s like they don’t want me to have any contact with humans.”
“Or maybe they think you’ll pick up cooties.” Remi grinned.
I scratched my head and laughed. “Too late. I got ‘em now.”
“You want some more?” Remi grabbed me in a playful headlock and rubbed his knuckles on the top of my head. When he finally let go my hair stood straight up. I licked my palm and patted my hair down. Remi laughed, and I chuckled with him.
Suddenly, he stopped laughing, as an idea gut punched him. “Hey, maybe your mom and dad are on a scouting mission. You know, like when a hockey team sends scouts to the minor leagues to find good players.”
“My family wants to recruit aliens?”
“No, they’re spying on us. Me. Earthlings.
“But why?”
“Check the magazine. Maybe it says.”
The articles all referred to the aliens being curious about Earth, but none said why.
“I guess it’s up to us to find out what my parents are doing,” I said. “But how?”
Remi cracked a huge grin. “Are you good at spying?”
FIVE
At school, my classmates continued to whisper behind my back. At recess, they asked me nonsense questions like, “if a cat and horse had a baby what would it look like?” or, “what’s 23 divided by 17,432 in French?” Trina had told everyone that my brain would smoke out my ears if it was overloaded, and they wanted to push me to the edge.
When I refused to answer, everyone treated me like the lone red sock in a washing machine full of white clothes. But I didn’t care. I had a purpose in my life. I was about to set out on a mission to uncover an alien plot with Remi. Fantasies about our adventures replaced all my worries about what the other kids thought of me.
I wanted to share my ideas with Remi, but he told me to ignore him at school. He thought we should act like nothing was out of the ordinary. An Anglais hanging out with a French friend would stand out as unusual. I pretended that I didn’t know Remi at all. It wasn’t hard since we took classes in different parts of the school.
When the school day ended, I sprinted out of class and headed to the boot room. Trina’s freak-a-zoid tour followed me into the schoolyard.
“Keep up with the tour,” Trina yelled at the crowd of about ten curious students. “Today, we are going to observe the freak-a-zoid in his natural habitat.”
I started to run, and the entire group jogged to keep up with me. When I slowed down, they slowed down too. I turned right, they went right. I went left, they turned left. I was the reluctant leader of a herd of lemmings. I slowed down and shambled toward the chain link fence, trying to figure out how to shake off my followers. Suddenly, an idea sounded off in my brain like a bell ringing. Or was that the bell to dismiss the French students? Either way, I had a plan.
Instead of going home, I doubled back to the school. The Boissonault brothers led other French kids out of the boot room. Perfect. Behind me, Trina’s group looped around to follow me. I started to jog; they started to jog. I picked up the pace; they picked up the pace. I broke into a run, and so did they.
I headed for the Boissonault brothers and screamed, “Snowball fight!”
I dove face first into the snow, leaving Trina’s charging gang to face Jacques and Jean. The brothers yelled back at their French friends that they were under attack. Trina tried to explain, but she was cut off when a snowball landed smack in the middle of her face. Chaos erupted as the French attacked the Anglais. In the confusion, I crawled through the snow away from the fight and toward home.
In my bedroom, I waited for Remi’s signal. I pretended to study to kill time and throw Mom off the scent in case she checked on me. Time crawled to a standstill. I stared at my digital clock and waited for the minute digits to click up. It took 138 seconds for the clock to go from four eleven to four twelve. I suspected my clock was set on alien time.
Finally, I heard a loud thump against the cement wall of my bedroom, followed by another two thumps. I waited. Two thumps, four raps, a dog bark, and seventeen more thumps. That was Remi’s signal. I ran to the back of the store and opened the back door to the alley.
“What took you so long?” I asked.
“There was a snowball fight in the schoolyard. I had to help. We totally kicked the Anglais butts. You should have seen the look on their faces.”
“Okay, okay,” I interrupted. “But an hour of snowball fights?”
“No. I had to go home and get these.”
Remi held up a pair of walkie-talkies.
“Cool,” I said as he handed one of them to me.
“We have to maintain radio contact at all times,” Remi said. “Do you copy?”
“Copy what?”
“Copy is code for understand.”
“Why don’t you just say ‘do you understand’?”
“Because ‘copy’ sounds cooler. Check your walkie.”
I pushed the talk button. Remi’s walkie squawked and squealed like an electronic pig. He stepped back.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Interference. Just don’t stand too close when you’re talking into it.”
“Copy that.”
“Now you’re getting it. Okay, ready? Let’s go.”
Our mission was to get into my parents’ bedroom. Remi and I suspected this room possessed all the alien secrets. The trick was to sneak into the room without my parents finding out.
Dad posed no problem. He never left the cash register, so we’d know his location at all times. However, Mom was a rover. Sometimes she cooked in the kitchen. Sometimes she worked in the store. Sometimes she swept the back hall. Keeping tabs on her would prove to be extremely difficult.
We went in search of my mom. Remi and I crept into the main part of the store. I signalled him to move forward along the aisle. He got down on his belly and crawled commando-style. He wormed forward, then froze. He signalled me to stay put. I peeked out and spotted Mom at the front of the store, mopping.
“Do you think she saw us?”
Remi shook his head. “I don’t think so. If she moves anywhere near her bedroom, we’re done for. Someone has to watch her.”
“What does the other guy do?”
“Duh. Search her bedroom,” Remi said.
“You go,” I said. “I’m too scared.”
Remi shook his head. “Chicken.”
I didn’t argue with him.
“If she starts coming, the code word is jockstrap,” Remi instructed.
“Can’t I just say she’s coming?”
“You want to go in the room?”
“Jockstrap.”
“That’s better.”
“Jockstrap.”
“Yes, you’ve got it right.”
“Jockstrap!”
“What are you doing?”
I pointed down the aisle. Mom was coming toward us.
SIX
“Hide!” I pushed Remi toward the living room. We scrambled along the back hall toward the bedrooms. Remi ran into my parents’ bedroom before I could stop him.
“Wrong room,” I whispered.
Too late. He scrambled under my parents’ bed. I had no choice but to squeeze under the bed with him.
“We shouldn’t have come in here,” I said. “We have to get out.”
“Shhh!! I think she’s coming.”
Mom’s footsteps zeroed in on us. I held my breath. Remi froze. We saw Mom’s feet in brown slippers. Her toes pointed at us like tiny cameras looking at our nervous faces. My legs quivered. My hands were wet with sweat. I wanted to scream. Instead, I squeezed my walkie-talkie really hard. The sweat made my finger slip and I accidentally pushed the talk button.
SQUAWK7!
I panicked and pressed harder. Remi covered his walkie-talkie and glared at me.
“Let go of the button,” he mou
thed.
I couldn’t make out what he was saying.
“Let go of the button,” he mouthed again.
I still had no idea what he was saying. Remi pried my finger off the walkie-talking button. The squeal finally stopped. Mom’s feet turned to the left and then to the right as she looked around the room for the source of the squawk. It wouldn’t be long before she looked under the bed.
Suddenly, an idea hit me.
“Msk. Msk. Msk,” I squelched through tight lips. Remi gaped in horror. It looked like I was giving away our hiding spot. I ignored him and kept squelching. He tried to cover my mouth, but I pushed his hand away.
Mom screamed, “Aiya! Mouse.”
She ran out the room. Down the hall, she called for Dad to come and kill the mouse under the bed.
“We don’t have much time. Let’s go.” I crawled out from under the bed. Remi followed me.
“What made you think of doing that?” Remi asked.
“Mom hates mice, and our store is full of them.”
“Good one, Marty.”
I shrugged, pretending I came up with good ideas all the time.
“What do you think she was doing here?” Remi asked.
On top of the pink bed cover, Mom had left a book. It was a black book with strange alien-like markings.
“I think she was after this,” I declared.
“Let’s take it to your room. We can check it out there.”
“Okay. Hurry, before my dad comes.”
We raced into my room, closed the door and waited. In the distance, Mom screamed. Then footsteps hurried along the hallway. I cracked the door open slightly and peeked out. Dad ran to the bedroom with a metal mouse trap. Down the hall, Mom told him where to put the trap.
I eased the door closed and propped a chair under the doorknob. Remi plopped on my bed and opened the black book. I looked over his shoulder. The book had strange symbols all over it. Definitely alien in origin. The writing was not English, and Remi said that it didn’t look like French either.
“It might be Chinese,” he suggested.
“Or it might be alien, disguised as Chinese,” I said.
Strange symbols that looked like flattened ants filled the pages. They ran in columns up and down and across.
“Can you read this?” Remi asked.
I shook my head. “It looks like gibberish.”
“I’ll bet it’s your parents’ code book. I’ll bet it says what the aliens are doing on Earth.”
“Yeah, but we can’t read it.”
“Forget the book,” Remi said. “We have to watch your parents. Sooner or later, they’re going to slip up, and then we’ll find out the truth.”
“Copy that.”
“Let’s rock and roll.”
“What?”
“Let’s go.”
“That another code thing?”
“Yeah. Pretty cool huh?”
I nodded. I took the chair away from the door, and listened for signs of movement. Nothing. I figured Dad went back to the cash register and Mom would not come this way until the mouse was caught. Remi and I crept into the main section of the store. We hid behind the far end of the shelves so that we could spy on my parents. I spotted the top of my dad’s bald head behind the cash register. If he was up to anything, we would see it from our vantage point.
For a half an hour, we watched my dad sit at the cash register and read his newspaper. Remi suspected that he was combing the newspaper for information about humans. I agreed. We continued to watch.
David Johnson came in to buy matches. David was Eric Johnson’s big brother. The Johnson brothers had the same curly blond hair and dumb sense of humour. However, David liked to kick up more trouble than his kid brother. Rumour had it that he broke all the Rake’s car windows, because the Rake suspended him for smoking on school grounds.
David leaned close to my dad and whispered.
“They’re passing information to one another,” Remi guessed. “We have to hear what they’re saying.”
I nodded and slunk down the aisle. When I got close enough to hear their conversation, I pretended to “face” some soup cans. “Facing” meant turning cans so that the labels faced front.
“Come on, you can sell me a pack of cigarettes,” David whispered.
“You not old enough,” my Dad said.
“Look at this face. I’m 30.”
Stupidity ran in the Johnson family. David was barely thirteen years old.
“I’ll pay double,” David offered.
Dad turned him down, “You go before I call your mom and dad.”
“Okay, okay. I’m leaving,” David said. Then he muttered, “Stupid Chinaman.”
My cheeks turned hot and I felt a sting in my eyes. I wiped them and headed back to Remi. I told him that there was no way that David was an alien. He didn’t even like my dad. Remi suggested we keep a close eye on Dad for at least another hour, but I didn’t feel like spying any more.
“He’s not doing a thing,” I argued.
“Maybe that’s what he wants us to think. Maybe people are supposed to see him just sitting there, so they think nothing is weird.”
“Like a decoy.”
“Exactly.”
“Hold on, hold on. That means my mom is doing all the secret alien stuff.”
“Where is she now?” Remi asked.
“I think I heard her near the meat grinder.”
“She grinds meat? What kind? Human?”
“I don’t know.”
“We’d better find out.”
In the meat shop, Mom stuffed chunks of meat into the giant silver hamburger grinder. The meat cubes went into a giant tray on top. Then she stuffed the red chunks into the grinder’s mouth. Further down the machine, a shower head spit out long strands of hamburger meat. I hoped that the grinder had nothing to do with my parents’ master alien plan.
The only way we could spy on Mom was for me to help her grind meat, while Remi hid in the nearby kitchen. He listened to our conversation through the walkie-talkie in my shirt pocket.
I pressed the talk button. “Can you hear me, Remi?”
“Copy that,” my pocket answered back. “Actually, I think I can hear you through the door.”
Mom turned off the grinder and turned around. “Who you talking to?”
I let go of the walkie button. “No one.”
“Go study.”
“Okay,” I said.
“No,” barked my shirt pocket.
“What?” Mom said.
“I meant I’m done,” I replied.
“Then take out the garbage.”
“Sure,” I replied.
My pocket whispered, “Stay there.”
I couldn’t let Remi down. “Um, Mom. Can I help you make hamburger?”
“You too young to work machine.”
“Then can I watch you work?” I asked.
“For a little bit.” She shoved chunks of meat into the grinder.
“Why do we have to make hamburger?”
“People like hamburger meat. It’s cheap.”
“What’s it made of?”
“Cows.”
I thought of the article about the cow mutilations. I was sure this might have something to do with my parents’ mission. They had to grind hamburger meat for their alien brothers and sisters. Maybe aliens liked to barbecue.
“Where do you get the cows?”
“Why you ask so many questions?”
“I’m just curious, Mom.”
“You worry about your homework. It better if you not stay here.”
“You don’t want me here? Where do you want me to be?”
My shirt pocket whispered, “Nice. Ask her about her plans.”
I slapped my hand over my pocket.
“Mom, what are your plans for me?”
“What you talk about? You feel okay?”
“I’m fine.”
My pocket squawked, “What about the plans?”
She looked at me. “Something is wrong.”
Mom stared at me as she started to probe my brain. I filled my mind with weird pictures. A cat in a baby’s crib. A fire hydrant rocket ship. Trina dancing with me. Mom moved closer. Her probe increased in power. I started to sweat a little. I blanked out my mind, but all I could think about was Remi. Mom would soon learn everything.
Suddenly, a loud crash in the kitchen distracted her.
“Something is in kitchen,” she said.
“I didn’t hear anything,” I lied.
Another loud clatter came from behind the kitchen door.
“It’s the mouse,” Mom screamed. “Get your dad!”
“No, let me check it out, Mom.” I headed for the door.
Remi yelped. What the heck was he doing back there?
“That is no mouse. Someone is in kitchen,” Mom headed to the closed door.
“Run Remi! Run!”
More clattering responded to my yells. Mom raced to the door and swung it open. Remi knelt on the floor, picking up an overturned dish rack and scattered pots and pans.
“What you doing here?” Mom demanded.
“I was doing homework with Marty,” Remi lied.
I backed him up. “Yes, I was helping him do math.”
“Why you not together then?”
“I was taking a break,” I said.
Mom’s look showed serious doubt.
“You go home now,” she said to Remi.
“But I have to help him,” I said.
“Now!”
“I’ll see you at school, Marty.” Remi scrambled out of the store.
Mom stared after him. I think she tried to read his mind, and whatever she found was not good.
“That boy is trouble,” Mom said. “You stay away from him.”