The Mystery of the Frozen Brains

by Marty Chan

  When I got to the store, Dad and Mom were waiting for me. They didn’t look too happy. Father Sasseville must have used some kind of super-advanced alien communication device to tell my parents everything.

  “I just got off the phone with the Father,” Dad said. “You okay, Marty?”

  “Everything will be okay if he does what I say.”

  Mom felt my forehead. “He not have a fever.”

  “I’ll be fine when Remi comes back.”

  Mom looked at Dad and shook her head. “That boy no good.”

  “He’s my friend, Mom.”

  “You not need that kind of friend,” she said.

  Before she could say anything else Dad stopped her. “Maybe he does.”

  Mom glared at him. “We talk about this later. Marty, go to your room!”

  She used her mind control glare on Dad. He tried to say something, but the words died in his throat. He sat down and looked away from me. Mom motioned me to go to my room.

  “But . . . ” I said.

  “No more talk,” Mom barked. She glared at me and turned up the juice on her mind control powers.

  I felt compelled to go to my room. I felt powerless against my angry alien mother. It was over. Soon, the aliens would invade and Remi’s brain would be lost in a freezer full of human brains.

  What made me feel horrible was the fact that I couldn’t save Remi. I had known him for less than a week, but I missed him more than I missed Trina. I missed him more than I missed my Saturn home. I missed him more than anything in my entire life. Before I met Remi, I could make it through months without needing to talk to anyone. I got used to being by myself. But now I felt a big, gaping, empty hole inside my chest. And the worst thing was that it had always been there. I just didn’t notice it until now.

  I tried to read my Hardy Boys book to take my mind off everything, but something had changed. Before, books could transport me to another world where people had lots of friends and set off on great adventures. But now the friends in the book seemed so fake. Some writer had just come up with his idea of what friends should be like. I knew what real friends were. They were the people who filled the hole inside my chest. And my friend was gone.

  SEVENTEEN

  The next day, I expected to see aliens crawling all over the school. Instead, I saw the French/ English alliance prowl the schoolyard. I worried that they might pick on me, but Jacques and Jean had told everyone I was off limits. At least, I had scored one small victory. The kids played together, probably for the last time — as humans.

  Eric Johnson and Trina Brewster returned to school. I assumed the aliens had taken them. I talked to Eric in alienese.

  “So you’re here to take over,” I said. “Does your brain rattle around in that big empty head?”

  Eric screwed up his puzzled face and spat out in English, “Loser.”

  He walked away. If he had the brain of an alien, why didn’t he understand me?

  Trina snuck up behind me and shyly said, “Did you notice I wasn’t in class?”

  I nodded.

  She smiled. “It’s because I had the flu, but I’m okay now.” She wiped her runny nose and sniffled.

  “I’m sure you’re feeling out of this world,” I said.

  She didn’t understand my dig. Instead, she asked, “I was wondering if I could borrow your notes. Or maybe you could help me catch up on my homework. That is if you want to.”

  I missed the old Trina, the one who teased me and made my life miserable. I hated this alien Trina who pretended to like me.

  I said, “You’ll never get my notes. Never. You’re a terrible thing.”

  She huffed, “I thought you were a hero when you saved me from those French kids, but you’re just a jerk.”

  She started to tear up. I was stunned. Suddenly, it dawned on me. How could this alien Trina know that I had saved the real Trina? There could be no way, which meant I had just insulted the real Trina.

  “You freak-a-zoid,” she said. I had never heard such a sweet sounding word.

  Before I could apologize to the real Trina, she stormed off. I ran after her, but I stopped when the other girls giggled at us. I walked away from Trina and sauntered through the schoolyard where the human students played.

  The aliens had not taken over my classmates. Trina and Eric had returned to school safe and sound. I wondered if I had single-handedly beaten back the alien invasion. I wondered who else I had saved.

  At recess, I looked for Remi all over the schoolyard. I stopped to watch a new war start up. The French kids teamed up with the Anglais to launch an attack on the older students. The opponents weren’t divided by language now. They were divided by grade. And the war wasn’t so mean-spirited now; it seemed more like a game. Everyone was laughing.

  Remi was not among them.

  I left the laughing students. I leaned against the Jesus statue and waited for recess to end, alone.

  Later that day, at the store, Father Sasseville talked to my mom and dad. Beside him stood a man, a woman, and two kids. These people had black hair and yellow skin. They looked like me except they were all really skinny. It was the first time I had ever seen anyone like me in Bouvier. I had seen pictures, but the people with Father Sasseville were real. I thought I should feel less alone now that I was with people like me, but the hole in my chest still felt huge. It was about the size of Remi Boudreau.

  Father Sasseville introduced me, “Marty, these are the Vietnamese refugees. They are your new friends.”

  “Hi,” I grunted.

  They nodded at me, but said nothing.

  “They don’t speak English,” Father Sasseville said. “But they’ll learn.”

  The aliens had arrived, but not in the brains of my schoolmates. Maybe the alien invasion plan was to move to Bouvier and live here among the humans.

  “Shall we go, George?” Father Sasseville asked.

  My dad nodded. He led the aliens out of the store.

  “Where are they going?” I asked Mom.

  “They go to new home in city.”

  “They’re not staying here?

  “No. We think it better they live in city. The church find other people to take them in.”

  “They’re not going to take over the town?”

  Mom shook her head. I watched the aliens leave in Dad’s car. As quickly as it had started, the invasion was over. I had won. But the price I paid was my friend Remi.

  I shambled to my room and flopped on my bed. Nothing made sense. I was alone again. I wished I could make my life right again, but I hadn’t learned how to do that yet.

  Suddenly, there was a thump on my bedroom wall. There were two more thumps. A pause. Then two thumps, four raps, a dog bark, and seventeen rapid thumps. Remi’s secret signal. I sprang from the bed and ran to the back door. Remi stood there as if nothing had happened to him.

  “Is it you?” I asked.

  “Duh? Who else would it be?”

  I knocked on his head. “Is it yours?”

  “Ow.” He knocked my head in retaliation.

  It was definitely Remi.

  “Your mom called my mom and said it was okay for me to come over.”

  I couldn’t believe that my mom had done this. Why would she let Remi come back? Did she like this human? Was I wrong when I thought that she cared more about other aliens than she cared about me? Why was I wasting my time thinking about her when my best friend had returned?

  I smiled at Remi, “The invasion’s over.”

  “It is?”

  “I stopped it,” I said.

  “How?”

  “Come in, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  MARTY CHAN is a nationally-known dramatist, screenwriter, and author. His juvenile novel, The Mystery of the Frozen Brains, won the Edmonton Book Prize, and was also listed as one of the Best Books of 2004 for grades three to six by Resource Links magazine. The second book in the Chan Mystery Series, The Mystery of the Graffiti Ghoul, won the 2008 SYRCA Young Re
aders’ Choice Diamond Willow Award, and was shortlisted for the 2007 Golden Eagle Children’s Choice Book Award, and the 2007 Arthur Ellis Crime Writers of Canada Award in the Best Juvenile category., and the 2008 R. Ross Annett Alberta Literary Award for Children’s Literature. The fourth book in the series, The Mystery of the Cyber Bully was a finalist for the 2011 John Spray Mystery Award. Marty Chan lives in Edmonton, Alberta.