Amy sighed. “I wish Barzo was here.”
“Who’s Bozo?”
“Barzo. You know, that guy our age who comes to the b-and-b with his parents sometimes?”
Great. So he had a name. Earlier this summer, Amy had told me that she’d made friends with an alien. She went on and on about how cool he was.
I know it might sound weird, but I was kind of worried that she might like him. You know, as in, like him.
“David…is anything the matter?”
“What? With me? No. Why would there be?” I shook my head a little harder than was probably necessary. “It’s just…I mean, why would you want him to be here? Does he have the magical alien ability to see through station wagon doors so we could find out who’s inside?”
“Kind of.”
What? “Really?”
“Well, I think I told you about all of these cool gadgets that he brings with him. He had a couple of little earpieces, and you could hear what anyone was saying, no matter how far away they were.” She looked off into the distance and smiled at some memory. “One time we were hanging out at the park, and there was this group of kids way at the other end. It was so funny when he—”
“Got it. Oh, well. Too bad he’s not here.”
She gave me a funny look. “What is your deal? What’s wrong tonight?”
I waved at the window. “Bozo’s not here, so there’s no point in talking about it. He can’t help us.”
“Fine. So what do you suggest we do?”
I peeked out the window again. “Maybe it’s nothing. I’m trying not to be paranoid just because we’re here alone, you know? I mean, the evidence is not the greatest. What do we really have here, anyway? A rubber ear, a hot air balloon, and a car that’s parked on a public street. There could be lots of explanations for—”
I was interrupted by a noise. Downstairs.
We froze. There wasn’t supposed to be anybody downstairs.
“Did you—?”
“Shhhh.”
There it was again. A voice. Definitely a male. And then more voices, fainter, but distinct.
No aliens had passed us to go downstairs. The only explanation could be humans. Someone had gotten into the B&B. Multiple someones. Had they really been keeping the house under surveillance? Were they finally going to make their move?
I never dreamed I could miss Tate so badly.
“We have to go check it out,” Amy whispered.
“I know.”
Neither one of us moved.
“Seriously, it’s just us now. We have to go down there.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay. I’ll go first.”
“Why you?”
“Because I’m the boy.”
“So? I beat you at arm wrestling, like, three times in a row yesterday.”
“You seriously think whoever is down there wants to arm wrestle?”
“No, I just—”
“Fine. You go first.”
More noise from downstairs. We froze again, ears cocked toward the staircase. Wait…was that music? I didn’t think the characters in horror movies were supposed to be able to hear the creepy sound track. This was getting worse.
Amy made a shooing motion at me. “Okay. You can go first.”
“Thanks a lot.” I slowly got to my feet and tiptoed toward the stairs, Amy right behind me. I skipped the squeaky third step, holding my breath.
The voice yelled something, sounding angry. I grabbed the banister with both hands, trying to figure out what to do.
“Wait—that sounds like my dad!” Amy pushed past me and ran down to the sitting room.
The TV was back on, casting a blue glow over the dark room. Sure enough, Tate’s jowly face nearly filled up the whole screen.
“…hope you kids are getting this message. I don’t trust these fancy contraptions one bit. And it makes me furious to report that I am trapped—”
“Did he say trapped?” Amy dug her fingernails into my arm. “Oh, no.”
“—on some kind of a, well…I guess on Earth you’d call it a dang luxury cruise ship.”
I burst out laughing. Amy relaxed her death grip on my forearm.
A gaggle of brightly dressed aliens flitted across the screen behind Tate. They were talking and laughing and gesturing all over with their antennae and tentacles. Tate turned his head and shouted at them, “Would you all quiet down! I’m trying to make a durn phone call.”
A willowy alien turned to face him. “What’s a phone?”
“Whatever you call this setup here.” Tate waved a hand at the screen, frowning under his bushy mustache. “This…this…oh, never mind. Just give me a little quiet.”
That group of aliens moved on, but were quickly replaced by another colorful cluster. They were was apparently on their way to some kind of dance, because music started blaring, and the aliens looked like they were moving in a levitating conga line. Tate had stumbled on to quite the space bash.
He hunched over, blocking our view of the aliens with his burly shoulders, and yelled over the music, “I gave the person in charge the name of the planet I was aiming for, and they sent me to some lineup. Thought I was waiting for a transporter, and turned out I was getting on this crazy cruise ship.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the partying aliens, shook his head in disgust, and turned back to the screen. “So we’re headed to that planet your grandma’s on, but we’re going what they call ‘the old-fashioned way,’ sailing among the stars instead of using transporters. Sounds like it’s going to take several days to get there.”
Amy and I looked at each other, eyebrows raised.
“That means you two are in charge until I can get back. I’m right sorry about putting you in this position, but I know you’ll make me proud.” He leaned forward even more, his face in extreme close-up. “Won’t you?”
I nodded automatically, but of course he couldn’t see us.
“You need to shut down the transporters so you don’t get a bunch of guests coming in, then hunker down and wait until I get back in touch and tell you when I can make it home, understand?” He paused to let that sink in before continuing. “You take care of yourself, little lady.” Then his expression soured, and the glare he directed at the screen was unmistakably meant for me. “And you take care of her too, boy.” The music blasted even louder, and glittery confetti swirled all around Tate’s head. His shoulders slumped a little, and we could see the cosmic conga line hovering and weaving around just behind him.
Tate shook his head. Now there were sparkly pieces of confetti all over his sheriff’s hat and stuck in his mustache. He started to say something, but it was much lower, as though he was talking to himself. The dancers thinned out and the music became muted, and we could hear what he was muttering.
“…couldn’t have ended up with a group of aliens working on some big, important project, could I? Or on Commander Rezzlurr’s police-precinct ship, where I could actually learn a useful thing or two. Oh no, of course not.” Tate glanced back at the last few extraterrestrial dancers. He sighed heavily, his shoulders slumped even more. “Nope. Wherever I go, it’s always aliens on vacation.”
The picture cut out for a moment, and when it started over at the beginning of the message, I turned the sound down. Amy looked over at me. “Don’t say it.”
“Say what?”
“Anything.”
But soon a grin crept across her face. “Oh, I guess it is pretty funny, isn’t it? My dad stuck somewhere like that?”
I nodded. “I can’t even picture him on a cruise ship on Earth, much less one where he’s surrounded by aliens that he can’t get away from.”
Amy was quiet for a moment, looking around the room. “So I guess it is official. We’re actually running this place for longer than just a day.” She shook her head in wonder. “Who knows? It might be as long as a week.”
“Yep.” I looked over at her. “I can’t think of anyone I’d rather do that job with.”
; “Thanks. Me neither.”
Amy smiled. I guess every once in a great while I get lucky and sort of say the right thing.
But then she yawned. “We should probably get some sleep. We’re going to need our energy for tomorrow.”
“I know.” I walked over to the window and pushed aside the curtain a little bit. “But first let’s see what’s going on out there.”
“Good idea.”
Amy came to stand beside me, and we looked out the window together. But the street was empty.
The mystery car was gone.
During breakfast the next morning, Amy and I filled the Tourists in on the latest developments. In the least surprising news ever, no one was heartbroken over Tate’s prolonged absence.
While we were washing the dishes, Mrs. Crowzen came to see us, her crablike claws clicking on the kitchen tiles.
“Excuse me for interrupting, but I have a request,” she said, not quite looking at us. “On behalf of the children, of course.”
“Sure. What can we do for you?” Amy said, drying her hands on a dish towel.
“Well, you see…I’m a bit worried about reporting back to my school’s administrators—to say nothing of the children’s parents, but don’t get me started on them—as my objectives for this off-world excursion were very clear. The students have a list of things to experience: observe the natives interacting in a social setting, visit a place where Earth commerce is being conducted, that type of thing.”
Amy and I glanced at each other. “You want to take the kids into town,” I said.
“Indeed.” Mrs. Crowzen rummaged around in a purse she had gotten from one of Grandma’s trunks of used clothing. “When I made the reservations,” she said, holding up a paper she had taken from the purse, “I was assured that there would be very few restrictions on that type of activity—as long as we took the proper precautions, of course.”
“I know. We’re really sorry,” Amy said. “It’s normally no problem at all, but this has been a very unusual week for us.”
“I see.” Mrs. Crowzen studied the floor. She started to leave, got almost through the doorway, then turned back to us and took a deep breath. “Now, I would hate to file a complaint with the Interstellar Tourism Bureau, especially with that adorable earthling receiving her big award right now, but, well, I’m afraid that if I do not complete my objectives…” She clacked her claws together nervously. “That is to say, if I cannot…”
Suddenly she let out a wail and shuddered all over. She plopped down heavily in one of the wooden kitchen chairs and moisture leaked out from everywhere—eyes, ears, mouth, the little cracks between the exoskeleton plates of her body, everywhere. I’m no astrobiologist, but I’m pretty sure that must be how people cry on her planet.
I never know what to do when somebody is crying. Thankfully, Amy was there. She brought Mrs. Crowzen a couple of dish towels (this was definitely a bigger job than Kleenex could handle) and patted her on the back.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Amy said soothingly.
Mrs. Crowzen heaved a couple more sobs before settling down. “Please forgive me. It’s just that, well, these parents pay a lot of money for their children’s education, you see. And sometimes they can get a little bit ill-tempered…perhaps more than a little bit…and I just cannot…”
She clunked her head down on the table and left it there. More wailing. More sobbing. Lots more leaking.
I caught Amy’s eye and inclined my head toward the door. She nodded, then handed Mrs. Crowzen a couple more towels. “Please excuse us for a moment.”
We met in the hallway. “We need to let her take them out,” I said.
“You know we can’t do that.”
“Amy, she’s going to get fired or something if we don’t. And this is obviously not the best time for anyone to be filing a complaint with the Tourism Bureau. What if they send some kind of inspector to check it out? We’re probably in violation of at least a dozen intergalactic child-labor laws.”
“What about…” Amy gestured toward the window facing the street. “You know, what we talked about last night?”
“I checked first thing this morning. That car is still gone. And no hot air balloons anywhere.” I watched her as she thought it over. “There’s a chance we might have been overly suspicious. After what we went through with Scratchull I guess it’s understandable, but not everyone is trying to blow up the planet, you know? We can’t be afraid of everything.”
Amy glanced at the kitchen door and then back at me, her face twisted with indecision. “Do you know how mad my dad would be if he found out we let them go?”
“Do you know how mad my grandma would be if she found out your dad had invented all these harsh rules in the first place?”
Amy bit her lower lip. “Okay, you have a point…but I just don’t know if we should risk it.”
Fresh wails drifted out the kitchen door. This is not how I wanted to spend the rest of the week. “Look, you see your job here as a—whaddayacallit—an apprenticeship. Right?”
“What do you mean?”
“Grandma’s going to retire someday, or decide that she’d like to take another spin in the transporter and not come back, or whatever. The point is, she’s going to be done with this place eventually. Right?”
Amy nodded, eyeing me carefully.
“Well, it’s not like she can turn the business over to just anyone. Don’t you want it to be you? I mean, isn’t that kind of your dream, to run this place someday?”
Amy sighed. “Is it that obvious?”
“Only for people with eyes.”
She blushed. “I’m sorry, David. I should have talked to you first, of course. After all, she is your grandma. So this should be, like, your inheritance, right? I mean, if I—”
I held up my hand to stop her. We did not need to have this conversation right now. “Look, don’t worry about it. I just meant you should get some realistic practice at running the place.”
“But isn’t it your dream, too? I mean, this place is so amazing, don’t you want to live here the rest of your life and soak up every moment?”
Just then the slime-drippers ran by, screaming and laughing, spraying snotty goo droplets everywhere with their flailing limbs. Snarffle rounded the corner, a crazed smile stretching his face, clearly relishing the chase. He caught up with them at the end of the hall, his beach-ball body knocking them down like bowling pins. The kids grabbed on and rolled with Snarffle, smashing into an end table and shattering the vase on top. The action stopped when they slammed into the wall and sprawled out on the floor, panting and grinning in a slime-covered mess that would have to be cleaned up. Probably by me.
I looked back at Amy. “Not really.”
“Are you serious?”
“Look, Forest Grove is a great place to visit—”
“—you just wouldn’t want to live here?” She seemed pretty disappointed.
“Honestly? I don’t know yet. I mean, I’m in middle school.”
“But this is different—do you know how many people all over the planet would want to know about a place like this? Millions!”
“Don’t get me wrong. I love it here. But you’ve always known what you want to do with your life. Even before you knew about this place, you told me you wanted to be an astrobiologist and study about outer space and all of that when you went to college, remember?”
She nodded.
“I think that’s really cool for you, but I just…I don’t know. I need more time to figure out what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.”
“Okay.” She smiled. “But whatever happens, you have to promise that you’ll visit a lot.”
The kids picked themselves up and ran to the stairs, spraying slime everywhere once again, with Snarffle in hot pursuit.
“Who could resist?”
Amy grinned and shook her head as she watched them head up to the second floor. Then she took a deep breath and looked back at me. “Okay. You’re right. Your grandma
would want us to provide the best Earth experience possible for her guests.”
“Now you’re talking.”
“Who are we to stand in the way of her life’s work?”
“Exactly.”
“But someone should stay here to watch the house, and the other one should definitely chaperone.” The hopeful look in her eyes was unmistakable, even for me, who’s no good at reading girls.
“I’ll stay here,” I said.
“Are you sure? Because I don’t mind if—”
“Come on. I think you probably know Forest Grove a little bit better than I do. You’ll be more of a tour guide than just a chaperone.”
“Thanks, David!” She gave me a big hug and then bounced up and down like Snarffle at walk time as we made our way back to the kitchen.
“Mrs. Crowzen? We’ve decided that you can take the kids into town for their field trip.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Her face brightened and all that tear moisture got sucked back into her shell like she had a vacuum under there. Cool trick.
“You just need to let us help with the disguises.”
Half an hour later, all eight kids were lined up in the sitting room, waiting to head out. I have to admit, we did a pretty decent job on their earthling disguises.
Grandma didn’t have any dresses big enough to fit over Mrs. Crowzen’s roundish crab-shell body. So we took a king-size bedsheet with a floral pattern and cut out head- and armholes. A floppy sun hat, a long pair of lady gloves that went past the elbow, and a ton of makeup took care of the rest. She looked like a fat lady with a clown face in a muumuu, but at least she looked human.
For the girls with antennae growing out of the tops of their heads, Amy pulled the growths together and bound them with scrunchies. “There you go. Just looks like you’re wearing pigtails now.”
“Pigtails?” said Kanduu, who was watching.
“Yeah, they’re really cute. Lots of girls on Earth wear them.”
“But pigtails? Seriously?” Kanduu tilted his head and studied his girl classmates. “So you’re saying their heads look like the butt of a dirty farm animal?”
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