by Dan Gutman
“This place is cheesetastic!” Coke proclaimed.
“Cheesetastic?” asked Mrs. McDonald.
“Fantastically cheesy,” Coke translated.
The International UFO Museum and Research Center had already closed for the day. Too bad. They have a model UFO, a film of the “official” autopsy of the alien bodies after the 1947 crash, and a prop alien-corpse dummy.
The Alien Zone was closed too. For a few dollars, you can go inside and take pictures of yourself next to alien mannequins sitting at a bar, in a jail, in an outhouse, and at an alien autopsy scene.
“What a load of baloney,” Dr. McDonald said as he drove past a street sign that said UFO PARKING ONLY.
“Oh, I don’t know, honey,” Mrs. McDonald said. “There are literally billions of planets in the universe. Who’s to say for sure that ours is the only one that has intelligent life on it?”
“I am,” Dr. McDonald said firmly.
“Lots of people say they’ve seen UFOs, Dad,” Pep said. “Some of them even claim to have been abducted by aliens.”
“Lunatics and nut jobs,” her father replied. “Those crackpots are always drunk, by themselves, and out in the middle of nowhere when they spot UFOs. If aliens are so intelligent, they’d come to New York City or Los Angeles. Why don’t they land on the White House lawn and introduce themselves?”
“Because we’d hit them with nuclear bombs and blow them to smithereens,” Coke replied.
“I’ll believe in UFOs when I see one with my own eyes,” Dr. McDonald said.
Mrs. McDonald did a search for motels in Roswell, and there were plenty to choose from. She booked a room at the Best Western El Rancho Palacio, which was right up the street from Alien Zone.
“Check it out!” Coke said when the family walked around the back to their room. “They have a Ping-Pong table!”
It was an old wooden table that was out on the grass and unprotected against the elements. The edges had been chipped by frustrated players, but the table looked usable. Their parents said it was okay for the kids to play Ping-Pong while they themselves settled into their room. Coke grabbed paddles and Pep found a few balls in a trunk filled with board games and playing cards.
“Okay, volley for serve,” Coke said.
Neither of the twins was great at Ping-Pong, but both were decent, and they were evenly matched. Soon the little ball was zipping back and forth across the table. The score was 8–7 when Coke slammed a shot that she couldn’t reach to his sister’s backhand side. As Pep went to chase down the ball, she heard something—a strange humming sound in the distance. She stopped to listen.
“Did you hear that?” she asked.
“Hear what?”
“That sound,” Pep said. “It was humming or vibrating or something.”
“Probably an air conditioner,” Coke said. “My serve.”
“It came from over there,” Pep said, pointing to the trees behind the motel. “Come on, follow me.”
It was that strange time of day when it was starting to get dark on the ground but clouds could still be seen hanging in the sun’s fading light. Still holding her paddle, Pep wandered toward the trees where she had heard the humming noise.
All was quiet except for a rustling in the trees. And then, suddenly, there was a louder vibration. Coke and Pep turned their heads to the left just in time to see this:
And then it was out of sight.
“Did you see that?” Coke asked. “What was it?”
“You think it was a—”
Pep never finished the sentence. Two powerful bluish beams of something—light? photons? energy?—came down from the sky directly overhead like spotlights, illuminating and enveloping the twins. When Coke and Pep tried to step away from the beams, something prevented them from moving their legs. They closed their eyes to shield them from the blinding light, but they could still see it through their eyelids. Pep reached out instinctively to take her brother’s hand.
That’s when their feet lifted up off the ground.
Epilogue
Wait! What? Did Coke and Pep just get abducted by aliens? I sure didn’t see that coming. What happens now? Are they going to get sucked up into the alien spacecraft? What happens when their parents find they are missing? Will the twins be taken to the aliens’ planet? What will the aliens do to them? Will Coke and Pep ever return to Earth? The answer is . . .
You’ll just have to wait for The Genius Files #5 to find out.
I’ll tell you one thing, though. It’s going to be a wild ride.
About the Author
Besides The Genius Files, DAN GUTMAN is the author of the My Weird School series, the Baseball Card Adventure series, and many other books for young readers. Dan lives in New Jersey. To find out more about him and his books, go to www.dangutman.com.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors and artists.
Back Ad
Credits
Cover art © 2014 by Tim Jessell
Cover design by Sarah Nichole Kaufman
Series design by Erin Fitzsimmons
Copyright
THE GENIUS FILES #4: FROM TEXAS WITH LOVE. Copyright © 2014 by Dan Gutman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
ISBN 978-0-06-182773-0 (trade bdg.)
ISBN 978-0-06-182774-7 (lib. bdg.)
EPub Edition November 2013 ISBN 9780062285621
Art by Erin Fitzsimmons
13 14 15 16 17 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
http://www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollins.com