by A. J. Low
“You should have power now,” he said. “See, so troublesome, right? And if I use it, I cannot use the fan. So hot. Also, you’ll need to use my handphone for Internet. I don’t know how my son does it, but he always uses the phone to connect.”
Uncle Chin gave me his smartphone before going back into the kitchen to finish preparing our delicious cool coconuts. I turned on the personal hotspot and waited for the computer to finish booting up. I would have used the handphone itself, but we wouldn’t have all been able to see the tiny screen.
“What’s that big machine out there, Uncle?” Eliza asked. She was looking out the window and pointing to a large metal contraption behind the house.
“Oh that? We sometimes have blackouts on the island,” Uncle Chin called out from the kitchen. “So we have to keep spare generators.”
“What are generators?” Jimmy asked. He was rolling on the ground with the two chickens.
“They-are-a-power-source,” Watson replied.
“Oh, like batteries!” Jimmy said.
When the computer booted up, I entered the personal hotspot password and waited for the browser to load.
I looked around the living room and noticed that the uncle had many large, powerful flashlights in one corner. He seemed very well prepared for emergencies. I made a mental note to tell him about my and Dad’s ZAP Packs (short for Zombie Apocalypse Pack Pack). He might find them useful.
“It’s good that you have flashlights around, Uncle!” I yelled out. “You’re very well prepared for emergencies!”
“Oh ya! We didn’t have them before!” Uncle Chin yelled back. “My son bought those for us a few weeks ago!”
I started typing out the URL of my favourite alien encounter site, and the browser auto-filled the rest of the address for me. In fact, it gave me a drop-down menu with all sorts of alien encounter sites that had been visited before. Someone else must be investigating the possibility of aliens on Pulau Ubin!
When I finally got to the site I wanted, I called Nazhar over. “Look, see here where it says that aliens have visited Earth many, many times in our history? They even say aliens might have been responsible for our evolution!”
Nazhar gave me an incredulous look. “Sure or not? What’s the source on this? Are these authors reliable?”
“They say they’ve been chasing aliens their whole lives,” I said. “Surely that makes them experts!”
“Sam, you eat a lot, but that doesn’t make you an expert on making food,” Wendy said.
Darn it, she was right.
“And look Sherlock, there are very little facts here,” Eliza said. “You understand that this is mostly opinion, right?”
She was right too. There were no citations or external sources. Just the author talking about how many times aliens had visited Earth. Why hadn’t I noticed this before?
“I clearly need to do more research,” I said. “And I have to remember what you told me last night, Nazhar. I can’t let my belief in aliens guide me through this investigation, or we’ll never solve it.”
“Okay, let’s try a site that isn’t as biased as this one,” Nazhar said. “And evaluate that site with more scrutiny.”
I typed in a different URL, and the browser auto-filled it for me again. “This site has a lot more external sources, and seems to be well-balanced.”
“Yeah,” Eliza said. “Here, it talks about how people named Doug Bower and Dave Chorley faked hundreds of crop circles in England, but that there are many other crop circles that remain unexplained.”
“Compared to the other site, this one’s more balanced,” I said. “It even has information on how lights in the sky and unknown elements like green goo could be faked.”
Uncle Chin’s landline phone rang suddenly, and he picked it up. “Hello? Yes, yes, hi, hi. She’s at the restaurant. Are you getting off the boat now?”
There was a long pause, and I tried to focus on the website, but Uncle Chin started talking again. “Oh, don’t start nagging. We’re both fine. There’s even some boys and girls here looking into that alien thing, so we’ll definitely be okay.”
There was another pause, and I felt proud of what Uncle Chin had said. We would solve this. Then he laughed. “No, there’s no need for you to come over to the house now. Go and get something to eat at the restaurant first. They’ve got everything under control, and I’m sure they don’t need your help catching aliens.”
I read the website again, paying close attention to the parts on how to fake alien phenomena. Uncle Chin put down the phone.
“There’s no alien!” I declared. “I know exactly what’s going on!”
FOR YOUR EYES ONLY!
Scan this mystery code for secret content now!
“First of all,” I said, “Officer Siva! You can come out from behind the wall now.”
The Supper Club spun around in astonishment. A sheepish-looking Officer Siva poked his head in from the front door of the uncle’s house. Nervously pulling on his ear, he stepped forward and stood at the doorway.
“Hello, Sherlock,” he said in his deep, gravelly voice. “Hello, Supper Club.”
“Hi, kids!” Dad said. He and Mom popped up from behind Officer Siva!
“Mom! Dad!” Wendy exclaimed. “What are you doing here? Wait, why is Officer Siva here? Wait, how did Sherlock know that Officer Siva was here? What’s going on?”
“I will explain in a minute, Wendy,” I said. “But first, Officer Siva, did you perhaps forget to remove something this morning?” I gestured at my nose.
Officer Siva’s hands flew up and touched the base of his nose. His cheeks flushed red. Quickly, he removed the nose clip that was attached to his nostrils. This was the sort of nose clip that snorers used to try and relieve their symptoms.
“It was you, wasn’t it, Officer Siva?” I continued. “You were the one making that horrible snoring monster sound!”
“Sam!” Mom said. “Don’t be rude!”
“No, no, Mrs Tan,” Officer Siva said. “Sherlock is right. My wife keeps telling me that I snore like a wounded monster at night. That’s why I bought these nose clips. I didn’t realise that they wouldn’t help. But how did you know I was on the island, Sherlock? I thought I hid my tracks pretty well.”
“I suspected that something was amiss when Mom and Dad left us at the campsite by ourselves. They’ve never left us overnight unsupervised before,” I said. “And to start by leaving us in the wilderness was very odd. Their hotel room wasn’t that far away, but it was far enough for me to get suspicious. I suspected they had a contingency plan.”
“It wasn’t that we didn’t trust all of you,” Mom said. “We wanted to teach you to be independent and look after yourselves. But we just wanted a…” She gestured with her hands, trying to find the right word. “A safety net,” she finally said.
“Officer Siva agreed to set up camp a short distance away from your campsite. He went fishing during the day and was close enough to help at night,” Dad continued. “But he wouldn’t make his presence known unless there was an emergency. How did you know Officer Siva was the contingency plan, though?”
“I saw him leaving our place with your fishing pole when I got off the school bus last week,” I said. “I put two and two together and came up with eight divided by two. Deduction, Dad. Deduction. Also, what Officer Siva didn’t realise was that I spotted him several times in the past two days!”
“But I was so careful!” Officer Siva said, looking aghast.
“You should have camouflaged yourself better, Officer Siva,” I said. “Purple tends to stand out in the forest.” I gestured at his purple Transformers T-shirt.
“Oops! Well, when I saw that you kids were going to the uncle’s house, I thought it was a good idea to call your parents,” Officer Siva said. “Just in case.”
“Pa! Who are all these people?!” a voice yelled out from the front door. “I told you not to let anyone come into your house! It’s dangerous!”
Everyone spun arou
nd.
A man in his mid-thirties stood at the door. He was tall and thin, almost too thin. He was dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and slacks. He looked as if he had come straight from work. He also carried a small black bag which I deduced to be his medical bag. He looked hot and very uncomfortable in his office wear and shiny black shoes.
“This must be your son, right, Uncle?” I said.
Uncle Chin nodded. “His name is Paul. He likes to overreact,” he whispered to me.
“Hello, Uncle Paul,” I said. “My name is Sherlock Sam and these are my friends and family, and this is Officer Siva. He’s with the Singapore Police Force. We are not here to do your father any harm.”
“Look, I think you all should leave,” Uncle Paul said.
“Are you worried we’ll discover your secrets?” I asked.
“What? What secrets?” he said. “Pa, are these the kids you were telling me about over the phone?”
“I am a detective,” I replied. “My friends and I have been investigating the Case of the Alien Encounter, and I have solved the mystery!”
“What on earth are you talking about?” Uncle Paul said. “Why is there a policeman here? There’s nothing illegal going on. You all should really leave. I don’t mean to be rude, but my dad is diabetic and his eyesight isn’t that good anymore. I’m here to give him his insulin shot.”
It was time for my grand reveal.
“And to continue to pretend to be an extraterrestrial!” I said triumphantly.
“SAM!” Dad, Mom and Wendy all said at the same time. They looked completely shocked.
“Let’s hear Sherlock out,” Officer Siva said. “He’s always had a reason for the things he does.”
“Usually-the-reason-is-because-he-is-hungry,” Watson said.
I glared at my robot.
“When I used Uncle Chin’s computer for my alien research, I immediately noticed that someone had previously visited the same sites,” I said. “That was why the browser kept auto-filling the URLs.”
“It’s my dad’s computer,” Uncle Paul said. “Maybe he looked up the strange things that have been happening. He can’t stop talking about them to everyone.”
“But your dad said that he can’t even remember how to turn the computer on,” I said. “In fact, he had to pull out an extension cord to let us use it. He clearly hadn’t used it in a while!”
“Maybe my mom used it,” Uncle Paul said. He looked even more uncomfortable in his office clothes.
“Your mother doesn’t even know how to work the television properly,” Uncle Chin said. “You were always the one who had to fix it when we watched X-Files last time.” He was frowning deeply and staring at his son.
“The only person in this family who could have used the computer would be you,” I said, pointing at Uncle Paul.
“Maybe I did search for alien stuff,” he said. “I don’t remember. I must have been trying to help my dad figure out what was happening.”
“Or, you were doing research on to how to create a believable crop circle!” I said.
“Moss circle!” Jimmy burst in.
“Since your moss circle wasn’t that big, all you really had to do was carefully trace out your pattern with a stick,” I said. “It was very similar to what my dad was doing with his stick and his cartoons.”
“What? I don’t even know what a moss circle is!” Uncle Paul exclaimed. He pulled out a handkerchief from his back pocket and started to mop his sweaty brow. “Why is it so hot in here?”
“And I also noticed that there were Milo tins of starch around your dad’s charcoal stove,” I continued. “It’s homemade starch. I recognised it because Wendy makes it for her art projects sometimes.”
Wendy nodded. “For my papier-mâché.”
“Oh, we use that instead of glue to put signs up for the restaurant,” Uncle Chin said. “It’s easier to take the signs down after.”
“I also noticed the empty cans of green paint lying around,” I said. “Uncle, your house was recently painted green, wasn’t it? I could smell the fresh paint when we walked past yesterday.”
“Yes, Paul and I painted it together a few days ago, but we’ve had the paint for weeks before that,” Uncle Chin replied.
“And I noticed that the colour of your house was very similar to the colour of the green goo!” I said. “Uncle Paul has been mixing the green paint in with the homemade starch and leaving it around the island in mysterious puddles. That’s what the dogs stepped in yesterday.”
“Is this why you bought so much extra paint?” Uncle Chin asked.
“Look, you’re making wild accusations here,” Uncle Paul said. “Pa—”
“Did you help your dad buy large, powerful flashlights?” I continued.
“There are frequent power outages on the island,” Uncle Paul said, getting frustrated. “I keep telling my dad—”
“If you take a closer look at the flashlights, I believe you’ll find a light coat of green paint over the bulbs.”
Officer Siva walked over to where the flashlights were and picked one up. “You’re right, Sherlock,” he confirmed. He turned it on and a powerful greenish beam shot out.
“Did you paint the light bulb green too?” Uncle Chin asked.
“He did that because aliens are known to make flashing green lights in the night sky!” I said. “At least that’s what the fake website said. Uncle Paul would bring the flashlights out into the forest and spin them around to imitate what he thought were spinning lights associated with UFO sightings!”
Uncle Paul was starting to look increasingly worried.
“But if you had taken a closer look at the website,” I said to Uncle Paul, “or had friends around who helped you realise your mistake, you would have known that it was fake!” I grinned at Nazhar who smiled and nodded back at me.
“You don’t understand…” Uncle Paul said.
“And it was you Watson caught on film and I chased after in the forest!” I said.
“Wait, you were out in the forest at night?” Mom asked. “When did this happen?”
“It must have been last night while we had coffee together after dinner,” Officer Siva said, furrowing his brow. “That was the night I didn’t return to the camp before the kids.”
“Anyway, it was you!” I said quickly, before Mom had time to start scolding me. “You were wearing night vision goggles and that’s why your eyes were glowing red! You were the one who put this dinosaur plaster on my forehead!”
“I was going to ask you about that…” Mom continued. I could tell she wasn’t quite happy about everything.
“You bumped your head on that rotten tree stump,” Uncle Paul said. “You gave me a scare but when I checked on you, you were okay. Just a small scratch where you hit your head.”
“Ah-ha!” I exclaimed. “You admit that it was you! You’re the alien I encountered!”
“Sam, maybe we can listen to what Paul has to say first?” Mom said. She put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently.
“I’m…I’m so sorry. I…I…just want my parents to come and live with my wife and kids,” Uncle Paul said. “They are getting old, and my dad has diabetes and high cholesterol, and he needs proper medical care.”
“I take my injections and my pills all the time,” Uncle Chin said.
“No, you don’t. You always forget,” Uncle Paul said. “I have to call you every night. I have to set alarms on my phone so I won’t forget to call you.”
“Aiyah, you worry too much,” his dad replied.
“Last month you almost fainted because you forgot to take your insulin, Pa,” Uncle Paul said. “You almost gave Ma a heart attack.”
“What has any of this got to do with the aliens?” Wendy asked.
“He faked the alien encounters and sightings to get his parents to agree to move in with him, Wendy,” I said. “He didn’t want them living by themselves so far away from him anymore.”
“Is this true, Paul?” Uncle Chin said. “Di
d you do all this to get your Ma and me to move in with you?”
“Yes, Pa,” Uncle Paul said. “I used aliens because I knew you wouldn’t care if there was ghostly stuff happening. We watched X-Files together when I was younger, and I remember that scared you. I’m just worried about the two of you all the time. I thought if I could somehow frighten you into leaving…”
“You are such a silly boy,” a female voice said from the doorway.
There seemed to be a lot of voices coming from the doorway today.
“Ma!” Uncle Paul exclaimed. “Did you…did you hear everything?”
“You are really such a silly, stubborn boy,” his mom said. “You and your dad, same kind.”
“Officer Siva, my son didn’t do anything illegal,” Uncle Chin said. He put himself between Officer Siva and his son.
“All I heard was a story of a son trying his best to look after his parents,” Officer Siva replied, smiling. “Right, Sherlock?”
“Right,” I said. I had fervently wished for real aliens, but I was glad that I had managed to solve the mystery despite how carried away I had gotten with the possibility of extraterrestrials these past two days.
“Okay, how about this,” the auntie said. “Weekdays we will come and stay with you. But weekends, you and your family can come and stay here with us. Our grandkids could use the fresh air. It’s also when the restaurant is busiest.”
“And I will even get the computer repaired so that my grandchildren can do their homework,” Uncle Chin said.
“The-computer-is-not-broken,” Watson said. Eliza shushed him.
“That sounds good, Ma, Pa,” Uncle Paul said. “I will need to talk to everyone at home first, but I doubt they will say no.”
“You did a good job figuring out all the clues so quickly, Sherlock,” Nazhar said.
“That’s because he’s Singapore’s Greatest Kid Detective!” Jimmy exclaimed.