Part 2 (1/2)

an Alien's Nose?

The face on the screen smiled-at least, I think it smiled. It's hard to tell with someone who looks like that. Let's just say that all its teeth were showing. Then it made a long speech in that awful language. I felt like someone was grinding metal next to my ear.

I don't know what he said. But it made Broxholm/Smith laugh. Well, I suppose it was a laugh. His shoulders shook as if he was laughing. The sound made my stomach turn.

When Broxholm stopped laughing, or whatever, he reached down and turned off the screen. The other alien faded from view.

Time for me to get out of there! I slithered backward on my belly along the hall and then down the stairs. When I heard the alien music come on again, I relaxed a little.

On the porch I hesitated for a moment. Should I try to recover my note? A noise in the house made up my mind. Compared to what was behind me, any trouble I might get in because of that note was nothing. I jumped off the porch and ran all the way home, praying that Broxholm hadn't seen me.

Did you ever have something awful happen to you, and not really react to it until later? Like, you might almost get hit by a car on your way home from school, but not start shaking until after supper. It was like that with me that afternoon. It wasn't until I got home that what I had seen really began to sink in.

I ran up to my room, plowed my way through the mess, and collapsed on my bed. I lay there until supper, staring at the ceiling and shaking with fear. What was I going to do? What would you do, if you found out your teacher was an alien? Go to the princ.i.p.al? Tell your parents?

Think about it for a minute.

Imagine the conversation.

Not a pretty thought, is it?

The only person who might believe me was weird Peter Thompson. I decided to tell him what I had seen. If I couldn't convince him, I knew I didn't have a chance of convincing anyone.

I must have looked pretty bad when I went down to dinner because my mother asked me three times what was bothering me. But then, she tends to be a bit of a fusser. I try never to let her hear me sneeze, because if she does she decides I've got pneumonia and tries to pack me into bed for a week. All right, that's a slight exaggeration-but not much. She and my dad are always battling about how much freedom they should give me.

”Come on, Margaret,” my dad will say. ”She's in sixth grade now. You can't treat her like a baby anymore.”

”Oh, Edward,” my mother will reply, ”you seem to think you can treat Susan the same way you would a boy.”

Can you believe she actually says that?

Anyway, that night at supper she put her hand on my forehead and clucked about how pale I looked. I think she was actually disappointed that I didn't have a fever. At least then she would have known what to do.

”Are you still upset about Ms. Schwartz, Susan?” she asked, shoveling a load of broccoli onto my plate.

Actually, at the moment I was upset about the broccoli. But Ms. Schwartz was a close second. I nodded weakly.

”Well, I can tell you it wasn't Dr. Bleekman's fault,” she said. ”In fact, he's very upset that Ms. Schwartz didn't give him more notice. I talked to Helen. She told me Ms. Schwartz didn't even have the courtesy to tell Dr. Bleekman face to face that she was leaving. He got a letter the first day of vacation, saying she wouldn't be back. That left him six days to find someone to take her place. I think he did very well to find that handsome Mr. Smith in such a short period of time.”

”Mr. Smith is ruining our cla.s.s,” I said bleakly.

”Oh, don't be so dramatic, Susan,” said Mom.

I'm planning to be an actress when I grow up. What should I be? Athletic? Besides, this so-called teacher was going to kidnap some of my cla.s.smates and drag them off to outer s.p.a.ce. Suddenly I realized that I had been putting off the truth. He wasn't going to kidnap some of my cla.s.smates. If he was going to pick someone from my cla.s.s, I might well be on his list. In fact, after he read that note, I might be his number-one prospect.

I swallowed hard. I was dying to tell my folks what I had learned, but I knew they wouldn't believe me.

That night I tried to call Peter. But I couldn't get any answer at his house. ”Come on, Peter,” I hissed at the phone. ”Where are you? I need you!”

I let it ring fifteen times.

No answer.

I tried again an hour later.

No answer.

I was as nervous as a marshmallow at a bonfire. It was even worse when I had to go to school the next morning. I didn't think Broxholm knew I had been in his house. But what if I had left behind some kind of clue? Or what if he had some kind of alien super-senses that would let him know I had been there? What about that weird, muscular nose? Just how powerful was his sense of smell? Would he know I had been snooping by my odor? I watched his nose carefully when I walked through the cla.s.sroom door that morning. It didn't twitch or anything. But that didn't mean much. Maybe underneath that mask his real nose had sniffed me out. Maybe it was sending him a message even now. There she is. That's the one who was in the house yesterday!.

I sat down. I was so tense I felt as if I would explode if anyone so much as touched me. I wanted to pa.s.s Peter a note asking him to meet me on the playground at recess. But I was in enough trouble because of notes already.

We stood up and said the Pledge of Allegiance. Then Smith/Broxholm motioned me to his desk.

”I think you lost something yesterday,” he said.

And then he handed me my note.

CHAPTER SIX.

Drafting Peter I sat at my desk and stared at the note. What was going on here? Was Broxholm playing with me?

For a moment the thought that he was actually being a nice guy crossed my mind. I brushed it away. Nice guys don't kidnap sixth graders and drag them into outer s.p.a.ce. I decided it was more likely he was just sending me a message. I've got your number, kid. Don't mess with me.

I was so wrapped up in trying to figure out what was going on that I could barely concentrate on my work. Most of the time I just sat and stared at Broxholm's face, trying to figure out how the mask was attached.

When I started to wonder if there was any way I could pull it off, my imagination began cooking up a horrifying scene. In this daydream, I saw myself grab Broxholm's ears and begin pulling on them, trying to unmask him. Only the mask wouldn't come off. So I pulled harder. Suddenly his face began to stretch and twist all out of shape. But still the mask wouldn't come off.

It was gross.

Stop it! I told my brain firmly.

But the vision kept coming back.

Sometimes I wonder about my brain; I mean, it seems to have a mind of its own. If it was really my brain, you'd think I would have a little more control over it, wouldn't you?

When you get right down to it, brains are pretty weird.

But not as weird as having an alien for a teacher.

By the middle of the morning, I was beginning to wonder if this whole alien business had been a bad dream. It seemed too impossible to believe.