The Summer Experiment (13 page)

Crying Wolf

WE COME IN PEACE.

TAKE US TO YOUR LEADER.

BEAM US UP, SCOTTY.

HOW'S THE WEATHER UP THERE?

SEEN ANY GOOD GALAXIES LATELY?

DON'T FORGET TO TAKE OUT THE SPACE TRASH.

WHEN IN DOUBT, GOOGLE.

Okay, we were being silly. Or I was, anyway. But thinking up a perfect message to send by Morse code to aliens isn't as easy as it sounds. It had to say a lot in a few words. Marilee was lying on the bed and looking at my
Star
Wars
poster. I was at my computer.

“This will be extra cool since kids are almost never abducted,” I said. I deleted,
BE
OUR
FRIENDS, PLEASE
, before Marilee could even say it was stupid.

“Maybe it's because they hate kids and that's another reason for us to stay home.”

“Who could hate us, Marilee?”

“What if it's a different spaceship that reads the message and not the one we saw the other night? What if they take us and don't put us back? What if they can't understand Morse code? What if they're dyslexic?”

What if, what if, what if. Marilee was driving me crazy.

“Keep it up and I'll go alone,” I said.

“Do we pack anything?” She was sitting in the middle of my bed now in a lotus position. She learned yoga in Boston and loves it. She says it keeps her focused, which helps since I'm her best friend and always trying to talk her into something crazy.

“Sure, we take our winter boots, our bicycles, school books, my cat and your dog, my goldfish, and a tuna sandwich. Of course, we don't pack anything! We'll only be gone a couple hours, remember?”

“But if they already examined us, what would they do with us all that time?”

That was a darn good question. So I ignored it.

“We're going to communicate with them,” I said. “To learn about them as they learned about us.”

“Oh please, that is so much bull,” said Marilee. “We're going so we can win at science fair.”

“Okay, but they don't know that,” I said, and turned off my computer. “Let's go to Cramer's for an ice cream.”

I can think better when I'm not trying so hard. I knew the message had to be short and tempting. Like bait on a fishing hook.

“What about ‘Justin Bieber rules'?”

“Please. They've never heard of him. He's Canadian.”

“
Everyone
has heard of him,” said Marilee. “In every galaxy.” She flopped back into the position of a human being, instead of a lotus.

The way I looked at it, there was no need to waste time. Maybe they only visit other galaxies in certain seasons, the way the tourists come to Maine's ocean. They might even be gone back to their own galaxy by now. Summer aliens. We had to act fast or fail faster.

“We'll do it tomorrow night,” I said to Marilee. It was a hot day and I could almost taste the ice cream.

“So soon?”

“Yes, so it'll be over soon. But just in case, you know, something goes wrong, we need to do the film.”

“What film?” she asked.

“I'll tell you tomorrow,” I said. “So be at my house after supper, okay? Ask your mom if you can spend the night.”

“You mean after
dinner
?” asked Marilee. I sighed.

“About six o'clock, smart aleck. Now let's go get an ice cream.”

***

After making her promise not to be late tomorrow night, I said good-bye to Marilee and rode back home on my bike. I had an ice cream for Tina and didn't want it to melt. I got off my bike and leaned it against the porch railing. That's when I noticed a blue car in our driveway. Then I heard Mom's voice as she talked to someone in the backyard. I figured she was working in her garden and that Tina would be with her.

It was Mary Wallace's blue car. She was sitting at the cast-iron table with Mom. Tina was driving her Little Tykes Push & Ride Racer back and forth from the clothesline to the toolshed. As I tore the wrapper from the ice cream, she drove up to my feet and stopped. Then she grabbed the treat with her chubby little hands and bit into its coolness.

“You better put your car in park,” I told her. “You don't want Sheriff Mallory to write you a ticket.”

“Roberta, come here, please,” Mom said.

“Hello, Roberta,” said Mrs. Wallace.

“Mary is here because, as you know, her son, Joey, is missing,” said Mom, and handed me a flyer with a picture on it. There was Joey's stupid grin, as if he was up to no good again. MISSING! it said above his head. $500 REWARD FOR INFORMATION! it said below. TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OLD. BROWN HAIR AND EYES.

“He wouldn't pull a trick like this on me,” Mary was saying now, and her voice quivered a bit. “I've been going all over town putting up these flyers so folks will know it's not a joke.”

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Wallace,” I said. I had to hand it to Joey. To get your mother to take part in a major prank like this was pretty awesome. His smiling face on the flyer looked like he was almost winking at the world. “I'll be sure to tell everyone I can.”

“Thank you, honey,” said Mary Wallace.

After the blue car had driven down the road toward Mr. Finley's, I turned to my mom.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“I don't know Mary well,” she said. “But I can't imagine any mother being involved in a joke about her missing child. I just can't.”

“Do you think Joey is playing this joke on his mother too?”

“Maybe,” said Mom. “Joey is like the boy who cried wolf.”

“Who's he?”

“It's a fable,” she said. “A Greek shepherd boy keeps telling everyone in his village that a wolf is about to attack their sheep. They believe him many times, but there is no wolf. The boy made it up. Then, one day, he really does see a wolf about to attack. He tries to warn people, but they don't believe him. So the wolf kills all the sheep.”

“That sucks,” I said. “Poor sheep.”

“Poor Mary Wallace,” said Mom.

The Message

I woke up nervous. The entire day passed in a blur. But I was ready and waiting for Marilee when she bounded up the stairs and into my room. She shut the door behind her.

“Lock it,” I said, “just in case Johnny comes up.”

“Should we put on makeup?” asked Marilee. She was inspecting the camcorder.

“We don't wear makeup, remember? We're too young.”

“Child actors wear it.”

“It's for our families, Marilee,” I said. “Not the Academy Awards show.”

“We could put it on YouTube. It might go viral.”

“If we don't come back,” I said, “you can bet they'll put it on YouTube, and you can bet it'll go viral. It'll be a big news story. I can see Joey Wallace's jealous face now.”

I brushed my hair and fixed the collar of my shirt. We didn't need makeup, but we should still look neat. Otherwise, why would anyone search for us? Marilee brushed her own hair. I turned the camera on and checked the zoom lens.

“Okay, sit on the bed and once I get it started, I'll sit next to you.”

With the camcorder perched on my desk and aimed at Marilee's head, I hurried over to sit next to her. I put an arm around her shoulder and she did the same to me. I imagined what we would look like if someone saw the video. Two girls, one with long blond hair and one with shorter brown hair, ready for the biggest adventure of their lives. But if everything went as planned, no one would ever see the clip but us. I stared at the red light.

“This is Roberta Angela McKinnon,” I said. “I'm eleven years old until I turn twelve in two months. This is my best friend, Marilee Julia Evans. She's also eleven until December. We have a message to leave for our families.” I looked over at Marilee. “Do you want to say something too?” I asked.

Marilee smiled at the camcorder. “I'm hungry,” she said.

Shoot!
I got off the bed and grabbed the camera. I rewound the footage and started over.

“No joking, Marilee,” I said. “If it comes down to our parents watching this, that means we're missing.”

“Sorry,” said Marilee. Her stomach growled right on cue. “But we need to bring some food.”

We got situated again, and again I did the introductions.

“If you're watching this,” I said, “we're probably missing. We're leaving in a few minutes for Peterson's Cave. Our mission is to signal the spaceship we believe abducted us there and then put us back two hours later. Ask Johnny and Billy about it. Make them tell you the truth. We want to contact the beings aboard that craft to make friends with them and then describe everything that happened for our science project. If we don't return, we know that you'll find this message, Mom, when you come to wake me up tomorrow morning. If that's the case, I'm truly sorry. So is Marilee. Aren't you?” I nudged Marilee.

“I'm sorry, Mom and Dad,” said Marilee. “And Sarah.”

“You will at least know what happened to us. We promise that we'll do everything we can to return to you. We're famous for getting out of messes, right?” I smiled at this, knowing that Mom would be hysterical by this time, and Dad too. Maybe a little joke would cheer them up. “If we're not here, you will probably find our bikes near Peterson's Cave.”

“Unless they take our bikes too,” said Marilee. She said this to me, not to the camera.

“Are you crazy?” I said back to Marilee, forgetting the camera. “Why would extraterrestrials want bicycles?”

“If they take us to their planet,” said Marilee, “we'll need something to ride. You know, so we can get around.”

“You're insane,” I said. “They'd give us supersonic boots. Or little cars that fly. Something cool like that.”

Marilee was nudging me in the side.

“What?”

“The camcorder,” she whispered.

I looked at the camera. No time to record it again. And besides, I didn't think for one second anyone would see it but the two of us. We'd be back by midnight and erase the film before breakfast in the morning.

“I love you, everyone,” I said. “Mom. Dad. Johnny. Tina. Grandma. Uncle Horace. Aunt Betty. Sheriff Mallory. All of Allagash.”

“Me too,” said Marilee. “I love you all.”

“Good-bye, Billy,” I added.

“Good-bye, Johnny,” said Marilee, which I found strange. But I figured she was still thankful that my brother had tried to save us that night on the mountain.

***

At nine, right on cue, I heard Mom and Dad getting ready for bed. First Dad snapped out the porch light and then Mom shut off the television. Their bedroom is on the first floor, an architectural fact that made Johnny and me very happy. Rarely did we hear, “Turn that noise down!” once our parents fell asleep.

“We wait thirty minutes,” I said to Marilee. “Make sure they're sleeping.” We were both dressed and ready. The flash drive was lying on my pillow on top of a sheet of typing paper with the words: IF WE ARE MISSING, PLEASE WATCH! I had Mom's iPhone in my pocket. The message I wanted to send was still in my head, ready to key into the Morse code translator. It had come to me as I was having breakfast. Two simple words.

At nine thirty, I opened my bedroom door. I could hear a baseball game blasting in Johnny's room and knew he wouldn't hear anything unless a foul ball hit him in the head.

“Follow me,” I whispered to Marilee. “Remember to tiptoe.”

Downstairs, we slipped out into the yard, past the lilac bush and over to where our bikes were leaning against the toolshed. No way could we take the four-wheeler. We'd wake up the whole house if we did, and maybe all the ghosts on Peterson's Mountain. The moon was now full and the backyard had turned to silver. I watched as Marilee slid a leg over the seat of her bike, and then I did the same to mine. We pedaled slowly out of the driveway, a few creaks that no one would hear.

The meadow was silver too, and the frogs so noisy it sounded like a party was going on at their pond. We glided past and hit the recreation trail that carried us around to the foot of Peterson's Mountain. The cave was only a third of the way up. We could walk our bikes there and use our headlights coming back down.
If
we came back down.

The moonlight was so bright that we almost didn't need headlights. Marilee got off her bike and began pushing it, so I did the same. Off in the distance a screech owl let loose a cry. I felt hair rise on the back of my neck. If you haven't heard a screech owl before, let me tell you that it sounds like the whinny of a ghost horse.

“Maybe we should forget about this,” Marilee said. I knew the owl had frightened her. “If we back out, no one would know but us.”

“And that's two too many,” I said. I took the lead, pushing my bike in front of hers. That's when we heard the haunting fiddle music.

“What's
that
?”

“It's a ghost fiddler.”

“Stop it, Robbie! What is it?”

“It's a dead tree,” I told her. “The wind is moving it like a fiddle bow across another tree. There's the cave.”

***

The full moon hung over the Allagash Valley like a silver dollar, sparkling and bright. The night was alive with expectation. We could see fireflies burning up the hayfields down by the river. Half of the lights in town were already out since most country people go to bed early. The gas station was still lit up and so was the police department. Houses here and there had yellow dots of light for windows. I assumed kids my age were watching TV or playing computer games. We leaned our bikes against the cave wall. I took the flashlight out of my backpack and put it on the ground where I could find it later. Marilee was quiet.

“I'll be glad when this night is over,” she said.

“Me too.” I realized I meant it. So why was I doing it? Well, why did Columbus get on a creaky ship and talk two more creaky ships into following him halfway around the globe? Why did explorers freeze to death at the North Pole? Why did Amelia Earhart try to fly around the world? Why did Neil Armstrong walk on the moon? Why does Paris Hilton dress her dog up in clothes?

I really don't know why I do the things I do. Mom says I have the “wild gene” and that I didn't get it from her side of the family. But everyone in Dad's family seems normal. I guess this is just the way I was born.

“Rub some of this on your face and neck,” I said, and handed Marilee the bug repellent.

“Gross,” she said. “No way.” But a mosquito was buzzing close by, so she changed her mind. “I just thought of something, Robbie. If the aliens look like bugs, we have repellent!”

“Silly,” I said.

I got out the iPhone and clicked it on.

“You think the message will work?”

“I hope so,” I said.

We heard a coyote howl from the top of the mountain, and I prayed a rabbit wasn't going to die. Dad says the coyote has to live too, but it's still sad. Marilee pulled her sweater tighter about her arms and watched me.

“Remember that spaceship episode of
Twilight
Zone
?” she asked.

Marilee and I love watching old
Star
Trek
reruns and
Battlestar
Galactica
. Maybe it's because we like science. We're girls who want to “boldly go where no man has gone before.”
Twilight
Zone
episodes were scarier but still fun. I remembered the episode.

“‘To Serve Man,'” I said. But I didn't want to think about it.

“The Kanamits,” said Marilee. “Nine-foot-tall aliens who ate human beings for dinner.”

“Supper,” I said. “Don't think of that. Think about us winning the biggest science fair on earth and becoming rich and famous.”

I keyed the two-word message into the iPhone and activated the code translator. Sure enough, the flash quickly started blinking out the message. I placed the phone on a rock at the edge of the cave so that it would be in the open and able to transmit. Then I sat next to Marilee in the mouth of the cave and put my hands in my jacket pockets. The flash kept sending my two words over and over again for all the heavens to see. I imagined them leaving the cave and going up, up, up into the dark skies overhead, traveling forever and ever…unless someone was there to receive them.

Two little words from Earth:

WE REMEMBER!

WE REMEMBER!

WE REMEMBER!

WE REMEMBER!

WE REMEMBER!

WE REMEMBER!

WE REMEMBER!

WE REMEMBER!

WE REMEMBER!

WE REMEMBER!

WE REMEMBER!

WE REMEMBER!

WE REMEMBER!

WE REMEMBER!

WE REMEMBER!

WE REMEMBER!

WE REMEMBER!

WE REMEMBER!

WE REMEMBER!

WE REMEMBER!

WE REMEMBER!

WE REMEMBER!