The Summer Experiment (15 page)

The Spacecraft

As quickly as the buzz of energy had filled the ship, it disappeared. The room was spookily silent. Marilee and I let go of each other's hands. We waited, wondering what would happen next. It was good to not be afraid, that's one thing for sure.

“I don't think we moved at all,” I said. It was true. All that buzzing and humming, and then nothing? Grandpa calls that “grandstanding.”

“Those are windows!” Marilee was pointing at dark, narrow slits that circled the room.

“Maybe we can signal someone,” I said. “Sheriff Mallory will be doing his nightly patrol. We can let him know where we are on the ship.”

Marilee ran over to the closest window and peered out. I heard her gasp.

“I don't think Sheriff Mallory will see us, Robbie,” she said. “Come here this second!”

I hurried over to the narrow window next to hers. I knew then what she was talking about. In the distance was a round ball I'd seen on TV many times, thanks to photographs from NASA. I could still make out the boundaries for North America and South America. Seeing it like that, so small, like a pendant on a heavenly necklace, I wondered why people fight wars when that tiny planet is our home.

“Wow,” I said. “No one will ever believe this, Marilee. Ever.” I'd never been that far from home before, not even when Mom and Dad took Johnny and me to Prince Edward Island to visit Anne of Green Gables.

“What if your mom went to check on us and knows now that we're missing?” Marilee said. “We should be home.”

“But we're
here
, Marilee, on this awesome spaceship,” I said. “We're above the Earth now, like astronauts.”

“It wasn't so awesome until that violet light hit us,” she reminded me. This was true. I secretly hoped the violet light didn't wear off, like Tylenol or a flu shot.

“What's that big box?” Marilee asked then. She nodded to a large silver box that sat in one corner of the room. It was big and square, like the freezer where Grandma puts all that stuff from her garden. My mind flashed with memory. I had seen that box before. I knew I had! There was no handle on it, so I put my hand on the front and suddenly it lit up, all white and glowing. A door slid open so fast that it startled me. Before either of us could speak, metallic stairs unfolded and dropped down. I saw nothing but pale light coming from the room above.

“I guess that means we should go up those stairs,” I said. “Maybe that's where the aliens are. You know, like the bridge on the
Enterprise
where Captain Kirk sits in his chair.”

“Why do you think they want
us
?” Marilee asked. “I mean, I can understand if they took Henry Helmsby. He's brainy enough to be a conversation piece on another planet. The shape of his head alone would keep aliens talking for eons. But we're just two girls who get all As and prefer to live on Earth and ride our bikes.”

“I think they want to find out how much we remember about the night on Peterson's Mountain,” I replied. “We did send them that ‘We Remember' message.”

“Why would they even
care
if we remember? I mean, it's not like we can file a citizen's arrest against them. They could be light years away and we'd be eating their star-dust.”

“Maybe they're really kind, you know, and don't want us earthlings to panic. They want to leave us as they found us.” I remembered that Grandpa once told me that's how we should leave baby robins in their nest. “Think of the future, Marilee Evans. And get ready to be famous.”

I reached for Marilee's hand and together we took the bottom step. But before we could climb, the stairs started moving, taking us up, up, up like an escalator. When it stopped, I realized that we must be at the very top of the spaceship. The room up there was dome-like and much smaller. The ceiling was covered with tiny white lights. They flickered like the fireflies back at Frog Pond. I saw a large black window on the wall. No, it wasn't a window. It was like a computer screen of some kind. Marilee and I stared up at it. It had a lot of strange writing at the sides, like hieroglyphics. On the screen was a 3-D picture of what looked like millions of stars. They were in a spiral, like the Milky Way galaxy.

“They probably came from right here in our own galaxy,” I said. “There are so many stars out there, Marilee. Some of them must have planets and life-forms.”

“Oh please, this isn't science class,” Marilee said. “I don't care where they come from. We need to find a way off this spaceship, Robbie. This is getting too weird, violet light or not.”

“Do you have any ideas
how
?” I asked.

“No, I don't. But
you
got us on here. So
you
figure it out.”

I looked back at the big screen with the stars and the creepy writing. I pushed at a white button, but it didn't budge. Then I put my finger on the screen and felt a soft buzz. Now I could see through it, like a two-way window. What I saw made me pull my hand back. The stars and the writing had disappeared. In their place were dark silhouettes. I counted one, two, three, four, five heads. They'd been watching us all that time! And then, all the heads disappeared from the screen, one after the other.

“I think we're about to make some new friends,” I said to Marilee.

“Violet light, don't fail me now,” Marilee replied. I seconded that thought.

A door in the wall slid open and in walked a very short alien.

“Wow,” I heard Marilee say, and I nodded. It, or he or she, had the most amazing eyes, which were the size and shape of hen's eggs. They weren't black at all, but the deepest and darkest blue I had ever seen. Not even Miranda Casey had eyes that blue. She stopped in front of us, those eyes peering deep. I had decided it was a female since she was a foot shorter than I am, and I'm barely five feet. She had no nose or mouth. Just those incredible eyes. They were on a head that was more round than oval. I could see occasional movements inside the head, flashes of light and color. I wondered if they were brain waves.

“Wow, wow, wow,” I heard Marilee say again. I knew what she was thinking. These were definitely
not
the aliens that the Vermont Four described under hypnosis. Those aliens had smaller eyes and holes where a nose and mouth should be. But that was even better for our science project that
we
got to discover new aliens.

“Is that her skin?” I asked. “Or is she wearing a suit?”

I reached out and touched the alien's arm. It felt slippery like vinyl, like the new purse Grandma bought in Caribou. It was even the same tan color, almost like skin.

“I think it's a suit,” said Marilee.

I watched as the oval eyes shimmered, as if shades were being pulled back and forth inside. It looked more like a camera shutter than a human eye. The head was a bit large for the size of her body. She had five fingers that were too long for her hands, at least in human terms. Even Mrs. Bowen, who plays piano for the church, doesn't have fingers that long. And each one had three joints. The shutters in her eyes opened and closed fast. Then I heard her thoughts. How cool was that?

“
Welcome
to
our
ship. We will not harm you.
”

“Thank you,” I said into the deep blue eyes. I nudged Marilee in her side. “Say thank you, Marilee.”

“Do you thank someone for abducting you?” Marilee asked.

“
We
contacted
them
, remember?”

“Thank you for abducting us,” said Marilee. The eye shutters flicked open and then closed again. This wasn't so bad. I mean, they weren't really scary ugly. Why is it that we humans always think of aliens as being a zillion times smarter than we are but really, really gross-looking?

Maybe if this alien had hair, it would be blond.

“
What
do
you
remember?
”

“Nothing, honestly,” I said. “I just have a big mouth. Ask my friend.”

“She has a very big mouth,” said Marilee. I shot her a look.

Now the door in the wall slid open again and five more aliens filed into the room, one behind the other. They must have been the ones whose heads I saw on the screen. There were three taller ones, what must be the males, and two more females. They were all identical. It was impossible to tell one from another. The males were taller, that's all. They paid no attention to Marilee and me. It was as if we weren't even here.

One of the males pushed the white button at the bottom of the screen. A huge instrument panel slid out of the wall. I'd never seen so many buttons and lights and round gauges. They were constantly flickering the same strange writings that I saw earlier. That must be how they pilot the spacecraft. It was like a little galaxy all its own. The three males stood in front of the panel. They each seemed to have a special job to do and their own work area. Then I saw that the joints in the fingers could work horizontally by reaching sideways.

“Look at their fingers,” Marilee said. The fingers could push buttons in front of them or to the side. I tried to imagine my own fingers doing that. Maybe Mrs. Bowen could teach me to play the piano after all.

The female who came first to greet us was still staring at me, and it was making me a little uncomfortable. It reminded me of that
Twilight
Zone
show that Marilee was dumb enough to mention. “To Serve Man.” I hoped this alien wasn't wondering if I tasted like chicken.

“
What
is
your
mission?
”

“Tell the truth,” Marilee whispered to me. “We want to win at science fair.”

“Ah, well,” I said. “We're just two curious kids from Earth who want to go where no man has gone before.” It was sort of the truth. I saw the dark eyes working.

“
Star
Trek.
”

“Awesome,” said Marilee. “They watch
Star
Trek
!”

“Don't be silly,” I said. “It's because all the television and radio airwaves leave Earth and travel out into space. That's probably how they learned about us earthlings in the first place. Old TV and radio shows.”

The other two females had gone to stand in front of the black screen above the flashing instrument panel. I saw them working their long fingers on the dials there. The 3-D picture of the stars kept changing. Star systems appeared and disappeared. Again, the female gave me her large oval eyes. Shutters opened and closed in those dark baby blues.

“
What
are
your
questions?
”

“For starters,” I said, “why did you abduct us the other night?”

“
We
wish
to
study
new
life-forms
in
our
galaxy.
”

“Do you collect hair and skin samples?” asked Marilee.

“
No, we study only the brain waves of you earthlings to determine how you have evolved.
”

“What constellation are you from?” I asked then. “I mean, in Earth language.” This was the most amazing thing that will ever happen to me in my life, unless Billy Ferguson kisses me one day. Here I was interviewing an alien on a spaceship, and who knows how far from Earth we were right then.

“
We
are
from
the
constellation
of
Libra.
”

“I knew it!” said Marilee.

“Gliese 581, the red dwarf star in Libra,” I said. “It has planets orbiting it, but the one with possible life is planet g, in the habitable zone.” I was showing off again, and in front of an alien with an IQ of probably 500,000, but I couldn't help myself. “Are you from planet g?” I asked. “We studied about it in school.”

“
We
have
come
from
the
place
that
you
call
planet
g.
”

I looked at Marilee, excited.

“We aren't going to
work
at NASA,” I whispered. “We're going to
own
it.”

“How long did it take you to travel to Earth?” Marilee asked. I was wondering the same thing since 20.5 light years wasn't like driving to Bangor for Christmas shopping, even in a snowstorm.

“
We
do
not
think
in
terms
of
time, as you earthlings do. For us, time does not exist.
”

I thought about this. “It exists if you've been grounded,” I said. That's when I knew for sure that aliens, at least
these
aliens, had no sense of humor. The big eyes simply stared at me.

“Why don't you land at the White House?” That's one thing my Grandpa would have wanted me to ask for sure. “Or at the Super Bowl?”

“
Earthlings
are
not
ready.
”

“Do you have a photo of yourself?” Marilee asked. “We need one for our school project.”

The blue-black eyes glowed as they interpreted the question. It was as if the eyes were recording everything.

“
This
will
not
be
permitted.
Do
you
have
more
questions?
” I saw the shutters working inside again.

“Well, sure,” I said. “Can we have information on your planet then? Can you give us some facts? You know, in terms we can understand on Earth?”