How to Hide an Alien Read online

  “Glad you’re both pleased,” Dad beamed. “I’ve been telling Tasmin about all the rides. She says no way are we getting her on any of the really big ones – she hasn’t got a head for heights!”

  Kiki had to concentrate very hard to keep the smile from slipping right off her face. She didn’t mind going out for dinner with Dad’s girlfriend whenever they were visiting him, but as for Tasmin inviting herself along to a family tradition…

  “But that’s not ALL of the surprise,” said Dad with a just-you-wait twinkle in his eye. “Meet Coco! She’ll be coming with us and she can’t wait to meet you!”

  Dad budged up on the bench he was sitting on, just as his girlfriend appeared beside him, all smiles and with a wriggly something in her arms.

  A puppy? Kiki was barely aware of her jaw dropping. Dad and Tasmin had got themselves a puppy, after all the pleading for a dog Kiki and Ty had done over the years?

  “YAP! YAP! YAP! YAP!” yelped the scruffy, wriggly black bundle of fur and fat, flappy paws.

  Uh-oh, thought Kiki, as the ache of unfairness in her chest was replaced by a sudden flood of dread.

  The invisible alien sitting next to her had limited knowledge of non-human Earth creatures. Besides the pigeons he’d befriended in the school playground, the only other animal he’d encountered was Ty’s hamster, whose high-pitched squeaking had greatly alarmed the Star Boy. A yappity puppy was likely to be as shocking as walking into Mr Pickle’s shop next door and finding a sabre-toothed tiger growling in the crisps aisle.

  “AAAAAA-EEEEEEE!” screeched the invisible Stan, right on cue.

  “What on earth was THAT?” Dad yelled, as the puppy turned into a furry blur, scrabbling to get away from the scary noise.

  “Like I said, faulty iPad!” Eddie yelled, rushing over and switching off the TV.

  As the screen blacked out, Kiki winced, gently peeling the invisible finned hand and thumb from her arm where the Star Boy had gripped it in sheer fear.

  “It’s OK, Stan,” Kiki said to the terrified boy beside her, in her best calm and soothing voice.

  Inside, Kiki was anything but calm because that close call with Dad had just woken her up to reality. Last week had been intense and crazy; this weekend – hanging out with the Star Boy at Eddie’s – had been fascinating and fun. But it hadn’t properly sunk in till right now that Stan was here for good. Like, FOREVER. What was she going to do with him? How could she keep him safe?

  It was just a tiny bit completely overwhelming. But at least Kiki wasn’t alone in this.

  “Wes,” she said, leaning over to see her friend better as the re-Morphing Star Boy took up the space between them. “If Stan’s going to pass for a real human and fit in, we have a LOT of work to do. Starting now.”

  Kiki’s firm words were instantly followed by the buzz of an incoming text on her phone. She knew it would be Mum’s promised five-minute warning that tea was nearly ready.

  “Starting tomorrow,” Kiki corrected herself, feeling her tummy rumble in spite of everything.

  “It’s SO NOT FAIR that Dad’s got a dog!” Ty whined, leaning against his sister as they stood on the pavement outside the Electrical Emporium.

  Wes was fascinated by the relationship between Kiki and Ty. Most of the time Kiki acted like Ty was more annoying than a wasp around an ice cream, but her arm was wrapped about his shoulders right now, hugging him to her side.

  “I know, Ty… So, Wes, meet me here at ten a.m. tomorrow?” Kiki suggested. “And before you ask again, Ty, no you can’t skip school and come too.”

  “Aw…” groaned her brother. “But I WANT to help train Stan!”

  “You can help another time – Stan’ll need lots of training!” Wes jumped in, before replying to Kiki. “Could we make it a bit later, like midday? My dad might need me for stuff in the morning…”

  Wes’s dad always needed him for stuff. Right now, Wes had to go and collect their washing from the Busy Bubbles laundrette next door to Eddie’s shop.

  “OK, see you then,” said Kiki, dragging her brother by the hand across the street to their flat, as Wes headed into the laundrette.

  “Thanks, Mrs Crosby!” he called out to a lady who was zipping up a large, well-stuffed rucksack. “You didn’t have to pack it for me.”

  “My pleasure, Wesley!” replied Mrs Crosby, smoothing down the front of her overall. “Oh, and I meant to tell you – I heard a couple of customers talking about a new alien film that’s just opened at the cinema. Thought that might be right up your street!”

  Wes smiled as Mrs Cosby passed him a toffee from the handful she always kept in the pocket of her overalls.

  “Thanks,” he said, grateful for both the sweet and the recommendation. “Yeah – Through Alien Eyes. I’ve heard about that.”

  Wes had seen ads for the movie on TV, and on the side of buses around town. Any other week, it would’ve been all that he could think of. But today the new blockbuster was about as interesting to Wes as the pile of socks and pants swishing around in the suds of the nearest machine.

  “Well, if you do go and see it, you can give me your review next week!” Mrs Crosby joked.

  “Yeah, definitely!” Wes promised, as he hoicked the heavy bag on to his shoulder and trundled out of the open door.

  Outside on the pavement, the autumn wind bit hard, and with his free hand Wes yanked up the hood of his Puffa jacket, pulling the strings tight so the circle of black padded nylon framed his round face and cowlick of white-blond hair.

  Passing the Electrical Emporium again, Wes ached to go straight back inside, instead of heading home to—

  “Careful!” A gruff voice called out a warning, as Wes narrowly missed tripping over a stand of newspapers that Mr Pickle was tidying.

  “Sorry,” mumbled Wes, sidestepping out of the shopkeeper’s way, but not before he spotted the headline slammed on the front page of the local paper:

  In that second, Wes imagined shocking the shopkeeper with the news that the explosion in the school grounds last Thursday was actually caused by an alien attack, not some rogue lightning strike.

  And what if I told him there was an alien hiding just through the wall from all his rows of ketchup and tins of peas? thought Wes, grinning to himself as he set off down Hill Street with his heavy load.

  Arriving at the junction with the high street, Wes grinned even wider at the sight of the movie poster for Through Alien Eyes on the side of the bus shelter by the town hall. It was a pretty dramatic image: a close-up of a neon-green eyeball with the silhouette of a frightened human reflected in it, hands held up in fear.

  “Yeah, right!” he said to himself, thinking how incredibly untrue-to-life it was.

  But Wes’s muttered words were drowned out by the grumble and roar of approaching traffic. He turned to see a procession of huge trucks lumbering towards him – every one of them laden with bizarrely bright and compacted fairground rides. Wes watched, spellbound, as they passed by. He’d never been to a proper fair before. Once, when his mum was still around, he’d visited the summer fête in the village where they used to live, but the most exciting thing there had been a bouncy castle.

  After the cavalcade had gone, Wes crossed the road, heading for the river and the pedestrian bridge that would take him over the choppy water of the River Wouze to the south side of town. His mind was still on the funfair; he’d love to go but who with? Kiki would be with her family, of course. Maybe he could take Stan? They could be fairground newbies together! How cool would that be?

  But, as hard as he tried to picture them having fun on the dodgems, the only image he could conjure was Kiki’s frown from earlier, when she spoke about how much the Star Boy had to learn. She probably wouldn’t think it was safe for him to be somewhere as public as a fair, especially without her…

  But it’s still a couple of days till then, Wes told himself. If we keep coaching Stan, maybe we’d trust him enough to fit in and be around crowds by then?

  Lost in thought, Wes sudd
enly noticed he wasn’t alone on the narrow bridge; a dad held a small girl in his arms – they were both looking towards the twisted metal fencing and zigzagging hazard tape on the far side of the riverside path.

  “Look, Daddy – diggers!” said the little girl, pointing at the yellow vehicles parked beside a yawning crater in the lower playground of Riverside Academy.

  Staring in the same direction, Wes noticed that the giant metal wheelie bins were on their sides, tossed about in the blast as if they were empty baked-bean cans. Every window at the back of the school building was framed with spiked shards of broken glass. And then there was the space where a circle of towering bushes had once been, with the Star Boy’s damaged space pod hidden among them. The plant life, the pod … all reduced to nothing more than a dusting of ash, drifting and spinning away with every gust of wind.

  “See that hole in the ground? That’s where the big lightning bolt came down,” the dad was explaining, as Wes shuffled awkwardly past them with his bulky bag of laundry. “There were lots of grown-ups and children visiting the school that evening, but luckily no one was hurt.”

  Yeah, though some of us were very nearly killed, thought Wes, remembering his relief when Eddie roared up on his motorbike, and how he, Kiki, Ty and the Star Boy all piled gratefully on board, seconds before the strike happened.

  “You mustn’t worry about storms, though,” the dad continued. “They aren’t usually as fierce as—”

  “Daddy, can we have chips for tea?” the little girl interrupted, losing interest in the wrecked school playground.

  Wes smiled to himself. To the average resident of Fairfield, the blast was caused by a freak of nature – a talking point for a few days at most. And then life went on: people visited the park, made plans to see the latest movie, thought about the fair coming to town, wanted chips for their tea.

  But it was different for Wes. Ever since that lunchtime – that magical lunchtime when an alien boy from an unpronounceable planet materialized in front of him and Kiki in the music room at school – his life had changed for the better. It was as if the Star Boy’s amber glow had lit up everything in Wes’s world, a world that had felt grey-edged and dull up till now. How incredibly lucky he was!

  Oof! Wes was suddenly tugged sharply from behind, his rucksack half dragged off his shoulder. He tumbled backwards on to the bag, scrabbling his hands and legs in the air, like a flipped-over tortoise.

  Lifting his head, Wes caught sight of a boy on a bike laughing as he veered off. Harvey Wickes: Year Seven football team captain, super cool in his own opinion, first-class idiot in Wes’s.

  Wes hadn’t seen him since the Open Evening at school, when the Star Boy – hiding in plain sight as a student – had projected images of Harvey and Kiki’s ex-friend Lola on to the overhead screen for all to see, showing them both at their bullying best. Luckily for Harvey and Lola, the storm had arrived with perfect timing, diverting everyone’s attention as the sudden thunder roared and raged at the windows of the hall.

  Still, it was pretty obvious that Harvey hadn’t learned any lessons at all, and wasn’t planning on changing his obnoxious behaviour any time soon…

  Wes twisted on to his side, but before he could get up a text alert pinged on his mobile. Dad.

  Going for a nap. Can you put the laundry away? And get yourself something for tea.

  Wes’s heart sank. Dad never left the flat these days. And if he wasn’t hunched over his computer, trying to keep his business afloat, he was in bed, ‘having a nap’. A nap that could last for hours.

  Wes shivered in the chill of the wind as he got to his feet, heaved the bag back on to his shoulder and continued over the bridge in the direction of home.

  Home. It was a cosy word for most people, Wes supposed. But to him home meant endless chores and a dad who seemed to be turning to stone.

  “But hey, I’m lucky. I’ve got THE best secret in the world!” Wes whispered to himself, as he tried to ignore Harvey’s casual shove and his dread of going back to the crushing loneliness of the flat.

  Yet the glowing amber of the day seemed to seep away with every step. It dripped over the edges of the bridge and sank into the lapping browny-grey waves of the Wouze.

  “Night!” Eddie called out, as he went through the door that led to the rest of the building, which the Star Boy had not yet seen.

  He didn’t understand why Eddie had announced that it was night-time. But it was said in a friendly way, so he decided to try saying it back.

  “Yes, it is night!” the Star Boy replied from his now-regular spot on the worn patterned rug, his back against the small generator, the electricity buzzing and sizzling into his system.

  The only response the Star Boy heard was a snorting noise that sounded a little like a laugh that faded as Eddie ambled away.

  Alone now, the Star Boy decided to use this resting period as he often did: to study.

  Scrolling through data, he quickly sourced footage of young dogs. The Star Boy’s aim was to acclimatize himself to the sudden sharp sounds and movements they made. He was keen to do this as he hoped Kiki would introduce him to the tiny canine owned by her father and the smiling woman on the video call, and the Star Boy didn’t want to embarrass Kiki by responding inappropriately, i.e. screaming again.

  Studying the world of pets in general absorbed him for some time. He found it peculiar that some animals were deemed suitable to be pets and some not. For example, budgies and fish small-as-a-thumbnail might be a pet, but slugs and ladybirds were not.

  The subject was baffling.

  Who wouldn’t want to own something as spectacular and perfect as a ladybird? thought the Star Boy, as he stopped his data spooling and leaned away from the generator. His strength had now completely returned, he realized.

  Oh, how wondrous it felt to be fully rebooted, and to know he could carry on exploring and experiencing the wonders of his new hometown of Fairfield! Perhaps tomorrow he might try to Morph, to turn from Star Boy to Stan Boyd. He had very much enjoyed doing so last week: becoming Human, wearing the borrowed clothings of a student and wandering the corridors of Riverside Academy.

  And hadn’t the small Human Ty mentioned something he might enjoy? A vehicle called a ‘ghostly train’?

  Setting his data lens to source information about ghostly trains, the Star Boy didn’t initially notice the fairy lights dipping and surging on the four walls around him.

  Am I causing that? the Star Boy wondered to himself, as the colourful lights danced in random on-off patterns.

  He held still, but couldn’t sense any malfunctioning in his system. Yet he supposed he might be responsible for it, just as he must have been responsible for the glitch earlier, when Kiki’s video message had appeared on the TV screen. Perhaps his electrical energy needed recalibrating after everything he’d been through?

  Running a second assessment of his internal systems, it did appear that his temperature was running a little high. Might some coolness in the Outside help…?

  The Star Boy got up, and walked over to the door in the back wall of the kitchen area. Just as he was about to turn the heavy key in the lock, he remembered to pause his pulses and let his three hearts stop, to allow his amber glow to fade to invisibility.

  Safe now, the Star Boy turned first the key and then the cold-to-the-touch brass doorknob, and let himself out into the small, walled yard. Immediately, he dropped to the ground and stretched out on the uneven paving stones.

  His senses quivered with pleasure. The chilly night air settled upon him like a weighted blanket. His nostrils fluttered at the scents of earth and dampness, of oil and metal and rust from the motorcycle parked close by.

  Splaying his fin-shaped hands wide over the rough stones, the Star Boy closed his eyes and concentrated on the infinitesimal vibrations of life below the slabs, of worms and mites and other assorted insects going about their business in the dark earth.

  He noted too the crinkle of barely there roots extending and unfurling,
fledgling plants ready to peek between the paving stones whenever the warmth of the sun drew them upwards.

  Then, flicking his eyes open, he beheld the familiar inky darkness of the night sky, dotted with speckles of stars and planets. All so pretty but insignificant from here, all so intimidatingly vast when he was passing them by in his pod just a few night-times ago.

  How strange to think he’d never travel in that startling and wondrous realm again, that this would forever be his view of what Humans called space! As the Star Boy stared, he was startled by a pinging sensation in the area of his chest. A fleeting, painful sort of ping, which Humans would call a ‘pang’, he supposed, running a check on his data lens.

  • pang = a sudden sharp pain or painful emotion.

  He was indeed experiencing the ping of a pang.

  “The ping of a pang. Ping pang. Ping pang ping…” he murmured to himself in English, delighting in the elastic, rubbery sound of the words.

  Then he frowned as the pang moved and changed its shape, turning from a vague feeling in his torso to a sharper sensation jagging down his left arm…

  Before the Star Boy could attempt to assess it, he heard a small but odd sound.

  Click-click.

  He held still and silent.

  Click-click, like a small key turning.

  It was immediately followed by a gruff, mechanical splutter.

  And then came a deep, grumbling, chest-shaking ROAR!

  The Star Boy bolted upright just as several upstairs lights flipped on in Eddie’s room and the neighbouring shopkeepers’ bedrooms, illuminating the yard and its brick shed and washing line. But, most of all, the bedroom bulbs spotlit the motorcycle that had switched itself on, as if it was ready to hit the road for an adventure, though no key was in the ignition and no rider sat on its cracked leather seat.