How to Hide an Alien Read online

  The Star Boy scrambled to his feet, staring at the revving vehicle.

  Something felt out of kilter, out of control. The motorcycle … the flittering fairy lights … the video message popping up on the TV. Were all these events caused by his energy not being correctly aligned? The Star Boy certainly didn’t feel quite like himself all of a sudden.

  A wriggle of worry took hold, swirling and looping around his hearts, binding them tight.

  “What is this miracle?” said Kiki’s mum, pretending to rub her eyes, as her daughter slouched into the kitchen. “I didn’t expect to see you up so early, since school’s shut!”

  “You TOTALLY look like a zombie, Kiki,” muttered Ty. He was sitting at the table, feeding bits of his breakfast cereal to the hamster nuzzled in the crook of his arm.

  “Very funny…” Kiki groaned in reply as she collapsed into a chair, dark tight curls spiralling from her topknot in surprising directions. “I was fast asleep – till someone woke me up!”

  “Who?” asked Mum.

  “Tasmin. She DMd me just now. Look,” said Kiki, grumpily holding her phone up.

  “Oh,” said Mum, coming across to check out the photo of a goofily gorgeous pup, with Tasmin crouched beside it, her eyes bright and excited behind her green-framed glasses, a yellow beanie pulled down over her shiny black bobbed hair. “And what’s Tasmin written underneath? Can’t wait till you meet Coco on Wednesday! Aw, that’s nice.”

  Nice? Tasmin’s message had annoyed Kiki for two reasons:

  • it woke her up on a morning when she could have had a lie-in

  • the fact that Tasmin had DMd at all. She’d never done this before. It felt weird. Too … matey.

  And now Kiki found herself annoyed by Mum’s cheery response. Shouldn’t she be more irritated by Dad’s girlfriend acting over-the-top friendly like that?

  “Can I see the doggy?” asked Ty, bunny-hopping his chair closer to Kiki, and holding the hamster up to view the screen too. “Aw, it’s REALLY cute. But how come Dad has a puppy and we don’t? Can we get one, Mum, PLEEEASSEEE?”

  “Nope,” said Mum with a firm smile.

  “Anyway, it’s not Dad’s dog, is it? It’s Tasmin’s,” Kiki quickly corrected her brother. She had no idea where Tasmin lived, but clearly it was a lot more puppy-friendly that Dad’s tiny, gardenless flat above a shop.

  Mum gave a little cough.

  “What?” said Kiki, glancing up.

  “Hmm? Nothing! Just saw the time…” she answered vaguely, scooping up her bag and keys, ready to leave for her shift at the hospital.

  “Wednesday’s going to be the BEST, though, isn’t it?” Ty gabbled enthusiastically. “We get to see Dad AND go to the funfair AND meet Coco! I can’t WAIT to see Stan’s face when he sees the puppy for real!”

  Kiki gritted her teeth. Ty clearly hadn’t listened to a word she’d said at the weekend, when she’d explained over and over again how important it was not to mention Stan AT ALL.

  “We won’t have time to see anyone else if we’re hanging out with Dad, though, will we?” Kiki said pointedly, glaring at her brother.

  “Who’s Stan?” Mum muttered distractedly, shrugging her jacket on. “I thought your new friend was called Wes, Kiki?”

  “Stan’s her friend too, AND mine! OWW!” yelped Ty, as Kiki kicked him under the table.

  “And was Stan at this epic movie marathon Eddie let you have over at his place?” said Mum, raising one eyebrow.

  “Er, yes,” Kiki mumbled, remembering the excuse she and Ty had made for being round at Eddie’s so much over the weekend.

  “Does he go to your school too?” Kiki noticed Mum’s half-curious, half-amused expression when she asked the question. What was that about? Whatever it was, it was irritating. All these questions were irritating too, especially since Kiki didn’t have the answers ready.

  “HAHA! No, Squeak – that tickles!” Ty giggled, as his hamster disappeared down the front of his school polo shirt.

  “Right, Tyreke – put Squeak back in his cage; it’s time for school,” said Mum. “And Kiki, you’re still meeting up with Wes today, are you? What was the plan again?”

  “Dunno. Think we’ll just go and hang out at the park and watch the fair setting up or something,” Kiki lied. She couldn’t exactly say she’d be spending the day in Eddie’s back room teaching an alien how to be a human.

  “Lovely. Well, have a good time, darling,” said Mum, while shooing Ty towards the door. “Let me know if you hear anything from school, about when it might reopen. And Eddie’s right across the road if you need anything. Oh, and don’t forget to double-lock the door when you go out.”

  Kiki’s head was too stuffed with Star Boy-related thoughts to listen to all the dos and don’ts. Thoughts about how to train him, how to keep a zip on Ty’s runaway mouth, how she and Wes needed to be one hundred per cent unflusterable when it came to covering for the Star Boy…

  “You all right, Kiki?” Mum asked, as Kiki sank down in her chair, forehead thunking on to the table.

  “Uh-huh,” Kiki mumbled. “Just really tired.”

  More like completely and utterly exhausted at the idea of being responsible for the safety of a clueless alien.

  The Star Boy sat ramrod straight by the generator, ready and waiting for his training to begin.

  He had been ready and waiting since 7.47 a.m., when the October sun rose. It was now 9.30 a.m. and Kiki and Wes were due at noon, but that was fine. He was happy to wait.

  “Back in twenty minutes, Stan! Got to grab some spare parts,” Eddie called out, barging in through the door that led to the rest of the building. He picked up his keys and his motorcycle helmet from a shelf by the back door, and then exited into the Outside.

  As the Star Boy searched his data for the meaning of ‘spare parts’ the sound of the motorcycle in the yard interrupted his thoughts, bringing with it a memory of last night’s unfortunate incident, which had brought Eddie rushing barefoot into the yard. Once Eddie had silenced the growling machine and they were both safely inside, Eddie had suggested that a reboot might resolve the Star Boy’s energy glitches. To please his kind host, the Star Boy had agreed that might be an excellent idea, while doubting it would have any effect at all. What the Star Boy needed to do was to research his surging issues. And he would … only not now … not when he’d just realized that he had the place to himself.

  He began lightly sparking with excitement. This was the perfect opportunity to look around, to observe, before Kiki and Wes arrived. He got to his feet and wandered round the room, poking at soft squares called cushions, opening drawers and stroking silver pointy implements called forks. He even tried poking the cushions with the forks, which was quite fun.

  Then he realized what might be even more fun: finding out what lay beyond this very room…

  What treasures might I come across? the Star Boy wondered, his hearts pulsing wildly as he opened the door to Everything Else.

  Straight away, he found himself in a small, squarish space that he quickly identified as a hallway. As well as another door, the most interesting feature of the hall was the staircase. Quickly, he trod up the creaky steps to the area above. The first room he came to on this level was clearly for sleeping and clothing purposes. It contained a bed for recharging upon and also a rail, from which hung several pieces of different-coloured fabric. The lens in the Star Boy’s left eye labelled these as pairs of jeans, T-shirts and checked shirts. (They looked startlingly different when hanging limply, and not covering Human bodies.)

  As for the second room, it was a bathroom, so called because it contained a large, hollow object known as a bath, which Humans filled with water and sat in till their dirt drifted off.

  There were several intriguing items in this room; and, after squeezing a plastic tube that emitted white gloop – paste for teeth-cleaning – and pressing a silver handle on the white lidded chair – a toilet – which made a sudden and exciting waterfall occur in the hole in its base, t
he Star Boy remembered the other door in the hallway. The one that must lead to the front of the building, where Eddie interacted with Humans who took him their broken things to repair.

  The Star Boy hurried back downstairs, pausing his pulses with every step so that, by the time he opened the door into the shop, he was safely invisible to any passing Humans who might peer in through the big glass windows.

  Now, standing behind the wooden counter, the Star Boy glanced around. He noted many stored and stacked and obviously faulty items, smaller ones jostling for space on shelves, larger ones resting against the walls. But what caught his eye most was the small sign dangling on the door to the Outside that read OPEN.

  Was that an order? An invitation? What would happen if he DID open the door?

  The Star Boy could not resist. He walked round the counter and across to the door. Studying the metal bolt, he experimentally slid it open, then turned a handle and found that the door opened with the pleasing jangle of a bell. There, on the opened side of the door, the sign read CLOSED.

  How peculiar. The door was not closed; it was clearly now open.

  The Star Boy went back inside, shutting the door, and again saw the word OPEN on the small sign. So he opened the door once more, and again the sign on this side of the open door said CLOSED.

  The Star Boy went out on to the pavement and stared at the sign from that angle. He was stumped by the wording. Was it simply a Human joke?

  “Oi!”

  Kiki! The Star Boy recognized his friend’s voice, though not the funny-sounding noise she’d just made.

  He turned round and smiled as she ran towards him, although…

  • it occurred to him that he was invisible, so his friend could not see his welcoming smile, and

  • Kiki was looking the very opposite of happy…

  “Stan!” she hissed, as she came to a breathless stop outside the Electrical Emporium. “You’re there, aren’t you?”

  “Yes! I am here!” he said, standing framed but unseen in the doorway. “What is wrong? You look troubled.”

  “I was just washing up the breakfast dishes when I glanced out of the kitchen window and saw all this,” Kiki hissed again, flicking her hands towards the shop.

  “Ah…” said the Star Boy, understanding her meaning. “The door opening and closing, as if by itself. Yes, I can see that it would have appeared strange if any Humans had passed by.”

  “Not just that!” Kiki muttered, her eyes wide and her head nodding at the plate-glass window. “I mean all the lights, Stan! What did you do?!”

  The Star Boy stepped further back and stood by his friend’s side, so that he might observe what she did. Which instantly caused him some alarm. The electrical items displayed in the window, along with all the large and small items within the shop were flashing … their various buttons, dials, control panels and bulbs pulsing with yellow and red, blue and green and white of every intensity. One especially brightly illuminated machine by the counter began to emit loud, cheerful music.

  “SHAKE, RATTLE AND ROLL!” an American-sounding voice sang out.

  “Everything’s lighting up like a fairground!” Kiki muttered at speed. “Can you make it stop, Stan? Like NOW?!”

  “But, Kiki, if I am causing this disturbance, I cannot think how that might be…“

  A grinding noise to the right caught their attention, and both the Star Boy and Kiki turned to see the shutter of Mr Pickle’s shop come rattling and clanking down, only to rattle and clank straight back up – and then down again.

  “Help! What’s going on!” they heard a muffled yell from inside.

  “What’s happening?” came another shout, this time from the open door of the Busy Bubbles laundrette on the left, where a deafening chugging sound had begun, almost as if a steam train was thundering along the worn lino, ready to burst through the plate-glass window.

  “What’s that noise?” Kiki asked Mrs Crosby, who’d come running out on to the pavement in alarm.

  “ALL the machines have started up!” she called out nervously.

  “Stan, you have got to try and do something,” Kiki hissed, as she hurried into the Electrical Emporium and shut the door. “Can you use your data lens to find out how to fix whatever this is? Are you listening, Stan? Stan?!”

  The invisible Star Boy was still standing on the pavement.

  Any other time, he would have been delighted to realize he could lip-read what his friend inside the shop was saying, but right now he was more caught up with witnessing the electrical mayhem and trying to ignore the gnawing ache that had begun in his left hand.

  Somehow this was all his fault.

  Somehow he was causing distress to Humans, which was the very last thing he ever wanted to do.

  Somehow he had to find out what was going wrong and make it right, before it got him – and possibly his friends and rescuers – into trouble.

  It was a day of no school, which meant a day less of Wes running the risk of bumping into Harvey and his mates in the corridors. Ace.

  And it also meant that Wes could hang out with his new and brilliant friends. He and Kiki would need to spend time training Stan, for sure. But that wouldn’t take ALL day. Maybe they could take the Star Boy out for an educational field trip! And, thanks to his conversation with Mrs Crosby yesterday, Wes had an idea about what that could be…

  But for now there were less exciting but necessary things to think about.

  “Hey, Dad, we’re out of milk,” said Wes, as he sat at the small table that doubled up as his dad’s workspace, waving the empty plastic carton.

  “Uh-huh…” muttered Dad, ruffling his unkempt beard.

  “Dad!” Wes tried again, reaching over and swivelling the laptop round and away from his father’s gaze.

  “Hey!” grumbled his dad, reaching out and setting it right again. “I’m just in the middle of doing some research for work!”

  Wes stared at his father, whose shirt was so crumpled it looked like it had been slept in.

  He knew Dad was lying. He wasn’t researching, or trying to find new clients. Dad was playing online Sudoku.

  “Do we need other stuff?” Wes tried again. “Do you want to order a delivery from the supermarket? Or should I go to the shops, since school’s closed again today?”

  “Mmm…” muttered Dad, lost in a parallel universe where he didn’t have to think about work that he didn’t have, or filling empty cupboards. A parallel universe where all that mattered was slotting numbers tidily into boxes.

  Wes knew all about parallel universes too. He read about them all the time, watched TV shows and films about them, played games centred around them.

  And then there was his own personal parallel universe … an alternative version of Wes Life.

  The setting was a cottage where a bright-eyed, clean-shaven dad sang along to the radio as he worked on his laptop, designing websites. There was a smiley mum with a white-blond pixie cut, who often left cherry-red kiss marks on the dad’s cheek. They were fun, this mum and dad. Proper warm-inside-your-tummy fun. They laughed at each other’s jokes and danced round the kitchen.

  Wish I could dip into that world right now, thought Wes, starting to pile up the breakfast plates and glasses. Like all good stories, he’d based his parallel universe on something true – the photo albums he’d found tucked at the back of a cupboard, under a pile of old towels, right around the time Mum left. The cottage, the dad, the mum, the fun, the music … that had existed. It had happened. Just in a time before Wes. When there was only the two of them.

  Things between his mum and dad had somehow started to bend and shift when Wes was tiny. All he remembered of life as a threesome were arguments and silences; Dad locked away in a room working, Mum’s unhappy face when she came home from the salon…

  “Actually, yes, if you could go to the shops,” Dad said vaguely.

  Wes stared across the table, trying to remember when Dad had started to properly fade, to turn into a tissue-thin version o
f himself. It was before Mum left, Wes was pretty sure. Maybe it was one of the reasons she’d gone.

  “OK,” said Wes, getting up and going over to take some money from the tin on the shelf. “I’m seeing my friends later, so I’ll pick the stuff up when I’m out.”

  “You’re going out again?” Dad checked, sounding unsure. “Shouldn’t you do some studying while school’s shut? And who are these friends anyway?”

  Wes clenched his teeth. He knew it was hard for Dad to get his head round the idea of Wes having a life away from him, especially after home-schooling his son up until recently.

  “We haven’t been set any work by our teachers, Dad,” Wes explained patiently. “And my friends are Kiki and Stan. You’d like them.”

  Even as Wes said that last bit, he knew there was zero chance of Dad ever meeting Kiki and Stan, since he rarely left the flat. And, the way Dad was, Wes wouldn’t have dreamed of inviting anyone to visit ever.

  “Sometimes I wonder if it was a good idea to let you go to secondary school. I’m sure I could tutor you in some of the subjects, if I put my mind to it,” Dad muttered.

  The flat suddenly felt airless. It made Wes’s chest feel as tight as his asthma sometimes did. He ached for the oxygen of brightness and colour.

  And luckily there was a way to make that happen.

  With his back still to Dad, Wes tapped a message to Kiki.

  Can we meet up earlier than 12?

  He’d barely sent the message when he got a reply.

  YES! I’m already with Stan. Come now!

  Wes grinned. Sometimes he wished he could be a better son and magically make his dad happier. But, if that wasn’t possible, at least it was good to be needed by someone.

  And for more than just picking up a carton of milk.