I
was almost looking forward to the Fifth Grade. That is, until
the new foreign exchange student showed up at my house the
day before school started. The minute I laid eyes on him,
I knew this year was going to be strange. He was just so different
from your typical fifth grader that I knew this kid was going
to turn the school upside down. You'll see what I mean.
That day I was waiting for him all morning out on the front
lawn. Mom had asked me to "keep an eye out for Dude's bus."
Hello.
Now, who names their kid Dude? I had asked my Dad that very
question when I first learned that a foreign exchange student
would be staying at our house that year.
"Junior,
Dude probably means something else in his country," Dad had
said. "You know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover!"
Let me tell you, this was one case where the cover fit the
book perfectly! But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Anyway, so the day before school, I was standing out on the
front lawn, bored out of my mind as I tossed a baseball up
into the air for the thousandth time, when all of a sudden,
I saw something bright in the sky. It kept getting closer
and closer.
"Wouldn't
it be cool if it were a spaceship?" I laughed, absolutely
sure that nothing exciting like that could ever happen to
me. But sure enough, that's exactly what it was!
The spaceship stopped about a hundred yards above the tops
of the trees and then a door slid open. My eyes were glued
to it and I couldn't speak a word.
Something stepped out of the spaceship door and began zig-zagging
down through the sky right towards my house. I had this crazy
thought that it looked like a kid riding a skateboard through
the air.
As he got closer I saw that it was! The kid did some awesome
loops and turns and spins up above the trees and then screeched
right towards me. I jumped back and fell into the bushes.
Looking up through the branches, I saw a kid hovering in the
air about three feet above the ground on his skateboard. He
looked like a typical kid my age, with shorts and tee-shirt
and sneakers, and a cap sitting backwards on his head. The
only difference was that he was green. This kid was an alien!
The green alien-kid hopped down onto the grass and pulled
the skateboard out of the air. He scrunched it up between
his hands until it was no bigger than a dime, and then he
stuck it in his pocket. "Like, Sweet! Totally radical air
space!" he laughed.
A bug was crawling on my nose and though I tried my best not
to, I sneezed.
The alien looked around with a worried expression on his green
face. Then he glanced down and saw me in the bushes.
"Uh...
Peace, Dude?" I stuttered. I mean, what else do you say to
an alien?
The alien-kid looked at me nervously. "Uh...Er...! Uh, hi.
Like, uh, Peace, Man." He held up a peace sign and flashed
me a quivering smile. "Like, uh, you didn't just, um, catch
me on my, you know, board, did you?" he asked.
"Uh,
yeah..." I swallowed.
The alien turned a paler-shade of green. "Oh, Man! Bummer,
Man! I, um, er, I'm going to like, you know, get in so much
trouble now, man. Like I... I can, um, totally explain it...
like..."
I didn't say anything. I couldn't, even if I'd been able to
understand anything he'd just said.
"You
see, I ... Hey, you're like, Johnny, um, Chronicles, right?"
he asked. I could see he was trying to change the subject
to throw me off. But I was already so thrown off I just lay
there with my mouth open. At that moment I wished with all
my heart I wasn't Junior Chronicles. Maybe if I denied it,
he'd go away.
The alien looked up at the number "23" on the front porch
of our house and then down the street to the "Oak Lane" street
sign. He nodded his head, letting me know that he knew he
was at the right place. Drats!
"Uh..."
was about all I was able to say.
"Like,
look Johnny, I've, you know, had, um, a like totally sorta,
you know, awesomely long trip... Like I'd really like to,
um, well, like put my bag down..." the alien said, pointing
to the glowing backpack on his back. "Like, man, can you like,
you know, like give me a hand? This thing is so like, you
know, so like totally heavy!"
"Uh,
okay... I stammered and struggled to my feet to help him swing
the backpack off his shoulder.
"WHOA!"
I gasped as the glowing backpack pulled me off the ground.
Before I knew what had happened I was floating three feet
in the air. Without thinking very clearly I let go of the
bag and crashed to ground. Dirt went flying everywhere as
I plunked down on my stomach.
I lifted my face out of the dirt and saw the backpack float
down to Dude's outstretched hand. "Hey, like, um, well, thanks
Man!" he said.
Just then the door swung open and Mom came out and looked
at me lying face down in the dirt behind the bushes. "Junior,
what are you doing in there... you're filthy! Oh, you must
be Dude," she said, seeing the alien kid standing there. She
was beaming a welcome smile. "You're here. I didn't hear the
bus go by at all. Come on in, Dude, you must be tired from
your long trip."
Mom didn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary about
this "Dude." Like his green color! Dude looked back at me
nervously. "Please don't say anything about my coming in a
spaceship," his look seemed to say. It was almost like he
was talking. But it made sense, unlike the words that came
out when he opened his mouth. This alien was invading my head!
I wanted to tell my Mom. I wanted to tell everyone that an
alien had landed in my yard. Probably to take over the planet!
But nothing came out of my mouth. I followed them both inside
with my jaw still hanging silently open.
