Amos and the Alien (4 page)

When he made it to the tenth level, people began cheering. Dunc elbowed his way
through the crowd. “Amos, you’ve almost saved the universe. You’ve never made it this high before.”

“I’m on a roll, Dunc! Stand back.” Amos fired at one of the invading spaceships. The shot went high, but the ship fell anyway.

“Amos.”

“Not now, Dunc. I’ve got to rescue the princess.”

Dunc reached over and pushed one of the firing buttons. The shot went wild, but two enemy ships fell out of the sky.

Dunc looked around. He put his hand out and felt in the air. With one hand in front of him, he moved around the room. At the back of the room he stopped.

His hand touched something smooth.

“Girrk?”

A soft giggle came from the corner.

“Girrk, are you helping Amos play that game?”

Another giggle.

“You can’t do that. Amos thinks he’s winning by himself. How’s he going to feel when he finds out you did it?”

Dunc thought he heard a sniffle. “It’s
okay, Girrk. Go sit on that bench over there. I’ll get Amos and be right back.”

Suddenly the arcade went black. The lights went out, and all the games whined to a stop.

Amos bumped into Dunc. “There you are. You should have stayed. I was unstoppable. I made the highest score ever recorded for that wimpy game. I would have beaten it if the power hadn’t gone out. The owner said he never saw anything like it. He offered me a free game on any machine in the place.”

“It wasn’t you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It was Girrk. He was standing in the back of the room helping you.”

“How—”

“Go ask him. He’s sitting on that bench over there. At least I think he’s there. He got mad at me and drained all the power from the arcade.”

Amos moved to the bench and sat down. Dunc followed and stood a few feet away. “Go on, ask him.”

“Girrk, did you win that game for me?”

No answer.

“I know he’s here. Maybe he’s just still mad at me.” Dunc pointed to an ice cream stand. “I’ll wait over there.”

Amos turned to the empty bench. “Girrk, are you there? Listen, it was nice of you to help me out a little. I always wanted to see how that game ended. But the thing is, you have to let a guy do some stuff on his own. Okay? Girrk??”

The alien must have shifted his weight because the bench groaned. Then a voice came from thin air. “Girrk sorry he help Amos play spaceship.”

“That’s okay.”

“Girrk sorry he help Amos play ball.”

“Ball? You mean football? You helped me win the football game too?” Amos leaned close to the invisible Girrk and found the alien’s shoulder with his hand. “Let’s you and me keep that part of it to ourselves, okay?”

Amos looked up. Melissa and her mother had come out of Halversons department store and were standing a few feet away staring at him carrying on a conversation with an empty bench. Melissa’s mother propelled
her toward the exit. “I can’t believe they actually let his kind run around loose,” he heard her mutter to Melissa.

Dunc moved over to them. “How did it go?”

“Okay, if you don’t count the fact that Melissa is now positive I’m a first-class geek.”

“Did you tell him to quit doing things to make you look good and to give back the electricity?”

The bench creaked again. “No! Girrk need zamoom.”

•
10

That evening, Dunc pushed open the door of his room and set a tray of snacks on the desk. Girrk was visible again, and Amos and he were sitting on the floor in deep discussion. When Amos saw Dunc, he hid something behind his back.

“What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

“That paper behind your back.”

Amos brought the paper out. “You mean this?”

Dunc nodded. “What is it?”

Girrk smiled. “Touchdown!”

Amos elbowed him. “I told you to keep quiet about this.”

“Ooops.” The alien put a long finger to his lips. “Shhh!”

Dunc cocked his head. “You’re not planning football plays, by any chance?”

Amos tried to look as innocent as possible. “Why would you think that?”

“Amos, it wouldn’t be right for you to use Girrk to win tomorrow’s game.”

Amos wadded up the paper. “I suppose you think it’s more right for me to get my face ground to powder?”

“No, we’ll just go early tomorrow and explain everything to the coach. I’m sure he’ll understand.”

“Understand? That an eight-foot, electricity-eating alien zapped everybody on the other team so we could win? Get real!”

“We won’t tell him quite like that. We’ll just say it was all a fluke and you can’t be quarterback anymore.”

“I don’t think—”

From a special hanger on the wall, Dunc pulled down several charts of the solar system. “It has to be this way, Amos. You would never forgive yourself if you won unfairly.”

“I wouldn’t?”

Dunc shook his head.

Girrk moved to the charts. He put his finger on Earth. “Jootar.”

“We call it Earth,” Dunc said. “Which planet are you from?”

They watched Girrk draw an imaginary line from Earth to the outer edge of the solar system. When he took his finger away, a small hole was burned in the map just past Pluto.

“Turko. Girrk from Turko.”

“This is history in the making, Amos. We are the first humans to know about Turko.”

“Big deal. You can’t tell anybody.”

“A scientist doesn’t always have to tell about things right away. Just knowing it’s out there is good enough for now. Of course, after Girrk’s gone, I can show people where it is. And then—who knows, they’ll probably want me to go to work for NASA to do research on it.”

“Wait a minute. How come it’s okay for you to use Girrk to get a job at NASA, but I can’t use him to win a lousy football game?”

“It’s like this …”

“Never mind. When you start like that, I
don’t want to hear it.” Amos stood up. “Come on, Girrk. Let’s go work on your spaceship—Girrk?”

Girrk was sitting in the middle of the floor. A big tear rolled down his cheek. “Girrk miss Turko. Girrk going back. Girrk belong Turko.”

•
11

Amos was looking at Dunc in disbelief.

“Who’d have thought Girrk could have fixed his spaceship so quickly? He didn’t even tell me good-bye.” Amos took his jersey out of his locker and slipped it over his head. “I thought we were friends.”

Dunc tied his shoe. “He left you a note.”

“Some note. He wrote it in his own language. It looks like a bunch of chicken scratches.”

“He probably told you thank you for everything, he’ll really miss you, and maybe someday he can come back and visit.”

The field house doors opened with a bang, and Coach stepped into the room. “Binder,
you better be able to repeat yesterday’s performance. The Barton Bruisers have demanded a rematch.” Coach lowered his clipboard and put his face near the end of Amos’s nose. “Since I knew that wouldn’t be a problem for you, I accepted.”

“Coach, there’s something I really need to tell you.”

“No time, Binder. The Bruisers are already on the field.” The coach slapped him on the back. “I don’t want you to feel any pressure, son, but the whole team is counting on you.”

Amos watched him leave. “I’m dead.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Right—I’ll probably just be crippled for life.” He glared at Dunc. “And you know what I’m going to tell people when they ask how a nice guy like me wound up in traction? I’ll tell them it was because I listened to my best friend.”

“I have a plan.”

“Now that’s more like it. I hope it involves us hiding out in a foreign country with new identities.”

“No. You’re going to go ahead and play the game.”

“You call that a plan?”

“It’s simple, Amos. The object in the game of football is to smash whoever gets the ball, right?”

“Sort of.”

“Then the logical thing to do is make sure you never get the ball.”

•
12

The team lost the toss, and the Bruisers elected to receive. The kickoff was good, but the Bruisers ran it all the way up to the team’s twenty-yard line on the first play. Amos knew it would be only a matter of minutes before they scored and it would be his turn to go in.

He sat on the bench talking to himself.
Get rid of the ball. Get rid of the ball
.

It happened. A touchdown for the Bruisers. Coach called a fast huddle on the sidelines. “Okay, boys, it’s up to you. Remember, they put their pants on one leg at a time just like you do.”

Amos thought about telling him that he
usually jumped into his with both legs, but since he couldn’t figure out what putting your pants on had to do with the game anyway, he kept quiet.

The coach went on. “Binder, you’re in charge out there. No mercy—I want you to destroy them.”

“This is probably not the best time to bring this up, Coach, but I …”

Amos forgot what he was going to say. He looked up into the stands and saw her. Melissa Hansen was leaning over the rail talking to one of the players, her long blond hair blowing in the wind.

Amos sighed. The coach was saying something. “Did you get that play, Binder?”

“Uh-huh.” Amos stared dreamily at Melissa.

The next thing Amos knew, he was on the field. The Bruisers kicked off, and the ball landed at his feet. Without thinking, Amos reached down and picked it up. There was a mad scramble, and everyone on both sides piled on top of him.

The referee pulled them off and then peeled Amos out of the artificial grass. “Are you okay, kid?”

Amos tried to stand. “Sure, Dad. Are we there yet?”

The referee pointed him toward his teammates and gave him a little push. Amos stumbled into the huddle. The center patted him on the rear. “Great play, Binder. You saved the ball. What’s our next move?”

Amos looked confused. “I vote we move to another town.”

The center nodded. “You mean you want to take it all the way. Got ya—on two.”

Everybody clapped, and the team moved into formation. Amos found himself staring across the back of the center into the bloodshot eyes of number fifty-five. Amos was sure smoke was coming from his nostrils. “This time you’re all mine, dirt bag.”

Amos bit his lip. “Couldn’t we at least talk about this? After all, we’re two mature—”

The center heard the word
two
, and the ball hit Amos in the stomach. He didn’t have a chance. Number fifty-five plowed over the top of the center and stomped Amos into the ground.

The coach called a time out while the team dug Amos’s face mask out of the soil
and helped him to the sidelines. “Binder, you’re playing like a sissy out there. You gotta get tough, boy. They’re running all over you.”

Amos tried to focus his good eye. “Hi, Dad. Is it time for a nap?”

“Now get back out there and get the job done. Quit fooling around.”

The rest of the team ran onto the field. Dunc grabbed Amos’s arm. “I thought you were going to get rid of the ball.”

Amos shook his head to clear it and looked at him. “When this is over, I’m going to kill you.”

Amos took his place on the field. The center snapped the ball. Amos drew back to throw.