The Fellowship for Alien Detection (7 page)

Amber, PA, July 3, 10:12 a.m.

Actually, check that: She couldn't endure it, not a second more.

“But I want a snack and the pirate ship now!” Liam whined.

“Guys . . .” Haley had become a statue. Standing outside the gates to the Blair County Fairgrounds, the throngs of people around her were the only thing keeping her from screaming.

“Honey,” Jill said to Liam. She had pushed up her sunglasses and had her hands on Liam's shoulders. “Just be patient; you can wait until after your sister—”

“Ooh, and cotton candy! Oh man, and look, they have a Scrambler! I want to ride the Scrambler!” Liam shouted, hopping up and down.

“Liam!” Haley snapped. “Stop acting like an idiot!” She couldn't help it, not after the snoring and kicking all night, and not after the incident back at breakfast with the syrup and the hair.

“Okay,” said Dad, flashing a glance at Jill. “You take Haley? We'll hit the ship.”

“Take me?” Haley felt a surge inside. She'd always imagined doing her research work by herself. “I can't go on my own?”

Jill sighed. “Haley, I know you can handle yourself, but I'd like to meet these people you're interviewing, you know, just so I know what's up.” She shrugged. “Can't help it: mom's duty. I promise, I'll stay far out of your way for the interview.”

Haley wanted to protest, but she knew how that usually went. So she just huffed, loudly enough for her parents to hear, and said, “Okay.”

“See you guys in a bit!” Allan called over Liam's excited ranting as they headed for the fairgrounds.

“So,” said Jill enthusiastically. “Where to?”

“I want to get a picture of the clock tower. Then we're meeting my source in the fair.”

“Ooh, ‘source.' I like it.”

Haley frowned. “Mom.”

“Sorry. Fly on the wall. I'm not even here.”

Haley started up Main Street. Even with her mom in tow, she was starting to feel a sense of relief spreading through her. Finally, she was getting started. Out on the road, on the hunt. This was it.

They crossed a four-way intersection and reached a wide green lawn wrapped around Amber's historic town hall, a brick building with white trim, its clock tower rising into the hazy sky. The lawn was busy with people picnicking and throwing balls and Frisbees to one another and to their pets.

Haley pulled out her phone and aimed at the tower.

“The time is correct,” said Jill.

“I know, Mom, it's been fixed for a while. I just want a photo for documentation.”

Haley turned around and positioned herself for a self-portrait.

“Ooh, I can take that for you.”

“Mom, I want it to be like this.”

“Right.” Jill took a couple steps back.

Haley snapped the photo and checked the results. The tower kinda looked like it was coming out of her head, but it was good enough. Now, to get on with the real story.

“Okay, now we go in,” said Haley. She led the way back down Main Street to a line of white booths at the fairground entrance. She started to pull out her wallet. She had her own money from her allowance and had looked up what a ticket cost online, but then Jill stepped ahead of her. “I can get these,” she said.

“Thanks,” Haley said, and felt genuinely stuck between wanting to scream and being glad. This did leave her extra money for snacks, and yet it made her feel like such a
kid
.

They headed into the fair, joining a fluid stream of people. Haley could see the line of long red barns in the distance.

The crowd oozed down a central midway, the shadows from the Ferris wheel cars swooping over them like ghosts. As Haley crossed the fairgrounds, all of her senses felt heightened. She observed the details around her and imagined the first paragraph of her soon-to-be-award-winning report:

The Blair County Summerfest seems like exactly the kind of place where you would
not
uncover an alien conspiracy. Kids with wide smiles ride on rickety rides, their proud parents snapping pictures. Fairgoers are lined up for roasted corn, ice cream, and elk burgers that smell like steak and oranges. A salesman hawks gleaming red tractors, while nearby, on the Kountry Karaoke stage, a white-hatted old cowboy croons to the passersby. . . .

And there were even more details than that, so many it was overwhelming. Haley felt like she was just beginning to understand some kind of paradox, like the closer you looked at the world, the more there was to see. You'd never have time for it all! And yet something about that infinite possibility was electric, too. She'd write a hundred stories, if that's what it took!

Her excited thoughts quieted as they reached the barns. The first long building was full of cows. The next, pigs. Sheep in number Three, and gigantic-sized vegetables in Four.

Haley and Jill entered Barn Five and Haley found herself surrounded by wire cages stacked like apartments and housing chickens of all colors and feather styles. There were white ones, golden tan ones with black beaks, salt-and-pepper speckled, bright yellow, a pink chicken. Stacks of cages were numbered, starting at one.

On the walls there were posters made by the chicken owners, mostly girls, all with various colored ribbons. Some younger girls had drawings of their chickens. Older kids had inspirational quotes or song lyrics. Haley had never had a pet. Well, there had been gerbils, but they had been escape prone, and that had ended badly one winter's night.

Haley joined a tight row of shuffling bodies, inching down a narrow aisle. Feathers fluttered all around her. The light was dim and greenish, the air humid, thick like oatmeal, with the brown smell of sawdust, perspiration, and the countless tiny droppings that peppered the floor.

Forty-two was at the end of the aisle. There were five cages. A girl stood in front of them, bent over and looking carefully inside one.

“Excuse me,” Haley began, “Steph?”

The girl stood up, a golden chicken with white streaks in her hands. She tucked it under her arm. “What?” said Stephanie Raines. She was shorter than Haley, but older, somewhere in high school. She wore skinny black jeans and an oversized black sweatshirt. Inside the open zipper, Haley saw the same maroon T-shirt from online: “We Are the Missing.” One nostril was pierced, along with the other eyebrow. She wore a thick layer of eyeliner, her eyes so dark it almost looked like she'd been in a fight. It seemed possible. “Oh,” said Steph. “It's you.”

“Yeah,” said Haley. She felt awkward suddenly, as she often did in moments like this. She always felt like she came across so average, at least compared to someone like Steph. Just a normal girl, no exceptional features, no attitude that immediately commanded attention. She knew she had cool ideas and talents, but those weren't first impression things. “Hi.”

Steph just nodded. “I kinda wondered if you'd actually show up.”

“Yeah, well, here I am.” Haley tried a smile.

Steph didn't return it.

“Hi, I'm Jill, Haley's mom.” Jill reached around Haley and extended her hand. Steph gave her a blank look but then shook it. She glanced back at Haley.

Haley shrugged. “She wanted to meet you, and then she's taking off. Right, Mom?”

“Oh, yeah.” Jill took a long look, like she was trying to absorb as many details as she could. Then she nodded as if she was satisfied. “Um, how about if I wait outside the barn? There were some craft tents across the way. How long will you need?”

“Like twenty minutes, I think,” said Haley.

“Okay.” Then Jill reached over and ruffled Haley's head. It had probably been an unconscious thing, but what a thing to do in front of this older girl! Haley couldn't help flinching away.

“Oh, right, sorry,” said Jill. “Okay, see you in a bit.” She merged back in with the passersby and continued around the loop of cages.

“Sorry about that,” said Haley, rolling her eyes.

Steph's face stayed blank, dark. “Moms care. They can't help it.”

A boy appeared beside Steph. He was slouched practically in half, in a similar black sweatshirt, with chicken-thin legs in tight jeans. He wore gold sneakers and a maroon fez atop his scattershot black and bleached-white hair. His long nose and narrow face made him almost resemble a giant relative of the fowl surrounding them.

“This is Gabe,” said Steph.

“'Sup,” said Gabe.

Steph ran her hand over the crest of sienna-colored feathers atop the head of the chicken she was holding. It clucked contentedly. “And this is Vonnegut,” she said. “He's my big winner.”

“Oh, cool.” Haley now noticed that Vonnegut's open cage door had a blue ribbon on it. Three other cages had ribbons, too: two greens, a gold, and a red. Here was a story within the story: tough, intimidating Steph, the chicken champion.

“You read any?”

“What?” Haley asked.

“You're too young, probably,” said Steph disappointedly. “Vonnegut's insanely good, but you can't just start in the middle with
Slaughterhouse
, like they make you do in school. You have to start with
Sirens of Titan
. It explains
everything
.”

“Okay . . .” said Haley. Another silent moment passed. “So, I guess we should do the interview.”

“What do you want to know?” Steph asked.

“Oh, here?” Haley looked around. She'd been imagining a coffee shop, well, a cool city café actually, even though that wasn't realistic, but at least a place to get out her notebook and stuff. Not a sour-smelling chicken barn.

Haley found Steph looking at her. It seemed like a disappointed look; then again, all of Steph's looks were like that, so it was hard to tell. “There are some chairs over here,” she said.

Haley followed Steph across the aisle. A small area at the back corner of the barn was roped off. There were metal folding chairs around the border and a small table against the wood wall, holding plates of cookies and plastic pitchers of refreshments. There was one other person sitting there, an older woman who seemed to be mumbling to herself and staring off into space. Steph gave her a wary glance before taking a seat on the opposite side of the area.

Haley sat. Steph and Gabe looked at her. “Um, okay,” Haley started, “so I thought first you could recount your experience the night of the missing time. And, you know, about Suza.”

Steph stroked Vonnegut for a moment, then said, “We were hanging out, me and Gabe and a couple other kids, down by the river walk. It was a Tuesday night, really late, probably almost midnight. I should have been home. We were just messing around—there's not much to do in Amber, if you hadn't noticed—and . . . then we kinda blanked out for a second, and the next thing we knew, all the lights in town were out. We didn't know it had been sixteen minutes until later. We didn't really know anything at first, except that we all kinda felt weird, and Calla and Tony had been making out and they told us their lips were really sore.”

“Sixteen-minute make-out,” said Gabe.

“So we just thought it was a blackout,” Steph went on. “Then we started hearing sirens and stuff, noticed people coming outside and kind of looking around. There were shouts. Everybody was disoriented. The power came back pretty quick. We figured it was nothing, but then I went home. . . . Mom was freaking out. . . .” Steph's voice quieted. “And she was gone. Right out of her room. Just . . . completely vanished.” Tears gathered in Steph's eyes. She smacked at them with the back of her hand.

Haley had no idea what to say next. She'd thought about the idea of missing people, of a missing sister, but seeing it on Steph's face suddenly made it feel real, painful. She tried to imagine going into Liam's room and finding him gone, vanished. The thought made her queasy.

Gabe reached over and rubbed Steph's shoulder. “There's been no trace of her, and no evidence,” Gabe added.

“Only a few of us in town really still believe we had the missing time,” said Steph, sniffling. “Most people have decided to believe it never happened, or have just gotten on with things.”

“I'm sorry,” said Haley, “about your sister.”

“Yeah, well, it could be worse,” said Steph.

“What do you mean?”

Steph didn't answer, but she stood up and crossed the little sitting space to the older woman. She wore a flannel shirt and faded jeans; her reddish hair, streaked with gray, was tied back except for one curly strand that hung loose in front of her face. Hair like Suza's. She maybe looked about Haley's mom's age, or younger, but the dark rings around her eyes, and the long lines around her mouth, made it hard to tell.

“Their dad died in Iraq,” said Gabe quietly. “She was already in bad shape before that.”

Haley got up and walked over. The woman was staring vacantly out into the sea of legs passing by and talking quietly to herself. Haley couldn't hear what she was saying until she was a foot away.