The Summer Experiment Read online

  “Okay, let’s hear it,” she said. “But I know I won’t like it and that my answer will be no. After falling into that well on Peterson’s Mountain, we’re lucky to be alive.”

  “We go after them,” I said. “We contact them and we become the second generation of Allagash Abductions. There will probably be a movie made. Katy Perry could play you, and Taylor Swift could play me.”

  “Are you insane? Besides, they’re too old.”

  “I’m not insane, I’m brilliant. We contact the aliens by signaling from the mouth of Peterson’s Cave. They tend to show up in the same places. I read all about this while you were hiding out, avoiding the subject.”

  “How would this qualify for a science fair?”

  “The whole idea of the competition is that we explore the wonders of science and open up our possibilities. I’d say going aboard a spacecraft is that times a million.”

  “No, and it’s a ‘no’ the size of that spaceship we saw. Double the size.”

  “We’ll be more than famous, Marilee,” I said. “We’ll be the first kids to stage and then record an actual abduction. We’ll be like space detectives.”

  “Sure. And how many space detectives do you know?”

  “None.”

  “Right. That’s ’cause they’re all dead.”

  “Or better yet, Marilee,” I said, “what would you think of becoming a UFO chaser? We’d be the only two girls in history. I’ll build us a website. I can go to Photoshop and make us some cool badges, shiny ones like Harold Hopkins has.”

  “And how do we record an abduction?”

  “We take a camera with us. I’ll hide it in my jacket pocket.”

  “Oh, please. They fly across galaxies, Robbie. You think they wouldn’t find a camera?”

  “Okay, but we get taken aboard,” I said. “Again, may I add, since there’s no doubt they’ve already taken us once.”

  “Then why would they want us again? They put us back, remember?”

  “You got it backward. We want them.” I smiled. Sometimes, Marilee can actually seem less bright than she really is.

  “And how do we tell them that?”

  “We send them alphabet letters that spell words,” I said. “They are advanced beyond our imaginations or they wouldn’t be able to visit Earth. They wouldn’t have those amazing spacecraft. English words or words in any language would be nothing for them to translate. They can pick up the words we send, and in a nanosecond they’ll understand our message.”

  “And how do we send them a message? E-mail or snail mail?”

  “Very funny,” I said. “This is what we’ll use.” I pulled my mom’s iPhone 4 from my pocket. Mom uses it when she goes shopping to Fort Kent or to visit her sister in Caribou, places lucky enough to have reception. I put the phone in Marilee’s hand. She looked at it and laughed out loud. She even kicked her feet up and down on her rock. Two merganser ducks floating down the river flapped their wings and flew, leaving a trail of water droplets.

  “That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard!” Marilee squealed, finally able to speak. “We just telephone them! Or do we text message? And then, even on Peterson’s Mountain there is no cell phone reception in Allagash! Oh, I’m going to die from laughing! My life is over!”

  I had expected this. I really had. I waited patiently until she was sane again.

  “This iPhone is also a camera, as you know,” I said. “All we need is a Light-O-Matic application for its camera flash and we can use Morse code.”

  “You don’t know Morse code, Einstein.”

  “Maybe not, but the application does.” I unfolded the instructions I’d downloaded and printed for the Light-O-Matic app. I had bought it from the iTunes store just after our famous night on the mountain. For the whole week that no one would talk to me about our experience, I had been planning. Thanks to trusty Google—how to send Morse code signals—I found out about the Light-O-Matic application for iPhone 4’s camera flash. Marilee was reading the instructions. She wasn’t laughing now.

  “Wow,” she said.

  “The application gives you a choice of a strobe light, flashlight, or a Morse code translator. I’ve already installed the translator. All I do is key in my words and the flash will send out the message.”

  “Wow!” said Marilee. She handed the instructions back to me. “But it’s getting scary again, Roberta McKinnon. I don’t like it one bit.”

  “If we’re abducted again, they will put us back again. We have nothing to worry about.”

  “But if we remember nothing, how can we do our project?” Marilee was biting at her fingernail so I knew she was nervous. Nervous, but hooked.

  “Maybe we find the same man who hypnotized the Vermont Four,” I said. “The man who wrote The Allagash Abductions. Did you know he lives in southern Maine?”

  “What message will you send them?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. I had been playing around with ideas until we lost Grandpa. But I knew I could come up with something perfect. I pulled up a blade of the wild hay that grows near my river rock. “I’m still working on it. It has to be exactly right.” I bit down on the hay, tasting its sweetness.

  “Oh, I don’t like this, I don’t like this, I don’t like this,” Marilee was saying. She got up from the rock and grabbed her towel. “This is one of your genius plans we might not get out of.”

  I twirled the blade of hay between two fingers.

  “I don’t think international is too big as far as science fairs go,” I said. “But we might have to consider intergalactic.”

  “Robbie, this is insane.”

  “I can always do the project alone,” I said. “You know, receive all the glory and attention and money for myself. Rather than sharing it with my best friend.”

  “I have to think about this,” said Marilee.

  That was all I needed to hear. I knew I had her. I threw the blade of hay and watched it hit the water. It swirled around and around in a fast current. Helpless, it was soon carried off downstream. I guess you could say it was caught up in circumstances it had no control over. You might say it imploded. I sometimes wondered if that’s how Marilee Evans felt, just being my friend.

  19

  Crying Wolf

  WE COME IN PEACE.

  TAKE US TO YOUR LEADER.

  BEAM US UP, SCOTTY.

  HOW’S THE WEATHER UP THERE?

  SEEN ANY GOOD GALAXIES LATELY?

  DON’T FORGET TO TAKE OUT THE SPACE TRASH.

  WHEN IN DOUBT, GOOGLE.

  Okay, we were being silly. Or I was, anyway. But thinking up a perfect message to send by Morse code to aliens isn’t as easy as it sounds. It had to say a lot in a few words. Marilee was lying on the bed and looking at my Star Wars poster. I was at my computer.

  “This will be extra cool since kids are almost never abducted,” I said. I deleted, BE OUR FRIENDS, PLEASE, before Marilee could even say it was stupid.

  “Maybe it’s because they hate kids and that’s another reason for us to stay home.”

  “Who could hate us, Marilee?”

  “What if it’s a different spaceship that reads the message and not the one we saw the other night? What if they take us and don’t put us back? What if they can’t understand Morse code? What if they’re dyslexic?”

  What if, what if, what if. Marilee was driving me crazy.

  “Keep it up and I’ll go alone,” I said.

  “Do we pack anything?” She was sitting in the middle of my bed now in a lotus position. She learned yoga in Boston and loves it. She says it keeps her focused, which helps since I’m her best friend and always trying to talk her into something crazy.

  “Sure, we take our winter boots, our bicycles, school books, my cat and your dog, my goldfish, and a tuna sandwich. Of course, we don’t pack anything! We’ll only be
gone a couple hours, remember?”

  “But if they already examined us, what would they do with us all that time?”

  That was a darn good question. So I ignored it.

  “We’re going to communicate with them,” I said. “To learn about them as they learned about us.”

  “Oh please, that is so much bull,” said Marilee. “We’re going so we can win at science fair.”

  “Okay, but they don’t know that,” I said, and turned off my computer. “Let’s go to Cramer’s for an ice cream.”

  I can think better when I’m not trying so hard. I knew the message had to be short and tempting. Like bait on a fishing hook.

  “What about ‘Justin Bieber rules’?”

  “Please. They’ve never heard of him. He’s Canadian.”

  “Everyone has heard of him,” said Marilee. “In every galaxy.” She flopped back into the position of a human being, instead of a lotus.

  The way I looked at it, there was no need to waste time. Maybe they only visit other galaxies in certain seasons, the way the tourists come to Maine’s ocean. They might even be gone back to their own galaxy by now. Summer aliens. We had to act fast or fail faster.

  “We’ll do it tomorrow night,” I said to Marilee. It was a hot day and I could almost taste the ice cream.

  “So soon?”

  “Yes, so it’ll be over soon. But just in case, you know, something goes wrong, we need to do the film.”

  “What film?” she asked.

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow,” I said. “So be at my house after supper, okay? Ask your mom if you can spend the night.”

  “You mean after dinner?” asked Marilee. I sighed.

  “About six o’clock, smart aleck. Now let’s go get an ice cream.”

  ***

  After making her promise not to be late tomorrow night, I said good-bye to Marilee and rode back home on my bike. I had an ice cream for Tina and didn’t want it to melt. I got off my bike and leaned it against the porch railing. That’s when I noticed a blue car in our driveway. Then I heard Mom’s voice as she talked to someone in the backyard. I figured she was working in her garden and that Tina would be with her.

  It was Mary Wallace’s blue car. She was sitting at the cast-iron table with Mom. Tina was driving her Little Tykes Push & Ride Racer back and forth from the clothesline to the toolshed. As I tore the wrapper from the ice cream, she drove up to my feet and stopped. Then she grabbed the treat with her chubby little hands and bit into its coolness.

  “You better put your car in park,” I told her. “You don’t want Sheriff Mallory to write you a ticket.”

  “Roberta, come here, please,” Mom said.

  “Hello, Roberta,” said Mrs. Wallace.

  “Mary is here because, as you know, her son, Joey, is missing,” said Mom, and handed me a flyer with a picture on it. There was Joey’s stupid grin, as if he was up to no good again. MISSING! it said above his head. $500 REWARD FOR INFORMATION! it said below. TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OLD. BROWN HAIR AND EYES.

  “He wouldn’t pull a trick like this on me,” Mary was saying now, and her voice quivered a bit. “I’ve been going all over town putting up these flyers so folks will know it’s not a joke.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Wallace,” I said. I had to hand it to Joey. To get your mother to take part in a major prank like this was pretty awesome. His smiling face on the flyer looked like he was almost winking at the world. “I’ll be sure to tell everyone I can.”

  “Thank you, honey,” said Mary Wallace.

  After the blue car had driven down the road toward Mr. Finley’s, I turned to my mom.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “I don’t know Mary well,” she said. “But I can’t imagine any mother being involved in a joke about her missing child. I just can’t.”

  “Do you think Joey is playing this joke on his mother too?”

  “Maybe,” said Mom. “Joey is like the boy who cried wolf.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “It’s a fable,” she said. “A Greek shepherd boy keeps telling everyone in his village that a wolf is about to attack their sheep. They believe him many times, but there is no wolf. The boy made it up. Then, one day, he really does see a wolf about to attack. He tries to warn people, but they don’t believe him. So the wolf kills all the sheep.”

  “That sucks,” I said. “Poor sheep.”

  “Poor Mary Wallace,” said Mom.

  20

  The Message

  I woke up nervous. The entire day passed in a blur. But I was ready and waiting for Marilee when she bounded up the stairs and into my room. She shut the door behind her.

  “Lock it,” I said, “just in case Johnny comes up.”

  “Should we put on makeup?” asked Marilee. She was inspecting the camcorder.

  “We don’t wear makeup, remember? We’re too young.”

  “Child actors wear it.”

  “It’s for our families, Marilee,” I said. “Not the Academy Awards show.”

  “We could put it on YouTube. It might go viral.”

  “If we don’t come back,” I said, “you can bet they’ll put it on YouTube, and you can bet it’ll go viral. It’ll be a big news story. I can see Joey Wallace’s jealous face now.”

  I brushed my hair and fixed the collar of my shirt. We didn’t need makeup, but we should still look neat. Otherwise, why would anyone search for us? Marilee brushed her own hair. I turned the camera on and checked the zoom lens.

  “Okay, sit on the bed and once I get it started, I’ll sit next to you.”

  With the camcorder perched on my desk and aimed at Marilee’s head, I hurried over to sit next to her. I put an arm around her shoulder and she did the same to me. I imagined what we would look like if someone saw the video. Two girls, one with long blond hair and one with shorter brown hair, ready for the biggest adventure of their lives. But if everything went as planned, no one would ever see the clip but us. I stared at the red light.

  “This is Roberta Angela McKinnon,” I said. “I’m eleven years old until I turn twelve in two months. This is my best friend, Marilee Julia Evans. She’s also eleven until December. We have a message to leave for our families.” I looked over at Marilee. “Do you want to say something too?” I asked.

  Marilee smiled at the camcorder. “I’m hungry,” she said.

  Shoot! I got off the bed and grabbed the camera. I rewound the footage and started over.

  “No joking, Marilee,” I said. “If it comes down to our parents watching this, that means we’re missing.”

  “Sorry,” said Marilee. Her stomach growled right on cue. “But we need to bring some food.”

  We got situated again, and again I did the introductions.

  “If you’re watching this,” I said, “we’re probably missing. We’re leaving in a few minutes for Peterson’s Cave. Our mission is to signal the spaceship we believe abducted us there and then put us back two hours later. Ask Johnny and Billy about it. Make them tell you the truth. We want to contact the beings aboard that craft to make friends with them and then describe everything that happened for our science project. If we don’t return, we know that you’ll find this message, Mom, when you come to wake me up tomorrow morning. If that’s the case, I’m truly sorry. So is Marilee. Aren’t you?” I nudged Marilee.

  “I’m sorry, Mom and Dad,” said Marilee. “And Sarah.”

  “You will at least know what happened to us. We promise that we’ll do everything we can to return to you. We’re famous for getting out of messes, right?” I smiled at this, knowing that Mom would be hysterical by this time, and Dad too. Maybe a little joke would cheer them up. “If we’re not here, you will probably find our bikes near Peterson’s Cave.”

  “Unless they take our bikes too,” said Marilee. She said this to me, not to the camera.


  “Are you crazy?” I said back to Marilee, forgetting the camera. “Why would extraterrestrials want bicycles?”

  “If they take us to their planet,” said Marilee, “we’ll need something to ride. You know, so we can get around.”

  “You’re insane,” I said. “They’d give us supersonic boots. Or little cars that fly. Something cool like that.”

  Marilee was nudging me in the side.

  “What?”

  “The camcorder,” she whispered.

  I looked at the camera. No time to record it again. And besides, I didn’t think for one second anyone would see it but the two of us. We’d be back by midnight and erase the film before breakfast in the morning.

  “I love you, everyone,” I said. “Mom. Dad. Johnny. Tina. Grandma. Uncle Horace. Aunt Betty. Sheriff Mallory. All of Allagash.”

  “Me too,” said Marilee. “I love you all.”

  “Good-bye, Billy,” I added.

  “Good-bye, Johnny,” said Marilee, which I found strange. But I figured she was still thankful that my brother had tried to save us that night on the mountain.

  ***

  At nine, right on cue, I heard Mom and Dad getting ready for bed. First Dad snapped out the porch light and then Mom shut off the television. Their bedroom is on the first floor, an architectural fact that made Johnny and me very happy. Rarely did we hear, “Turn that noise down!” once our parents fell asleep.

  “We wait thirty minutes,” I said to Marilee. “Make sure they’re sleeping.” We were both dressed and ready. The flash drive was lying on my pillow on top of a sheet of typing paper with the words: IF WE ARE MISSING, PLEASE WATCH! I had Mom’s iPhone in my pocket. The message I wanted to send was still in my head, ready to key into the Morse code translator. It had come to me as I was having breakfast. Two simple words.

  At nine thirty, I opened my bedroom door. I could hear a baseball game blasting in Johnny’s room and knew he wouldn’t hear anything unless a foul ball hit him in the head.

  “Follow me,” I whispered to Marilee. “Remember to tiptoe.”