The Summer Experiment Read online

  “I guess I could write a story,” I said. I was wearing my favorite T-shirt, which has Luke Skywalker’s face just behind his X-wing starfighter. It belonged to my mom when she was a little girl. Johnny says I live in the past, but Luke Skywalker is eternal.

  “By the way,” said Marilee. “I think Henry is up to no good. I saw him yesterday sneaking into his mother’s greenhouse, all secret-like.”

  This would be Henry Horton Harris Helmsby. A lot of the kids call him just Henry, but I secretly nicknamed him “the Four Hs of the Apocalypse.” He is what is you call a nemesis, an enemy that’s tough to beat. My nemesis. Of the two science projects that I masterminded in the past, before Marilee moved to Allagash, I’d lost to “4 Hs” both times. That can lower your confidence and self-esteem. Even mine. But at least Henry lives next door to Marilee, which is good since she can keep an eye on him.

  “We can outsmart Henry,” I said. “But it won’t be easy.”

  “He’s such an egghead,” Marilee said.

  “Actually, Marilee, his head is shaped more like a cucumber than an egg.” It was true. I figured Henry had such a big brain filling up the top of his head that he needed a lot of space below so that the brain could send down long roots. For brain nourishment, that is.

  “He’s up to something big all right,” said Marilee. Just before school ended and Mrs. Dionne, our teacher, passed out forms for the science fair, Marilee and I decided to be partners, which is allowed. But HHHH is much too vain to let anyone be his partner, unless it was Luther Burbank or Gregor Mendel. Henry is a genius who always works alone. We needed to keep a close watch on him for sure.

  “Let’s start asking around,” I said. “Quietly though, so Henry doesn’t know we’re on to him.”

  “You really think we can beat him?” Marilee asked.

  “Sure we can,” I said. “But we need a big project. Maybe we could interview those four men in Vermont by phone. You know, the ones who say they were abducted here in 1976.” I figured that could be interesting. But I was still disappointed that I hadn’t seen the strange lights for myself.

  “Maybe,” said Marilee, and the “maybe” trailed off as she said it. I could tell she was drifting to sleep, which she often does when we lie on our river rocks and talk. It’s easy to fall asleep to the sound of the red-winged blackbirds that nest in the bushes nearby and the gentle lapping of the river against the bank.

  “Wake up!” I shouted, and Marilee almost rolled off her rock. I can be dramatic at times, or so I’ve been told.

  “What in the world?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.

  “If the UFOs won’t come to us,” I said, “then we’ll go to the UFOs.”

  “Explain this, please, before my brain explodes.”

  “We’ll camp out,” I said. “We can’t go all the way to Eagle Lake where the Allagash Abductions took place. But we can pitch our tent on the hill behind Frog Pond. It’s only a quarter mile from the house.”

  “But it’s so spooky out there,” said Marilee. “And froggy.”

  “All the better for a sighting,” I said. “Come on, everyone knows UFOs never land in the middle of Times Square, or at the Super Bowl. It has to be spooky and…froggy.”

  “Still,” said Marilee. “Honestly, Robbie, I don’t really believe in them. My mom says it’s all hogwash. And that the Air Force always has secrets. And that rocket debris really does burn as it falls back to earth. Why don’t we rent a movie instead. What about Cowboys and Aliens?”

  Marilee is taller than me, with dark brown hair that ends just below her ears. She’s really cute and also smart, which I previously mentioned. But she’s a big chicken. The Gutless Girl, I call her. The Spineless Wonder.

  “Come on, Marilee,” I begged. “We can bring a cooler of sodas and some sandwiches and chips and candy bars.”

  “Well,” she said. “I guess I can ask my mom.”

  ***

  So that’s how two perfectly sane—and did I mention very intelligent?—girls, one with long blond hair and one with shorter brown hair, packed up junk food and sleeping bags and pillows and flashlights and went camping on the hill behind Frog Pond. It was just after we’d had our supper, or what Marilee calls “dinner” since she lived in Boston until her parents got divorced. My dad helped us load it all onto the back of his pickup truck. We jumped on too, just to keep stuff from flying off in the wind. And then, as Tina bounced on the seat beside him, Dad drove us through the meadow, which was a mass of red clover and yellow buttercups, all the way to Frog Hill.

  “Remember now,” he said, as he helped me unfold my two-person tent. “If you get scared, use your flashlights to walk home. That path can be tricky.”

  Kids are tough in the country. We spend a lot of time without our parents even knowing where we are. We’re either four-wheeling on the mountain or fishing or picking berries. But I knew my dad was wondering if Marilee, having spent her first years in a big city like Boston, could handle a night on Frog Hill. That’s why he and my mom refer to us as the country mouse and the city mouse.

  “We’ll be careful,” I said, and winked at Dad. Marilee didn’t notice. She was unrolling our sleeping bags inside the tent.

  “And if you meet any little green men,” said Dad, “please don’t bring them home. It’ll upset the cat.”

  “They aren’t green anymore, Dad,” I said. “They look like large-eyed bugs.”

  “Please stop!” said Marilee. But she smiled, and I knew she was just pretending to be scared.

  We watched as Dad’s pickup truck bounced across the meadow and disappeared from sight.

  “My mom isn’t happy about this,” said Marilee, “but she says if your parents think it’s okay, it’s probably okay.” She wrapped a bandana around her hair to discourage blackflies, the scourge of the North Woods.

  “Of course, it’s okay,” I said, and uncapped a bottle of soda pop. “Johnny and I have been camping up here alone since we were knee-high to a grasshopper.”

  “I hope there are no grasshoppers in the tent,” said Marilee. Sometimes, she really is a city girl, but I’ve toughened her up a lot.

  ***

  The sun was sinking. It was a soft June evening, and we sat outside the tent and talked our heads off about everything from school to our favorite books and movies. In many ways, when you’re a kid in such isolated country, it’s pretty much the same world our parents and grandparents grew up in. I mean, sure I sometimes wonder what it would be like to take the subway to school each day instead of riding my bike along a country road lined with daisies. Or what it would be like to walk down to a museum instead of to Cramer’s Gas & Movie Rentals to rent a movie now that the Cramers have “gone Hollywood,” as Grandpa puts it. But in other ways, it’s the same world as in Los Angeles or Moscow because of the Internet. When you go on Facebook to talk to a new friend, you’re just another kid on the planet Earth.

  The sky was now a dark blue with pink fingers at the edges. All the frogs in the pond were talking back and forth. Stars were winking on. Just then I heard a twig snap, the way it does when someone or something steps on it.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked Marilee. I felt her fingers clutch my arm.

  “Who’s there?” she asked, more a whisper than a shout. The only reply belonged to a hoot owl that hoo-hoo-hooted from a distant perch.

  “Must have been a deer,” I said. “Or maybe a cone fell from a pine tree. Maine is the Pine Cone State, you know.”

  “But it sounded like walking,” Marilee insisted.

  “A deer walks,” I said. “Haven’t you noticed that it has four hooves?”

  We waited a couple more minutes. When nothing else cracked or snapped or hooted, we went back to our talk. I knew it was just a matter of time until we got around to what boys we would date when our moms said we were old enough.

  “I’d like to go on a
date with Billy Ferguson one day,” I said. Billy was a couple years older than me and Johnny’s best friend. I had never confessed this to Marilee before. But it was a special night, and special nights are made for telling secrets.

  “He’s cute all right,” said Marilee. “So is Johnny. See that?” She pointed up. “Shooting star.”

  I had seen it too, a silver thread disappearing in seconds beyond the mountain. But excuse me? My brother cute? Catch me as I pass out.

  “Make a wish,” I said. I watched as Marilee crossed her fingers and stared up at the sky where the star had just fallen. “Can I guess what you wished for?”

  “Sure,” she said, and smiled at me. I was so glad to have her as a friend. If it weren’t for Marilee Evans, my boring life would be unbearable.

  “That your mom and dad would get back together?” I asked. She knew I knew. We had talked about this many times in the months we’d been friends.

  “I just wish he didn’t live down in Boston,” Marilee said. “I wish I could see him once a week, instead of every couple months.”

  “Hey,” I said, changing the subject. I wanted this to be a fun night. “Let’s play Guess the Famous Name until it’s dark enough for aliens.”

  And so we did. I guessed all of Marilee’s famous names. Marco Polo, Clara Barton, and Justin Bieber. And she guessed all of mine. Neil Armstrong, Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers, and President Lincoln. Sometimes, it can be boring to play a game with my best friend because we tend to think alike.

  Marilee reached into the tent for her jacket. Overhead, the stars were now sparkling and bright. I started counting them.

  “Did you know that thousands of years ago, people thought the stars were little lanterns carried by the gods?” I asked.

  “That’s because they didn’t have Bic lighters back then,” said Marilee. She pointed to the southwest. “What’s that? It’s moving slowly this way.” We both watched in silence until we saw red lights blinking under the wings of what was probably a jet airplane. I thought of all those passengers up there in the air, drinking coffee or eating pretzels or sleeping with their heads pressed against tiny airline pillows. It was a long way from gods carrying lanterns across the heavens. Suddenly, I saw weird lights bouncing on the pond. Up and down. Up and down. My heart froze.

  “What’s that?” Marilee asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. We sat for a few minutes, waiting, but the bouncing lights had disappeared. We could hear noises again in the woods, raccoons and skunks most likely. I prayed we wouldn’t encounter a moose. But a country kid is used to sounds at night coming from the forest. That’s the time a lot of wild animals forage for food.

  “It had to be car lights from the main road,” said Marilee.

  “Maybe coming around that turn where Mr. Finley lives,” I said. “There must be an open space in the trees.”

  Overhead, I could make out the summer constellations. The Great Square. Pegasus. Cassiopeia. There is nothing so awesome as sitting beneath the universe and peering up at it. That’s something I wouldn’t be able to do in a big city. Even if you could find a good spot, the light pollution would blind you. And that’s what I was thinking when I heard a big splash in the pond. Marilee grabbed my arm again.

  “Frog,” I said. “It probably hopped off a log.”

  Marilee checked her watch. It was just after 10 p.m.

  I was about to say, “Let’s get some sleep,” when I saw something shiny on the other side of the pond. It had to be more than five feet tall. Could it be the ruins of the brick chimney that had once been on the roof of Grandpa’s cabin? The cabin had been gone for years but the old chimney stood in the brambles as a reminder. Then I remembered that Grandpa had toted the bricks away just that spring.

  “Holy smokes,” I heard Marilee say. “What is that, Robbie?” Whatever it was, it was all lit up, from top to bottom. And it was not moving.

  “I think it’s a tree,” I said, straining my eyes, wishing I had fox eyes right then.

  “Why is a tree shining like that?” Marilee asked. That question had occurred to me too.

  “I don’t think it’s a person,” I said. I couldn’t see a human head, and I couldn’t tell if it even had feet. But soon we had the answers to our questions when the thing turned slowly in our direction. I saw the shape of a head then, and two arms. One leg stepped forward, silver as dimes in the beam of light that was hitting it. Then the other leg also took a step. Whatever this creature was, it was climbing Frog Hill to where our tent was pitched! I thought the scream I heard was mine until I realized it was Marilee’s.

  3

  The Alien

  It stood over five feet tall. I’d never seen anything so shiny. The face also seemed made of silver. I couldn’t see any eyes, but that didn’t matter. It was definitely climbing the hill. I wanted to die. I wanted to sink into the earth. As I scrambled to my feet, all I could think of was Marilee. This was my idea. She could have been home with her mother right then, safe and sound. She was my best friend and I’d put her in danger. I reached inside the tent and grabbed my flashlight. Then I grabbed Marilee’s hand. To heck with our sleeping bags and the tent. We could come back tomorrow for our stuff, when the sun was shining bright.

  “We need to run!” I whispered. But where? The only path up the hillside, about two hundred feet long, was the very one this creature was climbing. We’d have to escape down the hill behind us, which meant blackberry brambles and burdocks and hobble bushes that could trip us. Down we went, the arms of our jackets pulled at and torn by brambles, our feet stepping in holes, our hands trying to balance each other. The flashlight lit our way but once I even dropped it. It was like plowing through a black jungle. But knowing what was climbing Frog Hill kept us going.

  Finally, we reached the bottom. Shaken, we stumbled out onto the main road near Old Man Finley’s house. I heard Mutt send out a volley of sharp barks.

  “We’d better get out of here before Mr. Finley shoots at us,” I said to Marilee. He was known to take his shotgun down if a breeze rattled the leaves in his yard.

  We made our way along the road, the beam of the flashlight bouncing in front of us. And then, as we rounded the curve where the old pine grows, I saw the lights of my house up ahead. I silently said my usual “Thank you, God” prayer, in which I promise I’ll never do anything stupid again. I’ve said that prayer lots of times.

  “Let’s sit on the swing,” I said. “Catch our breath before we go inside.”

  The swing is on our lawn, below the house, and it would be private. Marilee hadn’t said much the whole time, and I knew she was just too scared to talk. What had I called her? Big Chicken. The Gutless Girl. Spineless Wonder. Well, I was all of those things and more. I could see my mother inside the kitchen, doing the dishes. It was such a warm and safe picture. Dad was sitting in front of the television set, its screen flickering on the frames of his glasses.

  “Did we just see what I think we saw?” Marilee finally asked after we had swung silently for a minute, back and forth, back and forth. “What was that?”

  “An extraterrestrial, what else?” I said. “I believe in them now. I can tell you that much.”

  “Did you see its face?”

  “No. Did you?”

  Marilee shook her head.

  “I don’t think it had a face,” she said. “I think it was all silver.” She bit at her fingernail, which is what she always does when she is nervous beyond belief. “Who do we tell? Your mom and dad? My mom? Mr. Purdy the principal? Sheriff Mallory? No one?”

  “No one,” I said, and I meant it. “We’ll just get laughed at.” Besides, I knew by heart what everyone would say. What had Sheriff Mallory told me? No matter what you see, hear, or read, everything has a logical explanation. Well, this didn’t.

  “But what if we’re in danger?” she asked. “What if the whole town is in danger? T
hose things can’t just go walking around in the night. What does it want?”

  I didn’t know. This was bigger than a test question. Ask me who Pierre and Marie Curie are, and I can tell you. Ask me what was climbing Frog Hill and I’m gonna flunk. That’s when we heard the bikes pedaling down the tarred road that ran in front of our house. At first, I felt the fear again until I thought, “They have superfast spaceships. They fly through wormholes. They don’t ride bikes.” And then I heard talking. Human voices. It sounded like my brother, Johnny. But he had gone to Billy Ferguson’s house for the night. Then I heard Billy’s voice too.

  “Shhh,” I said to Marilee. We were sitting in darkness on the swing. No one would see us. The bikes cranked into the yard. We watched from the shadows as Johnny and Billy jumped off and kicked their stands down. They seemed to be having a great time.

  “Did you see them run?” Johnny asked. “I was laughing so hard I almost tore the aluminum foil.”

  “I can’t believe they fell for it,” said Billy. “If they hadn’t run, if they’d let you get closer, they could have seen how stupid you looked. All that foil and Scotch tape!”

  Oh my God. Billy Ferguson!

  It had just hit me. Had they sneaked up there early enough to hear the talk Marilee and I shared? I remembered the noise earlier of a twig snapping and Marilee’s comment that it sounded like someone walking. I know she was thinking the same thing because I saw the silhouette of her head as she turned and looked at me. I squeezed her hand as if to say, “Oh, I hope they didn’t hear!”

  “I should have let you be the alien,” Johnny was saying now. He was pulling wads of aluminum foil out of his backpack. And other junk. Probably the Scotch tape. And the flashlight that Billy obviously had shone on my brother, lighting him up for all the frogs to see. The frogs and the Spineless Wonders. “She wouldn’t have run if it had been you, Billy.”

  And then, he imitated my voice, making it squeaky as he always does when he mocks me. “I think I’d like to go on a date with Billy Ferguson one day.” I heard them laugh. Johnny and Billy Ferguson. I died a thousand deaths in that minute. A million deaths. I felt Marilee’s arm wrap around my shoulders to comfort me. It was her way of saying, “Listen, best friend, this will pass. Don’t be ashamed for the rest of your life and then some.”