The Summer Experiment Read online

  Dear Miranda,

  Please meet me TONIGHT after dark at the picnic table on Peterson’s Mountain, near Calley’s Creek.

  There should be a sign on my door that says GENIUS AT WORK.

  Why did I want Miranda involved when I could play this trick on just Johnny? I guess it had to do with my being so embarrassed in front of Billy Ferguson. He’d heard me say I like him, and from the top of Frog Hill, at that. I wanted my brother to feel the same foolish way in front of Miranda. I know that Johnny is afraid of ghosts, no matter how hard he tries to hide it. He can’t even watch a movie with a ghost in it. He might act all brave, but if he ever saw a ghost on Peterson’s Mountain, he’d really freak out, even in front of Miranda. “You are such a girl!” That’s what I planned to yell at him as he ran down the mountain in the dark.

  So my plan seemed fair enough to me. But it was a good thing I hadn’t sent either e-mail yet since this was turning into the worst thunderstorm of the summer. I went to my window and peered out at Mother Nature. Lightning cracked across the sky. Thunder boomed. I could see wind beating the water down at Frog Pond. I hoped the frogs were using their lily pads as umbrellas. Every time we have a bad thunderstorm, Grandpa says it’s global warming, and that the Air Force is behind it.

  I dressed and went downstairs. From the kitchen window, I watched as rain beat on the tarred road and trees swayed low in the wind. Mr. Finley called to tell my mom that two of his chickens got loose and would we keep an eye out for them. Chickens hate thunderstorms. But after thirty minutes of booming and cracking and swaying, things calmed down a bit. Mom checked the weather report on her computer. While the thunderstorm was over, the rain wouldn’t be stopping until 10 p.m. This wasn’t good news.

  Darn. I’d have to postpone a day, but that was okay. That happens in wars all the time.

  “It won’t kill you to stay in the house for a few hours,” Mom told me. She unwound the cord to her vacuum cleaner and plugged the end into a wall socket. Now that the lightning had passed, I guess she didn’t fear being electrocuted. “Read a book instead of playing games on your computer.”

  “You know what?” I said. “I think that’s a great idea.”

  She gave me a suspicious look as I climbed the stairs. But when I heard the vacuum start, I knew her thoughts were back on the hallway carpet.

  I locked my bedroom door and turned on my computer. Cell phones don’t work in Allagash, as I mentioned earlier, so I sent Marilee an instant message. I didn’t want either of our moms to overhear us on a land phone. Some people call this “eavesdropping,” by the way.

  AllagashRobbie: Plan delayed due to weather conditions! Will keep you posted.

  Her answer came right back to me.

  MeMarilee: Dad is coming for weekend. Bringing “she.” Will not see you until Monday. Staying at motel in Fort Kent.

  Now I was really disappointed, even though she’d be only twenty miles away. But she might as well be in China. It was Friday. I wouldn’t see her until Monday. How many people would Johnny tell about Frog Hill as I waited? Damage control only works if you get on it right away. But at least it was summer and he wouldn’t see most of our classmates until late August. And it seemed like Marilee’s dad wanted to talk to her in person about his marriage plans. That was a good thing. Maybe “she” wasn’t as bad as we thought.

  Mom wanted me to read a book, so that’s what I would do. Actually, I would read “about a book” until I visited the library to read the real thing. This was The Allagash Abductions, written by Raymond E. Fowler. He was the man who first hypnotized the Vermont Four and discovered they’d been taken aboard a spacecraft and examined. The morning after Grandpa’s birthday party, when my family first saw the strange lights, I had called the local library and asked Mrs. Hafford to order it for me. And I also watched the YouTube video of the men on Unsolved Mysteries. This is what led to my awful dream of being examined by Dr. Bumblebee.

  But I wanted to know more. Now that I’d seen the UFOs myself, maybe it would make a great science project. Marilee and I might finally win the Maine State Science Fair. But as Dad often reminded me, a UFO is only an “unidentified flying object.” It may not be from outer space at all, but from somewhere right here on Earth. I had even googled and found a photo of the Flying Wing. Uncle Horace was right. If I saw it even today, I’d think it was from Neptune.

  I typed in “Allagash Abductions” and then clicked on the Wikipedia link. I settled down to read.

  The incident started on August 20, 1976, when four men, all in their early twenties, ventured on a camping trip into the wilderness near Allagash, Maine.

  I smiled. I mean, some towns are known for a brown ball of twine, the world’s largest. And one town in Texas has the world’s biggest cowboy boot. Bangor has Paul Bunyan. San Francisco has that bridge. I think it’s kind of awesome that we are famous for our abductions.

  The group consisted of twin brothers, Jack and Jim Weiner, their friend Chuck Rak, and their guide, Charlie Foltz.

  “Weiner” must have been a tough name to grow up with. Kids can be so cruel. I imagined the twins being teased about it on the playground at recess.

  They say their first day went by without incident. However, on their second night, they noticed a bright light not far from their campsite which they first passed off as being a helicopter or a weather balloon, but later they noticed it displayed a strange quality of light. Suddenly, the object imploded and disappeared.

  Well, there was Dad’s helicopter and Mom’s weather balloon. I guess it’s human nature to look for a logical explanation. But a weather balloon didn’t take these four men and examine them. A helicopter didn’t gather hair and skin samples. Even though this event took place long before I was born, it’s still talked about in town. After all, it happened right in our backyard, so to speak. Some people even spoke out publicly. For instance, Mr. Purdy, our principal, was once quoted in the school paper giving his own explanation. “There is such a thing as false memory,” Mr. Purdy said. “I have no doubt that these men believe they are telling the truth. But the subconscious mind is greatly influenced by what we see in movies and on television, or read in books. I suspect this is where their memories have come from.”

  I wondered if Mr. Purdy had seen the lights that so many others were seeing over the past week. And, if so, did he fall into the helicopter or weather balloon group? After looking up the word “imploded”—it means to collapse inwardly, by the way, to disappear—I went back to Wikipedia.

  Jack Weiner was the first to start having nightmares. In these dreams, he saw beings with long necks and large heads. The beings had large, metallic glowing eyes with no lids, and their hands were insect-like, with four fingers.

  I’m not sure if cats have a sense of humor. They seem to. Sometimes, I’ll look up from my homework or from eating a banana or watching a TV program, and my cat, Maxwell, will be staring right at me, the silly human. This was one of those Max moments. Just as I was reading about the glowing eyes and the four-fingered hands, Max jumped from the top of my bookshelf, where he likes to sleep, and hit on my desk. It was a perfect landing on all four feet. Have you looked at a cat’s eyes recently? Slanted. Narrow. Glowing. They are eyes that belong to aliens.

  After I scooted Max out the door and watched him slink down the stairs, I went back into my room and waited for my heart rate to go back to normal. That’s when I heard an instant message arrive from Marilee. Her instant-message sound effect is that of a rooster crowing. I leaned in closer to read what she had sent.

  MeMarilee: OMG!!!! TURN ON YOUR TV!!!!

  I clicked on the small TV set I kept on a stand at the foot of my bed. I felt my mouth drop open. What was happening was a case for the record books, no doubt about it. Mom should see this too! I raced downstairs and pulled the cord on her vacuum cleaner. Then I turned on the large TV in the living room and hit the record button so the program
would tape. Mom and I sat on the sofa and watched together, amazed. If I live to be a hundred years old, I don’t think I’ll ever be that surprised again.

  “We’ll wait for the others,” Mom said. But I think it was more because she just didn’t know what to say. She needed time to think, and so did I. So Mom went back to vacuuming, and I took Tina into the den to play with her doll. We knew the family would be coming by later for some Friday-night fried chicken, Mom’s specialty. This would give us all a chance to “chew the cud,” which is what Grandpa calls a discussion.

  And that’s just what happened, with Grandpa and Grandma arriving first. Then Johnny stomped in, hungry as usual and acting like he owned Microsoft or something. Billy Ferguson was with him. Billy actually smiled at me, as if maybe he knew I was alive and on the planet. It even seemed like a genuine smile. But then my logic kicked in. I figured he was still laughing over what I’d said about dating him one day. So I pretended I didn’t notice he was in the room. Uncle Horace, who owns Horace’s Auto Repair, and Aunt Betty, a hairdresser, arrived next. Once Dad was home from his woods job, we all sat in the living room as Mom played the recording of the five o’clock news.

  This time, the cameras were in front of Sheriff Mallory’s house and the reporters were crowded onto his front porch. One was even sitting in Mrs. Mallory’s wicker rocking chair. They were talking loudly, waiting for the sheriff to come outside. Even Joey Wallace was there, making faces at the camera and grinning like a fool.

  “Maybe this is what Hollywood stars have to put up with,” Grandma said. “But we’re in Allagash, Maine.”

  “They know a good news story when it comes along,” said Uncle Horace. “It’s their job.”

  Sheriff Mallory was now opening his front door and coming out to talk. I knew it wasn’t possible, but he looked even more sad and tired than when Mom and I watched earlier.

  “Ladies and gentleman, I have a statement to make,” he said, “I did not see a UFO.”

  “Is it true that you gave the mayor an official letter retracting your sighting?” asked Andrew Birden, of Fiddlehead Focus.

  “That would be correct, Andrew,” said Sheriff Mallory. “After thinking it over, I believe what I saw was a formation of several airplanes from the base over in Burlington, Vermont.” Then, he turned and looked directly into the camera, as if talking to us citizens and not the reporters.

  “Folks,” he said, in that down-home way of his, “I realize now that I’m in need of a vacation. I haven’t had a decent one since Emma made me take her to Disney World back in 1994 so she could hear those singing bears.” He smiled, but no one smiled with him. “Therefore, I have resigned as your sheriff, effective at noon today.”

  A bunch of questions came at him from the reporters. But Sheriff Mallory went back into his house and closed the door.

  “Like riding into the sunset,” I said sadly. I liked Sheriff Mallory. He found Maxwell for me once at the top of an apple tree on Mr. Finley’s property. He even borrowed a ladder and got Max down.

  “Well, I never,” said Grandma. “That’s not the Stanley I know.”

  “Even if there’s a logical explanation for what the sheriff saw, I don’t doubt that he saw it,” said my dad. “Someone obviously got to him.”

  “The mayor probably,” said Grandpa. “Local Chamber of Commerce too.”

  “They don’t want to scare tourists out of canoes and off snowmobiles,” said Uncle Horace.

  And then, as if on cue, our mayor appeared on TV. The cameras were now at his office for his comment. First, he thanked Sheriff Mallory for all his years of community service.

  “I also want to reassure everyone, especially our visiting tourists, that Allagash is the safest town in Maine,” said the mayor. “This is the perfect place for your vacation.”

  “What did I just say?” asked Uncle Horace.

  “Those abductions back in 1976 didn’t hurt our tourism here one bit,” said my dad. “Heck, we should put up a big sign marking the site. It might help.”

  And then everybody started talking at once.

  I slipped out of the living room and into the kitchen. I opened the door to the mud room and found my yellow slicker. I pulled it on and put my hood up. In the backyard, I plopped down on one of the cast-iron chairs at the cast-iron table near the fireplace. The fireplace now held wet, black ashes and remnants of burnt wood from Grandpa’s birthday party, the evening my family first saw the lights. It was only three nights ago, and yet it seemed a lifetime.

  Rain was still falling, but I didn’t care. Something just wasn’t right. My heart felt like it was made of cast iron. It’s that feeling I get when I think the adults are hiding something from me. Or worse yet, telling me lies, such as when I found out there was no Tooth Fairy. I believed in her so much that I let Johnny pull my first loose tooth with a string tied to his bedroom doorknob. But at least I earned a dollar for my trouble. And Johnny seemed to really enjoy slamming that door. I lost four more teeth and earned another four dollars before Tommy Connors told me that the Tooth Fairy didn’t exist. I asked my mother if it was true, and she admitted it. There was no Tooth Fairy. I remember what I said to her that day. “Then why did you tell me there was?”

  If the Tooth Fairy could go down in flames that fast, the Easter Bunny didn’t stand a chance.

  So who was telling the truth now? The mayor or the UFO expert who wrote the book? The four Vermont men or the United States Air Force? Sheriff Mallory or Principal Purdy? Uncle Horace or Mrs. Cramer? I looked up into the gray and rainy sky and wondered if there were such things as stars. Would they shine again tonight, once the rain stopped and it grew dark enough to see them? Or had I just imagined them? Was everything I had ever believed in my life just one big lie?

  Sometimes, kids have good reasons to mistrust the alien world of adults.

  8

  The Runaway

  It was the longest weekend in recorded history. For one thing, the whole town had lit up with gossip about Sheriff Mallory’s resignation, and what he did or didn’t see that night on Highway 42. Most people figured the mayor was behind it, and the Chamber of Commerce was behind the mayor. Sheriff Mallory wasn’t saying anything, but his wife, Emma, was. She told Aunt Betty, as Aunt Betty was cutting her hair, what Mr. Mallory said when he came home after resigning. “I love this town too much to hurt its economy. We’re hanging by a thread as it is.” A group calling itself “Bring Back Sheriff Mallory” had already formed and was making big plans. But first, they would have to hold a chicken stew and baked bean supper to raise the money they’d need for posters and bumper stickers.

  I tried to stay out of the way as I waited for Monday and Marilee. On Saturday, I helped Mom sweep the basement. I even tidied up my bedroom, cleaned out my aquarium, and then fed my fish. Ever notice how fish have eyes like aliens? Lidless and glowing. Needless to say, I was imagining those eyes everywhere. And speaking of fish eyes, when I biked over to the grocery store to pick up a loaf of bread for Mom, I ran into the 4 Hs of the Apocalypse: Henry Horton Harris Helmsby.

  “Hey, Henry,” I said. He was standing in front of the aluminum foil as if maybe he had invented it. I figured he needed it to wrap up a poturn and see if it would bake, rather than blow up. After that night on Frog Hill when Marilee and I saw the fake alien, I had boycotted aluminum foil. So I was anxious to get out of that aisle.

  “Good afternoon to you, Miss McKinnon,” Henry said. He talks like that. He really does. If he were older and taller and had bigger teeth, Henry could be Barnabas on Dark Shadows. “A very rainy afternoon it is too,” he added.

  “I’m just getting a loaf of bread for my mom,” I said, and tried to step past him. But he shuffled his skinny body backward like a crab and blocked my way. I waited for him to push his big, round eyeglasses up on his skinny nose. They were always sliding down to his nostrils.

  “And how might your scie
nce project be advancing, pray tell?” he asked. “I have heard news that you and the girl from Boston—what’s her name, Marilyn?—have joined forces. A wise idea, indeed, for you will be able to rely upon the maxim that two brains are better than one. But, of course, it all depends on who owns that one brain.” God, it’s like someone created him in a laboratory and then cranked his key and set him loose.

  “Her name is Millicent,” I lied. “And she’s been living in Allagash for almost a year now. Surely you noticed her? She lives next door to you.” Dork.

  “Ah, yes, the young female next door who is always spying on me,” said Henry. “I believe I have noticed her. She should wash her bedroom window. I predict she’ll have a better view of my greenhouse that way.” Moron.

  “Well, you have a good shopping experience, Henry,” I said. “I gotta go.” A crab-like leg spiraled out and again blocked my path. It had a foot attached to it. The foot was wearing a raggedy pink sock and a thick brown shoe with black laces. The pants were green polyester and possibly came from his grandmother’s dresser drawer. The sock, I would assume, belonged to somebody’s Barbie doll. No one had ever accused Henry of being a slave to fashion.

  “I wouldn’t mind hearing about your project, Miss McKinnon,” Henry said, but it sounded more like hissing. “That is, if you’d be willing to share details with a fellow scientist.” I smiled my perfect fake smile, the one I created the first day I met Henry Helmsby.

  “Actually, Millicent and I are keeping our project a secret,” I said. “But I understand yours is a marriage of the Maine potato and the red turnip. I’m sure they will be very happy together. I give you my blessing.” I imagined just then a potato and a turnip on the top of a wedding cake, instead of the usual little plastic bride and groom.

  Henry’s tiny eyes got beadier when I said this. His skinny neck turned his head so that the eyes could look right at me.