I Am Number Four

“Yes?”

“I keep having images of a man in a silver and blue suit. I saw him at our house, and on the battlefield. He could control the weather. And then I saw him dead.”

Henri nods. “Every time you travel back it’ll only be to those scenes holding relevance to you.”

“He was my father, wasn’t he?”

“Yes,” he says. “He wasn’t supposed to come around much, but he did anyway. He was around a lot.”

I sigh. My father had fought valiantly, killing the beast and many of the soldiers. But in the end it still wasn’t enough.

“Do we really have a chance to win?”

“What do you mean?”

“We were defeated so easily. What hope is there for a different outcome if we’re found? Even when we have all developed our powers, and when we finally come together and are ready to fight, what hope do we have against things like those?”

“Hope?” he says. “There is always hope, John. New developments have yet to present themselves. Not all the information is in. No. Don’t give up hope just yet. It’s the last thing to go. When you have lost hope, you have lost everything. And when you think all is lost, when all is dire and bleak, there is always hope.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

HENRI AND I GO INTO TOWN ON SATURDAY FOR the Halloween parade, almost two weeks after arriving in Paradise. I think the solitude is getting to us both. Not that we aren’t used to solitude. We are. But the solitude in Ohio is different from that of most other places. There is a certain silence to it, a certain loneliness.

It’s a cold day, the sun peeking intermittently through thick white clouds gliding by overhead. The town is bustling. All the kids are in costume. We have bought a leash for Bernie Kosar, who is wearing a Superman cape draped over his back, a large “S” on his chest. He seems unimpressed with it. He’s not the only dog dressed as a superhero.

Henri and I stand on the sidewalk in front of the Hungry Bear, the diner just off the circle in the center of town, to watch the parade. In its front window hangs a clipping of the Gazette article on Mark James. He’s pictured standing on the fifty-yard line of the football field, wearing his letterman jacket, his arms crossed, his right foot resting atop a football, a wry, confident grin on his face. Even I have to admit he looks impressive.

Henri sees me staring at the paper.

“It’s your friend, right?” he asks with a smile. Henri now knows the story, from the near fight to the cow manure to the crush I have on his ex-girlfriend. Since finding out all this information he has only referred to Mark as my “friend.”

“My best friend,” I correct him.

Just then the band starts. It’s at the head of the parade, followed by various Halloween-themed floats, one of which is carrying Mark and a few of the football players. Some I recognize from class, some I don’t. They throw handfuls of candy to the kids. Then Mark catches sight of me and he nudges the guy beside him—Kevin, the kid I kneed in the groin in the cafeteria. Mark points at me and says something. They both laugh.

“That’s him?” Henri asks.

“That’s him.”

“Looks like a dick.”

“I told you.”

Then come the cheerleaders, walking, all in uniform, hair pulled back, smiling and waving to the crowd.

Sarah is walking alongside them, taking pictures. She gets them in action, while they’re jumping, doing their cheers. Despite the fact that she’s wearing jeans and no makeup, she’s far more beautiful than any of them. We’ve been talking more and more at school, and I can’t stop thinking about her. Henri sees me staring at her.

Then he turns back to the parade. “That’s her, huh?”

“That’s her.”

She sees me and waves, then points to the camera, meaning she’d come over but wants to take pictures. I smile and nod.

“Well,” Henri says. “I can certainly see the appeal.”

We watch the parade. The mayor of Paradise passes by, sitting on the back of a red convertible. He throws more candy to the children. There will be a lot of hyper kids today, I think.

I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn around.

“Sam Goode. What’s the word?”

He shrugs. “Nothin’. What’s up with you?”

“Watching the parade. This is my dad, Henri.”

They shake hands. Henri says, “John has told me a lot about you.”

“Really?” Sam asks with a crooked grin.

“Really,” Henri responds. Then he pauses a minute and a smile takes shape. “You know, I’ve been reading. Maybe you’ve heard it already, but did you know that aliens are the reason we have thunderstorms? They create them in order to enter our planet unnoticed. The storm creates a diversion, and the lightning you see is really coming from the spaceships entering Earth’s atmosphere.”

Sam smiles and scratches his head. “Get out of here,” he says.

Henri shrugs. “That’s what I’ve heard.”

“All right,” Sam says, more than willing to oblige Henri. “Well, did you know that the dinosaurs really didn’t go extinct? Aliens were so fascinated by them that they decided to gather them all up and take them to their own planet.”

Henri shakes his head. “I didn’t know that,” he says. “Did you know that the Loch Ness monster was really an animal from the planet Trafalgra? They brought him here as an experiment, to see if he could survive, and he did. But when he was discovered the aliens had to take him back, which is why he was never spotted again.”

I laugh, not at the theory, but at the name Trafalgra. There is no planet named Trafalgra and I wonder if Henri has made it up on the fly.

“Did you know the Egyptian pyramids were built by aliens?”

“I’ve heard that,” Henri says, smiling. This is funny to him because though the pyramids weren’t actually built by aliens, they were built using Lorien knowledge and with Lorien help. “Did you know the world is supposed to end on December 21, 2012?”

Sam nods and grins. “Yeah, I’ve heard that. Earth’s supposed expiration date, the end of the Mayan calendar.”

“Expiration date?” I chime in. “Like, a ‘best if used before’ date that’s printed on milk cartons? Is Earth going to curdle?”

I laugh at my own joke, but Sam and Henri pay me no attention.

Then Sam says, “Did you know crop circles were originally used as a navigational tool for the Agharian alien race? But that was thousands of years ago. Today they are only created by bored farmers.”

I laugh again. I have the urge to ask what sorts of people create alien conspiracies if it is bored farmers who create crop circles, but I don’t.

“How about the Centuri?” asks Henri. “Do you know of them?”

Sam shakes his head.

“They’re a race of aliens living at Earth’s core. They are a contentious race, in constant discord with one another, and when they have civil wars Earth’s surface is thrown off-kilter. That’s when things such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur. The tsunami of 2004? All because the Centuri king’s daughter went missing.”

“Did they find her?” I ask.

Henri shakes his head, looks at me, then back at Sam, who is still smiling at the game. “They never did. Theorists believe she is able to shift her shape, and that she is living somewhere in South America.”

Henri’s theory is so good, I think there’s no way he made it up that quickly. I stand there and actually ponder