“Hey, that’s my dad!” burst out of Jeff’s mouth, unbidden, as his dad walked onto the front lawn. Two of the hazmat guys ran to intercept him. Jeff didn’t get to see what happened; another of the hazmat guys came running up to the camera and blocked everything. Then the feed ended, and the news anchor was left staring dumbly at the screen.
“Well, this,” he groped for words, “is breaking news. It looks like the National Guard is now on the scene. Julie? Do we still have audio with Julie?”
Jeff looked over at his sister. Her expression was indeterminate, as if she were on the brink of something. Bursting out laughing or bursting into tears seemed equally likely. Jeff slid out of his seat and walked over to her, not noticing the many heads that turned to watch him.
Jeff sat down in Zoe’s now-empty desk and turned sidewise to be able to talk to Suzy and see the TV. Suzy spoke first. “We had an alien in our house.”
This hung in the air for a few seconds. “I hope Mom and Dad are okay. All those men running across our lawn, like it was a battleground or something.”
Jeff nodded, thoughtful, then chuckled. “It WILL be a battleground. Can you imagine what Mom’s saying?” He went on in a high pitch, his tone severe, “‘Get off the grass! What do you think the sidewalk is for?’” Then Suzy did laugh, and some of the tension went out of both of them.
The anchor was re-hashing the details, and they were showing the recorded footage from earlier. “I kind of feel like an idiot,” Jeff said. “Like, we could have told people on Saturday there was an alien in our house. I mean, like, we should have noticed that SOMETHING WASN’T QUITE RIGHT about that dog.”
Suzy laughed. “Yeah, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I knew there was SOMETHING. Seriously though, Dad kept going on about that circus that came for Summerfest, and how if they had a listed number, we could call them, and they’d come get their dog, and I just... You know? He was so sure it was just a sideshow thing, I just didn’t think. You know?”
“Yeah.”
They were silent for a moment; then Suzy said, “Do you think that dragon fly was another alien?”
Jeff sat bolt upright, his eyes wide. He ran over to his desk and came back holding up his square of cardboard. “Of course it is! And the glow-in-the-dark butterfly, too! We’ve had four aliens at our house!” It was a frightening thought, but Jeff couldn’t help smiling at just how COOL it was. He looked around at the class and held up his square of cardboard, hoping someone would ask for details, but they were all watching the tv again.
The news anchor had gotten on the phone with someone named “Exobiologist Jon Poehler”, who Jeff thought was going kind of nuts about viruses and infection and stuff. They kept replaying clips of the orange alien in the garage eating the spider web and Two-Head jumping up at the cameramen.
Then they got another on-site reporter, a man this time, who was standing in the street in front of an enormous plastic tent. It completely covered Jeff and Suzy’s house, driveway, and yard, and possibly the Rogers’ house as well. Armed soldiers stood at the entrance.
“We are being told now that this area is under quarantine. The Army, as you know, is working on blocking all access to Alpharetta, but they are taking the quarantine to a different level here at the site. They are not letting anyone in or out of the tent, including the press who were first on the scene. We just saw a NASA helicopter land a few minutes ago, and we saw some people enter the enclosure, but we don’t have any details right now about what is going on in the tent or what is being done with the alien life forms.”
Exobiologist Jon Poehler thought the quarantine was a good move.
“Hey Jeff!” Jeff had been so intent on the reporter, he hadn’t noticed how many of his classmates were staring at him and Suzy. Peter was the one who had yelled, and he looked angry. “Did you say you had an alien at your house all weekend, and you didn’t let anyone know?” He waited for a moment, his expression accusing. “And you just come to school with frickin’ alien smallpox, and you’re sitting here in the same class with the rest of us?”
“I’m not sick,” Jeff said defensively. He slid his arm forward to block the view of his dragon fly, pinned to the cardboard sitting glaringly on the desk in front of him.
“You don’t know that. You might not even have any symptoms for a couple of weeks, and you could be spreading it around to all of us. Haven’t you been listening to what they’re saying?” Peter pointed at the TV.
“I’m not sick,” Jeff repeated, trying to look angry and tough, but feeling unsure of himself, it came out sullen and guilty. He wanted to punch Peter in the face.
“Shut up, Peter.” Suzy said. “I HAVE been listening, and they said the quarantine is just a precaution. No one knows they’re going to spread a disease. Plus,” she added, “you liked my picture of the dog. YOU didn’t assume it was an alien.”
“I thought it was a joke! I thought you had photoshopped it!” Peter shouted. Peter glared at Suzy, and Suzy glared at Peter, and the rest of the class fidgeted; then the anchor started talking to a new guest, and it gave everyone an excuse to look back at the TV.
After the initial excitement, the day began to drag. Jeff’s eyes unfocused,
