“Jeff. Jeff! Hey!”
“What? Yeah. Um. What was that?”
Suzy made an exasperated sort of sound and repeated, “You know what I keep wondering?” Jeff stared back at her blankly. Suzy went on, “Where’s Mom’s car?” Jeff continued to stare at her blankly. There were dozens of things HE was wondering, and that was not one of them.
“What do you mean, ‘Where’s Mom’s car?’“
“I mean, it’s not in the garage with the alien. And it wasn’t in the driveway when all the reporters and army guys showed up. But you told me you heard something in the garage this morning before we left for school, right? So if the alien was already in there... I mean, like, did Mom and Dad notice there was an alien in the garage, and then they moved the car out to the street?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the aliens stole it.”
“Why would aliens steal our car?” Suzy’s said, annoyed.
“‘Cause where can you find a cab at this time of night!?” It was the punchline to an old joke[2], and Jeff’s face was pure glee as he delivered it. Suzy punched him in the shoulder, hard.
Jeff rubbed his shoulder and sobered up. “I don’t know, Suz. Why would an alien decide to hang out in our garage? Why would an alien leave his dog in our kitchen? The whole thing’s weird.”
Suzy shook her head, and Jeff returned his attention to the TV. The way CNN talked about it, there were exciting developments every minute, but they were just showing the old clips over and over and bringing in new commentators to offer their own wild conjectures.
Jeff heard Jamie ask Ms. Hacking if she could go to the bathroom. “Yes. Go ahead. Be quick.” Something about how Ms. Hacking said it, slightly garbled and a little wet, made Jeff turn and look at her. She was chewing gum. Lots of gum. And she looked jittery.
“Hey Suzy,” he whispered, elbowing her and pointing, a little grin on his face. “I think Ms. Hacking is O.D.’ing on her cigarette-quitting gum.”
Suzy glanced back, then looked worriedly at Jeff. “Oh boy. That’s not funny. I don’t think you’re supposed to eat that much at once.” Ms. Hacking noticed Jeff staring and forced a smile. A trickle of saliva escaped out the corner of her mouth. She wiped it away hurriedly.
Jeff returned his attention to the TV, and the day dragged.
Among the various reaction blips reported on the news – crazies heralding the end of the world, crazies demanding war on the aliens, crazies celebrating, crazies rioting – there was the news that all over the country, schools had released students to be home with their families. In Alpharetta, the buses hadn’t yet made it to the school, but as the day wore on, many parents came to collect their kids.
Around noon, one of the lunch ladies came by with food for the class, which by then was half its usual size. While they were eating, the President held a press conference. There were lots of reassurances and little new information.
One tidbit from the President confirmed something Jeff had started thinking as he watched the clips of the orange spider thing:
“Preliminary reports from the NASA scientists who are on location with the alien life forms suggest that these beings do NOT possess human or near-human intelligence. Instead, their intelligence appears to be more on a level with that of a terrestrial animal, like a dog or a pig. This begs the question, ‘How did alien animals, without even human intelligence, travel to our planet?’ Were they sent? Did they travel here with other beings that have not yet shown themselves? Or is their appearance the result of some natural phenomenon? Our best minds are working on these questions right now.”
This quote was added on heavy rotation to the clips CNN was cycling through.
Around two o’clock, when Ms. Hacking’s twitching anxiety had gotten so bad it was making everyone uneasy, she announced she would “be right back,” and bustled out of the room. A few minutes later, Paola got everyone’s attention and pointed out Ms. Hacking through the window.
Their classroom was on the front corner of the building, on the second floor, and they had a good view of the front and side of the school. Looking down, they could see Ms. Hacking by the side of the building, huddled against the big electrical converters, sucking fervently on a cigarette.
“She can’t do that!” Peter griped. “She can’t leave us in here by ourselves in the middle of an alien invasion and go smoke!”
“I bet if we tell Mr. McArthur, he’ll fire her,” Aiden leered.
Suzy started yelling something at Aiden when several people screamed. Ms Hacking had flickered. Jeff did a double take.
Ms. Hacking was gone. In her place stood a tall figure. A figure with a grayish, snakelike face, a bald head, and a long, thin, black rod held at the ready in one hand. Jeff’s eyes bugged, and he gasped. “Voldemort!”
ELEVEN
The classroom was in chaos. Paola wouldn’t stop screaming, Zoe was crying, Amy and Ryan had run out into the hall. Suzy was terrified, but she was also fascinated.
She took a step closer to the window and looked
