Ben was tired and grumpy all morning at school. He managed to avoid being asked any questions in the first two lessons, but the third lesson was math, and that meant Mr. Kersh. Mr. Kersh was well known for pouncing on children and firing a problem at them when they least expected it, and even though Ben tried to stay alert, after half an hour, he was really struggling to keep his eyes open. And of course, that’s when it happened.
“Well, Ben, what is the answer?” asked Mr. Kersh.
Ben’s head jerked back and his eyelids pinged up. He hadn’t heard the question, but for some reason a number came into his head.
“Four hundred, Mr. Kersh,” he said.
“I see,” said Mr. Kersh. “So you think that twenty percent of four hundred is … four hundred.”
“Yes, I mean no, I mean, I don’t, I didn’t hear the question,” spluttered Ben.
“You didn’t hear the question?” said Mr. Kersh, which was exactly what Ben had just said, but sometimes teachers did that, repeat back what you’d just said to them.
“No, Mr. Kersh, I’m sorry,” said Ben. “I didn’t.”
“Well, that is very strange,” said Mr. Kersh. “You’re sitting in my class approximately fifteen feet away from me, are you not? Or did you leave temporarily and go to another planet?”
The other children in the class chuckled. Ben didn’t really know what to say. All he could think to do was to apologize again. In fact, his mouth was already in position to make the “s” sound of Sorry when he stopped.
Another planet.
That’s what Mr. Kersh had just said.
Suddenly something hit him like a thunderbolt with added thunder, and an extra helping of bolt.
“Oh my goodness!” he shouted. “They’re aliens! My parents have become aliens!”
“Excuse me?” said a rather startled Mr. Kersh.
“I know it sounds crazy,” said Ben, speaking very quickly now. “But I saw two aliens in the woods behind my house in the night. They were communicating using incredible holographic images and I thought they meant taking over the human race and the planet, but now I realize they actually meant taking over human bodies. They’re in my parents. The aliens are in my parents!”
For a moment there was stunned silence in the classroom, and then, the very next second, Ben knew he had made the worst mistake of his life.
The other children didn’t so much burst out laughing as explode, as if someone had hurled a laughter grenade into the room. It was absolute chaos. A couple of Ben’s classmates had to run to the bathroom clutching their stomachs, three kids had to go and see the school nurse because their sides were hurting so much and one girl didn’t stop laughing until she got home that evening.
It took Mr. Kersh fifteen minutes to calm everyone down, after which he told Ben that he would be spending this, and every other lunch hour that week, doing math problems.
Of course, word of Ben’s outburst spread through the school like wildfire and he became a laughing stock.
Alien Boy, Space Freak, E.T., and Ben Ten-Sandwiches-Short-of-a-Picnic were just some of the names he was called.
By the end of the day Ben was thinking that it might not have simply been the worst mistake of his life, but the worst mistake in the history of mistakes.