My interview with Honey Flint went fine until I suddenly began to wonder if she was the alien after all. I mean, nothing said these guys were limited to one face. For all I knew, old Broxholm had carried a whole box full of masks, one for every occasion.
So when Honey asked if she could take the glove, I didn’t know what to do. Maybe she had spotted me climbing out of the dumpster and was looking for a way to get the glove back without putting me on ice. (Not that I thought the aliens were kind and sweet or anything. But I could see where this one might not want to create more suspicion by having another kid disappear.)
Of course, if Honey was telling the truth about being a reporter, she might be able to help me convince the world that we still had an alien teacher in town. But if she was lying to me, if she was really the alien in disguise, then I would be handing over the only piece of evidence I had.
Finally I told Honey that she could take a photo of the glove. She seemed unhappy that she couldn’t have it, but I didn’t know if that was because she was secretly the alien, or just because she wanted it to prove her story to her boss. (That’s one problem when you start to get suspicious; you can’t trust anything anymore.)
On the other hand, she did seem really thrilled with the story. “This is great,” she kept saying. “Oh, Duncan, this is just great.”
When we were finally done talking it was almost dark. Honey told me she would like to take me to get a milkshake or something, but that she didn’t think any place would let us in the way I smelled, and she really didn’t want to put me in her car, either. I suppose I should have been offended. But she said it real nice, and besides, it made sense.
I wasn’t all that thrilled about walking home alone in the dark, especially since I was half expecting an alien to jump out of the bushes and grab me at any moment. Also, I didn’t know what was going to happen to me when I got home. Being late wasn’t a problem—my parents didn’t really care that much what time I got there. But the garbage thing might be an issue.
Finally I stopped at old man Derwinkle’s house. Mr. Derwinkle has the best lawn on the block, mostly because he’s always watering it. I figured the odds were good that I would find a hose lying in the driveway.
I was right.
Old man Derwinkle is pretty deaf, so he didn’t hear me spraying myself down. The first water was hot, from the hose lying in the sun all day. Once I got past the water that had been in the hose, the rest was cold. I didn’t care; hot or cold, it all felt great. I didn’t realize how much stuff had been stuck in my hair until I saw it coming out in the water that ran off my head.
So now my clothes were soaking wet, and stained in several places, but not nearly as smelly as they had been.
The same was true for me.
The only problem was that when I got home Patrick spotted me and bellowed, “Ma! Duncan’s dripping all over the floor.” So my mother made me go out back and take off all my clothes and put on a bathrobe before I could come inside.
Patrick snuck out back and took a picture of me while I was naked, which shows you what a booger he is.
I spent almost an hour that night trying to get the purple stain off my hand so I could go to school the next morning without getting in trouble. I wondered how long it would take to fade away. I considered asking Patrick, since he knows about this kind of stuff, but I couldn’t count on him not to say something to my father.
Of course I could always stay home sick (I know four different ways to make myself throw up) or play hookey, but that’s a little tricky the first couple of days of school. Later on, once you know the routine, it’s different. But skipping at the beginning can really mess you up.
I suppose if I had been smarter I would have seen the answer sooner. It wasn’t until I went back to my bedroom, which I have to share with Patrick-the-booger, that I thought of the alien glove. If it could hide the alien’s hand, why not mine?
I pulled the glove out of my pocket and looked it over. What if it was full of alien germs or something? I decided to wait until morning to decide whether to use it.
When morning came my hand was as purple as ever. So I went into the bathroom, where no one would see me, and pulled on the glove.
It was like magic. The glove fit my hand perfectly, almost as if it was adjusting its shape while I was pulling it on. What was even weirder was that as I was putting it on, it changed color to match my other hand—as if it were a chameleon or something.
I had only two problems. First, the fingernails were too clean. So I grubbed them up a little. Second, there was a small hole at the end of one of the fingers. I suppose that’s why the alien threw it away. I put a bandage over the hole. I have to wear a lot of bandages, so that looked pretty natural. Even so, if you had looked closely, you would have known it wasn’t really my hand. But unless you give them a reason to, most people don’t look at stuff very carefully. That’s one reason a guy like me can get away with a lot of things; people just don’t see what you do.
My mother and father didn’t notice my new hand at all. I didn’t give Patrick a chance to see it.
I was really happy when I started off to school that morning. Things looked a lot better than they had the day before.
The Mancatcher was standing at the door when I came in. I knew he was looking for a kid with a purple hand, so I waved at him when I walked up.
“Hiya, Mr. Ketchum!” I said cheerfully.
He scowled at me. I knew he thought I was the one who had pulled the alarm. But when I waved my hand in front of him like that, it looked as if I had nothing to hide. So he didn’t even bother to look at it closely.
Things would have been just fine if not for the fact that sometime during science class my fake hand started to fall apart. I tried to shove my hand into my desk, until I realized all we had were those stupid desks that have only a writing surface and no place underneath to keep stuff. I’m glad no one saw me flopping my hand around, trying to hide it in a space that wasn’t there.
Finally I jammed my hand into my pocket. But my pants were a little tight, so strings of flesh-colored material bunched up around my wrist.
I stared at them in horror.
Normally, I might just have been kind of upset. But I had spent a lot of time the night before thinking about who the alien might be. I had even asked Patrick which teachers were new to the school since last winter. I asked that because I figured that, like Broxholm, this alien would be someone who hadn’t been around for a long time.
Patrick’s response had been typical. “What do you care?” he snarled.
“Eat dog meat, fuzzhead,” I replied.
I said that because if I told Patrick why I really wanted to know, or even let him think that it really mattered, he wouldn’t tell me. This way he just punched me, and then told me what he knew.
As far as he could remember, our school had four new people. The first was none other than Manuel “the Mancatcher” Ketchum, who had started working there last January. The other three were teachers—Mr. Black, the math teacher; Betty Lou Karpou, who I had for home economics; and Andromeda Jones, the science teacher.
The same Andromeda Jones in whose class I was sitting at that very moment.