CHAPTER 3 [TIM] THE CHANGES BEGIN
I knew he was going to start with one of those letters to Hevi-Hevi. Okay, here are a few pages from my journal:
Holy Moses! We got the coolest news today. We’re going to have an alien kid in our classroom! This is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Ever. EVER!
I can’t wait to meet this new kid. I figure after all the science fiction I’ve read, I’ll be the person in class most ready to be friends with him.
I’m amazed at how fast this is all happening. Ms. Weintraub says it’s because that’s how the aliens work, and everyone is trying to keep them happy.
I was wondering where the aliens were going to stay. I got my answer when I was walking home: They’ll be living in Thorncraft Park. The reason I know this is because there is a big hill in the park, which I can see as I cross the bridge on the way home. I can also see it from my bedroom window, which was always nice, but is now very cool, because this is where the embassy is going to be.
Now here’s the really weird part: The embassy is there already! That is too strange. This morning there was no building on the hill. Now there is!
Actually, on is the wrong word, since the embassy doesn’t actually touch the ground. It hangs from a curve of silvery-looking metal. Even though the footing of the curve is a couple of hundred feet long, it’s only a few feet thick. Looking at it, you can’t imagine it could hold anything up.
But it does. It arcs about two hundred feet into the air and bends over in a kind of a stem.
And hanging from that stem is… a flying saucer! Well, it’s not actually flying. But I bet it could.
It looks like this:
I HAVE TO GET INSIDE IT SOMEHOW!
Other developments:
1. Ms. Weintraub told us that tonight the school will be installing a Personal Needs Chamber for the alien kid.
“What’s a Personal Needs Chamber?” asked Chris Mellblom.
Ms. Weintraub smiled. “We would probably call it a bathroom.”
“This kid gets his own bathroom?” cried Jordan. “That stinks!”
“How do you know, Jordan?” asked Michael Wu. “You haven’t smelled it yet!”
The alien’s bathroom is going to be in the old art storage room, the one I used to hide in when Jordan was bugging me too much that first year he came to our school. It will be specially designed to fit his personal requirements.
2. A couple of government guys pulled Mom out of work for the parents’ meeting yesterday. She told me that when her boss objected, they flashed their badges and he stopped squawking immediately.
She claims that when the Feds first came in, she was afraid I had gotten in some kind of big trouble. (Thanks, Mom!) She is a little scared about the alien himself, but she says the government guys convinced her there’s no chance of me picking up a weird alien disease or anything.
I asked her if any parents were going to pull their kids out of class.
She said she didn’t know for sure, but that a couple of parents were pretty upset. (Mrs. McLory didn’t believe the government people about it being safe, and Mr. Gardell wanted to know what religion the aliens were.) Mom said that Jordan’s dad acted real weird, too, but she figured that was just because he was trying to figure out how he could make money out of the situation.
Well, Mom just yelled for me to go to bed. I don’t know what the point is. I won’t sleep a wink tonight.
Tomorrow I get to meet my first alien!