Danny Flash and the Alien Crash

CHAPTER NINE:

During my second class, which was Mr. Willis's history class, I found that my little alien friend liked potato chips. It took me less than a minute to figure out that it was hungry, because apparently rubbing your tummy is not just an international sign for hunger, it's an intergalactic one.

As soon as I figured out that what it wanted was a snack, I quickly excused myself from history class, made my way down the hall, and put a dollar into the vending machine. I got a bag of salty potato chips, opened it up and handed one to the alien inside my pocket. When I went back to class, I timed how long it took it to eat each potato chip.

It was approximately three and a half minutes. The potato chips varied slightly in size but they were more or less uniform. It seemed to really like them as it polished off eight of them without slowing down. I tried to figure out how big of a meal that would be, if I ate, eight of something that was as big to me as the potato chips were to it. In history class Mr. Willis talked about the Civil War, which I could tell was important because when Mr. Willis talked about things that were important, little beads of sweat formed on the sides of his forehead, and trickled slowly down his face. He would catch about half of them with the corner of his sleeve, wiping them away before they fell to the ground, and the other half would slide slowly down his face and drip from the sides of his cheeks and his chin, some making their way all the way down to the ground where they would land with a tiny splash. So tiny that I couldn't hear it, but it didn't stop me from imagining it. Some would dribble off his chin and land squarely on his portly belly, which stuck out a few inches in front of him. There was a tiny wet spot in the center of his shirt, from just such drips.

After the eighth potato chip, I inserted the ninth into my pocket and felt my little alien friend's tiny little hands pushing back. It'd had enough. I turned my body away from Mr. Willis, so he wouldn't be able to see what I was looking at, and pulled my pocket open, looking down at my little alien friend with a smile. It looked up at me, but it did not smile back. It looked like it was in agonizing pain. Something wasn't right.

It immediately occurred to me that my little alien had probably eaten too many potato chips. After all this was alien food to it. Or not alien food. I'm not sure which. It had devoured the chips like they were candy, and like it'd had it a million times before. But most likely this was the first time it'd ever had a potato chip, maybe the first time it even ever had a potato.

How did I know that potatoes weren't poisonous to aliens? I didn't know the first thing about feeding an alien! I'd had a cat, and I had a dog, but I'd never had an alien! Not many people have. None that I knew of.

Anyway, I got up and excused myself from class again. Mr. Willis looked at me with his beady eyes, and as he was about to ask me where I was going, an especially large trail of sweat rolled down the side of his face. He caught it with his sleeve, and pulled his arm back to look at the wet mark on his cuff. This was a sufficient enough distraction for me to escape out the door before he could utter a word. I ran into the restroom and went into a stall. I pulled my little alien friend out and set it on top of the metal arch that hung over the paper. It was just large enough for it to sit down on its butt with its legs outstretched. It leaned back against the bathroom wall. It appeared to be panting; its belly had formed into a little bubble similar to Mr. Willis's. It was kind of cute, if it wasn't causing pain.

"Are you okay?" I asked. My little alien friend just stared back at me. "Ouchie?" I asked, patting my tummy. It patted its tummy back.

"Ouchie." It said.

"I think you ate too many potato chips." I said.

"Psst! Hey Danny," I heard, coming from the bathroom. Someone had followed me in here. I recognized the voice almost immediately. It was Andrew.