Danny Flash and the Alien Crash

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Every town has their crazy person and I'm not talking about the guy who wears his favorite football team's jersey every day, or the kids who spray each other with water guns - I'm talking about full on crazy.  Conspiracy theories.  The kind of person that piles up magazines because they think that they might contain clues to the universe.  Thompson had a crazy person just like this.  No one paid him much attention but he ran a small corner store called "The Everything Store."  It was the kind of place you might go if you were looking for an odd part or a ceramic pig.  One that wasn't a piggy bank.  Those kinds of odds and ends that you wouldn't normally find at a usual department store.

"The Everything Store" was one very large room with a small counter tucked to the side.  Despite the name, it didn't actually have everything.  You couldn't go there and get toothpaste or toilet paper or any of the many things that normal people would put on a normal shopping list.  But I did remember, a while back, browsing through the store and finding a bottle full of plastic ants; and while I tried to convince my mom to let me buy it - it was a steal at 50 cents - I did happen to notice they had a small stand in the back with some odd seeds for the garden.  We rode our bikes up to the store, no longer hiding ourselves with the cloak of invisibility.

"This is your idea?" Andrew said, as we came to a stop outside the little shop.

"You got a better one?" I asked.  Both Andrew and I turned and looked at the store, which seemed ominous in the evening sun.

"I like this store," said Annabel. "Its got funny stuff.  But why are we here?" she asked.

"Just follow my lead," I said.

"Are we going to rob this place?" Andrew asked, a hint of excitement in his voice.

"No," I said. "We're just gonna' talk."

"Talk about what?" Andrew asked. I shushed him and walked in the door.

Immediately to my right was the cashier.  Piles of magazines and boxes filled with random contents sat to his side.  Mr. Greigson, the store's sole owner, stocker and cashier, looked up from behind a copy of a magazine which fittingly had a cover that exclaimed "UFO SIGHTED!"

"How can I help ya', son?" Mr Greigson asked.  I knew he knew who I was, but I didn't expect him to call me by name.

"Hey Mr. Greigson," I said, trying to act as casual as possible.  "We were hoping we could talk to you for a second.

"Well," Mr. Greigson said, "you're talking to me."

"So, everybody knows you're kind of the authority on the supernatural," I said, trying to get on Mr Greigson's good side as quickly as I could.

"Paranormal," Mr Greigson corrected me.  "I'm an expert on the paranormal."

He pointed a bony finger up towards the ceiling.  I followed his movement to where he was pointing and saw nothing but white tiles, some stained with what must have been water from leaky pipes.  "How else would water get on the ceiling?" I thought.

"I focus on things that come from up there," he said.  I knew he meant beyond the ceiling.  Space.  Aliens. Exactly why I had come here. 

"Yes," I said, nodding my head in understanding.  "That's why I wanted to come to you.  We have kind of a... situation."

At this, Mr. Greigson straightened his back and smoothed out his shirt, as if I was about to interview him for a job.

"What kind of situation?" he asked.  He brushed nothing off of his shoulder, giving himself an air of importance, like he was giving this conversation a fresh start.

"The kind of situation," I said with a dramatic pause, "that comes from--"  I pointed my finger up towards the same discolored watery marks he'd pointed to just a moment before.  He also knew that I was pointing beyond the ceiling, and that I meant space.

"We can't speak here," he said.  "This place might have been bugged."

"Who would--" I stopped myself.  I was going to ask "who would bug this place," but as I looked around I realized there were plenty of areas in which you could safely hide some kind of listening device, and Mr. Greigson would probably never uncover it, not in a thousand years.  I couldn't imagine that he'd actually go through all this stuff on a daily or weekly basis, let alone be able to get through all these boxes of things within a year... or two!  How long would a battery be good for on a wire that's just left in a room, anyway? 

"Where do you want to talk?" I asked.  Mr. Greigson put his finger to his lips.  He turned on an old radio that started playing jazz music.  I'm guessing it was from the 1920s or 30s, but I don't really know my jazz.  Mr Greigson walked out from behind the counter and twirled in and out of piles of books and photos, old boxes and magazines.  He stopped, halfway through the store, and turned around.

"Well, aren't you going to follow me?" He half-shouted.

"Oh yes!  Sorry!"  I started to say, but he put his fingers to his lips again shushing me.  How come he could speak and I couldn't?  I let it go. I looked back at my group who were still standing outside and waved Annabelle and Andrew into The Everything Store.  Mr Greigson made his way to the back of the store where there was a small door that I'd never paid much attention to before.  On the door there were six deadbolts, two latch hooks and seven signs that said "Keep out" and "Knock before entering."  Mr Greigson pulled a set of keys out from his pocket and unlocked four of the locks.  He then reached under a stack of books and grabbed a key to unlock the fifth lock.  He then reached up above the door, pulled down a key and unlocked the sixth lock.  He then unlatched two of the three latch hooks.  He looked up, staring at my friend and my sister.

"Can we trust them," he asked.

"I trust them with my life," I said. Annabelle raised an eyebrow.  It's natural for siblings to doubt you.

"Okay, then."  He unlatched the final lock and opened the door.  The space behind the door was not very much larger than a jail cell.  We all crowded inside.  There were two fold out chairs and a small table.  Mr. Greigson sat on one side of the table, on one of the foldout chairs.  I sat on the other.  Annabelle and Andrew squeezed up against the wall behind me.  I felt like they were my bodyguards, except that Annabelle was very small for a bodyguard.

"I don't bring a lot of people into this room," Mr. Greigson's said.  "I hope you're able to prove to me that this isn't a mistake."

"I am," I said quite confidently, because I knew the contents of my bag would be something that Mr. Greigson would have never seen before.  Something that he had spent much of his life telling the people of Thompson existed, but with no proof.  His eyes seemed to dart over to my bag before mine did.  Did he sense that something amazing was in store?  I moved my backpack to the center of the table., acknowledging that this was a key piece in our discussion.  Mr. Greigson eyed it skeptically.  

"I need to ask you something," I said, with my fingers firmly holding the zipper.  "Can I trust you?" I asked, throwing his earlier question back at him.

"Of course," Mr. Greigson said.  I slowly unzipped my backpack, reached my hand in and pulled out my little alien friend.