Danny Flash and the Alien Crash

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

We got on our bikes and started riding out to the old soda factory.  I could feel the extra weight in my backpack from all the packets of seeds that Mr. Greigson had given us.  As we neared the edge of town I slid my bike to a stop.

"What's wrong?" Andrew asked, as him and Annabelle also slowed to a stop.

I turned and looked at Annabelle.  She looked up at me with eyes so innocent it broke my heart.

"Annabelle," I said, "I think you should go home."

"Why would I go home?" she asked.  "This is just getting exciting."

"Exactly." I said.  "I can't have anything happen to you."

"Nothing's gonna happen to me, Annabelle said.  "I've got you."

"I'll go home," Andrew offered.  I shot Andrew a look.  "Kidding!" Andrew shrugged.

"Last time we were at home, it wasn't exactly safe and cozy, was it?"  Annabelle asked, tapping her foot impatiently.

"No," I surrendered. "I guess it wasn't.  It's just..."  I put my arms around Annabelle and hugged her close.  I didn't know what else to say, but I gathered I didn't need to say anything else.

She wrapped her arms around me and sighed.

"We'll be okay," Annabelle said.  Andrew worked his way into the side of the hug.

"I love you guys," he said.

"Alright," I collected myself. "Let's go do this."

We rode our bikes a little further down the road and turned.  Suddenly we found ourselves on the edge of a crowd.  The roads had been barricaded off.  Where I expected to find maybe some caution tape or a barbed wire fence, we instead found half the town of Thompson, clumping together on the edge of what was the old soda plant.  Giant spotlights shown up into the sky.  They weren't exactly making their presence a secret, I thought.  It was easier than I had expected to confirm their location, or what they would probably consider their home base, but it was going to be much more difficult to sneak by.  Armed guards lined the perimeter of the plant. The town just starred.  They weren't there to protest, or to even try to get in, they were just curious.  Most of the people just milled about, peeking this way and that, around the fence, trying to get a glimpse of anything that they might deem interesting.  I recognized one of the people in the crowd as Tammy Chang, a local news reporter who had made quite a name for herself covering the giant storm we'd had a few years back.  We clustered together behind a small group of people, shielding ourselves from the view of the guards.  I reached into my backpack and pulled out the cloak of invisibility and my magic wand.  My little alien friend leapt onto my arm, his arms wrapping around me, fingers suctioning to my wrist.

"Um bat, shy dee," I whispered the magic words as Annabelle and Andrew gathered around. I had no way of knowing if the spell worked, so I just started walking.  We walked past the small group of people, weaved our way around a few individuals and walked up to the fence.

The guards stood and stared out into the distance, but as I neared I could tell they were not looking at me.  I was not drawing any of their attention.

"It's working," I whispered to Andrew. "I can't believe we're invisible!"

"I know," Andrew said, "I mean, I felt invisible for a really long time at school, but I never actually thought I'd be invisible."

We slowly shuffled our way down to a portion of the fence where we could duck under one of the wooden planks that had been propped up to close what was probably perceived as a weak spot.  Two guards sat on either side of the area, and so we moved slowly and carefully under the wood, doing our best not to shuffle the dirt or cause any unnecessary attention to ourselves with a sudden noise or a snap of a twig.  We managed to all three get on the other side.

We slowly started walking towards the factory; the three of us exchanging shocked glances at just how easy things were when you were invisible.  As we neared the entrance to the factory a giant truck came out of a driveway on the side.  It pulled a large metal canister of some sort behind it.  As the truck passed us, I caught our reflections in the smooth silver cylinder.  I looked anxiously around at the guards that were near us, but none of them were paying much attention to that portion of the track.

They were instead focused on the tractor, where the driver sat.  They slowed the truck to a stop and asked the driver a few questions.  Where he was going?  Who had authorized it?  His answers seemed to check out, because the guard tapped the top of the hood while we stood frozen.  As they released the semi-truck and it started to move, I watched as our reflections slid down the cylinder, holding my breath until we were no longer reflections starring back at ourselves.

However, moments before our reflections fell off the back of the truck, I heard a guard shot out, "Hey, they're here!"  He whipped his arm up, pointed at the metal cylinder where our reflections stared back at him.  He looked at the spot where he knew we should have been standing and saw nothing.

I could almost hear the tiny explosion as his mind was blown by the simple fact that no person was actually standing in front of him, or at least no person appeared to be standing in front of him.  Yet he could see, for just a flash, a clear reflection of us. Annabelle squeezed my side.  I put my arms around both Annabelle and Andrew and shuffled us further to the left.

The guard rushed over to the spot where we were just standing and swung his arms around wildly, trying to make contact with something.  "Where are you?" the guard said. "Where'd you go?"  He looked around.  Suddenly he ducked down, picked up some dirt and threw it into the air.

He watched the dirt fall to the ground, looking for any areas in which it might hit up against an invisible body.  Luckily we had moved far enough away that the dirt was not of concern to us, at least not from where he was throwing it.  "What on earth are you doing?" a voice said from behind us.  We slowly turned around to find the man with the mole on his chin only a few feet from us, blocking the path we had intended to move forward on. 

"I thought I saw them out here, doing that... that thing."

"Is that right?" the man with the mole said.  He had a sparkle in his eyes, but not the kind of sparkle that your or I might get on Christmas morning when we're about to open the presents that Santa left us.  His sparkle was more like someone looking for trouble, and having fun finding it.  My Mom had a name for men like him.  Mr. Up-to-No-Good.  I always thought it as a funny name to call someone, but at that moment I believed I had only found it funny before because I had never actually met someone worthy of the name.  This Mr. Up-to-No-Good made my skin crawl. 

"I'm sure it's just your imagination," he said.  Mr. Up-to-No-Good turned and made like he was going to walk away, but then suddenly he spun back, scooped up two fistfuls of dirt and threw them right towards us.  I could feel the specks of dirt hitting my cheeks.

"There!" he yelled, and lunged right towards me.  I pushed Annabelle to the side, so he wouldn't hit her.  She fell to the ground, and right out of the cloak of invisibility, as I stumbled backwards from the blow.  She looked up at me, tears in her eyes, as the first man grabbed her, and Mr. Up-to-No-Good lunged towards me a second time.