What Lies Beneath ▸ House of Anubis [1]

chapter forty-one. house of aliens

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Needless to say, I was not eager to sleep in my bed considering the writing on the wall was right next to it. So the others helped me set up a bed on the floor, with the help of a bunch of pillows Amber reluctantly gave up for my comfort. I'll give her this—girl has good taste in pillows. The only time I was woken up was when Nina got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and she stepped on me because she forgot I was down on the floor instead of my bed.

Awaken the voice. What does that even mean? Whose voice? And why, dear God why, did it have to be written beside my bed?!?!

Aside from the uber-creepy message, things have been pretty usual in Anubis House. Mara's campaigning for student rep and her main issue is putting more periodicals in the library, far as I can tell. I'm not sure that'll win over anyone besides Fabian. Jerome's her campaign manager, and I can't figure out if that's supposed to help her win or if it's going to make her lose. The rest of Sibuna has the message on their minds. And Alfie?

He's been all over the alien thing since we told him that's what it was. I've been keeping an eye on him all day to make sure he's not venturing into Egyptian territory, so that means I've been the listener to his crazy theories. He was telling me at breakfast this morning all about crop circles, Stonehenge, et cetera, wearing green cleaning gloves and tin-foil under his shirt. Now we're sitting at the same table in Andrews' class, not paying attention at all to our teacher while Alfie's talking to me, Patricia, and Fabian (the pair of which are at the table beside ours).

"There was this TV show in the '80s," he's saying in a lowered voice as Andrews hands out books of poetry, "about these lizard aliens who had human skin and ate people. I was up all last night watching reruns."

Well, we did tell him that we thought aliens infiltrated the school.

"Now, this poem is a personal favorite of mine," Andrews states when Alfie takes a break from regaling us about aliens. "Listen to the language, the scaliness of the words." She lifts the paper with the poem and reads. "A snake came to my water trough / on a hot, hot day."

Alfie leans toward me and whispers, "See? Random reptile mention." I glance at him, giving him what I hope is a thoughtful smile. "I always knew there was something not right about Andrews," he muses, not knowing just how right he is. I just think he's off the mark on what it is. "She's talking about aliens, isn't she? Isn't she?" He wiggles his tongue in his mouth like a snake, causing Patricia to laugh and me to roll my eyes.

Mrs. Andrews continues reading the poem, while beside me Alfie stands slowly, his eyes now trained on our teacher. And he doesn't look like he's playing anymore. I look over at him, eyebrows furrowed as he creeps toward her. "Alfie? Alfie, what are you doing?" I ask, trying to grab his hand to pull him back.

But whatever's going through his mind has Alfie running full-on at Andrews, screaming, "Show yourself, lizard lady!"

"Alfie!" I shout, jumping up from my seat as he tackles her to the floor. The class gasps as Andrews exclaims for him to get off of her. I rush forward, grabbing Alfie's shoulders and pulling him off of her. "I'm so sorry, Miss, he didn't get a lot of sleep last night!" I say quickly to find a way out of this mess for him. Alfie's still glaring at Andrews as I drag him to the door. "I'll just take him to the nurse!"

Andrews doesn't get a chance to tell me to take him to the headmaster instead before I'm pushing Alfie out into the hall, slamming the door shut behind me. "Alfie, what was that?!" I ask, taking his arm and pulling him away from the classroom. "Why did you just tackle Mrs. Andrews?!"

"She's one of them!" Alfie explains. I stare at him, trying to understand what happened in that room. "She's an alien!"

"Mrs. Andrews is not an alien!"

"I saw her eyes! They were reptilian!"

"How much sleep did you get last night?" I retort. There are bags under his eyes and he admitted himself that he was up all night watching some stupid alien show from the 1980s. He doesn't look like he wants to answer. "You're seeing things! You're sleep-deprived."

Alfie scoffs. "I know what I saw. And you said yourself you thought aliens had infiltrated the school—"

"—and we also said we didn't know who was in on it!" I counter. "Alfie, we—I—" I cut myself off, closing my eyes. "Alfie. I can't..."

"You don't believe me."

"It's not that, Al—"

"Yes, it is, Ashley! Come on! I thought you, of all people, would believe me. Guess it's nice to know who my real friends are."

Okay. That stings. I'm left standing alone in the hallway as he turns around a corner and disappears. God. What do we do know? Our lie just made him attack Mrs. Andrews! How are we supposed to fix this, especially since he refuses to listen to reason?

I return back to the classroom, waiting outside for class to end. When the bell rings, and the students start piling out, I blend into to the crowd as I come up to Fabian and Patricia. "We have to do something," I tell them, putting my arms around them. "He just attacked Mrs. Andrews because he thought she was an alien. I—I can't keep lying to him."

Fabian nods. "We were just thinking the same thing."

"What does Nina think?"

"She didn't come to class," Patricia answers. She was gone before I even woke up this morning, with hardly anything more than a text message saying she wanted to check something out, and who knows where she went?

"Are we telling him?" I ask pointedly. Fabian and Patricia glance at each other, then me. If Nina's mad at us, then she's mad at us. But anything is better than Alfie physically assaulting the teachers. "Come on. He went this way."

—

It didn't take the three of us long to find Alfie Lewis amongst the masses. We knew his schedule, so we knew exactly which classrooms were on the route to his next class. And as he walks past our chosen empty classroom, he's rudely met with Patricia grabbing his blazer and dragging him in, ignoring his protests. "Trixie, bit tight on the collar!" he exclaims as Fabian shuts the door behind us. Crossing my arms, I watch as Patricia lets him go and then he cuts his eyes at me.

"Alfie, we haven't been entirely honest with you," Fabian admits.

Alfie's face falls. He sits on one of the desk and scoots away from us. "Oh, no," he mutters. "I should've seen this coming. It's always like this in the films and I didn't see it! You're the aliens! And Ashley trying to doubt what I saw by claiming I'm 'sleep deprived,'" he does dramatic air quotes. "How could I have been so blind?!"

I groan, throwing my head back. "Alfie, we aren't aliens. There aren't any aliens at all!"

Alfie stands up, narrowing his eyes. "That's exactly what an alien would say."

"We just made it up to get you off our backs," Fabian confesses.

He looks between us carefully, placing his hands on the desk as he leans toward us. "What about the alien artifacts?"

"They're puzzle pieces. They lead to some kind of...relic or treasure."

The Cup of Ankh, stolen straight from Tut's tomb, if Nina's right. But it's still just a theory. But Alfie's eyes light up at the mention of treasure, and his earlier suspicions are easily dropped. "Treasure? Is it alien-related? And how much is it worth?"