The Alien Squad

They call us The Alien Squad. It hasn't always been that way; we used to be normal kids... until the fifth grade. But I'll get to that.

Eric, Drew, and I grew up on the same street. Our parents grew up together and our moms were best friends in high school, so of course they wanted to raise their kids together. They married their high school sweethearts in their early twenties. They were each other's bridesmaids and best men at their weddings in the only church in town and started their families here because they were too scared to leave the only place they've ever known. That's the thing about Valley Ridge: nobody ever leaves. This tiny, boring town with nothing to do is an inescapable trap. There's one high school and there's only one street with stores on it; the range is limited to a grocery store, two restaurants, a video store, and a rec centre.

We used to be pretty good friends with this kid on our street, Jake; we would all play outside and have sleepovers. In the fifth grade, word got out about Jake's dad's affair with my Aunt Kathleen. She had been living with us for about a year; her marriage didn't work out and she needed a place to stay. She and Jake's dad had gotten pretty friendly, but I had no idea how friendly. Jake's mom walked in on her husband and Aunt Kathleen in bed together, and she threw a huge fit. She threw his clothes out of the bedroom window and screamed at him loud enough for the entire street to hear. That was the end of Jake's parents' marriage. The next day, Jake came to school and spread rumours about how I wet the bed at all our sleepovers. All the kids made fun of me. The rest of the year went by and he kept making up rumours that everyone believed. Drew and Eric never abandoned me and always stood up for me. Jake started rumours about them, too, and soon, the three of us were all each other had. Over the years, Jake kept blaming me for his parents' divorce and the bullying got worse. He started calling us aliens, saying we didn't belong on Earth. And so, The Alien Squad was born.

It doesn't matter that the girls in our class swoon over Eric's "Ken doll" looks, that I throw the best curveball on the baseball team, or that Drew could beat the shit out of any guy who picks a fight with him; we've been outcasts in this town ever since and we haven't been able to change that...but tonight is our chance.

It's Hell Night. It's the first Friday of the school year and a rite of passage for twelfth graders. This is our year. On Hell Night, all the twelfth graders go around town and pull pranks. Some people pull small pranks, like egging their teachers' houses. Others pull grand ones. The best I heard of was when Kevin Lee and Andy Hodgins took every desk from the school and threw them into the pool. Luckily their principal was pretty chill and agreed not to expel them if they fished the desks out of the pool and paid for new ones.

We're going to be the new legends.

It's ten minutes to midnight. I roll up in the alley behind Eric's house in my grandpa's hand-me-down car. It clunks to a stop.

"Hey, man, text Eric to let him know we're here," I tell Drew, who's sitting in the passenger seat. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out his phone and taps on the touch screen with his huge thumbs. I take a deep breath and flip down the visor. I look myself in the mirror. My face looks as blank as my pop quiz this morning, and I can see sweat beading on my hairline. I look at Drew to see if he's in as bad a shape as I am, but he seems fine; he's mouthing the words to the Selena Gomez song on the radio.

Eric comes running outside, crouching in an attempt to be stealthy. He trips over his mom's garden gnome and falls with a thud. Drew and I laugh so hard we need to hold our stomachs to keep them from cramping.

"Dicks," I hear over our laughter. I didn't even hear Eric open the car door. I turn around and watch Eric try to squeeze into the backseat next to three furry bodies.

"Dude, these things take up so much space." Eric picks up one of the goats and piles it on top of another so he'd have enough room to sit.

"MEEEEHHH!" something shrieks and my seat launches forward, making my head smack into the roof of the car. I roll my eyes and put the car in drive. The gravel crunches underneath the tires as we cruise out of the alley.