Signal (3 page)

When I get to the top and look at the house, I have the feeling that the girl won’t be there when I go in. But she’s waiting in the kitchen. I catch a glimpse of her peering from behind the door before she opens it. I hand her the water bottle and I watch her throat as she throws back her head and gulps greedily until it’s empty.

After that, it’s like neither one of us knows what to do. Her eyes flicker past me toward the door, which I’ve left open. She licks her dry lips. She says, “You came back,” and her voice is all croaky and hoarse.

There doesn’t seem to be anything to say to that. I mean, here I am.

She clears her throat and says, “You’re not going to tell, are you.” It’s a statement, not a question.

Tell
who what?
I wonder. But I shake my head no.

This seems to satisfy her, because she nods and says, “And you’ll help me.”

“I
got
water,” I point out, in case she hadn’t noticed I’d already helped.

“With everything,” she says patiently.

Again, it doesn’t really sound like a question. And, even though I don’t know what I’m agreeing to, I nod.

“This is an excellent place,” she says.

Well, yeah
, I think,
for a deserted house
. “What do you mean? You’re not going to stay here, are you?”

“Temporarily.”

“How long?”

“Until they come for me.” She looks at Josie, who is sniffing around aimlessly, and smiles. “They like dogs.”

Now I’m really starting to wonder if getting conked on the head messed up her mind. Who’s coming? And so what if they like dogs?

Then she says, “I’m Campion.”

I stare at her, wondering yet again what in the world she’s talking about. “Camping?” I repeat. “Okay. I guess this is kind of like camping out, except you’re camping
in
.”

She doesn’t even smile at my dumb joke. “Campion. It’s my name.”

“Oh,” I say, feeling foolish. “First or last?”

“First,” she says and looks at me expectantly. I realize this would be the time for me to identify myself, too. “Owen McGuire,” I say, adding, “I never heard of anybody named Campion before.”

“I was named for a wildflower,” she says. “But there are flowers with worse names. I could have been called Humped Bladderwort or Hairy Vetch.”

I laugh, surprised, and she gives me a funny little smile in return. Her whole face changes when she smiles, and she doesn’t look quite so strange and fierce.

“Red campion is an alien species,” she says, in a voice like she’s reading from a book, “alien meaning ‘from someplace else, but managing to survive here.’ ” She looks at me with her eyebrows raised, as if this is important information, but I don’t get what the big deal is.

“Campion thrives on roadsides and in waste places,” she says. Then she gives me that odd, quick smile again. “Which pretty much says it all. Anyway, you can call me Cam.”

“Okay,” I say.

“I need you to bring me food and drinks,” she says. “I’m not a picky eater. Anything is fine. A towel. Soap, a toothbrush, and toothpaste. A comb. Or a brush— doesn’t matter. A couple of T-shirts. Do you have any shorts or pants that would fit me? Or, if not, maybe a belt or some rope or something in case they’re too big?”

“I guess,” I say. I’m feeling a little bit annoyed. I mean, sure, I want to help her, and I can see she needs some different clothes. But she’s pretty bossy, if you ask me. Does she expect me to be her delivery boy? What’s next, I wonder, hot pizza?

“It got cold last night,” she says. “Could you bring a blanket and maybe a sweatshirt?”

“Sure,” I say, “but hold on just a second. How about first-aid stuff? Actually, shouldn’t you go to the hospital?”

“Absolutely not,” she says firmly. “No hospitals.”

“I know you can’t see yourself, but you look”—I hesitate, because it seems kind of rude, but then I say it anyway—“
awful.”

“Oh, I’m sure it looks worse than it is,” she says breezily. “These are just scratches on my arms and legs.”

They look like a lot more than scratches to me. Before I can say anything, she goes on. “And head wounds always bleed a lot. It has something to do with all the blood vessels or veins or something.”

She sounds pretty sure of herself. I have so many questions, I hardly know where to begin. “You said somebody’s coming. Who?”

“My parents,” she says calmly. “But not for a few days.”

“Why a few days?”

“I’ve got to let them know where I am.”

“So come to my house and call them. Or—here.” I reach into my pocket for the phone. “You can use this.” Then I remember it didn’t work on the trail. When I turn it on, I see there’s no service here, either.

She shakes her head patiently. “It doesn’t work that way.”

I’m really confused now. “Why not? Where are they?”

She looks up at me from under the makeshift bandage tied around her head, and those green eyes of hers bore into mine. “At home,” she says.

“Where’s that?” I ask, trying not to sound as impatient as I feel.

“Up there,” she says, pointing to the sky. “On my home planet.” Her face glows and her green eyes glitter. “You can’t even imagine how wonderful it is there.”

F
OR A MINUTE WE JUST STARE AT EACH OTHER
, m
Y
mind is racing. After all my daydreaming about meeting an alien, can it actually be happening?

I stare at Cam. She doesn’t look very …
alien
. Whatever that means. Except for those amazing green eyes.

She’s got to be kidding, right?

The silence starts to grow uncomfortable, and I give a shaky laugh and say, “You mean—? Wait. Really? You’re saying you’re actually from another planet?”

“Yeah,” she says matter-of-factly. “We were here on an exploratory mission. I was supposed to stay in the ship—”

I interrupt. “You’re talking about a
spaceship?
What did it look like?”

She sighs impatiently. “Like a
spaceship.”

“A flying saucer?” I persist.

“Technology on my planet is so advanced, it’s hard to explain,” she says.

“Oh,” I say, disappointed. I want to tell her to at least
try
to explain it, but she keeps talking.

“I was supposed to stay in the ship, but I was curious, so I got out to see what was going on. Then jeeps full of soldiers with guns drove up, and the ship had to make a really fast emergency exit. I got left behind. So now I need to signal my parents so they can find me when they come back.”

I take a seat in one of the chairs at the kitchen table to think about this. I can picture it all happening. But I have a question. “If the soldiers saw the spaceship, how come it wasn’t all over the news?”

She shrugs.

I think about it, then answer my own question. “I bet the government covered it up!” I exclaim. “Like they did in Roswell, New Mexico.”

Cam looks puzzled.

“You probably know all about that,” I say.

She shakes her head.

“A spaceship crashed in New Mexico in 1947, and the military covered it up. They said it was just a weather balloon. But lots of people—including me, by the way—don’t believe that for a second. There were witnesses who—”

Cam sits down suddenly, saying, “I feel dizzy. I’m really hungry.”

“Oh!” I say. “Yeah, you must be. When did you eat last, anyway?”

She thinks for a moment. “Saturday morning.”

“Wow.” I’m amazed. “That’s two days ago! I can’t imagine going one day without eating.” I think about it and amend my position. “Not even half a day. So, okay, you need food right away. I’ll go get some. But when I come back, will you tell me—”

“Whatever you want to know,” she says.

I get up and head to the door. I’m about to leave when she says softly, “It’s no accident that you’re the one who found me.”

“Huh?” I say. “What do you mean?”

Those green eyes look into mine. “Lots of people wouldn’t believe me,” she says.

I don’t know what to say. I
want
to believe her. It’s certainly possible. I mean, why would she make up something like that? And I have to admit there’s something about her that’s different from other girls I know, and it’s not just her eyes.

I mumble that I’d better get going, and Josie and I head for the trail. I pedal at a medium speed so Josie can keep up, my mind going round and round about my incredible conversation with Cam.

My thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of two familiar vans, pulling into one of the trailhead parking areas. They belong to a man and woman I call the Dog People. They seem to come here almost as often as Josie
and I do. They park, open the doors, and let out a pack of dogs of all shapes and sizes. I’m not talking about two or three dogs, I mean a
pack
. Who has that many dogs?

The lady has streaky gray, tangled hair sticking out from under a battered brown hat. She’s dressed, as usual, in a baggy shirt, jeans, and knee-high rubber boots. The man has shaggy hair, too, and a full beard, and when he smiles, which he does now, you can see his gnarly-looking teeth.

You’d think they’d be sick of dogs, but the man and woman both call a big hello to Josie. They know her name because it’s sewn right into her collar. They always have Milk-Bones in their pockets, and Josie knows it. She runs right up to the woman and sits. The woman laughs and gives her a treat.

I smile and call, “Thanks!” But I keep on pedaling, because I know from experience how wild their dogs are when they hit the trail. Sure enough, the pack is racing everywhere, barking and wrestling with one another and with Josie. The noise is deafening. Some of them follow Josie and me for a while, completely ignoring the Dog People, who are both calling, “Popeye! Lulu! Jasper! Simone! Come!”

Finally, the dogs give up and go back, and I ride along, wondering as I always do why anybody would want to own so many dogs. That reminds me of Campion’s strange comment that her alien parents “like dogs,” and I smile. She should meet these people!

At home, I raid the kitchen, bathroom, and my
closet. Everything fits into the big backpack Dad gave me last Christmas, along with a tent and sleeping bag, for a camping trip that never happened.

Then I remember something Cam said to me just before I left her.

“Do you think you could get some Tootsie Rolls?”

“Tootsie Rolls?” I’d repeated.

She’d smiled and said that, as far as she was concerned, Tootsie Rolls were the single best thing about Earth.

So I take some of my allowance money, too, and before Josie and I begin our third trip down the trail, we stop at the gas station and convenience store on the corner near the trailhead. I take off the pack and set it on the ground by my bike.

Josie comes inside with me, even though there’s a law that says dogs can’t go into food stores. Mr. Powers, the old guy who owns the store, doesn’t care about rules like that. I’ve gotten to know him a little bit. He sits in the store listening to his police scanner all day, and seems glad to see Josie and me when we stop in to get snacks and drinks.

Josie runs right up to the counter and sits, looking at him expectantly, since he always gives her a Slim Jim. Today Mr. Powers is talking to another customer, so I hang back, and Josie waits politely.

Over the blare of the police scanner, I hear the customer say, “… seen a kid? A girl, kinda skinny, light brown hair, green eyes?”

I jerk to attention when I hear this. Who else could he be talking about but Cam?

Mr. Powers seems to be considering the question, and after a few seconds the guy adds impatiently, “Might have had a cut on her head. Could have been acting funny, saying crazy things.”

Slowly, Mr. Powers looks the man up and down before answering. I check him out, too. From behind, where I’m standing, I can see he’s strong and solid. He’s wearing black jeans, black boots, and a shirt with the sleeves cut off. It stretches tightly over the bunchy-looking muscles of his back. His neck is so thick it comes straight down from his shaved, sunburned head. A key ring hanging from his belt catches my eye. Dangling from it, along with a bunch of keys, is a shiny metal skull with red jeweled eyes.

Who is this guy and why is he looking for Cam? He’s so creepy I don’t even consider telling him anything.

“Can’t say as I’ve seen anybody like that,” Mr. Powers answers at last.

The man lets out a disgusted sigh and mutters a swear word under his breath. He turns to go and practically bumps into me. I back away, saying, “Sorry,” and our eyes lock for a second. He swats his arm in my direction, not hitting me, but as if I’m a pesky bug he’s shooing out of his way.

After he pushes through the door, I watch him out the window. He takes the keys from his belt and gets
into a car, where a woman is waiting. All I can see of her is her blond hair. The car is maroon and white, rusty, and patched with dull gray body filler. The black skin on the convertible top has ragged holes in it. The car looks spotty and diseased. When it takes off, a cloud of dust and exhaust hangs over the gravel parking lot.

I go up to the counter, where Mr. Powers is feeding Josie a Slim Jim.

“You’re a good old hound dog,” he says to her. The first day we came to the store Mr. Powers declared Josie a hound dog, and I’ve stopped trying to explain that she’s a pointer, not a hound. When I tried, he shook his finger in my face, lifted one of the long white eyebrows that look like two fuzzy caterpillars crawling over his saggy eyes, and said, “I raised bluetick hounds as a young man, sonny, and I know a hound dog when I see one. This here is a hound dog.”

I figure if he wants to think Josie is a hound dog it’s okay with me. He’s always nice to her, and to me, too, even if he is a little strange.

Mr. Powers turns the scanner down a bit. “You know that fella?” he asks as he reaches into the jar of jawbreakers, selects one, and rolls it across the counter to me.

I shrug. “No.”

“You seen the girl he was asking about?”

“No,” I say quickly, startled that he’d asked me.

Mr. Powers’s blue eyes penetrate mine. “Sure about that?” he asks.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I say, trying to sound firm. Then, “Why?”