The Alien in the Garage and Other Stories (3 page)

“Why would you do that, anyway?” Justin asked.

“Huh?” Liam looked up from his Maths book.

“Have a bag full of counters.” Justin looked at his worksheet. He was two questions behind Liam. “Look…you've got this bag, with eight red counters in, four blue ones and eight green ones. And someone's gonna take two of ‘em out…I mean, why would you do that? What's it for?”

“Just Maths, innit?” Liam shrugged. “It's not real life.”

“Probability.” Justin returned to his work. “Weird.”

The two of them were lying sprawled out on the living room carpet, round at Liam's house. Liam's elder sister was upstairs, getting ready for a night out. From time to time, they heard the bang of the bathroom door, and the creak of floorboards as she moved about in her room above them. Otherwise, everything was peaceful.

“Wish I was better at Maths.” Justin had smudged the ink from his pen across his answers to questions 8 and 9. He rubbed at the smudge carelessly with his thumb. He looked at his friend. “Would you like to be good at Maths, Liam?”

“What d'you mean?” Liam looked insulted. “I
am
good at Maths! I come fourth in the Friday test –
every
week!”

“Naah.” Justin wrote number 11 in his book and drew a circle round it, slowly, thoughtfully. “I mean,
really
good at Maths. Like that…what's-her-name. Thingie. Off the telly.”

“Oh.” Liam was trying to do question 13 on the calculator on his mobile. “Dunno. I suppose being famous would be nice. You're famous if you're on TV.”

“I wouldn't mind being famous.” Justin scratched his nose with the end of his pen. “Have your photo in magazines. Get to wear all those really cool clothes.” He reached inside the collar of his baggy tracksuit top and had another scratch. “Go on those reality shows…”

“Reality TV?” Liam had given up on the calculation and was texting their friend Ben. “Going in the jungle? Eating earwigs? No thank you!”

“I wonder what earwigs taste like?” Justin reached out a hand and slid another chocolate digestive from the blue-rimmed plate that lay on the floor by them. He took half of the biscuit into his mouth with one bite. “Bet I could eat them.”

“You probably would an' all.” Liam sent his message and returned, reluctantly, to question 13.

There was a moment's silence, during which Justin finished his biscuit and reached for his can of cola. Liam had an empty orangeade can at his elbow.

“No,” Liam went on. “Don't bother with reality TV. Thing to do, if you're a lad and want to be famous. Be a professional footballer. Then you've got loads of cash. And everyone thinks you're cool.”

“Like Courtney.” Justin moved onto question 12.

“What?” Liam looked up from number 14.

“Courtney,” Justin repeated.

“Courtney!” Liam had a good go at sniggering and sneering at the same time.

“He's a good footballer,” Justin protested.

“You telling me he's your idea of a great footballer?” Liam scoffed. “Him from Oak Class? With that mad haircut, and football stickers all over his bag? The boy who landed our football on the roof? Him? He's not a footballer!”

There was a pause.

“Well, he beat you,” Justin said eventually.

“You
what
?” Liam spluttered.

“Well, your team.” Justin put his pen down. “Our team. When we played Oak Class. Five-a-side. Six-one, the score, wasn't it?”

“I always said Ben was rubbish in goal.” Liam suddenly seemed to be very busy on question 14. “I'm a brilliant centre forward. That Courtney…” He made a scornful sound.

After a moment, Justin returned also to Probability.

“What number are you on?” he asked.

“Fourteen,” Liam said shortly.

“I'm catching you up.” Justin grinned. “I'm on thirteen now.” He looked at the worksheet again and frowned. “How many cards in a pack?”

“Fifty-two.” Liam was having another go at the mobile's calculator. “Cloth-head.”

“There's only forty-seven in ours.” Justin took a swig from the cola can. “Like when my brother showed me how to play poker. I knew he was cheating when he said he'd got four Aces. We ain't
got
four Aces.”

He looked down at his book once more.

There was another silence.

“Kimberley's having a party,” Justin said finally.

Liam lost count on question 15 and looked up. “What?”

“Sophie told me,” Justin went on. “Next Saturday. You know, that place where they go to be…what d'you call it…pampered.”

“Eeughh.” Liam pulled a face.

“What they do is,” Justin explained, “they get ‘em all there, and they give ‘em a makeover. They do stuff to their eyes, and their lips, and put make-up on…all that stuff.” He was making signs to illustrate this, like cabin crew giving a safety talk. “And then, they put stuff on their nails, which is all sort of sparkly so they -”

“Have you been to this place?” Liam lost count again and his temper with it.

“No…” Justin answered.

“D'you want to?” Liam demanded.

“No…”

“
Well, shut up, then!
”

There was another silence, rather longer this time.

Then both of them returned quietly to their work.

Forty-seven seconds later, Liam said:

“Sorry.”

“No worries.” Justin had been down this road with Liam many times. He gave his friend a grin before returning to drawing a star around the figure 14 in his book

Another silence followed.

Justin stared at his worksheet for a moment, then looked at Liam.

“What've you got for fourteen?” he demanded. He leaned over to Liam's exercise book and prodded the page Liam was working on. “See, here, I got…”

“Hey!” Liam gave a cry as Justin's chubby finger appeared in the middle of number 14. “You twit! Look what you've done!”

As Justin's finger moved away, a smeary chocolaty smudge was left across Liam's calculations on several people tossing a coin.

“Look at that!” Liam spluttered. “How can I hand that in to Jenkins? Probability four over splodge!”

Justin rubbed his hands on his sleeves. “Sorry, mate.”

“Well, I'm not writing it out again!” Liam grabbed his pencil case from the rug.

There was another interval while he tried to repair the damage.

Finally, he said to Justin:

“Four over sixteen. Or a quarter.”

“Ta.” Justin wrote it in.

Another pause.

“I'm on nineteen now,” Liam said presently. “Just finished eighteen.”

“I'm still on sixteen,” Justin said. He pulled a face. “Ah, let's speed it up. What've you got? Sixteen to eighteen?”

“OK.” Liam read from his book. “Sixteen is three over four.”

“Three over four.” Justin wrote it quickly in his own book.

“Seventeen is eight,” Liam continued.

“Eight.” Justin scribbled it down.

“And eighteen is a carrot.”

“A carrot.” Justin had actually written the words in his book before he realised. He looked up to see Liam grinning broadly. “Oh, very funny.”

“Gotcha!” Liam crowed. He made the sign of someone chalking up one-all on a board.

He returned to number 19. Once again, there was a moment's silence.

“Why do they call it Heather Class?” Justin said.

“What?” Liam had reached 19 b).

“Well, heather's a bush,” said Justin. “I saw it on holiday. In Scotland. All the other classes are trees. Cedar, Oak, we're Juniper…”

“Teachers' names, innit?” Liam explained. “First letters. Cedar is Mrs Charles, Oak's Mr Oliver, we've got Jenkins…Heather's Mrs Hoyle…”

“And heather's a bush,” Justin insisted. “Isn't it?”

“Oh yeah.” Liam thought for a moment. “There's another H, Mrs Hoskins…Guess they ran out of trees starting with H.”

“Hmm.” Justin wrote the correct answer in.

Another pause.

“There we go!” Liam finished number 20, folded his worksheet and closed his book with a smirk. “Finished.”

“Aw!” Justin whined. “I'm still only on nineteen a)!”

“Your fault.” Smugly, Liam flipped himself over and lay on the carpet, stretching out his long legs. “Shouldn't have talked so much, should you? Take an example from your leader.”

He let Justin look fed up for just so long.

“Go on. Copy the others off me.”

“Oh, cheers!” Justin grabbed Liam's book and copied the last few answers. “There we go. Brilliant.”

They got up from the carpet.

“What shall we do now?” Liam asked. “TV?”

The two of them shoved their books into their bags and headed for the door.

“There's one thing,” Justin said, as they made for Liam's room. “No one can say we don't do our work.”

Dominic was crying again.

Amy stuck her fingers in her ears, trying in vain to block out the sound. Her brother was nearly two now. Shouldn't little kids be talking by that age? Burbling, anyway. Saying: “Mama!” or something. Not sitting there, screaming their heads off.

If Dad had been there, he could have kept Dominic quiet. Amy was sure of that.

She looked, as she often did, towards the family portrait on the wall. Mum had left it there so as not to upset her. The large framed photograph had been taken the Christmas before last. There they all were, Mum, holding a tiny Dominic proudly in her arms, then Amy herself, a little younger, then Dad, grinning for the camera, the proud father of two children.

Five months after that photograph had been taken, Dad had left. Amy only saw him at weekends now.

And four months after that, Louis had come on the scene.

Dominic's howls were getting louder, and Amy couldn't take it any more.

“Mum!” She had to bellow to be heard above the bawling toddler.

“What?” Mum yelled back, from the kitchen.

“Dominic's crying again!”

“I can't come now!” Mum's voice sounded distant. Where's she shouting from, Amy wondered? Like, France? “He's teething! You can take care of him, can't you, sweetheart? Be a love!”

Amy groaned to herself. Why was she always expected to be a love? No one else round here ever was.

She looked at Dominic. What was she meant to do? Go over and hug him? He had raspberry jam all round his mouth. And felt tip on his yellow jumper. And his chestnut brown hair was all over the place, just like…

Just like Dad's had been. First thing in the morning.

That was another reason why she didn't like Dominic.

She certainly wasn't doing any hugging. Pursing her lips, she turned back to the TV and tried to hear the latest episode of
Angst
.

It wasn't fair. She'd have homework to do later, and the one half-hour she had to watch her favourite soap before tea, Dominic had to ruin for her. It wasn't as if tea itself would be any good.

“She's eating all the wrong stuff,” Louis had said, in front of her, shortly after his arrival. And that had been the start of an endless round of salads, and tofu, and oily fish, and yoghurt.

She hadn't minded Mum joining a gym. She might not even have minded Mum finding a new boyfriend. But why had Mum had to bring the one home from the other?

If Amy ever fell in love, it was not going to be with a Fitness Instructor.

She couldn't hear this programme! She made a lunge for the coffee table, and seized the remote control.

It was a large, black, shiny remote control, with big buttons, some in different colours for the interactive functions. It controlled the widescreen TV, the video recorder and the DVD player.

“Integration,” Louis had said, on bringing a lot of this stuff into the house in the first place. “Everything in one. That's the way ahead.”

Of course, Louis knew everything.

Amy pressed the Volume control, trying to turn the TV up. Nothing was happening. Useless. Just like the guy who'd bought it. She pressed and pressed the little Plus symbol, but the sound stayed low. Oh!

She glared at Dominic. The TV would be quite loud enough, if he would just be quiet. It didn't really need turning up at all.

She wished she could turn him down instead.

Idly, she pretended to do just that, pointing the remote at her brother and pressing the Minus symbol on the Volume button.

A moment later, she almost dropped the remote in shock.

All at once, Dominic was quieter.

It couldn't be. It was just wishful thinking. She had wanted it to happen, and for a second, she had thought it had…

Almost in a trance, Amy raised the remote again, pointed it at the little boy, and pressed the Minus symbol again.

And a moment later, Dominic was silent.

He didn't seem bothered, but went on playing with the K, T and S bricks that were all that was left of his alphabet set.

Amy felt a sudden, wonderful surge of excitement.

She pressed the Plus. Dominic's voice rose again. She pressed Minus. Once more, he was silent.

She pointed the remote at the TV, pressed Plus, Minus and several of the channel controls. Nothing was happening there.

Did it work on other things, besides Dominic?

She had to find out.

“Amy!” Mum's voice came. Quickly, Amy raised the remote and pointed it towards the kitchen. She pressed Plus.

When the second “Amy!” came a moment later, it nearly deafened her. She pressed Minus.

“Amy?” Mum paused. She sounded taken aback by the volume of her own voice. “Your tea's ready!”

Amy pulled a face. But she was really excited now. She darted for the sofa, and hid the remote under a cushion, pushing it right to the back. She wasn't having Dominic get his little jammy hands on it. Or anyone, until she'd found out just what else it could do…

There were lots of possibilities…

Amy ran into the kitchen.

“Dominic all right?” Mum turned from the cooker. She had been to the hairdresser's that day, and had the blonde highlights put in. Louis liked her hair that way.

“Yeah,” Amy answered. She grinned brightly. “I quietened him down.”

Halfway through Amy's veggieburgers, Louis came home. Mum went out to greet him. Amy stayed in the kitchen, thinking about the remote.

There were all kinds of buttons on it. Suppose they all did different things?

She bolted the second half of the meal, and ran back to the living room.

Noooo!

Louis stood there, in his tracksuit and trainers, the remote in his hand.

His thin, sharp-featured face, with its stubbly goatee beard, wore a puzzled frown. He was stabbing the buttons on the remote with his finger, trying to change channels.

“It's not working,” was all he said to Amy.

Amy said nothing.

Louis tried his chosen button once more, then gave up.

“Must be the batteries.” To Amy's relief, he put the remote down on the coffee table. “I'll have to get some.”

Amy watched his tall, lean figure as he moved over to the TV and changed the children's channel to a sports one. She stood for a moment, looking at the back of his shaven head.

What did Mum see in him? Dad had been chubby, easy-going, good-natured. Louis was like a professional footballer, but without the money.

Having found the channel he wanted, Louis bent down and scooped up Dominic from the carpet.

“And how's my little fella?” Grinning, Louis enveloped the toddler in his sinewy arms. Dominic giggled. “Eh? Eh?”

His
little fella? Amy felt the veggieburgers coming back.

Holding Dominic firmly, Louis sat down in Dad's corner chair, the one with the best view of the TV. Still ignoring Amy, he spoke again to the toddler.

“Gonna watch the footie, aren't we? Eh?”

Amy sat on the sofa, her eyes flaming.

“Haven't you got homework?” Louis didn't look away from the screen as he asked Amy that question.

Oh, thought Amy. I am so going to get you.

Suddenly, she thought of the remote.

Very quietly, she reached out to the table and lifted it. Louis didn't notice. Very slowly, she turned it so that it pointed directly at him.

What should she press? There were so many buttons to try…

A smile spread slowly across her face. Moving her finger away from the TV controls, she reached instead for the video buttons. Her finger settled on the one with the symbol that always looked, to Amy, like a little house. The button for Eject…

With a yell, Louis seemed to take a flying leap out of his chair. He almost dropped Dominic, but managed to grab hold of him.

He looked round, wondered what on earth had happened. Amy bit her lip, desperately trying to hold back laughter. Louis had looked silly, and that was something he did not like.

“You all right?” Amy asked sweetly.

“Oh. Yeah…” Louis looked nonplussed, and Amy was going redder and redder. “Bit of cramp.” He put Dominic down carefully in the chair. “Happens, of course.” He rubbed his ankle thoughtfully.

“Too much exercise,” Amy suggested.

Louis ignored this.

“Think I'll go and have a hot bath.” He headed for the door.

Amy grinned. Her head was full of ideas now. Keeping the remote in her lap, she turned it towards Louis again as he moved across the room, and pressed Stop.

Louis froze. He didn't just stop walking. Everything about him stood still, arms, hands, face. He was like a statue.

Amy couldn't keep silent any more. She shrieked with laughter. She pressed Play. Louis started to move forward again. She pressed Stop. He skidded to a halt again, and almost fell, before freezing. Unable to resist, Amy pressed Play again. Louis toppled over and lay in a heap.

Amy buried her face in the cushion she had used earlier.

“Louis?” Mum came dashing in, much to Amy's disgust. “Louis? You all right, babe? What happened?”

“I fell.” Slightly shakily, Louis got up. “Think I'm OK. Touch of cramp.”

“Oh!” Mum put her arms round him and hugged him. Reluctantly, Amy decided not to risk being seen pressing any other button. “Come on, I'll run you a bath. Then I'll cook something for both of us…”

She turned coldly as Amy let another snigger slip out.

“Shouldn't you be doing homework?”

“Just going.” Amy got up, a smirk on her face. She was pleased to see Mum looking annoyed and puzzled. She reached for her schoolbag, which lay on the floor by the sofa. The remote control was still in her hand. Unseen by Mum, who was fussing over Louis, Amy slipped the remote quietly into her bag.

All that evening, Amy was buzzing at the thought of her new toy. There were so many things she could do…

She was expecting to be challenged at any minute, for Mum, or Louis, to ask where the remote was. But neither of them said anything to her about it.

It was still in her bag when she set off for school the next morning. Her excitement had kept her awake for some time, and as a result she had slept late and had to be woken by Mum. Most of Holly Class were already gathered in the playground by the time she arrived.

Amy looked for Jessica, her best friend, but Jessica was standing with some of the other girls, listening to Georgia. Georgia had a new coat on, with the usual designer label, and her hair looked fabulous. Nearby, Rachel was standing, a tubby figure in a much older coat, trying not to be seen.

Georgia had just said something, and all the girls were laughing – all except Rachel, who was looking at theground.

It wasn't fair, Amy thought. The way they picked on Rachel. Of course, everyone thought Georgia was great. Georgia's Dad was rich. Georgia had been to California for her holidays. When the TV crew had been to school, the teachers had chosen Georgia to talk to them about the class's environmental project. And Georgia had made it sound as though she had done the whole thing.

Narrowing her eyes, Amy started to open her schoolbag.

The bell rang.

“Come on now!” Mrs Hoskins had come out of the school building, looking hassled. “Into line! That means you, Elliott!”

The girls started to move into line.

Then, all at once, Georgia was no longer with them.

She was moving backwards.

And not walking, but running.

There were gasps, and then giggling, as Georgia, Head of Blue Team and Dance Club Champion, sped backwards towards the school gate.

“Georgia!” Mrs Hoskins bellowed. “Georgia! Come back here at once!”

The only answer was a scream from Georgia as she disappeared from view.

No one was looking at Amy. Quietly, she removed her finger from the Rewind button, and slipped the remote back into her bag.

Georgia was rather quieter than usual when she reappeared in school. As she entered the classroom for Communal Act of Worship, she avoided Mrs Hoskins' eye.

Afterwards, they did Maths. Amy was still thinking about Rachel. It wasn't fair that she should be picked on. It wasn't fair that Georgia was certainly the prettiest girl in the class.

If only Rachel could be that pretty. Amy looked at Rachel's mousy hair and pasty skin. Georgia's hair shone, and she had a lovely tan. If Rachel had a tan, she would look better…

Then Amy had an idea. Pretending to need a pencil sharpener, she reached down to her schoolbag for her pencil box, then, with a lightning movement, brought out the remote control as well and shoved it into the pocket of her cardigan. Now, with a little care, she could aim the remote at Rachel without it being seen.

Amy reached deeper into her pocket. The night before, in her room, she had really studied the remote, and she now knew where all the buttons were without looking. The button she wanted was for adjusting the Colour on the TV…

She pressed it. For a second, nothing seemed to happen to Rachel, and it looked as though her plan had failed. Then she blinked.

Rachel's skin was changing. Darkening. She already looked as though she had been on holiday for a week. A moment later, her tan was as good as Georgia's.

Amy let go of the button, and smiled to herself.

Her new toy was useful for helping people too.

No one remarked on Rachel's tan until break, when she suddenly found herself the centre of attention.

“That is
so
good!” Ignoring Georgia now, Jessica linked her left arm with Rachel's and offered the right arm to Amy. “You look wicked! Is it Body Lotion or real thing?”

“I…” Rachel seemed more surprised and pleased than anyone. “I didn't use anything. Must have just been in the sun.”

“Well, it's cool anyway,” Jessica said. “Isn't it, Amy?”

“You look great.” Amy smiled.

“Weird how we didn't see it this morning,” Jessica mused. She turned back to Rachel. “Are you coming to my party on Friday then?”