My Cousin, the Alien (2 page)

“Hey, it’s been two years since Ethan lived here. He’s probably outgrown that phase.” I hated sounding like my mom, but crazy Ethan was family. He was Ethan Gaither and I was Zackary Gaither. I couldn’t let anyone outside family get away with calling him crazy.

Ken made little beepy noises, wiggled his fingers on top of his head like antennae, and strolled away.

Grimly I watched. This could destroy what was left of my school year. Of course kids who were new at the school wouldn’t remember how Ethan had gone around saying that my Aunt Marsha and Uncle Paul weren’t his real parents but were just raising him—an alien abandoned on Earth as a baby. Nothing anyone did could make him admit he was just making it up.

But newcomers also wouldn’t remember that when kids used to tease or bully Ethan too much, I’d beat them up. I’m big for my age, and family honor demanded it. Now I might have to prove that to a whole new crop of kids. I never wanted to be the most popular kid in school, but I’d rather not be known as the short-tempered guy with the crazed cousin.

Well, at least this school year only had a couple more months to go. And anyway, Ethan would be in the grade behind me. Besides, Mom might be right. Maybe he’d outgrown that phase. Maybe he thought he was a Tyrannosaurus rex now.

For the next few weeks, I tried not to think about Ethan. It wasn’t easy. Word got around, and people were teasing me already. By the time my uncle, aunt, and cousin did arrive, I would have
preferred
a T. rex.

Uncle Paul’s company had bought them a big expensive house and paid for all their stuff to be moved. They spent several days settling in, then came over to our house for dinner. I tried to say I was spending the night at Ken’s—or anybody’s—but it didn’t work.

A car door slammed outside, and moments later, Uncle Paul burst through our door in his typical bull-like style. He laughed and, with one beefy hand, slapped my skinny dad on the back, nearly knocking him over. “Well, here I am, Big Brother, back in your one-horse town. Let me tell you, the company had to promise a hefty raise plus big benefits to lure me back. But I’m worth it, so here I am!”

Before my dad or mom could get a word out, Aunt Marsha fluttered in, wafting her usual cloud of perfume. “Alice, dear, still wearing those colors? Well, I guess one should wear what one likes, whatever the fashion. Still, I do somehow manage both, don’t you think? Take this outfit. Isn’t it scrumptious?”

She swirled around, looking as always like an escapee from a flashy fashion magazine. I wondered briefly what my aunt really looked like under her extravagant makeup. I think her natural hair color is black, but at the moment it was sort of red gold. The two then bustled my parents into the living room. At least I’d been spared the usual My-how-you’vegrown comment. But then, Aunt Marsha and Uncle Paul never noticed kids much.

Including their own. I looked down the front path, and there was Ethan walking up very slowly. He’d grown a little taller, I guess, but he was still pale and skinny.

“Hi,” he said, a shy smile flicking across the solemn face I remembered all too well. “If you don’t want to sit around listening to my parents brag, let’s go to your room.”

Once up there, he shoved some comic books off my desk chair, plopped down, and started spinning. That much hadn’t changed. Once he’d told me that seeing my posters for bands and movies spin by in colored swirls made him feel like he was traveling (again) through hyperspace. Right.

“So, how are things?” I asked when the spinning slowed. Pretty lame, but it was all I could think of.

“Okay, but I’m glad we’re back here. Big cities are scary.”

Right,
I thought.
Particularly if you try to tell tough big-city kids that you’re an alien.
Out loud I asked, “How was the school there?”

“Horrendous. After a while, my folks put me in a private school. Not much better, and I had to board there when both of them were out of town. Dad was sent to bunches of foreign places, and Mom went along. Not me, though.”

“Bummer.”

He nodded, his white-blond hair slipping over his eyes. “Yeah, but I’ve traveled across the galaxy. I suppose I don’t have to see Paris.”

My heart sank. “You’re still. . . telling people you’re an alien?”

He gave me a look like I was the stupidest thing on Earth. “No way. I was a little kid then. Didn’t have good sense.” His eyes flashed with intensity, and he hunched forward. “You know what my parents did? They sent me to a therapist.”

About time,
I thought, but kept quiet.

“The guy said I had ‘changeling syndrome. ‘ ” Ethan imitated a snooty adult voice. “ ‘A common malady of maladjusted children or ones from dysfunctional families where the child claims to be adopted and to not really belong to the natural parents. A classic cry for attention.’ ”

With a kick against my desk, Ethan sent the chair into an angry spin. “It’s that shrink who’s maladjusted! Anyone can see I don’t belong to my so-called parents. They’re tall and dark, and I’m small and light. And our personalities are totally different! They come on strong enough to knock over an elephant, and I like to just sit back and think. We’re not even interested in the same things.”

“Sure, but that doesn’t mean . . . ”

“Not by itself, maybe, but I
am
an alien. I’ve always known that. Or at least I have since that time with the cat.”

“The cat?”

“The fluffy yellow cat we saved from the Doberman.”

“Oh, right.” I vaguely remembered that when we were both pretty little, playing in my backyard, we’d saved a stray cat from a mean neighborhood dog. Afterward we’d both pretended the cat had talked to us. We’d played it was a secret space alien.

“But that was just a game,” I protested.

“Wasn’t! I’d already figured out that since I was so different from my parents, I was probably adopted. The cat just confirmed that. Do you remember what it said?”

“We
pretended
it said ‘Thanks’ and some other stuff.”

“It said, ‘Thanks. I’m sent to check on you, and you end up saving me.’ We both heard it.”

“We both pretended we did. I was busy slamming the gate on that dog.”

“And I was holding the cat.” Ethan smiled triumphantly. “That’s when I felt it had wings tucked under its fur.”

“What?”

“I didn’t say anything then, but I thought about it lots and realized it must have been an alien. Then suddenly that explained everything. I’d never felt like I belonged because I was an alien too! And anyway, the pendant confirms it. I was wearing it that day, so maybe that’s how the cat knew me.”

I groaned as he tugged at the chain around his neck. His stupid pendant was a shimmery holographic disk dotted with silvery bumps and one multi-colored crystal. Actually, it
was
cool looking, but not necessarily alien.

“I’ve had this as long as I can remember. It must have been given to me by my alien parents when they left me with these people.”

“But,” I pointed out, “your mother said it’s just a trinket that caught your eye somewhere when you were a baby.”

“Of course, they’d say that. They don’t want anyone to know the truth. That used to make me mad, but now I’ve figured out that they’re right.”

“You mean you don’t . . . ”

He gave me that look again. “They need to hide the fact that I’m an alien. That’s why I’m here, see? I’m being hidden. Maybe from other aliens. Bad aliens. Maybe I’m a prince of one interstellar empire being hidden from a rival empire. That’s why it was stupid of me to go around telling people I’m an alien. So now I’m keeping it a secret within my adopted family.”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s smart, I guess.”

And there it was, I realized. He was working his spell on me again. Ethan sounded and looked so sincere when he said that stuff, he could almost make me believe it too. He’d always been good at imagination games. We’d play time-traveling dinosaur hunters or swashbuckling pirates, and I’d get totally swept up in it. Even when his teachers gave him poor grades, they always marked that he had “a fertile imagination.”

When I was littler, I’d thought it was cool having a maybe-alien cousin. That’s before he started school too, and I had to put up with the other kids’ reactions. Well, he could believe whatever he wanted, as long as he kept quiet about it. Maybe I wouldn’t have to bloody so many noses defending him this year.

That Monday, I felt almost relaxed about Ethan starting school, even when he strode through the noisy cafeteria heading for the table where I was eating lunch with Ken and Sean. Sean was new to our school, but Ken was already snickering. I shot him a squelching look.

Ethan plunked his tray beside mine and slid onto the bench. I wanted to tell him to eat with his own grade, but I knew he hadn’t had a chance yet to make new friends, and he certainly wouldn’t have any among those kids who’d known him before. So I introduced him, keeping a stern eye on Ken. We ate, talked, and traded various bits of unwanted food. I swapped my soggy taco for Sean’s cheese sandwich. I like cheese.

But just before the bell, William Smothers swaggered up, a big smirk on his freckled face. This kid might look like your typical jolly redhead, but he’s one of the nastiest bullies in creation.

“Well, if it isn’t that little twerp from outer space. Been off visiting the mother ship, have you? Still pushing that crazy stuff about being an alien?”

I scowled, readying my fist under the table. Ethan threw William a quick, cold smile. “You’re the crazy one. If I
was
an alien and you were that rude to me, I’d zap you with my disintegrator ray. But I haven’t, see? So how could I be an alien?”

Ethan raised both hands—innocently empty. William glowered at him and then at me. I raised my hands too, one in a fist.

At that point, I decided, quite wrongly, that this year wouldn’t be so bad after all.

For the next several weeks, a few more kids hassled Ethan about the alien thing, but he just turned it around, like
they
were the crazy ones. He even began making friends in his own grade and ate lunch with them. I finally decided that family honor was safe, and I could get on with my life. I wasn’t even too put out when at dinner one night Mom announced, while passing the vegetables, that Aunt Marsha had called, and Ethan would be spending Saturday with us.

My mom’s usually calm about stuff, and so is my dad—most of the time. In fact, people say I’m a rather calm kid too. So that’s one way we three are alike, as well as all of us having brown hair, muddy brown eyes, and a deep love for cheese in all its forms.

But Mom’s announcement set my dad off. “Watch out, Alice, they’ll be starting that again!”

“Starting what, dear?” my mom said, spooning out broccoli and passing me her special cheese sauce.

Dad drummed his fingers on the table. “Sending Ethan over to our place all the time. You’d think people with that much money could afford a babysitter! But Paul and Marsha figure they can impose on us because we’re family.”

“They aren’t imposing,” Mom answered. “And anyway, we
are
family.”

“Well, if they spent a little more time with their own kid, maybe he wouldn’t be so . . . ” His voice trailed off as he glanced at me. His grumble dropped a notch. “Anyway, of course Ethan can come over—if it’s all right with Zack. He’s the one who’ll have to put up with the kid.”

I smiled weakly around my broccoli. “Sure, we can find stuff to do.” Chewing, I wondered if we could do normal stuff or if he’d be on that alien kick again. Well, I’d treat it as a game, and maybe someday he would too.

When Ethan arrived Saturday morning, I was in the garden halfheartedly weeding radishes. I figured weeds had as much right to live as radishes did, but Mom didn’t see it that way.

Ethan stalked into our backyard with a high-magnitude scowl and began griping. “You’d think those human parents of mine would be honored that they’re raising an alien prince. You’d think they’d respect the ways I’m different. But you know what they’ve done? They’ve hired a tutor so that I can waste every afternoon studying stuff I can’t learn.”

Ethan’s grades had always been mixed, with lots of bad in that mix. In fact, if he hadn’t been teased for being the school wacko, he might have been teased for being the school dunce. So for the sake of family honor, a tutor might be a good idea, though saying that to him wouldn’t exactly be diplomatic.