Zero Tolerance Meets the Alien Death Ray and Other (Mostly) Inappropriate Stories (2 page)

"Alien death ray," he said.

I checked his face to see if he was kidding.
It was hard to tell. "Do you mean it's a ray that aliens use to
kill people, or is it a ray that kills aliens?"

He shrugged. "Not sure. The guy who sold it
to me wasn't very clear. But I liked the looks of it, and the price
was right, so I bought it. Do you want it?"

"For real?"

"Yup."

"For keeps?"

"Definitely. It's all yours."

"Awesome!" I grabbed the tube and took a
close look. It fit nicely in my hand, though it was heavier than
I'd expected. It was solid at one end, and hollow at the other,
with a single clear glass button near the solid end. I pointed the
tube out the window and pushed the button. Nothing happened.

"Maybe it needs batteries," I said.

"Maybe it only shoots aliens," he said. "Or
maybe only aliens can shoot it."

"Either way, thanks."

"Sure. That's what uncles are for."

I took the alien death ray with me to school
the next day. I showed it to my friend, Veejay, as soon as I got to
class.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Alien death ray," I told him.

Before he could say another word, a hand
swooped down over my shoulder and snatched the tube away. "Young
man, you are in a lot of trouble," my teacher, Mrs. Peswitch, said.
"You know we have a zero-tolerance policy about weapons."

"But..." I tried to protest that it wasn't a
real weapon, but she yanked my arm hard enough to pull me off my
feet, and dragged me down the hall. The whole time, she kept
muttering about all the "young, violent hooligans who were wrecking
the school."

The next thing I knew, I was in Principal
Mabler's office. "This is very serious," he said. "Bringing a
weapon to school. I'm shocked."

"It's not real," I said.

"That doesn't matter. We have a zero
tolerance policy. It doesn't matter if it is a toy, or even a
drawing of a weapon. Any weapon gets you a five day suspension. I'm
sure your parents will agree that this has to be done. It's the
only way to keep us safe."

He reached for the phone.

"Please..." I'd never been in any kind of
big trouble. This was so bad, I could feel my knees trembling. Then
my whole body started to tremble.

"I'm sorry. No exceptions. Not even —"

Whatever he said next was drowned out by the
roar. It was like twenty fighter jets flew overhead at once. Then
the roar grew louder. The whole room shook. Books bounced off the
shelf behind Principal Mabler, and his diploma fell off the
wall.

I raced to the window. A space ship, round
and huge and filled with flashing lights, landed in the front of
the school. As I stared, the hatch opened, and a whole bunch of
creatures raced out. They were big — maybe six or seven feet tall.
They had enormous heads with four eyes. They had four arms, each
carrying something that I figured had to be a weapon.

Principal Mabler opened his mouth, but all
that came out was a gasp as his eyes rolled back and he passed out.
He flopped to the floor. Luckily, he had a thick rug in his
office.

I grabbed the alien death ray from the desk
and raced back to the window. I aimed the ray at the largest alien
and pressed the button.

I hope this works.

It sure did. I nearly got knocked on my butt
as a searing beam of energy shot from the tube. The alien sizzled
for an instant, like a burger that had just been dropped on a
red-hot grill, then vanished in a puff of green smoke.

I stared shooting the rest of them. Luckily,
I'd played enough video games, and watched enough cartoons, to know
what sort of stance to use with this kind of weapon. I cleared out
all the aliens I could see. But some of them had broken into the
school. I ran out of the office, and hunted down at the rest of
them.

When I was sure I'd gotten all of the
aliens, I returned to the office. There was one last alien in
there. He was holding the principal from behind, and had some sort
of gun pointed at his head.

"Help me," Principal Mabler said.

"Zero tolerance?" I asked. "No
exceptions?"

"That would be silly," he said. "There are
always exceptions."

I fried the last alien, and then put the ray
in my pocket. I headed toward the door so I could get back to my
classroom before the morning announcements. But I turned back an
instant later. "Can I have a late pass?" I asked. "Mrs. Peswitch
loves to give out detention."

"Well, according to the rules, tardiness
based on disciplinary actions isn't excusable." Principal Mabler
said.

"So I'm going to get a detention?" I
asked.

"I'm afraid so."

"Oh no! Aliens!" I pointed out the
window.

Principal Mabler let out a squeal and dove
to the floor. Then he crawled to the window and peeked over the
sill. "What! Where!"

"My mistake," I said. "I could have sworn it
was more aliens. It must have been a cloud or a duck or something.
So, anyhow, about that late pass?"

"No problem." He got off the floor, grabbed
his pad, and started writing.

"Thanks." I took the pass and headed back to
homeroom. I thought about running down the hall, but I knew that
was against the rules. And some rules actually made sense.

I'm scared. Before today, I was still able
to convince myself that it was just a silly idea. But when my
sister came home from school, I realized that none of it was my
imagination — it was real. Leslie started band this morning. I
prayed she'd want to learn flute or clarinet. Lots of girls play
flute. I wouldn't even have minded if she'd brought home a French
horn or an oboe.

Leslie came home with a saxophone.

That's when I knew for sure. Look at all the
evidence. Last month, my dad quit the law firm where he worked and
took a new job at the power plant. He's gained a lot of weight, too
— a whole lot of weight. All day long, he eats donuts and drinks
beer. He doesn't help me with my homework anymore. Yesterday, he
tried to choke me. Luckily, he got distracted by a commercial for
fudge.

Mom changed her hair. She's got it piled up
on top of her head. It's a funny color, too. My baby sister,
Mandie, decided she wouldn't go anywhere without a pacifier.

There's no doubt about it. I'm sure now. My
family is turning into the Simpsons.

When the thought first occurred to me, I'd
laughed. We're real people. We aren't cartoons. So what if Humbert
— I mean Dad — had a new job? And lots of moms change their
hairstyle.

That was only the beginning. Next thing I
know, I have two new aunts. I never had aunts before. Suddenly,
these two strange women who look like Mom start dropping by. The
worst part is that they both smoke. Pew.

Then Leslie started getting smarter and
smarter. She's my younger sister. I've always been the smarter one.
But for the last few weeks, it's seemed that she knows a lot more
than I do. Now, she plays the saxophone. And she wants me to call
her "Lisa."

She took the saxophone right up to her room.
Even though she just got it today, she's already playing music. And
not beginner stuff like "Three Blind Mice." She's playing jazz.

I don't want to be Bart. I want to be me —
Bert Stinson. Maybe it's not too late. Maybe there's something I
can do to stop it before the change is complete. That's why I'm
trying to write down everything I can remember since the changes
began.

Darn. I keep dropping my pencil. My fingers
are so short and stubby. Wait a minute. Didn't I use to have five
fingers on each hand? It's so hard to remember. Hey — why am I
writing this? No idea. Weird stuff. I just read it and it makes no
sense. Well, it's nothing to have a cow over. Think I'll grab my
skateboard and head out.

Later, dude...

My dad likes to say there are two things
people should never see being made: laws and sausages. I guess that
means it can get pretty ugly when people are making laws, like in
Congress or at the school board. Dad took me to a school board
meeting once, when they were fighting about whether to keep a
certain book in the library. Let me tell you — it got pretty ugly.
These parents who had never even read the book were shouting about
how bad it was because it had a word in it that I hear on the
school bus all the time. Heck, I've heard a lot of parents use that
word, too.

But this isn't about laws. See, most of the
time when Dad shares that quote, it's right before we eat sausages.
That got me thinking. What do they put in those things? With a
whole piece of meat like a steak or spare ribs, I know exactly what
it was before it got sliced up and wrapped in plastic. Even with
hamburger, you can sort of see that it started out as meat. But
sausages? Who knows. I guess it doesn't matter. Whatever is in
there, they taste good — that's for sure.

I didn't think I'd ever get a chance to find
out. But then our class took a field trip to the Wexler Museum of
Traditional Arts and Crafts. Yawn. Huge yawn. Arty-crafty yawn.
When I got off the bus, I noticed that the Wexler Museum was right
next door to Philo's Phantastic Sausages.

Bingo. Or maybe I should say,
how
phortunate
.

I ducked out of the line when we went into
the museum. That was easy to do because we were with Mr. Exmire and
Ms. Grunbalther, and they were always flirting with each other.
Which reminds me of a third thing nobody should ever see being made
— Exmire and Grunbalther making meaningful glances at each other.
Retch.

So while these two fine adults educators
were leading my eager classmates into a hall filled with painted
crockery, ceramic tea pots, and fascinating textiles, I ducked
around the other side of the bus and slunk off toward Philo's
Phantastic Sausages in search of wisdom and enlightenment.

Philo's was in an old two-story building
made of red bricks. There weren't any windows. I walked around back
and spotted a couple of those big metal doors where they load
trucks. But they were shut. I found another door in front. I've
learned that it's not hard to walk into any place if I pretend I
belong there. I figured that if I ran into anyone, I'd just say,
"Got a message for Dad," and keep walking.

Luck was with me. When I went in, there
wasn't anybody up front. I guess there aren't a lot of people who'd
stroll in and buy a ton of sausage, so they didn't need a
receptionist. The area was pretty small, but there was a door at
the back of the room. It led to a hallway that ended at a flight of
stairs. I climbed up the stairs, pushed open the door at the top,
and stepped onto a small metal walkway high above the factory
floor.

Cold air washed over me and I shivered.

Below me, a half dozen workers dressed in
white butcher's coats were unloading large bins with shovels and
tossing the contents onto a conveyor belt.

What I saw made my stomach lurch like it
wanted to leap out of my body. Who would have believed it? They
were shoveling the worst stuff imaginable out of the bins. This was
truly gross. The belt was loaded with broccoli, cauliflower,
asparagus, and Brussels sprouts. Cabbages and lettuce rolled off
the shovels, along with eggplants and artichokes.

"No way..." I whispered. This couldn't be
the whole process. I knew there was more to sausages than a bunch
of vegetables. I couldn't imagine any possible way that vegetables
could be made to taste that good. The catwalk ran all the way
around the room to a door on the opposite wall. I had to see where
the conveyor went.

I stepped into the next room. The belt
stopped just a few feet past the entrance. It delivered its load of
vegetables into the wide-open mouth of a huge creature. The animal
— if that's what it was — filled the length of the room. It was
lying on the floor like a giant worm, with a gaping mouth at one
end. From its sides drooped dozens of short legs that looked almost
like flippers. It had no eyes.

It swallowed all that the conveyor belt
could offer. The sound of its chewing was louder than the crash of
waves during a tropical storm, and definitely as wet. I watched as
the creature ate and swelled, until it's bloated body rose to just
below the height of the catwalk, reaching a beam that ran across
the room beneath my feet. A large, red switch jutted from below the
center of the beam. I held my breath as the taught gray flesh
pressed against the button.

A bell rang. I could barely hear it above
the chomping. Dozens of workers, dressed in white butcher's coats,
rushed into the room. Each one carried a long metal tube. One end
of the tubes was pointed. Clear, floppy tendrils trailed from the
other end. I realized the tendrils were sausage casings.

A second bell rang. All at once, like
sailors harpooning a whale, the men thrust their tubes deep into
the body of the creature. I suspect it might not even have noticed.
It certainly didn't care enough to stop chewing. At each wound,
something rushed out from within, filling the casings. In a moment,
the men had harvested their sausages, and the creature had shrunk
down to a size which, though still huge, was no longer swollen to
the bursting point.

I'd seen enough. More than enough. My mind
tried to chew what I'd just witnessed, but couldn't seem to swallow
it. I went back to the stairs and raced out of the building. The
class was just returning to the bus. As I blended in with the crowd
and took my seat, I envied them their afternoon spent viewing arts
and crafts that wouldn't haunt their dreams.

That night, my mother made sausages for
dinner. I stared at my plate. There it lay, amidst the potatoes and
onions and peppers — a large, meaty sausage, stuffed to bursting
inside it's transparent wrapper. I closed my eyes and vowed that I
would never eat it. A meaty aroma tickled my nose. In my mind, I
saw the factory again, with that creature eating endlessly. I heard
the sound of it chewing and saw the men thrusting their tubes into
its swollen sides.