Bug Eyed Monsters

One       A Staffroom Full of Aliens

Two      Asking About Aliens

Three   Red Eye

Four     Blop

Five      Not a Normal Human

Six        Close Encounter

Seven    If Not… Then Who?

Eight     Mr Smith Gets His Chips

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‘Pass it on… Mr Snitcher isn't human!'

‘Pst! Mr Snitcher isn't human!'

‘Mr Snitcher… he's not human!'

Nobody ever knew where the rumour first came from. Harry heard it from his best friend, Joe Fredericks. Joe heard it from Andy Bicknell, standing in the lunch queue. Andy got it from his cousin, who got it from a boy in Year 7, who got it from his brother, who was in Year 8. Andy didn't say where the brother got it from. Not that it mattered. It was the second week of term, and people were ready for a good story.

‘Hear about the Snitch? He's not human!'

It wasn't the first time there had been rumours of extra-terrestrials at St Bede's. Back in Year 4, when Harry had just started, Joe had solemnly informed him that there were aliens on the teaching staff.

‘Dunno who, exactly, but we reckon there could be a whole nest of ‘em.'

Looking at the teachers, Harry had been quite prepared to believe it. What a bunch! Any single one of them could have come from another planet.

There was Mr Bulstrode, the science teacher, who spat when he got excited. Splattered huge distances, right from the front of the lab to the back. Baljit Singh had once taken an umbrella in with him.

‘Don't want to get wet, sir!'

Mr Bulstrode had stared up at the ceiling in surprise.

‘Have we sssprung a leak, then?'

Baljit said, ‘No, sir,' (dodging spit), ‘it's just a precaution, sir.'

‘Strange boy,' mused Mr Bulstrode.

He thought
Bal
was strange? How about Mrs Jellaby, the art mistress, otherwise known as Mrs Jellybaby? Mrs Jellybaby
looked
like a jellybaby. She was immensely round, and soft, and squishy, and so strung about with great ropes of beads and bangles that when she went shopping she had to use the supermarket trolley to take some of the weight.

Fact! She had been seen, walking the aisles of the local Tesco, with her great jangling necklaces resting on top of a bunch of toilet rolls.

‘Reckon she'd have overbalanced, otherwise!'

Then there was Mr O'Hooligan, the PE teacher, who slept upside down every night, hanging off his bedroom door like a bat.

Also fact. Piers Allan, in Year 7, swore to it. Piers had actually been climbing up the drainpipe at the time, trying to sneak back into his dorm before anyone discovered he was missing, and had just happened to stop
on the way and peer in at Mr O'Hooligan's window.

‘Upside down, he was, like a bat!'

And how about Mr McNutter, the woodwork teacher, who stuck pencils in his ear and then forgot about them? Or Monsieur Tittinbot, who taught French and had a glass eye, which sometimes fell out when he grew agitated? Once when it fell out it had rolled across the floor, and Monsieur Tittinbot had screamed at the boys not to trample on it.

‘Attention, attention!
Beware of the eye!'

Even the Head, Dr Dredge, a long thin man like a length of rubber tubing, was not above suspicion. Dr Dredge was so very long, and so very bendy, that he was able to twist his arms and legs into strange knots, all tangled up together, so that he looked as if he were made of elastic.

Furthermore, he could bend his thumbs back until they touched his wrists. He did this frequently, sitting there in morning assembly, in front of the whole school,
bending his thumbs and twisting his legs, winding them round like strings of spaghetti.

What normal human being could do that?

Joe had a theory – Joe had theories about everything – that the entire staff was probably made up of extra-terrestrials, with Dr Dredge at the head.

‘He'll be the mastermind… the one behind it all. World domination,' said Joe, darkly. ‘That's what they're after.'

Rumours came, and rumours went. As one died down, another started up.

The next one, Harry remembered, had been about Mr Potts.

‘Hey! Guess what?'

Poor old Pudgy Potts had been abducted by aliens! They had come, and they had taken him.

Without a shadow of a doubt, Mr Potts had disappeared. There one day, gone the next. The official explanation was a nervous breakdown.

‘Caused, I do not doubt,' spat Mr Bulstrode, ‘by the loutish behaviour of some of you boys. Baljit Ssssingh, why are you holding a book over your head?'

‘Just taking cover, sir,' said Bal. ‘Sir, are you absolutely certain, sir, that Mr Potts has had a breakdown?'

‘What elsssse,' hissed Mr Bulstrode, ‘would you ssssuggest?'

‘We thought he might have been abducted by aliens, sir.'

‘A likely tale!' scoffed Mr Bulstrode.

Well, it wasn't very likely, of course. No one really took it seriously.

Still, it was funny how the rumours persisted. Aliens on the staff – teachers being abducted – Mr Snitcher not being human.

‘Word! The Snitch ain't human!'

Rumours didn't come from nowhere.

Joe still reckoned that Mr Snitcher wasn't the only one. ‘I reckon there's hordes of ‘em!'

The others weren't so sure. It was a nice idea, but… why choose St Bede's?

‘Seems to me,' said Joe, ‘a school's exactly what they would choose. Plant a few aliens in with the teachers, who'd know the difference?'

‘Should have thought they'd go for somewhere a bit more important,' said Bal. Bal had a bit of a tendency to argue. ‘Like the Houses of Parliament, or somewhere.'

‘Parliament's probably already full of ‘em,' said Joe. ‘Whole country's probably overrun by now.'

It was only a game, of course. They all accepted that; even Joe. Nobody really believed the country was overrun by aliens. The Houses of Parliament, maybe; but the whole country? That was felt to be pushing it.

On the other hand, Mr Snitcher not being human… well! That was a different matter. That really might be true. As Ryan said, he certainly didn't look human. What he looked like, more than anything, was an alien trying to blend in and not quite succeeding.

What human being ever had a body that was so thin and twiglike? So covered in knobbly bits? With a face that was so froglike, and eyes that were so bulgy?

‘Bug eyes,' said Joe. ‘Sure sign.'

As for his ears…! They flapped on either side of his head like giant pancakes in the breeze. Sometimes, when he was taking class, he would pull one of his ears forward so that it almost wrapped round his cheek.

‘Antennae,' said Joe, tapping the side of his nose. ‘Needs ‘em for picking up extra-terrestrial signals.'

But then there was his name: Snitcher. Would an alien really choose a name like that?

Joe, as always, had a theory. He said it was precisely the sort of name an alien
would
choose.

‘Obviously he liked the sound of it… obviously appeals to an alien ear.'

They considered it, the four of them, as they lay in bed in the dormitory after lights out.

‘You don't reckon,' said Bal, at last, ‘that he'd go for something a bit more ordinary, like Smith or something?'

‘Nah!' Joe dismissed the suggestion with an airy wave of the hand. ‘Dead give-away. Anyone calls themselves Smith, you know at once it's not their real name.'

There was a silence.

‘My auntie's called Smith,' said Ryan.

‘Yeah?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Your auntie an alien?'

Carefully, Ryan said, ‘I don't think so.'

‘There you are, then.' Joe lay down, with a satisfied thump. ‘That proves it!'

No one was quite certain exactly what it was that had been proved, but you didn't argue with Joe. He had an answer for everything.

‘Guess we could always try asking the Fish,' said Harry.

‘Ask the Fish? What for?' Joe shot back up again, immediately suspicious. Was Harry daring to question him? ‘I already
told you, Smith's what people choose when they want an alias.'

‘Alien alias,' said Bal. He chortled. ‘Hey, that's really difficult to say! Alie
nay
lias. Ali– '

‘Do you mind?' said Joe.

‘I was just saying! Alie
nay
lias. Ali– '

‘Thought we could pick his brains,' said Harry.

‘About what?'

‘About how you might recognise one. An alien, that is.'

The Fish would know, if anyone did. He was acknowledged to be an expert on extra-terrestrials. Anything to do with alien life forms. Space ships, unidentified flying objects, inter-galactic missiles.

Last year, when poor old Pudgy had disappeared, the Fish had even made the headlines in the local paper, the Uxenholme Times:

 

UFO OVER
UXENHOLME

 

Last night, whilst the good folk of Uxenholme lay asleep in their beds, an alien spaceship landed at the top of Bunkers Hill.

That, at any rate, is the claim made by Mr Clarence Trout, 45, maths teacher at St Bede's prep school.

‘I was out taking a late night stroll,' says Mr Trout (affectionately known to his boys as Fish), ‘when I saw this strange light appear in the sky. It was bright green, and quite blinding.

‘After a while, I became aware that some kind of craft had landed. I couldn't make out the shape of it, but I distinctly saw a curtain of light dissolve to give access to the interior of the ship. As I watched, I beheld one figure go in, and another figure come out.

‘Whether the figure that went in was human or alien, man or woman, whether it was abducted or went of its own free will, I am unable to say. I only report what I saw - and what I saw was very clear.'

The good Mr Trout can offer no explanation, but as a long-time believer in the existence of visitors from outer space he is not particularly surprised. When asked, ‘Why Uxenholme?' his reply is short and to the point: ‘Why not?'

All we can say is, why not, indeed! We look forward to future visitations.

That was when the rumour had started about Mr Potts having been abducted. Dr Dredge had not been pleased. Indeed, he had been heard to complain that the school had been made a laughing stock. The Fish was certainly a laughing stock, especially in the staff room.

‘Poor old Trout and his little green men!'

‘Dunno why we need his help,' said Joe, jealously. You only had to look at Mr Snitcher to see he wasn't human. Why bring a teacher into it?

‘No, Harry's right, let's ask the Fish!' Ryan sat up. ‘I just remembered – he's threatening a maths test tomorrow!'

‘Ah…'

A quivering sigh ran round the dorm. Anything rather than a maths test!