Authors: Carrie Ryan
I’d like to find out … but I’m also afraid to. After what happened to Dr. Hall, there’s a part of me that doesn’t really want to know.
And who would even believe me if I tried to tell them? I’m sure you’re reading this now, Radha, going, “Right. A spaceship.” And
you’re
my best friend.
Oh, who even cares. It’s midnight. Happy sixteenth birthday to me.
Look, I know you guys need to talk to me about what happened last night. But can we postpone this till a little later? I got a girl waiting for me, and she’s upset. You know how that is. So, if you could undo these handcuffs, that’d be great.
Wait, what did KC say? No, no, that’s not how it went down at all. Look, I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about my sister. I mean, she’s crazy, but, she’s crazy in a
good
way, you know?
Take this mole thing. Whenever anyone asks me about mine, I just say it’s part of a gang tattoo that never got completed because another gang interrupted while I was getting it done and everyone in both gangs got shot to death in a rain of chaotic gunfire … everyone but me, because I ducked in time. I’m the lone gang survivor. Sweet, right? Girls totally believe it.
But then my sister goes and ruins it by posting the truth about it on her blog. She never even considers what would happen if anyone (besides her best friend) ever read the stupid thing.
Which is exactly what happened to me last night, driving home from the lake. I get this text from my girlfriend, Amber: “You like boobs? Fine. Go look at Duncan’s mom’s. You’re never looking at mine again.”
I didn’t even know what she was talking about until I started looking at my other texts.
Everyone
had read KC’s blog, it turns out. Because Amber has a Google Alert on her name and the minute KC posted, Amber read her entry and
went nuts. Amber wouldn’t listen when I called and tried to tell her that I only looked at Duncan’s mom’s boobs that
one time
.
KC posting that thing on her blog is classic KC. She’s book smart—she gets great grades, and she’s read every book in our school library, even the ones that aren’t by James Patterson—but she’s not what you’d call
street
smart, like me. There’s a difference. KC doesn’t always think ahead. She saw that spaceship, and she wanted to go inside it. She didn’t think about what that spaceman might do to us. She blogged about me and the binoculars, but she didn’t think about how mad that might make Duncan.
But Duncan’s grabbing that baseball bat and showing up on our lawn to kill me as I pulled in the driveway on the way back from the lake? See now, that was overkill, in my opinion. Duncan’s the single reason we won the championship last year, and why we’re headed for another one this year, too. He’s in my same grade, but because his birthday is in August and his mom held him back from starting kindergarten a year because she was worried he’d be the smallest kid in class, he’s huge. I mean, he went from being the smallest kid in school to being the hugest guy in the county, practically.
So having a guy that big standing in your yard, holding a baseball bat—even if he’s your best friend—in the middle of the night, that’s pretty intimidating.
Which is why I texted KC to get downstairs and distract him somehow, and I didn’t get out of the car (that I know technically I’m not allowed to drive without an adult accompanying me in the vehicle but it was like one in the morning. So, am I going to get busted for driving without a license, too? No? Cool, thanks).
Anyway, I was like, “Duncan, it was only
one time
.”
Except of course it doesn’t matter how many times you check out a guy’s mom in her bikini with binoculars. Once is all it takes to get a guy really, really mad.
So it was a good thing I’m so street smart and didn’t get out of the car. Because Duncan wasn’t ready to listen, you know? He wouldn’t even let me talk. He just raised up that bat and was like, “Get ready to die, Conrad,” and started to swing.
I was sure the next thing I was going to feel was shards of Mom’s windshield and the Duncan’s Louisville Exogrip embedded in my head. Though mainly I was worried about Mom’s windshield, because then she’d totally know I’d taken her car out for some unsupervised driving.
Instead, I heard KC going, “Put the bat down, Duncan. Violence never solves anything.”
Honestly, I didn’t think things could
get
any scarier than Duncan Mulroney swinging at me.
But then I saw KC standing in the front yard wearing this teeny-tiny nightgown, and Duncan staring at her with his mouth hanging open, and I realized they
could
get scarier than that.
Because when I’d told her to distract Duncan, I’d meant with Mom’s homemade chocolate chip cookies or something, not her
body
, which frankly I never even knew KC had, because all she ever wears are cargo pants and flannel shirts from Old Navy.
I was all, “KC, what’s the
matter
with you? Go back inside and put on a robe.”
And she was all, “You can’t tell me what to do. Get back in the car, you idiot.”
Which is when I realized I’d gotten out of the car, just like—well, what she said. An idiot.
And that I was standing there, totally defenseless, in front of Duncan, who still had his bat, and was totally mad at me for creeping on his mom (just that one time, though).
Only it was okay, because it was like I didn’t even exist to Duncan anymore.
“Hey, Kaleigh,” Duncan was saying, in this super concerned voice I’d only ever heard him use before with dogs and his grandma. “Kyle’s right. You should put on a robe. It’s kind of cold out.”
KC looked at him like he was a crazy person and was all, “Gee, thanks,
Dad
. Why don’t
you
go put on a robe?”
I totally understood where she was coming from, because first of all, he’d called her Kaleigh. No one calls KC Kaleigh and gets away with it.
And second of all, Duncan wasn’t wearing a shirt.
He did something
completely
insane then, even for him. He actually put down the bat, walked over to the porch where KC was standing, and
sat down next to her on the steps
.
Between you and me, I’ve always kind of suspected there was a little something going on between Duncan and my sister. Why else does Duncan always go, “Sorry,” whenever KC comes storming in when Duncan and I are downstairs in the den playing Halo, and tells us to be quiet when she’s trying to study? Who says “Sorry” when a girl does that, instead of just fart and wave the fumes in her direction, like a normal person? Clearly, Duncan is in love with my sister.
And how come ever since I started going out with Amber, KC’s always ragging on me about not spending more time with Duncan? Clearly, she is in love with him.
I don’t know how I could have missed the signs.
Next thing I know, Duncan is asking Kaleigh, “It was you, wasn’t it? You’re the one who slipped the note under the Dulles County women’s softball team’s locker room doors
just before their game against the Pritchard Wolves, warning them not to drink from their cooler.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. But KC evidently did, since she sat down onto the porch right next to him and asked, her eyes huge, “How did you know?”
“My cousin’s friend is friends with a girl on the Dulles County team,” Duncan said. “She told him all about it. How they opened their cooler and smelled it, and it was filled with—”
“I know,” KC said, wincing. “It was Amber. I didn’t find out until it was too late to stop her. She’d already done it. All I could do was warn them.”
Duncan nodded. “I figured as much. Right after that game, you quit the team. I just put two and two together. You did the right thing, Kaleigh. It’s always best to tell the truth.”
I still didn’t understand a thing they were talking about. I was like, “Hello. Remember me? Could someone tell
me
the truth?
What
did my girlfriend put in her opposing team’s Gatorade?”
But KC was too busy giving Duncan this big kiss—and Duncan kissing her back—to answer me.
So I just sat down on the lawn and concentrated on looking at the moon coming up over the Garrisons’ house across the street, instead of how much I wanted to puke.
Until I heard the noise of tires crunching on the driveway. It was like two o’clock in the morning by then, and at first I was kind of worried it might be Amber (this one time, she thought I was sexting with her best friend, Taylor Hotchkiss, so she came over and lit our mailbox on fire).
But it turned out to be Radha, KC’s best friend.
“Oh, my God!” Radha whisper-shouted as she ran across our driveway. I guess she didn’t want to wake up the
neighbors, or our parents. Radha should’ve known by now that our parents could sleep through anything, including a spaceship landing. “KC, are you all right? I just read your blog. I came right over. I—”
“They’re busy,” I told her.
“When did that happen?” Radha asked, meaning my sister and Duncan.
“Don’t ask me,” I said with a shrug. “I just live here.”
She took off her cineplex uniform visor and ran her fingers through her hair, which was long and shiny. With the moon coming up, I could see that Radha’s eyes were a real pretty brown, which I’d never noticed before because she and KC were always running off into KC’s room and slamming the door.
“This is all very upsetting,” she said. Then she started going on about how many hits KC’s LiveJournal had gotten in just an hour. She thought it was because Amber had posted the link to her Facebook page.
“And you know your girlfriend’s got a zillion friends,” she said. “They must’ve posted it to
their
pages, and, well, now it’s pretty much gone viral.”
“Amber’s not my girlfriend anymore. She broke up with me,” I said. I don’t know why I thought it was so important to share this news. I think it was the fact that Radha smelled a lot like popcorn. I didn’t even realize until right then that popcorn is my favorite food.
So it was
excellent
that a second later, Radha threw her arms around me.
“Oh, Kyle!” She started snuggling her head and other parts of her body against me in a way that I really appreciated. “I’m so sorry about what happened to you that night when you were six! It explains so much about you, though.
How could Amber not be more understanding of what you’ve been going through all these years? I’m
so sorry
you and KC have had to carry this terrifying burden alone for so long.”
I was like, “Uh, yeah. It
has
been pretty terrifying.” To tell the truth, I mostly can’t remember much about it anymore. Except that thing in old Doc Hall’s office, when he was stabbing KC, and then got electrocuted himself, or whatever. That was messed up. For him, mainly.
“You should know that you don’t have to be alone anymore,” Radha said. “I’m here for you now.”
Then our mouths kind of bumped into each other’s, and I started kissing her.
I’m not saying I took advantage of the situation, or anything. I just realized I might have been going about this alien thing the wrong way, keeping it a secret and everything. Duncan was right: It’s always best to tell the truth. I should have encouraged KC to tell everyone the truth a long time ago. It’s an
excellent
way to get girls—nice girls like Radha who smell like popcorn—instead of girls like Amber, who I have to admit can be kind of scary sometimes.
That’s what I was thinking as the moon finally rose over the top of the Garrisons’ house, and flooded our front yard …
… and Taylor Hotchkiss’s dad’s Audi suddenly pulled up in front of our house, the brakes screeching, with Amber leaning out the front passenger window, screaming.
Honestly, I only went to the Conrads’ house to see if there was anything I could do to help. I wasn’t quite sure I believed what KC had written. I certainly believed
she
believed
something strange had happened to her the night of her sixth birthday.
But it’s difficult in this day and age to think that aliens have visited our planet and not been tracked by our own government’s very advanced radar technology. No offense to you nice people, of course.
Then Amber Johnson showed up and began screaming abuse out of Taylor’s car window at poor Kyle. I can’t even tell you all the things she said, because it wouldn’t be polite.
“Kyle Conrad,” she was yelling, really very loudly. “I hate you! You can have your team jersey back. I don’t want it anymore! Here are our tickets to prom … I don’t want to go with you anymore. And here’s the present you gave me for my birthday …”
The next thing I knew, Amber was throwing many things across the Conrads’ lawn, including a bottle of Justin Bieber cologne Kyle said he’d given her (because she’d
asked
for it, he later explained. Kyle says he’s not a fan of Justin Bieber) and a card he’d made for her for Valentine’s Day, which happened to be highly personal in nature, I noticed as it flew by.
As if the fact that she was causing a very emotional scene in front of me and KC and Duncan wasn’t enough, the wind had suddenly begun to blow quite hard, and was scattering everything Amber had thrown out of the car across the neighborhood. Kyle’s team jersey flew across the street. The valentine ended up in a tree. It was really all very upsetting and quite tasteless.
“Would you please chill out?” I heard Kyle say to Amber. “This is not cool.”
“You know what’s not cool?” Amber screamed back. “You saying you loved me when you were in love with
your best friend’s mom
the whole time!”
Then things
really
got out of control. Both KC and Duncan jumped to their feet and began marching down the lawn toward Taylor’s car, looking perturbed. I didn’t know what to do, so I started running after the things that were blowing away, like the valentine. I was thinking that in the wrong hands, it could be quite embarrassing for Kyle.
“And who’s
that
?” Amber shouted, pointing at me. “How many sluts do you have, anyway, Kyle?”