CHAPTER ONE
A Sophomore Mustache
I.
I stood in the upstairs bathroom, staring hard into the mirror. I’d been staring for almost ten minutes, waiting patiently for the light to glare at just the right angle again; cause I’m pretty sure I saw the start of a single mustache hair above my lip. Even though it was only for a split second, I’m pretty sure that’s what it was.
I know, you probably think it’s ridiculous that I, Scout Brooks, a sophomore in high school, is searching the upper lip valley for the start of what could be a legendary stash that this moment might be foretelling. But it isn’t as far-fetched as you’d think. I had asked Mark about it not too long ago – he’d been trying to grow a stash for years, and now at the age of 24, he thinks he might finally be onto something.
Phil already had the full-blown deal. It was dark brown and made him look a little ‘dirty’. When I asked Mark about a sophomore mustache, he said “There’s always that one kid in your school who has a mustache before everyone else. It’s not fair.”
Well, Philly was sporting a good one and I was hoping I wasn’t too far behind. But for now, I had to catch the bus because it was going to be here soon.
I got dressed in some warm clothes, threw on my jacket and backpack, popped on one of those winter hats with the little ball thing on top and left the house, ready to journey to the bus stop. It wasn’t too far, but winter was really starting to take its toll on Kings Town. Between the ice and the snow, it made walking down to the end of the street a freezing cold ordeal.
Across the street from my house was a moving van in the driveway of a home that had been vacant for at least six months. There was only one guy unloading boxes that I could see of. He appeared to be middle aged, was clean shaven with short, rough brown hair and was bundled up in his winters best.
It was such an odd time to be moving. The man saw me and went through great lengths to set the box down that he was carrying and wave at me. “Hello there!” he shouted through the wet flakes that were falling.
I just smiled and waved back. Creep.
The school year was already underway by about three and a half months. It was already the third week in December and our Christmas break was just around the corner. A few more days of school, then the Christmas dance, and then a nice break where I’d be able to enjoy the holiday with my mom and brother.
The Christmas dance was going to be Friday night and I had been trying to work up the courage for weeks to ask Mandy Lee, but I just couldn’t do it. There was still some time left though. I thought after I saved Mandy’s life last year she’d be a little more into me. That wasn’t the case. Sure, she was appreciative – and technically owed me big – but the experience of being kidnapped and taken away to a distant galaxy still didn’t sit well with her. She’d smile and say “Hi” to me occasionally, but most of the time she’d pretty much keep her distance. She acted like none of it ever happened – which kind of benefited Professor Nog. He didn’t have to worry about her blabbing to anyone.
Still, I wanted to ask her to the dance. My crush on her had only grown over the past year.
My first period class was Math – Geometry to be precise. Who needed to take a class about shapes? Math sucked and I was failing it. The only cool thing about the class was that my best buddies, Chuck Taylor and Phil Easton were in it with me. That’s the first class since high school started that all three of us had together. It ruled, even though the seating chart had unknowingly spread us out amongst the classroom.
The teacher, Mr. Hobbs, was a cool guy I guess. He was younger than most of the teachers and for some reason always said, “Jot this down”, like he wanted us to write down everything he was saying.
The bell rang to start the school day and Mr. Hobbs took center stage.
“Alright class, jot this down.” Mr. Hobbs turned to the chalkboard and began to draw a right triangle. As the Math terms started to spew out from his mouth, I tuned out. I was looking forward to second period; it was space stuff.
After I passed Astronomy with flying colors, I elected to take Advanced Astronomy my sophomore year just so I could kick it with Nog a little more. It wasn’t a necessary class, but if I was officially an Intergalactic Ambassador for Earth, I figured I might as well brush up on the cosmos as much as I could.
“Scout, care to venture a guess?” Mr. Hobbs asked, rudely interrupting my thoughts.
“Uh…” I stuttered, not knowing what the question was. “Can you repeat the question?”
“No.”
Huh. I was in a corner and there was definitely no way out. Might as well get fresh. “Well, you’re the teacher, you should know the answer. You tell me, Mr. Hobbs.”
I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms with a smile. The class chuckled, and the first thought that raced through my head was why the heck did I just say that.
“Mr. Brooks, you talkin’ back?”
“Maybe,” I said, continuing this act that wasn’t typically me. I was in so much trouble.
“I’m not gonna stand here, wearing this perfect tie that my girlfriend bought for me, and take that from some disrespectful sophomore,” Mr. Hobbs said. “And I’m pretty sure Principal Smidgeon won’t either.” He pointed to the door and snapped his fingers, “GET!”
I packed up my books into my backpack and walked though the classroom, passing Chuck and Phil. Chuck was chuckling, but Phil wasn’t. Come to think of it, Phil really hadn’t been the same with us since that note someone had slipped him about Chuck and I not being who we say we are. Phil had been quite curious about us for the past year, keeping his distance at times, but sporting that golden stash all the time. It looked so sweet.
I left the classroom and headed straight for Principal Smidgeon’s office.
II.
“Scout, you’ve become quite a little loud-mouthed turd here lately,” Principal Smidgeon said to me from across his desk. I smirked, knowing he was right.
“Sorry, bro,” I said.
“It’s cool. But I can’t keep pretending to give you punishments much longer. Straighten up, boy,” he said.
I nodded and looked around his office. There was a picture of Smidgeon on the wall with his family – two teenage girls and his wife. “How’s your family?”
“Oh, they’re fine. The wife’s been on my back about retirement. I don’t know, it sounds nice I guess.”
“Would you retire from the E.I.A. too?” I asked.
“Who knows, Scout. Now that the government has approved our grant because of Nog’s shuttle experiment, there’s gonna be a high demand for positions. It’d be only a matter of time before I was replaced anyway. I’m getting a little old for this.”
“Old? Nog has like twenty years on you, man. He should be the one retiring.”
“Nog won’t retire. He and Farrow founded the E.I.A. They’ll both be with the group until the day they die.”
“Have you made any progress on the ‘ghost’ from last year? It seems like we haven’t heard a peep out of him since that note he gave to Phil,” I asked.
“There’s no progress to be made. I haven’t been able to figure anything out about his identity. After you guys made it back from Bethani, he just vanished. The threat might be over.”
“Or he’s just waiting for something.”
The two of us sat there and nodded together like a couple of agreeing pals. The bell rang to end first period and I grabbed my backpack off the floor.
“Well,” I said, “I’m off to Nog’s. We’re learning about gaseous masses today.”
“Sounds just like Nog,” he said and we both laughed. “Tell the old geezer I said ‘hey’,” Smidgeon said.
“Will do. Catch ya later, brotha,” I said with a wink and a point in his direction.
Professor Nog was running late to class for some reason, but he finally showed up about five minutes into the period. He was the same as ever – long, white lab coat, terrible comb-over, flashy red tie; he was ready for the day.
“Alright geeks, get out your books and turn to page 100. We’re about to have a pop quiz up in this mother,” he said, heading straight for his desk.
The class released a unanimous groan, but it didn’t phase Nog. If he wanted to quiz us, he would see to it that we got quizzed. Our Astronomy books were assigned to our desks and were kept in a small metal basket under our seats. I pulled my book out, just as everyone else did, and opened it to page 100.
There was a note in my book. A note for me – ‘Scout’ was written in black marker on the front of the folded piece of graphing paper. I looked up at Nog and he shushed me with his finger. I opened the note and read it to myself:
Scout, last night Jakon received a transmission from deep space. It was Fritz. Jakon was able to download all of the data received and analyze the crap out of it. Gather up Chuck and meet all of us at my house tonight at seven.
-Peace, my brotha
I looked up and gave Nog a thumb’s up. He reciprocated with a nod and the deal was all squared away.
III.
Lunch period came and I was literally devouring my honey-roasted turkey and provolone wrap. I chased it down with a loud gulping swig of my boxed chocolate milk and let out a sigh of satisfaction. The hankering had been met.
Chuck sat across from me, eating left over pizza that he, for some reason, always wrapped in tin foil. Phil sat to my right – he was on his second egg salad and tuna sandwich.
“So, are you guys going to the dance on Friday?” I asked the table.
“No. That’s not my thing,” Phil said blandly.
Chuck laughed, “Hey, we should all go as a joke. It’ll be hilarious.”
“Yeah?” I asked, not sure what would be so funny about it. “I was actually thinking about asking Mandy. What are your guys thoughts on that?”
Phil nodded, agreeing with my idea, and Chuck shrugged. “Maybe,” Chuck said, “I mean she doesn’t really seem to care too much about you anymore.”
“Did something happen in Europe?” Phil asked. “After you got back to the states from jumping her bones abroad, she’s kept her distance. I thought for sure that would have bonded you two together forever.”
I so wish I could tell Phil that instead of Europe, it was outer space. But it was too risky. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“You should ask her though,” Phil said. He was right; I needed to ask her.
“What are you gentlemen doing for Christmas break? I’m thinking the three of us should try to hang out or something. Maybe grab a bite at Father Peanuts?” Chuck asked.
“Sure,” I said.
“We’ll see,” Phil said. I wasn’t too sure exactly what was going through Phil’s head when he was around us. It was obvious that he didn’t completely trust us because of that stupid note. I don’t know why he’d take the notes’ word over ours, but oh well. I was hoping he’d get over it eventually.
Phil looked up from his food when he noticed a student walk by with a hot meal tray. He smiled with his gums blaring, and waved at the kid.
“Hey, Lamar!” Phil said as he grabbed all of his lunch stuff and stuffed it back into the brown paper bag it once came from.
“Where are you going, Phil?” I asked.
“I’m gonna go sit with Lamar. See you guys later.” Phil was gone in a second - off to spend the rest of the lunch period with this Lamar character. I didn’t really know him, but all I knew was that he was a black kid who literally sported a ‘90s flat top haircut, a Bob Marley T-Shirt and cut off jean shorts with strings that hung down past his knees.
“What’s Phil think he’s doing?” I asked Chuck.
“That’s Lamar. I don’t know, Phil’s been hanging out with him a lot lately. Ever since they did that vinegar volcano project together in Science.”
“Hmm,” I muttered to myself, watching Phil sit down three tables away with Lamar. Who knows what those nerds were talking about? Who even cares?
The end of the day came quickly, which I was thankful for. I rode the bus home and it dropped me off at my bus stop just down the street from my house. I walked carefully on the sidewalk, trying not to slip on the ice. It was freaking cold, man! My ears were about to freeze off and shatter on the ground. I pulled my knit cap down over them, hoping to prevent them from actually doing that.
“Hello!” a man’s voice cried out. I looked across the street as I approached my house and saw that creepy guy still moving in. The moving truck was now parked in the road and the driveway was full of boxes. That guy was weird – staring at me from across the way.
I encouraged a small smile and timidly waved to him. He started walking my way. I began to pick up what speed I could get on the ice, trying to get to my house before this dude came too close. I didn’t know what he was packing!
“Are you my new neighbor?” the guy asked, stumbling a little on the ice in the road. Ok, this guy wasn’t going to give up, so I did. I stopped on the sidewalk and faced him.
“I guess so,” I said.
“What’s your name, kid?” the guy asked, approaching me and extending his freezing cold hand. I shook it.
“Scout.”
“My name is Butch. Butch McSides. I originate from the west coast.”
“It’s usually warmer over that way. Why move here…in the middle of winter?”
“Seemed like a good time,” Butch McSides said, standing back and admiring his new dwelling with both hands on his hips. “It’s a fixer-upper for sure, but hey, I’m up for the task.”
Butch looked back at me and smiled. “Could you spare some muscle and help a guy move a few boxes?”
There it was – the luring. I’d be reported missing within hours and dead within minutes. “Uh, no, sorry. I have a lot of homework to do. See ya, though!” I nodded one last time and walked straight up to my porch.
“See ya, Scout,” Butch said. I turned around as I opened my wreath-covered front door and saw he was carefully shuffling back across the icy street. I got inside and shut the door – obviously locking it up real tight. I’m not getting involved in any of that nonsense.
“Scout!” a man’s voice shouted out in excitement from behind me. I swung around, startled, and faced the Christmas decorated living room. It was my Uncle Jones! My mother’s brother sat on the couch in the living room next to Mark. He hopped up fast.
“Uncle Jones!” I shouted, dropping my backpack to the ground. We met halfway through the living room for a huge hug. “What’s up? What are you doing here?”
“I’m here for Christmas, you idiot! Your mom didn’t tell you?”
“No!”
“She didn’t tell me either,” Mark chimed in from the couch, flipping his out-of-style emo hair out of his eyes.
“Then it’s a Christmas miracle!” Uncle Jones laughed and threw his arms up in the air, eventually transitioning into a solo Irish jig right there before my very eyes.
Uncle Jones was one crazy mother. He was so goofy and a self-proclaimed “ladies man.” He’d done it all and was so full of wisdom and knowledge. All these crazy things always seemed to happen to him.
One time, he said he was stationed in Iraq during the war on terror and had to build a helicopter from scratch just to get him and his platoon out of the country before a massive bombing happened. He was so cool! Then, this one time, he was rock climbing in Colorado and fell into a pit of snakes. He said that he literally tied two snakes together just to show them who was in charge while he was down there. Uncle Jones, man! He was here – in my house!
“What’s happening, bro?” Uncle Jones said.
“Nothing – just school. This new guy across the street just tried to pick me up.”
“Oh yeah?” he said, pulling the curtains back from the window. Butch was carrying another box into his house. “He’s one of those guys, then, huh?”
“Yeah. I’ll probably call the cops or something,” I said.
“That reminds me of the time when I was in Seattle – not sure how I got there seeing as how I started off in Phoenix – and this guy robs this store, right? So he comes flying out of the store with bags full of money and he’s coming straight for me. Now, by this time I’ve lost track of my buddies, so I feel like it’s my duty to take care of business. So, this guy comes flying past me – I whip off my belt in one fluent motion, lasso it around the guy’s neck and pull him down to the ground. I caught the moneybags in my hands before they even touched the ground. A news crew just happened to be right there filming a story on some restaurant opening and got the whole thing on tape. They called me a hero. It’s on the Internet, look it up if you don’t believe me.”
“I believe you!” I said – Mark and I were both in awe. Not sure how that related to the neighbor debacle, but it was still a cool story.
“Look, I’m gonna climb out of your hair, guys,” Uncle Jones said. “I told an old friend of mine, Booya Boggs, that I’d meet up with him for a couple beers. I’ll be back for supper though.”
“Okay,” I said as I slapped a high five onto Uncle Jones. He swung around and slapped one on Mark too. Within a flash, Uncle Jones was gone.
“When did he get here?” I asked Mark.
“He’s been here all day. I woke up this morning and he was already here on the couch watching cartoons.”
Cartoons? Classic.
Mark turned around and grabbed his acoustic guitar from the corner of the living room. He sat back down on the couch and began to strum away.
“You writing songs again?” I asked.
“Yeah, so what?”
“Nothing man, just asking,” I said in response to Mark’s snappy tone. I headed upstairs to do my homework before the E.I.A. meeting at Nog’s.
I felt bad for Mark to a certain degree. After Red Badger bombed horrifically at the Battle of the Bands last year, none of them took it well. Kristen, Blane and Leo all quit, leaving Mark all by himself. Red Badger was dead.
Mark continued on his own though, going under the name Mark Badger. I think the band breaking up was the best thing that ever happened to him though – he was free to make his own music. And it wasn’t too bad actually; it was a lot more grown up than the heaping piles of cow pies Red Badger use to concoct. He played the occasional open-mic night, and he had a semi regular gig at Bowling Buddies. If he stuck with it long enough, the right person would eventually hear his music.
IV.
Seven o’clock arrived and I found myself sitting in ‘The Secret Room’, a secret room in the large bunker of underground laboratories that were under construction below the barn on Professor Nog’s property. He called it Fort Nog’s.
After the creation of the Intergalactic Peace-keeping Shuttle got around to the appropriate sources, the President granted the Ambassadors a large sum of money to continue with space research, alien stuff, and experimentations that the world could never find out about. Nog’s selfishness is what led to Fort Nog’s being built below his grounds.
The entrance to the underground labs was located in the barn, behind the gate of a horse stall, guarded by two armed security guards, Marco and Hastings. The underground was full of Nog’s own personal staff. There were nurses, scientists and construction guys still building in certain areas. The E.I.A had grown quiet considerably over the past year.
The Secret Room is where the E.I.A. hosted their meetings, since Nog’s kitchen was now considered ‘out-dated’ by the old man. The room was pretty big - four metal walls sheltered a long meeting table like you’d see some high-flying business guys sitting around in the movies.
We all sat around the business table; myself, Chuck Taylor, Professor Nog, Principal Smidgeon, comic storeowner Jakon, and Nog’s old University buddy, Farrow. A new meeting was underway to discuss recent developments.
“Gentleman and kids,” Nog announced with a smirk. He said that every single time we were all together. “We have some news, some weird developments and some mysterious things to discuss.
“As you all know, Jakon has built some machines in the back of his comic book store that he’s been using to try and track down the I.P.S. Well, a couple days ago, he found it. Jakon, would you tell us what you found?”
“Sure,” Jakon said with a strong lisp. He stood up as Nog took a seat. “The I.P.S. was located in deep space, and is currently on its way back. From what I can tell, D.R. Fritz is still up and running, and has loads of data recorded for us to analyze. We should have them back within the next day or so.”
We all seemed to relax a little bit. It’d been over a year since D.R. Fritz went AWOL and left us on Bethani due to someone changing the mission plans in his computers. It was good news that he was returning.
Nog stood back up. “Once Fritz gets back with my awesome, and now patented, spaceship creation, I’ll get all up in there and try to figure out the details about the tampering.”
“With good news though, comes bad news,” Jakon continued, looking straight at me for some reason. “I was also able to pinpoint a massive object in deep space which is hurling itself towards Earth at ridiculous speeds.”
“Aliens?” I asked.
“Probably,” Jakon responded. “But we can’t be sure. The only thing I am sure of though is that something detached itself from the massive object, and lasered itself through space and broke our atmosphere a couple days ago. And, surprise surprise, it landed somewhere here in Kings Town. How predictable, right?”
“Scout and Chuck,” Nog said, “Since you two seem to work well together as a team, I am sending you guys out into the cold night with a new device I’ve created that is supposed to track down anything that has some space particles clinging onto it for dear life. I call it, the Space Detector.”
“It’s like a metal detector,” Smidgeon said as he put a closed fist to his mouth and cleared his throat.
Nog looked at Smidgeon, annoyed by his sudden involvement. “Thanks, Smidge,” he said sarcastically.
Nog shook his head and then reached under the table and pulled out the space detector. It was shaped like an iron, and had a handle on the back…like an iron. But instead of a flat, steel front, it was full of blinking lights.
He handed it to me. “You point this thing around town and it will start to beep and the lights on this bad boy will light up like Christmas. The more lights you see, the closer you are. If all the lights are shining, you’re pretty much on top of it, so get off of it and don’t break it. Got it, boys?”
“Got it,” Chuck and I said in unison.
“Time is precious. We need to figure out what fell off that giant mass before whatever it is gets here.”
Chuck and I stood up and left The Secret Room. We wandered down the long corridor to an elevator, which we took to the top floor, which opened into the horse stall in the barn. Chuck pushed open the stall gate and we left the barn on a mission from Nog.