Chapter 1

Walking to School Causes more Problems than I Expected

As soon as I closed the front door of my house to start for school, I felt something strange in the chilly spring air. I looked at the dreary scene I see every morning when I start off to school, but nothing gave me any idea why I felt that. The small plain houses up and down the street didn’t look the least bit haunted. No fantastic creature would cavort around the gas station at the corner. The nearby industrial park dominates the atmosphere of the neighborhood. Nothing magical there. With spring coming late, the trees showed no sign of sprouting leaves. Surely nothing magical was about to happen, no matter how much my body tingled. Not that I’ve got much in the body department. I’m about average size for an eleven-year old. I have a face topped by washed-out blond hair that doesn’t scare anybody, but doesn’t exactly make me a first choice model for a clothes catalogue. My name, by the way, is Eddie Peterson.

I’d only got a few steps away from my house when a strange flickering caught the corner of my eye. When I turned my head in that direction, I didn’t see the flickering. I guessed I’d only seen the sun’s reflection on a passing car until I realized that the sky was too cloudy for the sun to reflect off of anything. I tried to shrug it off, but my body was tingling more than ever. The tingling gave me the feeling that I had an urgent mission of some kind. I looked all around me, but still didn’t see any more flickering. I shrugged off the tingling as best I could, concluding that I was having delusions of grandeur from reading too many fantasy books about boys who save the world. Of course, saving the world would be a lot more interesting than going to school in a dull neighborhood like mine.

I’d gotten halfway down the block when the flickering caught my eye again. This time, I turned my head slowly in the direction of the flickering, hoping to catch it out by being sneaky. The little squeak I gave out at the strange sight would have been embarrassing if any of my friends had been around. Good thing I hadn’t gone far enough to have met up with any of them. It’s pretty hard to describe something so strange I can’t describe it, but I have to try. The creature was a conglomeration of sparkling lights zooming in all directions that made it look like a little space ship. But then several fire-filled eyes popped out at me and wriggling shapes that could be arms or legs or tentacles reached out at me. I took a couple of steps backward. The thingamajig started to look more like a white horse bright as a sun prancing on somebody’s front lawn. But before I had time to get excited about having a magical horse on my street, the horse dissolved into a shape that looked something like a twisted human being dressed in white with a billowing purple cape trailing behind him or her. Then something like a horse’s head swirled back into mix so that I thought perhaps an alien human was riding a horse or some other animal. But just as I settled on that notion, the arms and legs and tentacles multiplied so fast that I could just as well have been looking at a giant squid reaching out for me. If you’re as confused as me as to what I was seeing, then you’ve taken the first step toward knowing what I’m talking about.

Do you—Do you see me? the creature seemed to ask.

I felt the words buzz in my bones more than I heard them. Confusing emotions churned inside of me. What confused me the most was that I didn’t know if it was fear of seeing such a strange thing or I was feeling fear and sorrow that the strange being was feeling because it was encountering a creature that looked as strange to it as it did to me.

“I see you,” I said. “Who are you? What are you doing here? Where do you come from?”

I am Merendael, answered the flickering being. I need—I need help. I want to give you a Gift. I need to give you my Gift.

“Where do you come from?” I asked. “What is this Gift?”

There was something about the way Merendael said “Gift” that made it feel like a capitalized word.

I come from home, Merendael answered with a wave of sadness that washed through me. I want you to receive my Gift. You must receive my Gift before it is too late.

Merendael’s many eyes made such wild circles with so much brilliance that I wasn’t sure if I was being asked to receive the Gift or being ordered to take it. I could hardly believe that I’d suddenly been given a chance to help a space alien. I was about to say something like “Sure, bring it on,” but then I remembered just in time that I had to make sure I wasn’t helping an evil being take over the planet or destroy it by giving me a bomb. After all, if our planet has terrorists, other planets can have them, too. I’d never seen anything that looked like Merendael, not even in science fiction movies, so I didn’t have much to go on.

“What do you want to give me?” I asked.

“Hey Eddie! Who’re you talking to?”

Brian Morton’s voice doused Merendael faster than a waterfall can put out a campfire. He has that effect. My insides turned a somersault at the thought of what Brian’s hearing me talking to an imaginary creature was going to do to my reputation if. His vote always counts double in every population contest and triple in every unpopularity contest. Brian’s dark, cold eyes make his square, handsome face look hard. He’s not the biggest kid around, but he’s the bossiest.

“You look like you’ve just seen a giant squid with a million eyes and a trillion tentacles,” said Charlie Parker.

Worse. I’d let Merendael absorb so much attention I didn’t realize that I’d gotten surrounded by Brian Morton, Charlie Parker, Peter Newton, Terry Baker, and Mel Ryan. That is to say, all the guys I hang out with. But maybe not for much longer unless I could do some fast talking. They were closing in on me for the kill. It isn’t everyday one catches a school mate talking to an imaginary friend on the way to school.

“Do you need some help?” asked Linda Sweeney.

Worse and worse. Walking with Linda were Molly McDonald, Laura Daniels, and Sally Jones, just a few feet behind the boys. With her long light-brown hair that falls into place naturally, Linda is good-looking without trying to be. The problem with her is that she’s always trying to so nice, that I run away from her faster than a speeding bullet. But this time I was caught in her clutches.

“The best way you can help me is by getting as far away from me as you can get as fast as you can,” I replied to Linda.

Her cute face crumpled. I might have felt sorry for her, but the other girls were giving me poison looks for hurting their friend. Besides, I wouldn’t have bothered to say anything nasty to Linda if she had minded her own business. One of the things Linda doesn’t understand is that when you’re standing in front of the boys you hang out with, you don’t say anything nice to any girl under any circumstances. End of story.

“Sorry I forgot that the male race doesn’t believe in caring about anybody,” said Linda stiffly. “I’m sure that a kind and sensitive boy like Brian Morton will help you recover from seeing whatever frightening sight you just saw.”

“What makes you think I just saw a frightening sight?” I asked.

At that moment, I was a lot more afraid of what might happen to my reputation than I was of any creature from any planet of any galaxy.

“Usually, one’s eyes don’t open wider than a dragon’s maw and ask who or what somebody is unless there is a cause that brings about that effect.”

Worse than worse. That was Dominic Boulanger, class nerd, geek, and genius, standing at a distance from everybody else. As usual, his long hair was all mussed up just to prove he’s different. Either that, or it proves his parents are too busy being nerds themselves to notice what their son looks like. Dumbinic, as we call him, was staring at me with owly eyes that made me feel like an exotic exhibit in a museum. It’s the kind of stare that makes him look like he’s wearing three pairs of glasses when he doesn’t really wear glasses at all. What else can anyone expect of a kid who pronounces his name: Boo-lawn-zhay? We call him Booboo when we aren’t calling him Dumbinic. My only hope was to turn Dumbinic’s unpopularity to my advantage.

“What makes you think you know more about cause and effect than anybody else?” I asked him.

“My superior brain’s conformity to modern and post-modern science,” Dumbinic replied.

Brian looked over at Dumbinic with a frown. My tactic was working! But then Brian looked back at me. My tactic had failed. Brian decided to stay on my case. I was the juicier meat that morning.

“Eddie, stop evading the issue and explain yourself. Who were you talking to when there wasn’t anybody around to talk to?”

I was starting to feel that the whole sixth grade had formed a lynch mob around me. I wasn’t used to that and I didn’t like it. Usually, someone else was the victim. What few fast-thinking skills I have were falling out of my head like sand. One option was to tell the exact truth. Yea, right. I looked about in case I saw the flickering of Merendael’s presence. I didn’t. I wasn’t even feeling any tingling in my spine. If Merendael had shown himself right then, I might have chanced pointing the other kids to him, hoping that they would see him, too. But he didn’t, and I had to assume that nobody had seen Merendael while I was talking to him. So, I had to go for Plan B: lying.

“I was practicing for the tryout for the school play,” I replied hastily.

The looks I got from my friends—assuming they were still my friends after this—reminded me, as if I needed reminding, that trying out for the school play was about as cools as talking to a strange creature that nobody else can see.

“What kind of part are you trying out for?” Brian asked. “Somebody who sees creatures so strange he doesn’t know what they are?”

Not good. Brian and the other kids had heard too much. I had to play with the ball that was pitched to me.

“Uh—it’s a play about somebody who sees a strange creature from outer space,” I answered. “He has to try and find out who he is and what he wants.”

Molly looked so startled by my answer, it made me wonder if she, too, had seen something like what I’d seen, but wasn’t about to admit it.

“Sounds like a dumb play to me,” Charlie scoffed.

“Yea, that’s what I’m starting to think,” I admitted, snatching at the chance to pretend that I didn’t think trying out for the school play was any more cool than my friends did.

“Glad to hear you’re starting to think,” said Terry.

That stung. Terry Baker is twice the airhead he needs to be to fit in with Brian’s little gang.

Just when I thought I’d already dodged more monkey wrenches in the space of a few minutes than the whole planet of apes could throw at anybody in a year, Mel Ryan threw one at me.

“The school play has nothing to do with space aliens.”

A blond kid with a few freckles and a bleached face, Mel sometimes makes me suspect he uses his brain behind our backs. Desperate for a change of topic, I was saved by Hubert Hendricks. He’s a plump boy with a fat lip who isn’t much good at anything. We call him Hopeless Hubert. He’s always plodding to school way behind the rest of us. He had only caught up because everybody had stopped to gang up on me.

“What do you think is wrong with Hopeless Hubert today?” I asked.

All eyes turned towards Hopeless Hubert. As I had hoped, mocking Hopeless Hubert was a bigger treat than grilling me about my little conversation with an invisible friend.

“Hubert!” Brian called out.

“Huh?”

“Your butt’s sticking out.”

When Hubert instinctively turned around before realizing how absurd the wisecrack was and that a lot of kids were laughing at him.

“Well, what else can you expect from a kid named Hubert?” Peter asked.

That increased the laughter, but Molly and Linda looked at me like I was a criminal. Molly, a girl with dark hair and even darker eyes was being downright scary. She’s good at doing that. Girls just don’t understand what being a boy means. This time my tactic had worked. Brian and Peter and Terry kept up a string of creative insults for Hubert. I was free to walk the rest of the way to school with my friends in peace. Or so I thought. Mel seemed to be shadowing me. That should have tipped me off that I was in for more trouble.

“You’ve never picked on Hubert like that before,” said Mel.

That was a real shocker. Mel knew better than to show concern for another human being in Bruce’s vicinity, or mine for that matter. What made him break that taboo?

“So?” I flung back at him.

Mel flinched more than a boy should. It was enough to make me wonder how much Mel was doing behind our backs? Trying out for the school play? Caring about Hopeless Hubert? What would happen if he saw Merendael? My only consolation was that getting in trouble with Mel wouldn’t hurt my social standing; falling afoul of Brian would wreck it.

Mel shook his head sadly.

“I thought you were better than that.”

That was a shocker. I couldn’t recall ever having been accused by another boy of being good before. It was embarrassing enough if a teacher did that to me. My only consolation was that Brian was so busy hurling insults at Hopeless Hubert that he could not have heard what Mel had just said to me. If he had, both of us would have been exiled to the South Pole with nothing but a spring jacket. Mel was merciful in that he didn’t say anything more to me before we got to school. Unfortunately, all that silence made me spend the time asking myself why I had never started a round of persecuting Hopeless Hubert before and why I had done it this time. Then there was the deeper question: What in all of the galaxies long ago and far away had I ever done to make a boy like Mel Ryan think I was too good a person to encourage Brian and the other boys to turn on Hubert? Then there was the question: What in all of galaxies long ago and far away had I done to make Merendael to pick on me to offer his Gift?