Chapter One: The Value of Earth

A Chapter by Henry

An introduction to some of the main characters on Earth and their revelations concerning the validity of an alien presence among them.

1: The Value of Earth

Creektown, Virginia

March 31, 2005

“...And, in conclusion, I believe that we should respect our Earth for what it is. That is all. You may now go back to class.”

“That's the most boring speech I've ever heard in my life,” said Eddie Jenkins, getting up out of his seat and stretching his legs before even making a move towards class. “It's also the only speech I've ever heard in my life.”

“Man, you got it made,” said Teddy McTralf. “I've heard like two or three dozen.”

“Whoa, you have? When?”

Teddy sighed. “You weren't here on Give Your Own Speech Day, were you?”

“Dunno. When was it?”

“Uh...March 6, I think.”

“March 6?...oh yeah. I had an 'upset stomach'. Otherwise said as I was barfing the day away.”

Teddy laughed. It was true. That was pretty much the definition of having an upset stomach.

“Here comes Patty,” said Eddie suddenly, in a lovey-dovey voice.

Teddy frowned. “So?”

“Aww, c'mon, you know you like her,” Eddie replied. Suddenly, Patty walked right up to them.

“Hi, guys!” she said, smiling her beautiful smile. “What's up?”

“Nothin' much,” said Eddie. “What about you, Teddy?”

Teddy blushed. “Er, umm, not much, like Eddie said,” Teddy replied timidly, quickly walking away.

“Well, see you around, Pat,” said Eddie. Although he didn't have feelings for her (yet), they were friends.

“Okay, bye, Eddie,” she said, smiling an even bigger smile. “Bye, Teddy!”

“Is she gone?” asked Teddy, reappearing a few seconds later, still making sure the coast was clear.

“Yeah, she is,” said Eddie, smiling dreamily. “Unfortunately.”

“What happened back there?” asked Eddie. The two were at Teddy's house.

“I was just about to ask you the same question,” Teddy snapped.

“What'd I do?” Eddie replied coolly.

“Aww, c'mon,” said Teddy, imitating Eddie. “You know you like her.”

Now it was Eddie's turn to be angry. “What gave you that dumb idea?”

“How about 'yeah she is, unfortunately‘?” asked Teddy, using the same dreamy voice. Instantly, his tone changed. “You are not gonna get my girl.”

“Oh, so she's your girl now, is she?”

“Yeah, I think she is!” Suddenly, a knock came to Teddy’s front door, interrupting their argument.

“Hey, guys!” said Patty. “Can I come hang out with you?”

“And that’s all for today’s show. Remember- -” That was odd. The show had been interrupted.

“This just in! There has been a threat to take over the world! And the ones who made it claim to be aliens. What do you think, Earl?”

“Thanks, Rod. I myself think this is just some kind of a gag. I mean, come on, aliens taking over the world? I think that’s a bit far-fetched. But log on to our website and put in your opinion at urgentnews.com. That’s u-r-g...”

The television was shut off.

“What do you think of those aliens, Theodore?”

“First of all, it’s Teddy. Second of all, who cares?” said Teddy.

“Teddy, what’s wrong with you? You’re not still upset about the whole Patty thing, are you?”

“What do you think, Eddie? She obviously likes you a whole lot better!”

“That’s only because I’m so much better than you.”

“Man, Eddie, I’ve seen some real snobs in my life, but this is where I draw the line.”

“You didn’t actually think I was being serious, did you, Teddy? Of course I was just kidding!”

“Of course,” Teddy lied. “I knew it all along.”

It was Saturday. And so, the boys were out of Creektown Middle School for a couple of days. Creektown Middle was, no doubt, named after the town it was in-- Creektown! It was pretty obvious.

“Let’s call Patty to sort this out,” said Teddy.

“To sort what out?”

“Yo mama!” Teddy retorted.

“OH! Burn!” yelled some guy who was in a tree in Eddie’s backyard. After his somewhat random remark, he fell out promptly.

“Okay…” said Eddie, trying to decide if he should pursue the lad. Momentarily, he decided against it. “Okay, Eddie, you can call Patty, or if you prefer my mom as you suggested, since both were your idea in the first place.”

“Yeah, right,” said Teddy. “In your dreams! Well, I wouldn’t mind calling your mom, but she’s in the same building as us right now, so it wouldn’t do much good.”

“How about we flip a coin to decide, then, if you’re too chicken to take your own advice?” suggested Eddie.

Teddy rolled his eyes at the insult, but agreed with the suggestion. “Sounds reasonable to me,” he replied, restraining himself from comment so one of them actually would call Patty and somehow sort the whole thing out.

“Okay,” said Eddie. “I get heads!”

“But I wanted heads!”

“Fine, I get tails,” replied Eddie with a sigh.

So, Eddie threw the coin up in the air. It landed on tails.

“All right!” exclaimed Eddie. “You call her!”

“That’s not fair! You tricked me into taking heads! And anyway, winner calls her!”

Eddie laughed. “Nice try,” he said, handing the phone to Teddy. Reluctantly, he dialed Patty’s number.

“Hi...Patty? This is Theodore. Theodore from school, remember? Yes. Yes, I mean Teddy. So, wanna go out tonight? Oh, you’re too young? Well, who would you rather go out with, me or Eddie? Hello? Hello? HELLO?”

“YOU BLEW IT!” screamed Eddie furiously, fuming.

“So we’ve made ourselves public now, Changer. So what next? Why have we prepared for twelve years to dominate one planet? Can’t we just bomb them and move on?” Deceiver wanted to know.

The Changer smiled drolly. “Now Ellith, bombing them isn’t the point. The point is domination, not demolition. Besides, bombing isn’t fun. Conquering-- at least, how I do it-- is.”

“No argument there,” the Living Strength put in.

The Deceiver rolled her eyes. “I didn’t live here for twelve years to dawdle about in leisure. I want this done, Changer.”

“Why, your reaction should be completely opposite,” the Pisquihtian remarked. “If you put in twelve years of work, wouldn’t you want a few months’ fun to pay off? Don’t waste your time with bombs. That would have made your status here of no purpose. We want fun, and we want real domination-- not miles of charred, barren land!”

“I concur,” Strength added.

“All right!” exclaimed the Deceiver, exasperated with the pair. “I see the point. But, you still haven’t answered my question. What next? Now that they know we exist-- or, at least, we’ve told them we exist-- what are we going to do? Kidnap the President? Take over the White House? Something along the lines of conquering?”

“Now, now, Deceiver, don’t be hasty.” That was an interesting suggestion coming from the Changer. He was acknowledging that the Deceiver’s question was not rash and immature, though it was suggesting haste, which he had so recently announced that he was against. The man continued. “If we’re hasty, we’ll get nowhere. Instead, we start small. While I have adequate monies of all Earthly types to last us ten years in luxury, one of us should apply ourselves to the community in some sort of occupation. And, though it won’t be liked, the only one of us who has experience in the matter...” and the Deceiver groaned even as she heard it.

“Changer, why don’t you get a job? You’re more knowledgeable than I or the Living Strength. I’m sure you could get a position of prestige without too much prying.”

The Changer smiled. “I’m always glad to hear your opinion, Ellith,” and he emphasized the name just slightly before continuing, “but I am pink in color and fuzzy in texture. I am nothing like the humans. Besides that, I have other matters pressing my time, such as more publicity to make us, without a doubt, known to be on Earth. Strength, too, though he mostly resembles these people, will be of more help to me than you will. At any rate, claws tend to be less conspicuous than a third eye, and besides, as I mentioned preceding my argument, you have the experience. You know what to do better than the Neptunian, or even I, could begin to. If you would like to quit your presence from this trio permanently, simply do so. I will have no objections. But, if you choose to stay, as I know you will, my best suggestion is to wait for some personal preparations of my own and I think I’ll have an opening for you.”

The Deceiver eyed him skeptically. “Well, whatever. Until then, I think I’m going to have some leisure, as you suggested, by spending some time in a spa. Perhaps then you can be soothed out of my mind.”

The Changer grinned as she left the apartment the trio was crammed into. “Well then, toodeloo, and good luck.” When she was gone, the villain turned to his other companion. “Now then, Living Strength, do you think you might just take the shuttle and run down to Uranus...” The Changer’s ingenious plan began to reveal itself to the slightly slow but by no means stupid Neptunian. Conquering the world this way would be more fun that he had thought it could be.

“Joe Amling?”

“Here.”

“Tina Bagges?”

“Here.”

“Teddy McTralf?”

“Over here.” This roll went on for a couple more minutes, but that would just take up too much room for cool stuff if I put it all in the story, so I’ll just skip the rest.

“Now today, class, in math, we are only gonna do a few problems.”

“Hooray!!!”

“A few very long, complicated problems.”

“Aww.” Mr. Long (the math teacher) turned on the classroom’s television. He flipped through a couple of channels until he got to channel fourteen, the news channel. It started talking more about the alien threat.

“But Mr. Long, we’ve already heard about this stuff!” most of the kids whined.

“Would you rather have a pop quiz?” he barked.

That quieted them down.

Mr. Long smiled. “Good, I thought you would see it my way. Pay attention, and there’s no homework!”

“Yes!” was the response.

“For Jenny,” Mr. Long finished. Jenny was absent.

“Aw, man…” was the general response, though one kid ventured to ask, “Does that mean she does have homework if we don’t pay attention?”, though after Mr. Long’s glare, he silently turned to the television screen.

“Hello, I’m Mickey Lawrence of news channel fourteen. We have been told of a threat supposedly made by aliens to destroy the world, which most of you have probably heard about. But now, we see evidence about this. Here we have a genuine rock from the planet Uranus. The world’s best scientists have studied it many times over, and test results show that it’s the real deal. This is probably true.”

“Hey, I know why he’s saying stuff like that! Today’s April first! Check your calendar!”

“Hey, you’re right!” exclaimed another kid. “This is probably some stupid gag the news is pulling just for April Fool’s Day!”

As if on cue, Mickey started talking again. “And if you think this is all a big April Fool’s joke, you’re wrong. This is what’s actually happening.”

Mr. Long turned off the TV. “It’s true,” he said. “There really are aliens. Isn’t it fascinating?”

“Sure, if you think it’s fascinating to be destroyed along with the rest of the world they’re planning to destroy!” yelled Teddy.

“No backtalk to me, young man!” said Mr. Long sternly.

“Or what?” Teddy replied.

“That’s it, Mr. McTralf! You go right up to the principal’s office and tell her what you just said. Meanwhile, I call your parents!” yelled Mr. Long. “Now, class,” he said, turning to them, “anyone else have a comment?”

“Stupid teacher,” muttered Teddy on the way to the principal’s office. “All I do is make a point and he sends me to the principal’s office...” Suddenly Teddy bumped into Eddie walking down the hall.

“Hey, Eddie! ‘Sup, man?” said Teddy. “You heading for Ms. Cole’s office, too?”

“Of course,” replied Eddie. Ms. Cole was, as you might’ve guessed, the principal. If you don’t attend Creektown Middle, you might’ve thought they were lucky to have a woman as a principal, as, at most schools, it’s a man. But students often wished they did have a man. Ms. Cole was the worst.

“So what’d you do?” asked Teddy.

“I used my ’outside voice’ in class.”

“What? Isn’t that, like, what they punish you for in kindergarten?”

“That’s what I said, but they still sent me. How about you?”

“Talking back to Mr. Long,” replied Teddy. “You know how he is.” Eddie nodded his head, and then frowned. They were almost to Ms. Cole’s office.

“You ready, Teddy?” asked Eddie, stepping into the room. Teddy shook his head, but went inside anyway.

“Hello, boys,” said Ms. Cole. “I’ve been expecting you. Eddie, I think you’d better come in first.”

Inside the interrogation room it was dark. It was like one of those rooms that police have when they interrogate criminals.

“So what was it this time, Eddie? Food fight of the year? Knives in school? The old routine ice-cream stealing trick?”

“I’ve never done any of that stuff. All I did was raise my voice too loud.”

“Oh, right. And you expect me to believe that?”

“Yeah.”

“I guess I’ll let you go this time, Jenkins, but I’ll be keepin’ an eye on you every single second you’re in this school. And as soon as I catch you doing somethin’, well, you really don’t wanna know. Next!” she called, pushing Eddie out of the room. Pretty much the same thing went on with Teddy. Although Ms. Cole was a mean principal, her bark was worse than her bite, so to speak.

“Boy, Teddy, did you ever see such an evil principal?” Eddie asked, semi-serious, semi-playful.

Teddy shook his head suddenly and looked at his friend, as if rousing from a trance. “What? Oh, no. No I haven’t.”

Eddie looked at the currently scatterbrained lad quizzically. “Whatcha thinking about, Teddy? Patty or something?”

Though the question was casual, Teddy’s response was one of indignation. His face reddened. “NO!” Then, face still scarlet, his tone softened. “Well, yes,” he admitted.

Eddie nodded knowingly. “Well, it’s not as if you’re the only one. Can’t say I don’t think about her. Well, I could. But that would be a lie. Hey, why don’t we both invite her to Creamery of Awe for an ice cream or something? That’d be cool.”

Teddy nodded. “Yeah, that would. Hey, let me stop at my house first for something, and I’ll meet you guys there.” Without waiting for a reply, the boy left the room, cleverly leaving Eddie in a situation of having to call Patty. However, deprived of common sense as he was, Eddie failed to notice Teddy’s deliberateness in doing so.

“Hey! I’m gonna have to call Patty!” he said to himself as he walked the six blocks to his house. “Oh, well, I’m sure Teddy’s motives were good. It’s not as if he were setting me up or something.” Yes, Eddie Jenkins, to say the least, was not the most shrewd lad in the world. However, he was quite audacious, not hesitating to call his female friend who happily agreed to come. If a fool in some ways, Eddie was smarter than most in others. He thought logically, for one, and he wasn’t scared for no reason. Well, not if he was delving into it intentionally. Anyway, I shouldn’t bewilder you any longer with delving of my own into Eddie’s character. To get to the point, the three friends made it to Creamery of Awe at roughly the same time, all smiling amiably, though Teddy’s was exclusively for Patty.

“All right, guys,” said Teddy once they all had ice creams, “I’m going to admit I’ve been thinking a lot about that alien threat lately. Even though I used to mock anyone who thought it was true when I was first hearing about it, my curiosity got the better of me, and I did some research. I found some tapes by this scientist named Bartholomew Kroozi about aliens. He lives in Creektown, and he has some lectures that he did in 1995. After hearing them, I’m more convinced than ever.”

Eddie goggled at him. “1995? Are you serious? How did he even have any inkling about aliens back then?”

In response to the question, a guy from the booth behind theirs turned towards them. “So, more believers. I, too, heard Professor Kroozi’s lectures, way back in 1995. I attended most of them after being intrigued by the first that I went to. Other kinds, it seems, have been dwelling here on Earth for longer than you would think.” After saying this, the man, who had to be at least in his thirties, came to their booth and sat down next to Eddie. “Allow me to introduce myself,” he said, extending his hand to the three kids. “My name is Alan Lime, and aliens have been something of an obsession for me for the last ten years. My doctor wanted to put me in the cuckoo hut. ‘No!’ he says. ‘Aliens aren’t real!’ he says. But he was no psychiatrist, and they don’t know what they’re doing. Aliens exist, and now everyone knows it. I told you so, world! I told you so!!!”

When everyone in the creamery started staring at him, he shut his mouth and tried to act less obtrusive.

“Yeah,” said Teddy, putting his tape player on the table. “Wait’ll you hear what this guy says. It’s some good stuff...” and Teddy’s hand moved to the player, about to press the play button.

“No, you fool! Not here!” scolded Alan. “Too many eager ears! Bring it somewhere more private. Say, my house?”

“I’m not allowed to go to stranger’s houses,” complained Patty.

“Me neither,” added Eddie.

“That’s all right,” said Teddy. “We can all go to my house. My parents don’t care if Alan comes as long as he introduces himself and we’re not there alone with him.”

“All right, cool,” Alan replied. “Let me just call my wife and tell her where I’m going.”

After he did that, the four of them went to Teddy’s house, though the kids walked and Alan had to drive extremely slowly because none of the middle-schoolers were allowed to ride in a car with a stranger.

When they finally arrived at the McTralf home, Teddy introduced Alan to his mom, who was the only one there at the time. “Mom, this is Alan,” he said. “You don’t mind if he comes along with Patty and Eddie to my room, right, Mom?”

“Teddy, the guy’s like thirty-five!” Mrs. McTralf said very indiscreetly, as Alan was standing right there.

“Good guesser, madam!” Alan answered. “I am indeed thirty-five. But I have not come to kidnap or injure your son or his two friends. I simply came here to discuss with them about al--” Teddy kicked him in the shins, not wanting his mother to know that his new friend wasn’t generally recognized as the most sane of men.

However, simply omitting the second and third syllables of the word made Mrs. McTralf even more appalled. “He’s here to discuss with you about ale? Get out of my house, you--”

“ALIENS, WOMAN!!!” Alan interrupted. “Not ale. I wouldn’t talk to children this young about ale. I don’t even drink it myself except on my birthday and anniversary, and my wife’s birthday. No, I’m here discussing with your lad who believes in aliens about how they’re real! Though my friends wanted to bring me to the loony bin--”

Teddy kicked him again, harder this time, and started pulling the man to his room, with Eddie and Patty leading the way. “Thanks, mom! See, he’s not going to talk about ale! Harmless. Now, we’ll just...” and his voice was drowned out by the slamming of his door after they all made it safely inside. “All right, guys,” and he addressed Eddie, Patty, and Alan, “you have got to hear this.”

Alan nodded his agreement, and Teddy played the tape. “Hello, and welcome to ‘Kroozi’s Discoveries in Science’ 1995. Now, I know the name may sound somewhat vain, but I was pressed for ideas and eventually decided upon that. Now, if you’ve never been to one of my lectures, let me tell you that my findings tend to be somewhat...eccentric in the realm of science, to say the least. In fact, my fellow scientists generally tend to criticize my work because of what would be called, until now, science fiction.”

The man paused as those who hadn’t heard him before took that in. “Now, I have made some quite interesting observations this year, 1995, and have concluded many things that I had previously only theorized. One of them, and I can say that I am 100% sure of this, is that aliens are real. Now, I know this subject has been treated with great skepticism and even scorn, but let me make explicit to you what my recent findings have been. Now, as some of you may know, I have been out searching the world for aliens since 1991, and have only come back to Creektown to report my annual findings in a manner such as this. Until this year, it was to no avail, but now, I can say for sure that I have found one.

“I was out in Great Britain, specifically in Scotland, continuing my perseverant search, and when I was in the far north, right on the coast, in fact, in a small town called England Bay, which most of you have probably never heard of, I ran into a couple by the name Macdonald, a perfectly Scottish name, to be sure, and they appeared nothing out of the ordinary. However, because they approached me (for reasons that would be unnecessary to explain), I took a few minutes out of my busy scouting to chat. What they asked me about slightly into the conversation was whether I had any family that was missing me while I was on this rather extended excursion, which is what I made it publicly known to be. I answered no, and politely asked them if they had any children.

“The answer I got to this question was completely unexpected. They answered yes, they had one adopted girl in the twelfth grade, who came to England Bay unobtrusively but consequently it seemed like she just appeared there. They had no idea where she was from, and though she was fluent in English her accent was from nowhere they could place. Her name, she had told them, was Ellith, which is not from any language in any place near Scotland or all of Great Britain, for that matter. Thus, being on my search as I was, though I didn’t tell the old couple, I was intrigued, and I asked if I could possibly meet with this daughter of theirs at some point. They invited me over for dinner the following night, and though I couldn’t have interrogated her well in front of them without arousing their suspicions, I managed to get one talk alone with her after the meal.

“Now, this girl, though I don’t know how it slipped my mind before now, had something extraordinary about her that anyone could distinguish upon sight. She was, and this is no exaggeration, more beautiful than any supermodel that I’ve ever seen from any country or background.” Upon this many of those in the audience snorted with contempt for the man. Kroozi raised his hand for silence. “Yes, I knew you Americans would be skeptical, as you always are, so I took a photograph. Now, I didn’t want to take a picture of just Ellith, else the Macdonalds might think I was infatuated with her, so it is of the three, but the girl, who is standing below the couple, is undeniably exceedingly hot, if you’ll excuse my lack of exquisiteness. Now, Steve, would you please display the picture on the overhead?”

Upon seeing it, the crowd went wild with screams ranging from, “ALIEN!!! ALIEN!!!” to “Wow, that is one heck of a gal!” to “Hey, I didn’t know they had cameras in Scotland!”

At this point, Eddie and Patty protested. “Didn’t your tape come with a picture or something?” Eddie asked. “I have a hard time thinking anyone’s hotter than Pa---uh...packing people. You know those ladies at the post office who pack and seal up all your boxes for you? Wow! Who could be more beautiful than that?”

Patty stared at him in confusion, but agreed on his original question. “It would be pretty helpful to be able to have a picture of this ‘alien’ of his.”

Teddy shrugged. “Well, I don’t know why, but--”

Alan interrupted him. “They never released that photo to the public. Kroozi realized early on, and I’m glad he did, that if that was displayed for all to see, the girl would be solicited for a modeling company, would be sought out by myriads of guys, and, if any of them ever found where she lived or any of her contact information, she would have indecent comments and requests piled high on her doorstep, in her email inbox, even her answering machine. Therefore, Professor Kroozi took scrupulous steps to ensure that the picture would not be distributed among anyone. I was intrigued about it, too, so I looked up everything I could find about England Bay. I even bought the 1994-95 England Bay High Yearbook off eBay in hopes of finding her picture, but her name was under not listed, and there wasn’t a single picture of her in the rest of the yearbook. There is literally nothing you can get unless you go straight to Kroozi. I’m surprised, with all the precautions the family, or at least the girl herself, seemed to take, that they agreed to have a family photo taken. At any rate, you guys can continue the tape. The conclusion is quite interesting, also.”

“I think I’d rather find this Kroozi guy. Maybe if we’re lucky he’ll let us see that pic,” said Patty.

“Me, too,” said Eddie. “I’d like to see if that Ellith chick is really hotter than Patty,” he blurted out. Instead of trying to cover it up, though, he restrained himself and just remained silent in abashment. He was already feeling guilty about calling the packing chicks at the post office gorgeous, though some of them were kind of cute, as he was never really one to lie.

Patty, trying to find some excuse to leave, made an announcement. “I’m going to try to find Professor Kroozi-- alone!”

“Good idea!” exclaimed Eddie, cheering up. “I’ll come with you.”

“I believe that rather defeats the purpose of alone,” Alan said to himself, “but, if such be the case, I suppose I had better tag along to make sure things stay out of trouble. I hope I won’t be too long, Mary!”

“I’m coming, too!” Teddy yelled, the foursome bursting out the door and hopping into Alan’s car before Mrs. McTralf could complain.

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