The Alien in the Garage and Other Stories Read Free

that.
    It’s a secret.

The Battle of the Bulge
    Juniper Class all saw it, that Tuesday morning.
    It wasn’t something they were likely to have missed.
    Liam, the tallest member of the class, saw it straight away. So did Justin, his sidekick. And the rest of Liam’s gang. Kimberley noticed it too. And her friend, Sophie. And some of the other girls.
    In Nicholas’s schoolbag, a mysterious object had appeared.
    Normally, most of them hardly looked at Nicholas. He never went round with Liam’s gang. They never asked him. He was the quiet one of the class. He always did his homework on time. He never got detention. He was polite to all the teachers. And his schoolbag was always neatly packed, the books and pencil case tidily slotted in.
    But today, a new, strange item had appeared. Almost too much for the bag to hold, when packed in with everything else.
    On one side of the bag, as it rested there on his skinny shoulders, something unknown was bulging out, for all to see.
    The other members of the class were only slightly interested, at first.
    â€œWhat you got in there?” Liam demanded, as they lined up in the yard before Assembly.
    â€œPardon?” Nicholas, in his usual place at the front of the line, turned to look up at the tall, blond boy.
    â€œThere!” Liam pointed. “In your bag.”
    â€œOh.” Nicholas didn’t sound at all interested. “Nothing.”
    Standing behind Liam, Justin shuffled forward to join his leader. He was a stocky, tanned boy.
    â€œDon’t look like nothing,” he observed. He reached out a finger and poked the bulge. “What is it?”
    â€œHey, get off!” Nicholas pulled away. He looked at Liam, slightly uneasily. “It’s nothing, really. Nothing much, anyway. Just…something I need.”
    Liam looked at Nicholas, rather like a fox might look at a particularly timid rabbit.
    If Liam wanted to know what was in the bag, Nicholas would tell him…
    But at that moment, the teachers appeared to bring them inside, and Nicholas was saved.
    As he moved off, Liam and Justin took another curious look at the mystery object that Nicholas had brought to school. What could it be?
    Other members of the class had seen it too.
    â€œWhat d’you reckon it is?” Liam wondered. He and his gang were sitting round one of the tables in their classroom, half-heartedly doing Maths. He looked at Justin. “Not like him to bring anything special to school. What did it feel like?”
    â€œI dunno.” Justin shrugged. “Soft. That’s all, really.”
    â€œCould be something someone gave him.” Ben,
    Liam’s third-in-command, spoke. He was a thin, sharp- featured boy. On first sighting it looked as if a rat had somehow found its way into a school uniform. “Birthday present or something. People sometimes bring stuff in…”
    â€œIt’s not his birthday.” Liam provided leadership. “His birthday’s in April. I remember ‘cause it was just after my sister’s.”
    â€œWait ‘til break.” Justin clenched a fist. He liked to think of himself as the tough guy of the class, the muscles of Liam’s gang. “I’ll ask him again.”
    â€œNah.” Liam looked thoughtful. “I know Nick. You won’t get at him that way. No, you’ve got to be a bit clever.”
    Justin looked disappointed.
    Liam leaned in closer, and his gang followed him. He lowered his voice.
    â€œHere’s what we do.”
    Across the classroom, around another table, the girls were having a similar conversation.
    â€œI don’t know what it is,” Sophie was saying. “Bet Liam finds out.”
    â€œHim?” Kimberley curled her lip. She was a big, rather bossy girl. If there was a secret to be found out, Kimberley was going to find it first. “He couldn’t find out that today’s Wednesday.”
    â€œIt’s Tuesday actually,”