Volume 1.1

1RZ , KDYH WR GR WKLV VR LQ FDVH \RXU HVFDSDGH PLVÂżUHV , KDWH LW %ULDQ ´ 6KH VSODVKHG KHU KDQGV LQ WKH GLVKZDWHU Âł1RZ ZKHQ D ZRPDQ FRPHV LQ WR order a cake for her husband’s birthday—â€? Âł(OOHQ ´ P\ IDWKHU VDLG “I want to tell her that he probably doesn’t deserve it.â€? Âł(OOHQ ´ KH UHSHDWHG “Right, you’re right, of course,â€? my mother groaned. “Maybe that husband lives on this damn planet. Maybe that husband actually tells his child where he’s going to be the next morning.â€?

They mumbled to each other again; my mother frequently sighed in exasperation. I traced the words on the page of The Viking Symbol Mystery with my thumbnail, but I never did learn how Frank and Joe Hardy solved the mystery. I didn’t know what the mystery even was because, across the street, Tony Putnam beamed, his space helmet a shining silver beacon, as he tossed the baseball back and forth with his mother on their front yard.

6XUHO\ WKLV ZRXOG TXLHW &OXUD 7RQ\ 3XWQDP ZDV MXVW D ER\²KH SOD\HG catch like any other boy, lived in a house with a bright white porch light like any other boy, had a mother like any other boy, and he smiled like any other boy. Nothing alien about Tony Putnam, nosiree. I imagined telling Clura DERXW WKLV DOWKRXJK WKDW ZRXOG UHTXLUH WHOOLQJ &OXUD WKDW 7RQ\ 3XWQDP OLYHG DFURVV WKH VWUHHW IURP P\ IDPLO\ 7KH WZLQV ZRXOG MXPS WR WKHLU IHHW and walk in circles, their auburn-topped heads pondering Tony Putnam, and they would conclude that “He’s an alien.â€? “He’s too weird to be a boy,â€? but then I would say, “Watch this.â€? I would go over to where Tony Putnam stood at the Dome. I would have a baseball and two mitts, and I would give him one so that we could play catch. Then we would throw the ball back and forth, the sun glinting off his helmet like a beacon, and the twins would DUJXH VD\LQJ Âł, DOZD\V NQHZ KH ZDV QRUPDO ´ Âł:HOO , NQHZ LW ÂżUVW ´ I laid the book, still opened, on the window ledge and jogged to the kitchen to share my insight with my parents. I felt as if I were watching the scene in Pinocchio where the fairy turns the wooden puppet into a real boy, only it was Tony Putnam, the alien, who had become an actual child.

I stopped in the door to the kitchen and saw my father holding my mother close against him, his hands on the small of her back. He spoke in a voice above a whisper, one that revealed a latent secrecy, my father’s plans, which I was not meant to hear.

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