The last part of this Chapter takes place the day after Elfangor Landed on Earth. Tobias is currently at Jake's house telling him about acquiring and morphing into Dude, his cat.

My name is Sean. And a week ago, my life just wasn't that complicated. A week ago the biggest thing on my mind was what I would have for breakfast. Later that day it was whether not breakfast would stay down as I flew for the first time on a jumbo jet. Would it be my last meal entirely?

The last thing on my mind was the idea that I would have to fight an alien invasion on my own.

Maybe you should let me back up to the beginning of the week. Just hear me out, before you call the men in white coats. As I said, it began Thursday evening when my dad announced that he would be taking a trip the next morning and that I would be coming along.

My father is an investigative journalist for a major newspaper. Earlier this year he began a series of articles that began with building materials and construction equipment from companies either being purchased by unknown sources or completely disappearing. The owners claimed to know nothing, or if they did know something, Dad suspected they were lying. Either way he smelled a bigger story and he was going after it.

One week he received a call from a fellow journalist clear across the country. Apparently the same thing was going on his area and he wanted to compare notes. Dad decided to spend the weekend there and see what he could dig up.

Since Mom was no longer in the picture, Dad decided this would be a fun weekend for us to spend together. I was so psyched about a trip away from town that I didn't quite hear him when he said we would be flying.

That first time, strapped in the seat as the flight attendant gave the preflight instructions, I don't think my heart has ever pounded so quickly. Then the doors closed and plane taxied down the runway. My heart rate increased and I squeezed Dad's hand for comfort. He just smiled and whispered words of comfort as the jet picked up speed.

My body was forced back into the seat. I closed my eyes tight as I felt the vibrations of the wheels on the tarmac. Then the floor seemed to push my feet upwards as I felt us rise into the air. It was my first time and I survived it. Had I known what I was about to face later that week, that ride would have felt safer than jumping from a swing.

"It's going to be great," Dad told me, once the seatbelt sign clicked off. "They've got this place called The Gardens. It's kind of like the Great Escape, but it's got a full zoo and everything. Once I get this interview out of the way we can spend the whole weekend just exploring the city."

"That's awesome," I said, clutching my stomach. It wasn't nausea exactly, just a sinking feeling in my gut as I imagined what would happen if the plane struck turbulence or fell from the sky entirely. I took several deep breaths and leaned, cautiously over my father so I could look out the window. I thought I'd be freaked out, but the sight of houses and streets from so far up kept my attention.

Cars on the road looked like a precession of ants on the way to get a cookie. I couldn't help but laugh. It was an idiotic laugh. The kind of nervous laugh you would let out after you survived a hurricane or a tornado.

The flight took about twelve hours as the plane flew through time zones, but to me it felt like minutes. Once the fear was gone and I stopped imagining what would happen if the plane fell from the sky, I got caught up in the experience. I said hi to the stewardesses and thanked them for making my first flight fun. I read through the catalogs provided by the airline and made fun of the characters on the in-flight movie.

Most parents would have told their kids to knock it off. But Dad wasn't like most parents. He didn't care if I was acting weird, because he knew I was just experiencing the flight for the first time. So long as I wasn't rude, destructive and no one complained, he let me be who I was.

When we landed I was so giddy that the jet lag didn't catch up with me until we were at the hotel. Dad was at the desk going over his notes and reading through clips of his previous articles. I sat at the edge of the bed watching TV.

"So do you know this guy you're meeting?" I asked when The Simpsons was over. Another episode was starting, but it was one I had seen before and I was starting to get too tired to find it funny.

Dad shook his head. When I looked over at him I could see two slices of the pepperoni pizza we'd ordered for dinner. The pizza was made in the hotel kitchen. The oil had dried up and the slices were starting to look flat tasteless.

"We've been e-mailing back and forth," he said, while reading. "He said he saw my work on the website."

"Your stories are posted online?" I asked.

"Well, no, I submitted these articles through the Associated Press," Dad turned in his chair so he could look at me as he explained it better. "You see the Associated Press is kind of like a bank of articles. Anyone can have access to them for a price, which is why I made so much money off of that first article back in February."

I remembered that check. All those zeros didn't seem real at first, but Dad had earned them. I tried to remember everything about the article.

"You said you thought the people who owned all that stuff were lying," I said. "Do you think the same thing is happening here?"

Dad smiled. "That's what I intend to find out. And if this works out, Sean, we are going to be able to move into a much bigger house somewhere in the countryside. This story is going to set us up for a very long time. We're going to do a lot more things together."

I didn't know how to feel about that, so I just smiled. The truth is I was happy for Dad. This story would be a big deal for his career and if he made that extra money, that'd be awesome. But I guess I've never been all that impressed by money.

His job at the paper paid more than enough for us to get by. We lived in a nice apartment in a fairly decent neighborhood. I was able to walk to school every day, which I loved. If we got a house in the countryside I would have to take the bus. And the plane ride was a bumper car race compared to having to put up with the shouting, the smell of sweat, and the uneven, stomach turning roads that a school bus promised.

When I thought of the news and the people who did horrible things for money, it made me glad that Dad was there to expose them for who they were. It wasn't easy knowing the risks he took to get the stories. There was also knowing that one day I could get a visit from a police officer, telling me that Dad crossed one line too many and upset the wrong person. But if these were the kinds of people he was trying to investigate, that was all that mattered to me.

The next morning we had breakfast at a diner. Dad was wearing khaki pants and a gray button down shirt. He never wore a tie to interviews, but he kept his short dark hair underneath his baseball cap. He also wore a jacket from some baseball game from years ago that helped him to blend in with the crowd if he had to make a run for it. He had a tape recorder in his shirt pocket and a note pad in the messenger bag that he kept around his shoulder.

After breakfast, we took a walk around the block. The streets were packed with busses, taxicabs and other commuters filling the air with the smell of exhaust. Sunlight reflected off of the top most windows of the tallest sky scrapers. Some of the shops were just opening up and I looked in windows fascinated by what was inside.

"How many subway entrances did we just pass?" Dad asked after we had walked some distance.

"Three." I said, recognizing his tone. He wanted to know that I was paying attention.

"Actually, there was a forth one across the street," he said. "But not bad. What was the name of the diner we were just at?"

"Joanna's Deli," I said, smugly. As an afterthought I added, "Our waitress's name was Frieda and she had curly red hair."

"All right, smart guy." Dad ran his hand through my hair. "What buses meet right there?"

There was a shelter at the bus stop ahead of us and I ran up to look at the sign above it. When he caught up to me, I read them off.

"Okay," Dad pulled his wallet out of his side pocket. "Did you remember your wallet?"

I pulled mine out to show it to him.

"Here's forty dollars," he said, handing me the two twenties. He waited until I put the money in the wallet and put the wallet back in my pocket. "Take the bus to the mall and hang out there for a while. Get a bus schedule and try to be back before six. Can you handle that?"

"Yeah," I said. "I did handle Manhattan on my own, remember?"

Dad smiled and nodded.

"Yes you did," he said. "All right, there's your bus."

I looked up and saw the number fifty bus. A marquee of the places along the bus line included The Gardens.

"Is that the amusement park you were telling me about?" I asked.

"That's the one," Dad answered. He gave me some extra money for the bus fare. "We can check it out tomorrow. I'll see you tonight."

"Thanks Dad," I said, before climbing into the bus.

Have you ever had a feeling, like you know something big was going to happen? Not always a bad thing, but something that would change your life forever? It's easy to say you knew that would happen after the fact. Or that you should have seen it coming.

The fact is I always saw it coming. I knew that one day Dad would go too far for a story. Just like every firefighter's family member must know that one day their loved ones will die trying to save someone else. It's not a fear. It's something you expect.

And for some reason, I knew what was going to happen that day. At the same time, I didn't know anything at all.