Mr. Smith let us do what we liked for the remainder of the hour. (That is, Kym left like always, and Jeni, Abbey and I read for the hour.)
Abbey left immediately after the bell rang, but Jeni was going to walk to the library that day and I was always slow getting out of the classroom.
"Why do you always carry so much stuff?" asked Jeni for the third time this week.
"Because, I'm lazy and I won't go put the extra junk back in my locker," I answered almost automatically, as I carefully stacked my textbooks on my binder.
I heard someone shuffle into the classroom and automatically assumed that detention was being held in this room tonight. It took me a moment to realize that today was Friday and there was no detention.
I turned around to see the four new students whose names I had never bothered to learn standing right behind me.
"Who has it?" asked one of them in an eerie, echoing voice.
My immediate reaction was to be spooked and confused. However, I'd spent far too much of my time reading science fiction novels to not recognize that this sort of scenario. This was a demand for something that they, whoever they were, should not be allowed to have. Of course, if this was one of my books, the main character ought to have demanded to know what it was that they were after, why they were after it, and who they were.
"Can I help you?" asked Mr. Smith cheerfully.
"Where is the Binary Modification Device, human?" asked the same student with an obvious disgust in his voice.
"The what?" I asked. I never did figure out why I said that. It was probably a reflex reaction from whenever I thought I had misheard someone.
"The Binary Modification Device," one of the four said. "We know it is in this room. It was activated only forty of your Earth minutes ago."
"Never heard of it," said Jeni calmly. "Let's go, Elisabeth, before the library closes."
"You will not leave," said the apparent leader of what I was now coming to realize was a group of aliens. As he said that, each of them pulled small gun-like devices from their pockets.
In the back of my mind, I was still examining everything from the point of view of a movie, and I knew that if someone didn't do something clever very soon, we would all probably be dead in the next few minutes.
I lowered my books onto the desk, perhaps thinking that I didn't want to be encumbered by them if I had to run but out of pure habit I kept holding onto my library book.
"Who had the Device?" demanded the alien pointing its gun at Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith smiled enthusiastically and replied, "Brilliant. You mean to say you're real aliens? From another planet?"
Jeni grabbed my arm and began to drag me toward the outside door, while the delusional substitute teacher distracted the firearm wielding aliens.
"Don't move, human children," said another of the aliens as it whipped its gun to point straight at Jeni and I.
"Damn." The word slipped through my lips before I could stop it. "Oops." There went my perfect record. And only you, Elisabeth, would think about that when you're about to die.
Suddenly a loud buzzing noise filled the air and the alien's guns sparked and smoked. They're broken! I thought.
Jeni and I didn't bother to stick around to find out why; we turned and ran for the relative safety of the outdoors.
Another useful thing about small towns was that you always knew the best places to hide. We darted across the parking lot, completely oblivious to the fact that our fellow students were carelessly flooring their vehicles in their hurry to depart the school for home. By some miracle, we managed to cross the parking lot at top speed without being hit by anyone. We made a beeline across the school service drive and into the forest that lay just on the other side of it.
Despite my having been on track, neither one of us was in that good of shape, so the moment we were certain that we were far enough into the trees, we both doubled over and gasped for air.
Suddenly someone (or something, the pessimistic part of me supplied unhelpfully) grabbed our shoulders. I can't say how Jeni reacted, but I jumped comically.
"This isn't the safest place to be," Mr. Smith told us.
I relaxed the moment I heard his voice. Not one of the aliens. "Better than back there," I shuddered. "What was that noise anyway?"
"Sonic screwdriver," Mr. Smith answered as he continued to walk into the woods. With no better idea as to what to do, Jeni and I followed after him.
I'd meant to direct that question at Jeni, my personal repertoire of information on all things military – top secret or not – so I was surprised when he had answered my question.
"A sonic what?" Jeni snapped, annoyed that he knew what had allowed our escape and she did not.
"Screwdriver," Mr. Smith repeated, while he dug the device out of his pocket to show us. It was roughly cylindrical with only one button on it that I could see and a tip that might or might not have been able to light up.
"How do you know so much about aliens, Mr. Smith?" I asked. Then as an afterthought, I added: "Who are you?"
"Oh, I'm the…" he let the rest of the sentence trail off, as we came into view of a particular sight.
A blue wooden box with the words "Police Public Call Box" inscribed in white paint above the door was standing in the middle of the woods.
"The what?" demanded Jeni, annoyed that he had not finished his sentence.
I recognized the image from my book, and that meant that Mr. Smith could be none other than…
"The Doctor?" I finished for him.
Author's Note: Now I've gotten to the interesting part. I hope I've done a decent job so far, and I have to thank schwans for so kindly reviewing my poor writing. Sadly this is the end of this chapter, but I'll update soon.