"Dad," I said. "We don't have to leave you. I mean, there's room in the Thunder Road..."

He chuckled. "Bruce Springsteen..."

"Yeah. The point is, you could come with us."

"In that bucket of bolts? You have got to be kidding!"

"Then you're leaving us, because I offered."

Dad frowned. "I'll think about it."

He shook his head, snickering a little at a private joke. "Salvage One."

I stared. "What?"

"It's a TV show. Andy Griffith runs a junkyard and builds a spaceship out of scrap so he can go to the moon and salvage all the junk astronauts leave behind. Great first season, not so good in the second."

I rolled my eyes.

After pulling an all nighter like that, we all had to dose ourselves with caffeine when we got up, even if we didn't care for the taste.

Dad put his hand on my sister's forehead, checking her temperature. "You okay, sweetie?"

She nodded. "Um hum."

"Last night you passed out. Had a nosebleed."

"It's okay. I was just making things float, and it made me tired."

He still looked worried, but gave her a slight smile.

I could tell Dad wanted to say something to us, but it took awhile before it actually came out. "I...may have overreacted last night."

I gave him a look that said, `Gee, you think?' But kept quiet, eating my cereal.

"...You see, I was afraid that someone would see you, maybe report their little UFO sighting to the authorities. Your friend the bully kind of pissed me off saying it, but he was right. I put you all in danger trying to shut down your little machine...and I'm sorry. This is all to say you're not grounded. And I'll let you keep your...flying thing."

Me, Jamie and Gertie grinned at each other.

"That being said, there's going to be some rules. I don't want you flying that thing where anyone can see it. Keep the lights off, stay in the forest, below the treeline, away from houses, and fly only at night. Actually, the next thing you take the thing out, I want to supervise the operation. Got me? From now on, no unauthorized flights."

"Yes sir."

Jamie and Gertie also agreed to the terms.

Dad frowned. "Elliott, Lori, you sure you can trust this...Roger kid with your little project?"

"Gertie trusts him," I sighed. "She has a good sense for these things."

Jamie nodded. "I feel bad for him. I think he fights people because he has it rough at home."

"How did he get involved with you guys anyway?"

Jamie gave me an uncomfortable look. "Apparently there's some truth to the tabloids, and Roger reads them."

Dad looked unsettled, but said nothing more on the subject.

Gertie sat up in her chair. "Daddy, you saw the spaceship last night. You've got to believe I'm an astronaut now. I actually did fly a couple days ago. It wasn't just pretend. You believe me now, don't you, daddy?"

He sighed. "Sweetie, I know you're excited, but what you're doing is very dangerous."

"That's why we're testing it. We tried it on Mister Squirrel, then me without the...thing..."

Dad stared at me in horror. "You flew your sister around with that toy? Without even a damn parachute?"

I shrugged. "She begged me. She was about to cry."

"And you just let her." Dad clenched his fists. "Elliott, you've got to start learning how to do what's best for kids younger than yourself. One of these days you're going to be a parent, and you'll need to occasionally say no or they'll do something and hurt themselves. Thank the Lord nothing happened!"

I and Jamie looked at each other in discomfort.

He got up from the table, staring out the window. After some slow breathing exercises, he returned to his seat, rubbing his red face in frustration. "I really should ground you for putting your sister in danger, but I won't because I did the same damn thing trying to stop you."

Gertie made the same suggestion I made to him last night. "Daddy, you should come to Jufuceri with us. You only have to sit in the Thunder Road a few hours and we'll meet ET's friends. They could have a better spaceship, and stuff we need for a long space trip."

Dad gave her a sad look. "Sugar, you're safe here. With me."

My sister frowned. "No, Daddy, we're hiding."

"We talked about this, baby doll. Daddy's going to save up and drive us all to Mexico."

Jamie gave me a questioning look. He had mentioned this briefly in passing, but I hadn't taken it seriously at the time.

Gertie prodded her pancake with her fork. "But you said you're the only one bringing in a good paycheck! You said without Ruby..."

Michael looked hurt by this comment, but didn't argue.

"I know, I know..." Dad groaned.

"We don't have any idea if we're going to see Ruby or Mommy again, and there's bad men trying to find us! With ET it's going to be safe! Please say you'll come with us!"

"Honey, remember when we watched Planet of the Apes and we saw that man get captured by a bunch of talking monkeys? That could be us!"

"So you'd rather have the army capture us?"

"I didn't say that."

I put my dishes in the sink. "ET's our best bet. Last night you asked if I were trying to get rid of you. We're not. But we're going to do this with or without you."

Tears rolled down Gertie's cheeks. "If you say no, you're the one that'll be leaving us! I don't ant you to stay behind, daddy. Please say you'll come!"

Dad swallowed. "Well...If me going into space to meet your moon man really means that much to you, I guess I could handle sitting in your tin can for a few hours..."

"Yay!" She brightened, throwing her arms around him.

"What does Michael think about all this?"

My brother sighed, rubbed his bloodshot eyes. "Let me wake up a little more and we'll talk."

We left for school.

"I...don't know," Michael said as we reached the end of the block. "I...I mean, yeah, I'm going to miss you guys, but..."

Gertie frowned. "You're going to miss Timmashay too."

He reddened. "Yeah. And she has a family."

"So you're not going. What if they capture you?"

"I never touched ET. Have you ever seen me glow or do the crazy things you can?"

"Well, no..."

"So I'll, what, end up in a cell for awhile. I don't see why they'd hold me for anything."

Gertie acted like she were about to cry again. "So you're just going to leave us?"

"Gertie...I'm almost an adult. I can make my own decisions, and, well, I really love Timmashay. I'm thinking maybe when we graduate, we can move somewhere, find some better jobs..."

Gertie stopped in her tracks and started sobbing.

Michael reddened. "Hey! Stop with the waterworks! Look, when Mom and Dad had us, they moved away from their folks and started their own family. It was sad, but you know, that's how families work."

Gertie stared. "You're going to have a baby?"

My brother's face turned a deeper shade of red. "No! I was just trying to explain..."

She sighed, wiped her eyes. "You're right. If you have a baby, she'll want to have a daddy...Still, it would be nice if you and her came along..."

"Yeah? For how long?"

"I dunno, forever?"

Michael laughed. "No way. One close encounter is enough for me for a lifetime! Besides, I haven't even begun to see all there is to this planet. That road trip we had was the closest thing we had to seeing the world in a long time!"

When we arrived at school, Roger awaited us at the front steps. "Hey, Jedi Knight!"

He gave me a high five, then turned to face my girlfriend, bashfully waving, starting with the compliments, kind of laying it on thick: The niceness of her clothing ("These cheap things?") and hair ("I only washed it," she said).

Roger swallowed, mumbling an apology to Jamie.

The moment he started to ask, she kissed him on the mouth.

I didn't see Roger glow, except maybe on the inside. Maybe the two did later, but I couldn't stand to watch any more.

"I guess we really are cousins now," I snarled, stomping into the building.

In science, I did okay. I paid attention like I was supposed to, answered the teacher's questions when I was called. The coffee worked, and plus I (ahem) didn't have anyone like Jamie to distract me.

At the end of class, Jamie came up to me, looking apologetic, but as she fumbled for words, I could tell she wasn't sorry, she just wanted to keep her options open. "Elliott...I..."

I didn't let her complete the thought. "Are you going to stay with him, or are we bringing him along? He has a family, you know."

"Elliott, you've got a family."

"Yeah, but he's normal. I mean, sure, he's got an abusive dad, but that's not an excuse for him to leave the earth forever. It's not like he glows in the dark!"

She choked down a sob, rushing out the door.

How do you comfort someone in a situation like that?

I had kept awake in science, but my performance in gym was less than stellar. That was okay, but I doubted anyone would pick me for basketball again.

At lunch, Roger plopped down at my table like I wanted him there.

He set a can of Pepsi in front of me. "Can you make this float, please?"

I shook my head.

"Oh right. CIA. Gotcha." He swallowed. "Look, I was just talking with Jamie...who said you could kick me out?"

She'd told Roger her real name, apparently.

Roger looked like he wanted to pound me, but I figured him beating me up would actually work in my favor. "I dunno, your mom? Your family? People that would care if you disappeared into space forever?"

"What about you, jerk? Don't tell me you were born in a test tube!"

"I literally can't go back home. What's your excuse?"

He grabbed me by the collar, balling his fist.

"Go ahead. I'd like you to explain it to Jamie."

"Some Jedi."

Roger let go, and then, shockingly, sniffed and started wiping tears from his eyes. "That's not fair!...What about you? How will you live all alone like that?"

I stared sadly at the table. "I don't have a choice...You think I want to never see Mom and the rest of my family again?"

Still trying to be tough, he wiped his eyes. "So when are you leaving?"

"Um...I don't know...when the Thunder Road looks safe enough to travel. Gertie said...our alien has friends waiting somewhere, but I don't know where they are...I don't exactly want to wait for the black vans to start showing up."

"I still want to help. What we're doing is cool...and important."

The bell rang, and we rushed to our next hour classes.

In English, Ms. Horne had us read Macbeth, we studied something called gerunds, worked on grammar exercises. Then I went to French.

I dreaded my next meeting with Jamie...and Roger, so I took my time leaving school that day.

I found the two sitting on the front steps, talking to each other. I walked up to them and just stared.

Jamie looked pained. "Elliott, I...we've been talking...And, well, your dad seems to be the only one who knows that I've been glowing, and even he wouldn't have said anything if I hadn't told him. I think if the authorities did capture me, they wouldn't know any better. They might even let me go. Especially if I tell the right story."

I paled. "What are you trying to say?"

"Elliott, I...I'm not going."

I tried to keep the emotion out of my voice, but it didn't work. You could still kinda tell I was upset. "Because of him, right?"

"Well, I mean, I can't just leave my family, Elliott. I'm not like you. I can go back."

What could I really say to that? I glanced at her, and Roger, and my eyes just started watering.

Wiping my eyes, I turned away, to get my sister from the playground.

I found Gertie snoozing on a swing set. When approached, she rubbed her eyes. "The teacher has been asking why I've been lying down in class. She asked if I was sick, but I said no, I told her I was up late building a spaceship with my brother."

I stared. "Did she believe you?"

Gertie shrugged. "She asked me if it were Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica. She said she made a model of a Dalek and a TARDIS from Doctor Who using a technical manual once."

I think my sister must have noticed something was up. "What's wrong, Elliott? You look sad!"

"Jamie doesn't want to come with us."

Gertie looked puzzled. "Why not?" And then, "Why are you crying?...Ohh."

She gave me a hug. "Elliott, it's not about her. It's about ET."

"No, Gertie. It's about family."

"Hey, little Jedi!" Roger rushed up and high fived my sister.

I stared.

"You want to put some finishing touches on our project? I know where we can find some red paint..."

Roger found us some pretty good house paint. Not oil based, so it wouldn't catch fire in re-entry. Gertie got so excited about the idea that she nearly painted the windows so we couldn't see out.

Since had so much fun with that, I, Roger and Jamie took care of more important details, stocking the ship with as many helpful items as we could, food, bottled water, some hardy plants, plus the O2 Roger had brought us the other day. I didn't want to think about the `Depend-O's', but he had brought those too.

I also added my little liquid oxygen farm to the machine (algae), to lessen tank usage later on.

My sister came close to covering one entire side of the thing before Roger cried, "Oh no! I forgot the asbestos shingles!"

I remembered they had torn out the ceiling in entire sections of my school due to that stuff. "I thought asbestos gave you cancer."

"It's fireproof, dummy! NASA puts it on their shuttles!"

Jamie snorted in amusement. "Roger, they don't use housing shingles."

"So what? Asbestos is asbestos, right? It's not like we can find a spray!" He glanced at my sister. "Hold off on the painting, little girl."

Jamie dug in her bag, bringing out Gertie's stuffed toys.

My sister stared in amazement. "How did you-?"

"Magic."

Gertie pouted. "But how! I wanna know!"

"I saw your mom, okay! I've been keeping this stuff for a long time, but I didn't want your dad to see it because I knew he'd find out about me." Noticing her questioning look, Jamie added, "The last time I saw her, she was fine. The government people let me see her because they thought I didn't know anything, okay?"

Gertie hugged her. "Thank you."

Roger left the clearing. Jamie probably would have left with him, but I needed her help to install the computer inside the vehicle, and Roger said he'd only be a minute. His parting words: "Don't use The Force while I'm out."

I and Jamie didn't talk for awhile.

Jamie plugged in some wires. "Elliott..."

"Stop. I don't want to hear it."

Gertie poked her head up from the back seat. "That's what mommy said to daddy before they divorced. I think, if they actually talked..."

My face flushed red. "Gertie, this is none of your business."

"They said that too. You gonna start throwing things?"

My stomach did a flip-flop. "Gertie! We're not even married!"

Jamie giggled. "Maybe not, but she's right. It doesn't hurt to listen."

I sighed. "Fine. What do you want to say? That Roger's a great guy?"

"That's just it. You're both great guys...That's what makes this so difficult. Elliott, I love you, but you can't ask me to give up my family. I mean, if you could go back to your mom and everything, wouldn't you feel the same way?"

I reluctantly nodded.

She got up, perhaps to hug me or something, but the moment she came close, some kids showed up, banging around, laughing and shouting outside the window.

I looked outside. To my dismay, I found that Roger had brought his buddies to our secret lair.

Roger rode a bicycle, a cart full of shingles and assorted junk hooked up to the back end. His two friends lugged cardboard boxes. "Try to keep up, you guys! We're almost there!"

"Easy for you to say!" called his friend, tall, gangly and freckled. "You're the one with the bike!"

Dirt and gravel crackled against Roger's tires as he rolled down to where we were, squeezing the brakes.

"That's your spaceship?" Mocked a dark haired boy in a ripped sleeveless denim jacket. "How's that going to fly? It looks like crap!"

"It looks like someone's crummy Honda Civic."

"Fix It Again Tony," Freckles corrected.

"Whatever. It's not going to fly."

Roger scowled at him. "What did I say, Kevin? I'll prove it to you! Just help us with these shingles."

"This had better not be some stupid art project."

"Does it look like an art project?"

"Yeah. It does. A crappy one."

"Well it's not. The shingles are supposed to help us against the heat."

"They, isn't ass-sept-toes that stuff that gives you cancer?"

"It's also used by NASA on space shuttles."

Kevin put a hand to his breast. "Wow. They sacrifice so much!"

"It sure doesn't look like NASA," said the dark haired boy. Bruce, I presumed by elimination.

"Screw you! NASA has millions of dollars to work with. We only had a hundred. This is what a hundred looks like. Help me with the shingles."

I rushed out, staring at the newcomers. "Roger, you can't-"

"Relax! I told them the situation. Nobody wants you to get taken away to be dissected. They just want to see the ship in action."

I sighed. "Okay, fine. I hope you're right."

The task of attaching the shingles: Not as easy as we thought. We tried hammering, but the brittle shingles shattered if you struck them in the wrong spot, and we were nailed into metal. We ended up using an electric screwdriver from Roger's house, regular screwdrivers, and hammering in small carpentry nails. Roger had a nail gun, but the nails didn't have any heads, so the shingles slid right off after you drove one in. Maybe we didn't know how to use it, I don't know.

Kind of tricky getting the shingles on the underside. We tried floating the vehicle up, but of course the energy forcefield kept us from doing any sort of damage to the shell while it ran. We ended up parking it on cinder blocks, then rolling it slightly to the side to get the parts we missed. Of course, still not great because when we set it down, the shingles crunched like corn flakes.

"Give it up," said Kevin. "This thing is just going to have to burn up in re-entry."

Roger didn't disagree. "Anyways...you guys believe me now, right? You saw it fly."

Kevin nodded, but Bruce said, "I don't know. I've seen hovercrafts doing that much on TV. You know they got them in Europe..."

When Roger looked at me, I could guess what he wanted before he asked.

"Not until it's dark. I'll take it up in the air, but we're not crossing the treeline or going out of the woods. Not until Dad gets here."

Roger's friends looked disappointed, but they agreed to the terms.

We helped Gertie paint the shingles, but Roger and his friends didn't want to wait for it to dry. They wanted their test flight.

When Roger boarded the Thunder Road, he brought along a BB gun and an echo mike thing he'd removed from a Snake Mountain Playset.

"Wait," I protested. "What's all that for?"

He added a flare gun and a pellet gun to the arsenal. "What if you go to that planet and some wild...Bantha attacks you? You should at least have some protection!"

He brought in his microphone and speaker system with a car battery.

"And what's that doing?"

"Um, long range communication?"

"Sound doesn't travel in space. It needs air as a conductor."

Roger only looked annoyed.

"Okay, at least I understand why you brought it. What's with the toy?"

Roger pressed the echo mike up to the microphone of his speaker system. "You dare question Skeletor!"

I floated his buddies up in the air.

"Take us to the State Fairgrounds!" Roger said.

"No. And I thought you weren't interested in the FFA."

He gave me a dirty look, like I shouldn't be nosing into his business. "I'm not. I just want to scare the cattle."

I looked at Jamie questioningly.

"It's daylight," she said. "Someone will see us."

"Yeah? Like who? A hillbilly farmer? They talk about UFO's all the time! C'mon, it's right on the other side of the woods."

Of course, Roger couldn't be satisfied with a mere fly over, he wanted to take over the controls. Since we had a protective bubble, I reluctantly let him fly us low, causing a stampede and frightening a poor farmer out of his wits. Thankfully, the State Fair had yet to start for the year, so we ddin't have a big stampede. Or witnesses.

We eventually did return to the clearing, but not until we destroyed part of someone's barn and scared a bunch of horses.

To my great relief, neither Dad nor my brother had returned home yet. Once we stepped out, I thought I heard someone, but Roger said the rustling was only a rabbit, maybe some other wild animals.

We set about giving the shingles we'd attached to the shell a second coat, trying our best to look innocent when Dad showed up.

By that time, of course, Roger told his buddies to scram, since he guessed how Dad would react to so many kids knowing our secret.

"That's...interesting," he commented when he saw our treatment of the exterior. "You sure that paint's not flammable?"

As promised, Dad did let us do some more test flying when it got dark, he and Michael supervising the operation.

We kept below the treeline and out of sight of houses...at first.

"You're doing great!" Dad radioed to us. "I admit I was skeptical at first, but you guys really pulled it off!...Now set her down. You still don't have a cloaking device, and you got school tomorrow."

Roger looked at him like he were crazy. "No way! We got a friggin' spaceship! Let's do something cool with it!" Of course he didn't radio that to Dad.

"I don't know..." Jamie groaned. "I am kinda tired..."

"What, are you guys chicken? Gertie and Elliott can use The Force! This is your big chance to play around with this thing! Did Enzo Ferrari build a car just to drive up to the corner grocery store to buy milk? No, he's a friggin' race car driver!"

I rolled my eyes. "Roger, I'm not a race car driver."

"So? Ferruccio Lamborghini used to be a grape farmer."

"What, you got a subscription to all the car magazines or something?"

"They're more interesting than all those plant books you read!"

I looked Jamie in the eyes, wondering what she thought.

"Oh c'mon, Elliott! It's dark. What harm could it do?...This may be your last chance to...enjoy the earth, you know, before you leave it forever."

I swallowed. "Okay, but be careful."

Dad yelled into the walkie-talkie as the Thunder Road darted out of the woods. Mike shouted about how it was a bad idea.

Roger's buddies, it turned out, hadn't gone home, so he swung by and picked them up.

Our radio got out of range and we heard no more warnings from Ground Control.

At first, just a scenic joyride. We buzzed over the town, admiring the lights, zoomed over the vineyards, hovered over the river and quaint buildings on the high cliffs along its shores.

"It's times like these I wish we had a beach," Kevin complained. "We could see all the chicks in swimsuits."

"It's night. You wouldn't see much anyway."

Roger did the `next best thing', flying us along the upper portion of a hotel, where guests left their curtains open. When the people saw they had an audience, they yelled and closed the drapes. I had to cover Gertie's eyes a few times.

I yelled a few times myself, wishing I could un-see what I just saw. One really ugly lady even gave us a little show.

The next thing I knew, the Thunder Road came flying over the junkyard Roger's father owned.

Roger lowered the craft at level with the rustbucket exterior of the main office trailer, switching on the high beams.

He opened a drier door, fired a flare and the BB gun at the trailer's window. Smoke bombs hissed over the side.

"Roger!" I hissed. "What-"

Roger switched on the microphone system. "Charles Allen Myers! Come out of that trailer this instant!"

Indistinct shouting and grumbling trickled out of the building.

Roger tried again. "Charles Allen Myers! Get your butt out here! I command it!"

The front door of the trailer cracked open. "Yeah? You and what army?"

Roger fired a flare straight into the man's door frame. "The Lords of Cobol!"

I admit, it did seem fairly impressive.

Charles came outside with a rifle in hand. "What the hell do you-"

He stared at our vehicle in disbelief.

Gertie didn't know what was going on. I kept waving for her to stay in the back so nobody could see her.

Roger leaned out the drier door, shining a flashlight in the man's eyes. "Kneel before the Lords of Cobol, so we may have mercy on you and spare your sorry excuse for a life!"

Mr. Myers raised the gun.

"Oh shit!" I cried, ducking down. "Now you've done it!"

We braced ourselves, but the bullet cracked harmlessly off our ship's protective bubble.

"You dare attack us with your puny earth weapons?" Roger mocked, his buddies keeping the flashlight shining in the man's face. "Drop the rifle now or we will vaporize you with our photon torpedoes!"

Trembling, Charles obeyed, shakily dropping to his knees. "Please...Cobol Lords! I have a son! Do not kill me!" I'm assuming this wouldn't have worked if the man weren't already drunk.

"You dare use your own offspring as a bargaining chip? You don't care about him, you filthy drunk! You only care about yourself!"

The man wrinkled his brow, as if gaining suspicions about his so-called `Lords.' "What?"

"You drink alcohol and beat him!" Roger shouted into the microphone. "Tell us why we should spare you...or your son!"

"Please Lords!" The man had his hands folded and raised, as if in prayer. "I'll do better! I'll change my ways! I promise!"

Dropping the charade, Roger set aside the microphone, yelling out the door. "You're full of crap, old man! Take this!"

He shot his father with the pellet gun, threw eggs at him.

"You little bastard!" the man yelled, shaking his fist at him. "I'll make you and your alien friends pay for this!"

Roger and his buddies burst out laughing.

Mr. Myers hurled a beer bottle at us, but it just shattered on the ground.

Roger grinned. "You gotta admit, that was fun...Let's go to the drive-in."

Thunder rumbled ominously in the distance. I took it as an omen. "We should go back. We've caused enough trouble."

"C'mon, Elliott! Don't be a pussy! It's just the drive-in!"

"What about the battery?"

"Relax! You said it was alien tech, right? When's the last time you needed to recharge this thing?"

I could only answer, "Umm..."

"It's settled then. Steady as she goes..."

I rushed to the controls, to steer us back to the woods, but Roger just pulled me away from the keyboard. When he started pressing buttons, I gave him a shove, and he hit me.

We traded blows for a moment. Roger knocked my glasses off. Outside, the storm brewed, as if reacting to our inner turmoil.

"Boys!" Jamie scolded. "Stop! Elliott, he's right, it's just the drive-in!"

"It's always `just' something! We need to go back! He'll ruin everything!"

She only frowned.

Roger's buddies held me down in the chair. I could only watch helplessly as we flew off to Screenland 14.

The drive-in didn't get as much traffic on weekdays. Still, I did see a number of cars there. They had a promotion where you could watch a bunch of scifi films real cheap.

Kevin snickered when he saw Star Wars showing on their big screen. "Hey guys. I got an idea."

He whipped our vehicle around a fence, then, when it got to the part of the film where the Imperial Star Destroyer chased the Rebel Starship, he slowly brought the Thunder Road out above the audience, making the sounds of the Imperial March into the microphone.

"Hey, what's that?" Someone at the snack bar said.

Someone else said, "It kinda looks like...a Fiat."

"I didn't know Fiat made spaceships!"

The fun ended when Kevin collided with the movie screen.

While the large white backdrop had withstood the wind and weather and so forth, it hadn't been designed to handle vehicular impact. The moment we ran into it, the rear supports bent and snapped, the whole thing toppling over with a loud crash.

"Holy shit!" Roger cried, half laughing. "Did we just do that?"

"What the hell is that thing?" a carhop shouted.

"We're being invaded!" a woman cried.

"I want my money back!"

Another person clapped. "Hey, this is great! Screw the film! Encore!"

I glared at Roger, angered at how much I'd let him get away with. "Great. Now you've done it!"

"We really should leave now." Jamie pointed down. "Look! That security guard is already calling backup!"

"You don't have to tell me twice!" Roger hurriedly rushed us away from there, returning us to the woods.

...A different part of the woods than we normally used for flight tests.

He shut off the lights and landed.

"Uh...Roger?" I stammered.

"Trust me, it's better this way."

Once out, Roger threw brush and leaves over our vehicle. "C'mon, help me with this stuff, will ya?"

We added debris to the camouflage.

Once done that, Roger marched off down a hill.

I grabbed my glasses and hustled after him. "Do you even know where we are? Or if there's any wild animals, or something else dangerous?"

He laughed. "The only thing you're in danger of out here is getting Lyme Disease or tripping over a rock!"

Basically correct. Bruce reported a snake, but it slithered away, a bobcat appeared but ran off, and owls just make a lot of noise. Dad's yelling was the scariest thing that happened.

Roger's friends made themselves scarce.

When we entered the clearing, the first words out of Dad's mouth were, "Where is the thing? It's got to be dismantled!"

We didn't respond quickly enough, I guess. "Now! Where'd you park it?"

I began to offer an excuse, but Roger spoke first. "I ain't telling you shit, old man."

Dad glared at him, clenching his fists. "I don't think I heard you correctly. What's that again?"

"I said go to hell."

"Kid, I don't know who you think you are, or who you think I am, but your reckless actions have put my family in jeopardy, and I don't take that kind of thing lightly."

Roger reddened. "How do you know it was me? How did you know we did anything?"

I glanced uncomfortably at a pair of binoculars on the ground.

"Doesn't matter. You're going to show me where you parked that thing, and you're going to dismantle it before the authorities start showing up."

"Or what?" Roger challenged. "You'll beat on me like my dad?"

For a moment, Dad looked at him like he'd do just that, but then he just sighed through his nose. "Ever since my Pappy died, I swore not to strike a child, but you're pushing it, kid!"

Roger only looked smug., causing Dad's anger to boil over.

"You selfish boy! You think you're pretty clever don't you? Think you got it all figured out, as long as you personally aren't affected, you don't care who you hurt! Well I got news for you. I heard what they said on the police scanner. If your little excursion gets us any unwanted attention, your little friends are going away for a long time, and if the people after us catch wind of your involvement, you're going down with us. In fact, I'll personally see to it that they believe you have a third eye, and your ass glows in the dark. Get a nice padded cell in a military compound, with options open for exploratory surgery."

Roger kept scratching his wrists and hands. I think he had picked up some poison ivy. "You wouldn't! I'm a kid!"

"And I'm a father with two sons and a daughter. Make no mistake, kid. Just because I don't work you over with my fists doesn't mean I'm your personal doormat."

"Whatever. I'm still not letting you destroy the Thunder Road."

Dad frowned at Jamie. "Where did you put it? Don't make me put you out of doors!"

She swallowed. "I dunno. It's dark. I wouldn't know where to begin looking."

Gertie started crying, blubbering all kinds of reasons why we needed the ship.

"Oh Jeez," Dad groaned. "Where is your mother when I need her? If she were here, you wouldn't be pulling the old waterworks routine. She never fell for it. Nearly had me buying a pony that one time. Not her."

The anger left him. "All right, all right! You can keep your little flying machine. The sad thing is, we may actually need it to get out of town. Hope and pray it won't play out like that, but..."

Dad sent Roger home.

Due to the circumstances, I, Jamie and Gertie ended up going to bed earlier than we had the previous nights, but Dad, restless and fearful of the authorities, kept checking the windows and the radio to see if anyone had come after us. The following morning we found him asleep next to the police scanner. If Michael hadn't woken us up, we would have been late for school.

The fact we had borrowed Dad's groceries for our spaceship did not go unnoticed, but he didn't complain when he opened the cabinets to cook us breakfast.

His fears hadn't been unjustified. During breakfast, a cop came knocking on our door.

Dad told us to stay inside, but we peeked through the windows. The officer, old, heavy-set, wore a ranger hat too small for his big head. I pressed my ear to the door to listen in.

"You seen anything...unusual in these woods lately?"

"Uh, no officer," Dad answered. "Why, is there a problem?"

"Well, I got some rumors about a hot air balloon or some fancy jet. Been causing some trouble in town."

"What kind of trouble?"

"Oh, property damage for one, scared the piss out of the guy down at the scrap yard...Got him raving like a lunatic."

Jamie suppressed an amused snort.

The cop showed Dad a painted shingle that had fallen off the Thunder Road. "You know what this is?"

"Looks like a house shingle. Why?"

"It came off of the...balloon. Found it at the drive-in after it knocked over the screen. Seen any around here lately?"

"No, can't say that I have..."

"Let me know if you find any. Some higher-ups want to get to the bottom of this. We've been asking around, but haven't gotten any good leads yet...You'll let me know if you find anything, won't you?"

"You got it, officer."

At last the cop waddled back to his car and drove off.

Dad darted into the house and slammed the door shut, his face pale and drawn. "C'mon, kids. Pack your things. We're going."

"What?" I cried.

"We're going. Thanks to your little science project, we've outstayed our welcome."

Michael furrowed his brow. "Wait. Won't it look weird if we suddenly start packing up everything after the police showed up?"

Dad rubbed his face in frustration. "All right. Kids, get everything together so we can go when it gets dark. The rest of the day: School as usual. I'll...guess I'll go to work. Try to at least slip a few necessities into the truck before we go, okay?"

We rushed through the cabin, packing our things, hiding scientific paperwork, stuffing a few changes of clothing into the pickup.

Out of time, we hurried down the street to school, sweaty, red face, flustered, imagining spies around every corner.

Mike stopped, gathering us in a group hug. "Guys, if for some reason we get separated, and I never see you again, I just want to let you know I...have always cared for you...And if I get captured by someone, maybe go to jail, I don't want you coming back for me...I...I can figure out things by myself. Just run, okay?"

Choked with emotion, none of us answered.

"I said okay!"

We reluctantly agreed.

"I love you too," Gertie said.

I swallowed. "Yeah, big brother. Me too."

"Remember. You see anything suspicious, anything that, you know, doesn't sit right with you, find an excuse to get the hell out of there. I'm sure they'll pull any trick they can to grab you."

He frowned at Gertie. "I don't like you being in that building alone right now, but it can't be helped. Maybe you could play sick and have Dad come pick you up."

She gave him a reluctant nod.

Roger's friends came up to meet us at the school. Jamie asked where he was.

Kevin shook his head. "The cops are after him. You know, because of what happened with the old man. You can probably understand why he might not want to come to school."

When we walked into the building, people stared at us. Already a bad sign. No one said anything, so I had no clue what they know, or didn't.

"I didn't want to tell you," Kevin whispered behind us. "But I saw some kids spying on us yesterday. One had a Polaroid. We tried to grab them, but they ran off."

"Act natural," Jamie muttered.

We had a test in science class. I barely got fifty percent of the answers right. Mr. Sigler sighed in disappointment when he handed the test back, not saying anything.

I had an uneventful gym class, ate lunch in the cafeteria.

Well, for a moment. Getting nervous on account of the gawking, I took my tray under a stairwell to eat.

The last normal thing I would do for a long, long time.

In the hallway, Kevin called to me and Jamie, frantically gesturing to the window. "Uh...guys?"

With my heart hammering, I rushed to where he stood, peering through the blinds.

A black van with a radar dish on its roof idled along the school's front drive, men in Hazmat suits waving Geiger counters around the building.

"We've got to get out of here," I hissed.

Kevin pulled the fire alarm, hustling us down the hallway before anyone could pinpoint who'd pulled it.

"We should slip out the back," Jamie said as we rushed to the stairs.

Kevin grabbed her arm, shaking his head. "Two kids sneaking out the back while the whole school goes out the front? They'll be expecting that!"

We tried to look normal, joining the herd of students as they filed their way out to the front lawn.

Teachers stood watch, making sure no students slipped away from the property. The men in ABC gear stared at all the kids, checked radioactivity levels. Cops walked around, muttering to the men, pointing at people.

"I'm going to check on Gertie," Jamie said.

She must have noticed my questioning look, for then she added, "Like I told you before, they don't know who I am. As long as I'm not seen with you, I don't think they'll notice me, or care who I am."

"Yeah, but what will I do?"

Jamie rolled her eyes. "Use your brain. Keep away from...those guys, don't do anything that makes you stick out."

"Wait. You're still officially my cousin."

Jamie reddened. "Shit." She shook her head. "Doesn't matter. They probably won't recognize me. They'll look for you first." She slipped into the crowd.

I kept to the border of the milling throng, not at the edge, but near, stepping behind kids whenever an authority figure other than a teacher looked in my direction.

Cops showed my classmates pictures, and the pieces of asbestos. I couldn't tell what they said, but someone pointed in my direction. I quickly moved behind a couple tall kids and they lost me. Still, I knew I had to get out of there fast.

...But how?

Dad's blue F-100 rolled up alongside the curb, but it seemed like a galaxy away.

He stopped, got out, talked with Mrs. Horne, showing her a little booklet. From the design, I guessed it to be a funeral program.

The woman gave him a sympathetic nod, looking around for me, but of course I had cops searching for me too. In fact, Dad didn't escape their notice.

Boom!

I looked back and saw Roger popping out from behind some bushes, hurling M-80's at the police cars.

As the guys in Hazmat suits and police officers turned to look, I rushed up to Dad, giving Mrs. Horne a sideways glance. "She's finally gone, isn't she?"

Dad coughed, showing me his father's picture.

I made myself appropriately sad, though granddad died five years ago, and Dad had marked through the date with a felt tip. "Oh. Right. That is today, isn't it?"

Dad nodded, glanced at my teacher. "This week has been a little hard on all of us. You probably noticed how tired he looks."

Mrs. Horne didn't even question how he kept hiding the program from her scrutiny. "Oh! I'm so sorry! I had no idea."

Dad rubbed my head. "C'mon, kid. Let's go." I could feel tension in his hands as he noticed the cops.

We hurried into the truck.

Outside the back window, officers slapped Roger in handcuffs.

"You shouldn't lie, daddy," Gertie said from the back seat.

Dad shifted into drive. "Sorry, darling. Daddy can't tell the truth like you can. Folks are liable to believe him."

A moment later, my sister had her face pressed to the window. "Mommy! I see mommy!"

Dad smirked. "Yeah. I saw her too. And her police escort."

When people shouted at us, Dad stepped on the gas.

I flinched. "Wait, where's Jamie, I mean, Lori?"

"Probably with your mother. These people pulled out all the stops...When were you going to tell me that girlfriend didn't have any supernatural powers?"

The vinyl seat creaked under my sister's tight grip. "I didn't say she didn't have any, daddy, I just said nobody knows about it but us."

I swallowed. "Well..."

"Son, we all got some hard choices to make. We can either let them whisk us away to their secret army base, or we can start letting people go...At least they won't try to dissect your girlfriend."

"Mommy..." Gertie whimpered.

"I know, sweetie. Those bastards will do anything to nab you."

To drown out the shouting, Dad turned up the volume on the car's tape deck, Stay Hungry by Twisted Sister.

Rain splattered against the windows. Thunder cracked in the distance, the sky turning dark as night. "Oh great," Dad grumbled. "That's lovely. Hope we can use the weather to our advantage."

Dad turned toward the bridge leading out of town, but ran into a police barricade. He swerved around, driving back the way we came. Not to the school, of course, but another route that could hopefully get us out.

"Why don't we just use the spaceship?" Gertie asked. "That's what we built it for!"

"Sorry, sugar. Don't trust your little contraption that much." Dad patted the dashboard. "At least with this baby, I know how it works!" He sighed. "Elliott, Gertie...if I never get to see you again, I want you both to know that your daddy loves you very much."

I stifled a sob. "I love you too."

"Me too, daddy," Gertie said.

Only two bridges could get us across the river. When we reached the second one, we ran straight into another police barricade. Dad tried to reverse direction and go back out, but some army Jeeps and cop cars boxed us in. He slammed on the brakes.

Two men in Hazmat suits approached the truck. Soldiers and police escorted my mother to the side door.

Mom waved to my sister through the window. "Hey, honey! Long time no see!"

"Mommy!" Gertie cried.

"Gertie, these nice men are going to take us back home. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"Umm..." Gertie stammered, glancing nervously at Dad.

Dad mouthed no.

"Daddy says you're going to take us back to that army base."

Mom's reply wasn't exactly a no. "I spoke with them. They're going to make some arrangements. We'll get to see each other, I promise."

A tear rolled down Gertie's cheek. "Mommy, you shouldn't lie."

"Honey, I will get to see you. They have some rules about visitation, but they told me they're willing to negotiate."

Dad laughed. "And you believed them, just like that?"

More tears trickled down my sister's face. "I'm sorry, mommy, I can't! I don't want to go back there! Not ever!"

Mom put her hand on the glass. "You love me, honey, don't you?"

"Yes, mommy," she sobbed. "But those men aren't going to let us be a family again!"

Giving up, Mom gave me a hopeful smile. "Elliott..."

"Mom, I love you, but she's right. It's not going to be a home."

"It's not a home now!" Mom protested.

"All right." A soldier pressed a rifle to Dad's window. "We tried the carrot. Now here's the stick. Out. Now. We can and will open fire."

"Kids," Dad hissed through his teeth. "Get ready to run. Passenger door."

I gave him a slight nod.

Dad shakily raised his hands. "I'm unarmed. I'm going to open the door, but you'll have to excuse me, the latch is a little stubborn..."

Dad flipped the handle, dropping onto the seat at the same time he kicked the door into the soldier's body. The rifle went off, spraying glass and tearing holes in the ceiling.

"Elliott! Gertie! Run!"

"But Dad!" I protested.

"Go! Say hello to ET for me!"

Dad got out, punching his attacker in the face. Me and Gertie made a mad dash out the passenger side.

Obviously, we couldn't just run away. Like I said, surrounded.

The moment gained a few feet, a soldier picked up Gertie. I hit the man in the crotch, yanking my sister out of his clutches, but pinned my arms behind my back.

Mr. Keys stepped out of the crowd, gesturing to someone. Soldiers led Mom around the corner of the truck, followed by Dad, held at gunpoint by a couple more military guys.

"Elliott," said Keys. "It's time to go home."

Mom gave me and my sister an apologetic smile as we got led to a black van.

As the doors popped open, a Toyota Tercel rolled up to the barricade.

Cops marched up to its windows, waving the ugly gold car around, but instead of moving, the vehicle parked, a weird gun aiming at a nearby power transformer.

My jaw dropped when a glowing ball, identical to the one I'd created when I first tested my project, shooting out the gun's muzzle. The transformer blew, throwing everything into darkness.

Mr. Sigler stepped out of the car, throwing out flares.

In between lightning flashes, I spotted his wife in the driver's seat, gripping the wheel. Gertie pointed. "Hey! That's my teacher!"

Something thudded. In another flash of lightning, I found Timmashay grabbing our hands, leading us away from the barricade.

Lightning flash: We brushed past Michael in his tinfoil alien costume and fake alien head. He frantically waved us on.

The soldiers switched on floodlights, but by that time we were down the street, my brother distracting them with dry ice and smoke bombs and flares. Gunshots rang out behind us.

Timmashay opened up a red VW Station Wagon, ushering us inside. I looked out back window.

Sigler's bubble cannon blasted more glowing orbs, knocking cops and soldiers to the ground.

Our driver started up the engine, speeding down the street with that signature Volkswagon putter.

"Daddy!" Gertie sobbed as the barricade disappeared behind us.

I gave her a hug. "I know. This isn't going to be easy."

"You seem to have made an impression on your teacher," Timmashay muttered. "He said he reminded him of you when he was younger. Said he figured out why you guys had been sleeping in his class."

The Volkswagen came to a stop in front of the school.

"Wait," I cried. "What are we doing here?"

Timmashay clicked her tongue against her teeth. "Thought you might like to, I dunno, see your girlfriend again. I hear she's got a plan." She clicked a button on a walkie-talkie. "He's here."

My mouth suddenly got dry. "My...girlfriend?"

The young woman grinned. "I probably wouldn't keep her waiting."

Spotting flashing lights up the street, I quickly dashed out across the lawn in the rain, Gertie close at my heels.

Jamie came running from the employee parking lot, hair damp and matted, radio in one hand. She rushed up to me, pulled me into her arms and kissed me. The jangling car keys in her hand indicated where she'd been hiding.

"They know," she sighed, pressing her forehead to mine.

She dropped the keys in the grass. "Hope Mrs. Sigler can find these again."

"Wait, whose Toyota was that?"

"They own two cars."

I gave her a questioning glance, but a moment later I saw the reason for the discard: The front doors of the school burst open, a pair of men in army green storming out.

Jamie glanced anxiously at the darkened sky, pushed the talk button. "Bruce?"

"Just a minute!" A voice on the other end shouted. Apparently we had a third walkie-talkie.

The soldiers closed in. Cops and black vans zoomed up to the school. "We don't have a minute."

"Gee, hold your horses, okay?"

A second later, the Thunder Road settled on the grass, door popping open.

"I'll take the army guys." A dark haired figure in a tank top jumped out. "You guys...Go to Mars."

I swallowed hard. "What about you, Bruce?"

"You think I want to spend any more time in that cramped little soup can? Get going!"

An uneven match. Bruce charged at the men with a loud yell, doing his best to injure and trip up our pursuers. I, Gertie and Jamie boarded the Thunder Road.

Someone had added a fresh car battery to the interior. Important, considering the amount of energy we'd used up the day before.

"Goodbye, Earth," Jamie moaned as she stared out the window. "Guess this will be the last time we'll be seeing you."

Gertie sounded close to tears. "Goodbye Earth."

My girlfriend looked into my eyes. "You sure you don't want to go to Mexico, or a deserted island in the Pacific?"

"They'll just come after us again."

"ET's friends are very close," Gertie added. "We should go."

Sighing, Jamie brought our vehicle into the air.

By then, radar vans and military vehicles encircled the property on all sides, driving on the grass. Kids, still in school, stared through the windows, muttering with excitement at all the chaotic goings-on.

I don't know where they'd been hiding, but a squadron of military helicopters swooped in from nowhere, gathering around our little ship, megaphones ordering us to land or they would open fire.

"How bulletproof do you think our bubble is?" Jamie asked.

"Dunno." I pointed to a chopper, a big scary MI-24 Hind Gunship like Stallone faced in a Rambo film. "I'm more worried about those rockets. Maybe we should set it down."

Jamie entered the commands on the keyboard, but we only dropped a few feet before our vehicle got...its own ideas.

With frightening speed, the Thunder Road shot out sideways from beneath a cluster of Bell UH-1N `Hueys', whipped up in a diagonal, and ran a ring around a pair of them.

"What's happening! What are you doing!"

"Nothing!" Jamie shouted, frantically pressing buttons. "I've lost control of the system!"

I dug my fingernails into the chair as our ship took us through another harrowing airborne maneuver that somehow resulted in two of the Rambo helicopters colliding and crashing to the ground. Missiles exploded.

The Thunder Road shot like a bullet toward the clock face on City Hall.

"Shut it off!" I yelled. "We're going to crash!"

"If we shut it off, we won't even have the bubble to protect us!" Jamie protested.

We braced ourselves as the building loomed close.

A moment before impact, the Thunder Road abruptly reversed direction, and we soared over the river.

"Now! Shut it off! At least we'll have a water landing!"

"Wait!" Jamie pointed to the monitor. "Look!"

The screen now displayed a diagram with two blinking dots, one larger, indicating our position, the other smaller, somewhere further away, above us, with a line in between them. As I stared, the dot traveled further and further up the line, as if tracing a map.

"He's really doing it!" Gertie exclaimed. "ET's taking us home!"