My Teacher Is an Alien by Bruce Coville Page A

know
    how to tell the kind of "little white lies" that keep people from getting mad at you.
    But I doubted that even his reputation for honesty would convince people this story was true.
    Peter smiled. "Actually, you're the reason anyone believed me. It started with Stacy. She just didn't believe you had really fainted—or that if you had, you would have tried to grab the teacher's ear on the way down. So she knew something was going on. Later she cornered me on the playground and demanded to know what you were up to."
    "Why you?" I asked.
    Peter blushed. "You're going to hate this," he said. "There's a rumor going around that you're my girlfriend because we've been spending so much time talking on the playground."
    "Yuck!" I yelled. "Yuck! Yuck! Yuck!"
    Suddenly I realized what I had just done. "Don't take that personally," I said.
    "I won't," said Peter. "Since I feel the same way."
     
    Hey! I thought. What do you mean, you feel the same wayl
     
    But we didn't have time to work that out right then.
    "Anyway," said Peter, "Stacy was convinced I must know what was going on. And since I did, I told her."
    "The whole story?" I gasped.
    Peter nodded. "She didn't believe me at first, of course. But when she talked to you on Saturday and you told her there was nothing actually wrong with you, she figured it must be true." He laughed. "That was all it took. By Saturday afternoon, the phone lines were humming all over Kennituck Falls."
    "How come you know all this?" I asked. "How come no one asked me?"
    Peter shrugged. "That's not the way rumors work. People never check with the source. They always ask someone else. Don't ask me why, but it's true. Lots of stupid things are true. Anyway, Stacy told Mike, and Mike told someone else, and that was it. It's the kind of story that travels fast."
    "And they all believe it?" I asked.
    Peter shook his head. "I don't think so—at least not yet. Except for Duncan. He's so dim he'll believe anything—especially if Stacy and Mike believe it. He thinks they know everything. That's why he hates them so much."
    "I see," I said, though some of this was coming a little too fast for me. "Well, do you suppose if enough of us start to believe it, the adults will pay any attention to us?"
    Peter looked as if I had just suggested Mickey Mouse was likely to be the next president of the United States. "Get real, Susan," he said. "They'll
    say it's just another crazy kid rumor. Do you remember last year, when half the people in this school were convinced that the president was coming to Kennituck Falls to make a speech?"
    I nodded. I had almost believed it myself—half because so many of my friends did, half because I wanted it to be true. I also remember how my father had laughed when he heard about it. "Just because a thousand idiots believe something, that doesn't make it true," he had said.
    Which was true, I guess. But it certainly didn't help us now.
    That was when Peter decided to complicate things with a new problem.
    "What are you going to do about this yourself?" he asked.
    "What do you mean?"
    "Well, since one of the things on Broxholm's shopping list is the best kid in the class, if we can't unmask him you've got a good chance of being picked yourself."
    That was the best laugh I'd had in days. "You're nuts," I said. "There's no way I could be picked for top kid in the class!"
    "There is too. It all depends on how he's making his choice. The way I see it, there are four of us that might be considered best in the class—Stacy, Michael, you, and me."
    "You're nuts," I said again.
    "Listen to me! Stacy and Michael are your basic perfect students. But they just did a good job of taking themselves out of the running—though to tell you the truth, I don't think Broxholm would have chosen either of them, anyway. They're real bright, but they don't think that much. They believe everything the teacher tells them. I'm sure Broxholm is bright enough to know that doesn't make a great student."
    He