The Summer Experiment by Cathie Pelletier Page A

balloon, but later they noticed it displayed a strange quality of light. Suddenly, the object imploded and disappeared.
    Well, there was Dad’s helicopter and Mom’s weather balloon. I guess it’s human nature to look for a logical explanation. But a weather balloon didn’t take these four men and examine them. A helicopter didn’t gather hair and skin samples. Even though this event took place long before I was born, it’s still talked about in town. After all, it happened right in our backyard, so to speak. Some people even spoke out publicly. For instance, Mr. Purdy, our principal, was once quoted in the school paper giving his own explanation. “There is such a thing as false memory,” Mr. Purdy said. “I have no doubt that these men believe they are telling the truth. But the subconscious mind is greatly influenced by what we see in movies and on television, or read in books. I suspect this is where their memories have come from.”
    I wondered if Mr. Purdy had seen the lights that so many others were seeing over the past week. And, if so, did he fall into the helicopter or weather balloon group? After looking up the word “imploded”—it means to collapse inwardly, by the way, to disappear—I went back to Wikipedia.
    Jack Weiner was the first to start having nightmares. In these dreams, he saw beings with long necks and large heads. The beings had large, metallic glowing eyes with no lids, and their hands were insect-like, with four fingers.
    I’m not sure if cats have a sense of humor. They seem to. Sometimes, I’ll look up from my homework or from eating a banana or watching a TV program, and my cat, Maxwell, will be staring right at me, the silly human. This was one of those Max moments. Just as I was reading about the glowing eyes and the four-fingered hands, Max jumped from the top of my bookshelf, where he likes to sleep, and hit on my desk. It was a perfect landing on all four feet. Have you looked at a cat’s eyes recently? Slanted. Narrow. Glowing. They are eyes that belong to aliens.
    After I scooted Max out the door and watched him slink down the stairs, I went back into my room and waited for my heart rate to go back to normal. That’s when I heard an instant message arrive from Marilee. Her instant-message sound effect is that of a rooster crowing. I leaned in closer to read what she had sent.
    MeMarilee: OMG!!!! TURN ON YOUR TV!!!!
    I clicked on the small TV set I kept on a stand at the foot of my bed. I felt my mouth drop open. What was happening was a case for the record books, no doubt about it. Mom should see this too! I raced downstairs and pulled the cord on her vacuum cleaner. Then I turned on the large TV in the living room and hit the record button so the program would tape. Mom and I sat on the sofa and watched together, amazed. If I live to be a hundred years old, I don’t think I’ll ever be that surprised again.
    â€œWe’ll wait for the others,” Mom said. But I think it was more because she just didn’t know what to say. She needed time to think, and so did I. So Mom went back to vacuuming, and I took Tina into the den to play with her doll. We knew the family would be coming by later for some Friday-night fried chicken, Mom’s specialty. This would give us all a chance to “chew the cud,” which is what Grandpa calls a discussion.
    And that’s just what happened, with Grandpa and Grandma arriving first. Then Johnny stomped in, hungry as usual and acting like he owned Microsoft or something. Billy Ferguson was with him. Billy actually smiled at me, as if maybe he knew I was alive and on the planet. It even seemed like a genuine smile. But then my logic kicked in. I figured he was still laughing over what I’d said about dating him one day. So I pretended I didn’t notice he was in the room. Uncle Horace, who owns Horace’s Auto Repair, and Aunt Betty, a hairdresser, arrived