“Hey, wait! We won’t hurt you.” Jerry ran after him.
The little man bent forward, touched his boots, and instantly rose into the air. By the time the boys reached the spot where he had been, the spaceman had floated to the garage roof. They could hear his feet patter across the shingles.
Jerry ran backward until he could see the rooftop. “Please, don’t go away, please!” He called up.
“We won’t hurt you, honest!” Ron chimed in. “Look, we only want to ask you some questions.”
By now the spaceman had reached the silver wand. The boys heard him rap sharply on it. Quickly the wand retracted into the ship and carried the spaceman with it. The hatch slid shut. The barely audible whine increased while the red and white lights whirred faster. With a rush of air that swayed the top of the maple tree in Jerry’s yard, the spaceship shot upward into the night.
The boys stood in the wet grass and watched the spaceship diminish to a globe of light high above. It joined the waiting wedge of lights that wheeled like a flock of pigeons and streaked northward out of sight.
A window slid up. “Ron?” It was his mother’s voice, low and concerned. “Are you two all right?”
“S—sure, we’re fine.”
“What were you shouting about?”
“Ah, it was nothing, Mom.”
“Then please quiet down, or you’ll wake the whole neighborhood.”
“Okay, Mom.”
The boys shuffled toward the tent. Jerry hunched his shoulders and put his hands in his pockets. “Should we tell our folks what happened tonight?”
Ron shook his head. “Not yet. They wouldn’t understand.”
The boys sat down on their sleeping bags and climbed out of their jeans again. Ron wiped his wet feet with a leg of his jeans. “I still can’t figure out why Monaal told us the spaceship was coming and then wouldn’t talk with us…just ran away.”
Jerry rubbed his feet against the pup tent. “Maybe that wasn’t Monaal. Maybe it was some other guy he sent.”
“But what did he want in the workshop?”
Jerry inched into his sleeping bag. “I told you—that’s where we were when we talked with Monaal this afternoon. Remember?”
Ron pulled up the zipper on his sleeping bag. “But if he thought we’d be in the shop, he must have wanted to see us about something.”
“Sure, he probably did.”
“Then why did he run away?”
Jerry sank onto his pillow. “I guess I scared him when I ran after him.”
Ron put his hands under the back of his head and looked up at the stars. “Man, it’s weird! What did that spaceship come all the way down here for?”
The boys were silent. The crickets began to chirp again. Jerry could hear the street sweeper droning down Park Lane. Why had the spaceship come down, he wondered. Suddenly he felt a cold chill run through him. He sat up and reached for his jeans. He felt in the pockets. Thank goodness, it was still there. Slowly he drew the tiny metal object out and held it in his hand. He leaned over. “Ron?”
“Yeah?”
“I bet I know why they came down.”
“Why?”
“To get the gismo!”
* * * *
It wasn’t until the next afternoon, following Saturday-morning lawn mowing, that Jerry and Ron stepped into the workshop.
“Hey look!” Ron pointed at the workbench. The telephone lay on its side, the stand and mouthpiece removed. The receiver, too, had been taken apart.
Jerry snapped his fingers. “The spaceman! Remember, we could see his blue light blinking through the window like he was doing something on the workbench?”
“Yeah!” Ron fastened the base back onto the telephone and screwed the mouthpiece in place. “Why would he want to wreck it like this?”
“To get at the gismo, stupid! He thought it was inside the telephone.”
Ron fastened the telephone to the crystal radio and checked the aerial and ground. He rubbed his hands together. “Okay, let’s have the gismo.”
Jerry reached into his pockets. He felt first in one pocket, then in the other, but his fingers touched no slippery metal. He looked at Ron in dismay. “It’s gone! The gismo is gone!”
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