Free Something Girl by Beth Goobie Page B

didn’t even have to wonder why my mom stared out the window instead of talking to me. I could just breathe and look at the sun shining through the cracks between the boards. It was so nice, not having to worry.
    I think I fell asleep, because suddenly I heard someone crawling into the fort. Right away fear slammed through me the way it does when I’m surprised. I thought, It’s my dad! But then I saw it was Jujube and relaxed.
    Jujube got her nickname from those bright jelly candies. One of her eyes was blue and the other green. It made her look kind of alien. When I first met her, I wanted to call her E.T. but there was a spaced-out kid down the street who already had that nickname.
    I got to know Jujube because I used to babysit her. Now she was twelve and kind of young for me to be friends with, since I was fifteen. But she was smart, and I likedthe way she was always talking. I wasn’t a talker. I mostly just listened — like my mom, I guess.
    “Froggy!” said Jujube, sitting down beside me.
    Froggy was my nickname around the neighborhood. My dad gave it to me when I was little. I’m not sure why. Maybe he thought I looked like a frog or something.
    “Yeah?” The aspirin I’d taken was wearing off. My head was starting to hurt again. I wasn’t really in the mood for Jujube’s talk.
    She poked me in the arm and leaned close. “You won’t believe it,” she said with a grin. “I’ve figured out the next place the aliens are going to land.”
    I rolled my eyes. Aliens again. Jujube was always talking about them. So I just said, “You watch The X-Files too much.”
    “It’s a good show,” she said. Then she handed me a bag of salt-and-vinegar chips. “Here.”
    “Thanks.” I tore open the bag and startedeating. As usual, I was starved. It was probably way past lunchtime.
    “Where did you get that bruise?” asked Jujube.
    “What bruise?” I stared at her. How could she see the bruises on the back of my head?
    “There.” She pointed to my arm. When I looked at it, I saw some purple fingermarks. My dad! I thought. Last night . But I shrugged as if it didn’t matter.
    “I bumped into something,” I said.
    Jujube sighed, and it got really quiet. Then she must have decided to change the subject because she said, “I’ve figured something out. Something really interesting.”
    Jujube was smart and liked to show off her brain. She won science awards and got a lot of ideas. I called them her “crazies,” but I was kidding. She really was smart.
    “The aliens visit Planet Earth every 3,594 months.” Jujube talked slowly, as if she was announcing the discovery of a new planet.
    “Uh-huh,” I said, trying not to laugh. “What about it?”
    Jujube’s voice sped up so fast, I think it got ahead of her brain. “Well,” she said, “aliens always leave a sign to show where they’ve been. I’ve seen it in pictures of their landing sites. You have to look really close, but it’s there. It’s awesome.”
    “What sign?” I asked.
    “It looks like three triangles,” said Jujube. She pulled a notebook and a pencil out of her pocket and drew a picture. It looked like three triangles that had bumped into each other.
    “So?” I asked.
    Jujube’s mouth just kept going. “The first place they landed was in the Middle East,” she said. “I think most aliens land there first. Maybe it’s like a cosmic energy place, or something. Then it was South America, in the Andes. I think they’re going to land here next.”
    This was too much, and I started to laugh.“In Edmonton?” I said. “This is one of your crazies, right?”
    Jujube sucked in her lips, then decided to ignore me. “The way I figure it,” she said, “the aliens will show up in Edmonton about a month from now — summer vacation.”
    I wasn’t looking forward to July. My dad would be home on vacation from his real estate office for a whole month.
    “Do they take people with them?” I asked, half serious.
    “Only one-way