Free Bug Eyed Monsters by Jean Ure Page A

remembered, had been about Mr Potts.
    â€˜Hey! Guess what?’
    Poor old Pudgy Potts had been abducted by aliens! They had come, and they had taken him.
    Without a shadow of a doubt, Mr Potts had disappeared. There one day, gone the next. The official explanation was a nervous breakdown.
    â€˜Caused, I do not doubt,’ spat Mr Bulstrode, ‘by the loutish behaviour of some of you boys. Baljit Ssssingh, why are you holding a book over your head?’
    â€˜Just taking cover, sir,’ said Bal. ‘Sir, are you absolutely certain, sir, that Mr Potts has had a breakdown?’
    â€˜What elsssse,’ hissed Mr Bulstrode, ‘would you ssssuggest?’
    â€˜We thought he might have been abducted by aliens, sir.’
    â€˜A likely tale!’ scoffed Mr Bulstrode.
    Well, it wasn’t very likely, of course. No one really took it seriously.
    Still, it was funny how the rumours persisted. Aliens on the staff – teachers being abducted – Mr Snitcher not being human.
    â€˜Word! The Snitch ain’t human!’
    Rumours didn’t come from nowhere.
    Joe still reckoned that Mr Snitcher wasn’t the only one. ‘I reckon there’s hordes of ‘em!’
    The others weren’t so sure. It was a nice idea, but… why choose St Bede’s?
    â€˜Seems to me,’ said Joe, ‘a school’s exactly what they would choose. Plant a few aliens in with the teachers, who’d know the difference?’
    â€˜Should have thought they’d go for somewhere a bit more important,’ said Bal. Bal had a bit of a tendency to argue. ‘Like the Houses of Parliament, or somewhere.’
    â€˜Parliament’s probably already full of ‘em,’ said Joe. ‘Whole country’s probably overrun by now.’
    It was only a game, of course. They all accepted that; even Joe. Nobody really believed the country was overrun by aliens. The Houses of Parliament, maybe; but the whole country? That was felt to be pushing it.
    On the other hand, Mr Snitcher not being human… well! That was a different matter. That really might be true. As Ryan said, he certainly didn’t look human. What he looked like, more than anything, was an alien trying to blend in and not quite succeeding.

    What human being ever had a body that was so thin and twiglike? So covered in knobbly bits? With a face that was so froglike, and eyes that were so bulgy?
    â€˜Bug eyes,’ said Joe. ‘Sure sign.’
    As for his ears…! They flapped on either side of his head like giant pancakes in the breeze. Sometimes, when he was taking class, he would pull one of his ears forward so that it almost wrapped round his cheek.
    â€˜Antennae,’ said Joe, tapping the side of his nose. ‘Needs ‘em for picking up extra-terrestrial signals.’
    But then there was his name: Snitcher. Would an alien really choose a name like that?
    Joe, as always, had a theory. He said it was precisely the sort of name an alien
would
choose.
    â€˜Obviously he liked the sound of it… obviously appeals to an alien ear.’
    They considered it, the four of them, as they lay in bed in the dormitory after lights out.
    â€˜You don’t reckon,’ said Bal, at last, ‘that he’d go for something a bit more ordinary, like Smith or something?’
    â€˜Nah!’ Joe dismissed the suggestion with an airy wave of the hand. ‘Dead give-away. Anyone calls themselves Smith, you know at once it’s not their real name.’
    There was a silence.
    â€˜My auntie’s called Smith,’ said Ryan.
    â€˜Yeah?’
    â€˜Yeah.’
    â€˜Your auntie an alien?’
    Carefully, Ryan said, ‘I don’t think so.’
    â€˜There you are, then.’ Joe lay down, with a satisfied thump. ‘That proves it!’
    No one was quite certain exactly what it was that had been proved, but you didn’t argue with Joe. He had an answer for everything.
    â€˜Guess we