Something weird was going on! Brandon suspected that it had to do with a secret alien invasion. He had heard the stories. His parents had even taken him and his brother, Harold, to the alien museum in Roswell, New Mexico on their last vacation. Most everyone knew that aliens had been visiting our planet for a long time. Sometimes they abducted people to perform strange experiments. He knew stories from reliable sources. (Jeff Hooper, the kid in Mr. Bell’s third grade class had a cousin who disappeared when his family moved to Arizona. Jeff said the aliens had him.) Brandon knew for sure that it was worse than that. Alien life forms were taking over people’s bodies! No one knows, he thought to himself, how many of them there are, and where they are.
Brandon watched his grandmother when she came to visit. There was definitely something going on. He knew, after watching his grandmother, that an alien life form had taken over her body. She was acting weird, very weird! She was pretending to be so nice to everyone lately.
When Brandon told his older brother his suspicions, Harold said he was crazy. “All that junk is just made up science-fiction”, Harold said. “You have been watching too many re-runs of the X-Files, and Star Trek.” “Well, how do you explain the way Grandma has been acting lately?” asked Brandon. “You know how she used to get so mad at us when we tracked dirt onto her kitchen floor. Remember how she used to get into arguments with Mom about the cats? She is not acting that way at all anymore. She is just being too nice! She didn’t even say anything to me last week when I broke her antique vase. ” “That is weird”, Harold said. “But that does not mean that she is being possessed by some alien life form.” “Silly kid”, Harold said as he left for softball practice. Still, he began to wonder, even though he would not admit it to Brandon.
Brandon decided that if he were going to figure out what was going on, he had to spy on Grandma Johnson, and see what she was up to. Since they only lived one block away, that would be easy, and Harold wouldn’t have to know a thing.
The next morning Brandon got up very early, before anyone else in the house. Dad’s alarm clock would not go off for another two hours, so he had plenty of time, he thought to himself. He opened his bedroom window, and climbed out so that no one else in the house would hear him opening the door. Luckily his bedroom was on the first floor, and the drop from the window ledge to the ground was an easy jump. Quickly he made his way around the block, and as he neared Grandma Johnson’s house he noticed a light through the curtains in her dining room. He got close enough to her house to use his binoculars to see clearly into her dining room window, but far enough away where he was sure she would not spot him if she look out the window.
Brandon watched his grandmother pour a cup of coffee. Then she sat down at the dining room table with a strange black book. Grandma Johnson had always liked to read, but she usually read novels and self help books. She also liked murder mysteries. Brandon was not at all familiar with the book she was now reading. It looked like the edges of the pages were trimmed in gold. He also noticed that some of the words in the book were printed in red instead of black. It must be some kind of instruction manual for the alien invaders, he thought to himself.
Suddenly the head lights of a car hit Brandon in the face! He quickly ducked behind a nearby holly bush in Grandma Johnson’s neighbor’s yard. He waited until the car was out of sight, not knowing if they had spotted him, and then he headed home in a fast sprint.
“Brandon”? Mrs. Kershmire called from the front of the classroom. “Would you care to join us in class?” she asked as Brandon sat daydreaming. He realized that he had heard nothing she said for the last half hour. The early morning excursion to grandma’s was catching up with him. “Sorry” he said with a yawn. “I’ll try to pay better attention, Mrs. Kershmire.” “Thank you, Brandon,” she said, returning to the blackboard.
Later that afternoon when Harold returned from softball practice, Brandon told him of what he had witnessed at Grandma Johnson’s house.
“Harold, it was just plain weird,” Brandon began. “She was sitting at the table reading out of this strange black book. Then, after about twenty minutes, she closed her eyes. It looked like she was talking to someone, because her lips were moving, but there was no one else there. Then she raised both of her hands up, with her palms up to the ceiling, like someone would pour something into her hands.”
“Then what did she do?” Harold asked. “I don’t know” said Brandon. “That is when the car came, and I hid. Then I ran home.” “I think she is communicating with the others or something, maybe by mental telepathy. I don’t know. I have heard that they can do that.”
The next morning Brandon got up two hours early again. He climbed out the window once more, and made the early morning trek to his grandmother’s house. He noticed that she had her dining room window open, so he crept up close enough to the house to listen in. She had the black book opened in front of her, the same as the last time. She read from the black book for about fifteen minutes. Then she closed her eyes and lifted her hands, palm side up. After a minute or so, he heard her begin to mumble something that sounded like a foreign language. This gave him the woolies! “She is talking to them!” he said to himself.
Brandon kept his eye on his grandmother for a long time. He noticed that the people she regularly came in contact with began to act differently also. Even his mother! She seemed to be much more patient and understanding than she used to be. Brandon could see right through the act, however. They’ve got Mom too, he thought. They are using all that niceness to hatch some sinister plot, to launch an all out assault on the earth and take over our planet! Anyone could see it. He had to do something. He had to save the planet. No one else seemed to be doing anything about it. But what could he do?
For a month Brandon didn’t spy on his grandmother during the morning hours. He wrote letters to members of the Raelian Society to try to get information from them about alien abductions or communications. Unfortunately all he got in return was a discount coupon for the book Yes to Human Cloning. He searched the internet for information on alein invasions. Most of this was a waste of time. In frustration, he decided he had to go back and find out what was going on.
Once again, Brandon set his alarm on low for 5:00 a.m. When the alart went off, he dressed quickly and hoped out the window and headed towards his grandmothers. Sure enough, the dining room light was on, and the window was open. He moved in closer, as before, to try and get close enough to hear her.
CRASH! Oh, no! Brandon was panic stricken! The porch light came on. He had tripped over a large ceramic pot in his grandmother’s yard, knocking it over. It broke with a horrible noise.
“Brandon? Brandon, is that you? What are you going out there, child? You come in here this instance!” Brandon reluctantly obeyed Grandma Johnson, and made his way into her kitchen. What would she do to him? he wondered. Or worse, what would “it” do to him? This thing that had taken over his grandmothers body.
“Lawdy mercy, child, what is going on with you? What are you doing out this time of morning? You are shaking like a leaf. Sit down and tell me what is going on.”
Brandon avoided looking into “its” eyes. He had heard that they can sometimes hypnotize you with their eyes. He wondered if it would do some strange experiments on him.
“Listen”, he said. “Don’t tell Dad that I was over here, and I won’t tell him about you and mom”, he said.
“You won’t tell him what about me”? Grandma Johnson asked. “I won’t tell them who you are. Just take mom with you and leave us alone. I know she is one of you too”, Brandon blurted out.
“Did you hit your head when you tripped over that pot”? Grandma Johnson asked. “You are talking nonsense. Where do you want me and your mother to go? What is it that you are not going to tell?”
“Grandma”, Brandon started. “Or whatever you call yourself. I know you have taken over my grandmother’s body. I don’t know what you want here on this planet, but I have figured out what is going on. I know you are not really my grandmother. Please don’t hurt me. I won’t tell on you, just leave us alone.”
“Why in the world do you think I am not your grandmother”? she asked. “You have changed”, Brandon said. “You are so much nicer now. You don’t act like the Grandma Johnson we had gotten used to. You used to be so crabby. Now, it seems like nothing upsets you like it used to. Grandma, I mean, well, whoever you are. You are just weird. I don’t know what you want, but you are not fooling me.”
“Brandon”, Grandma Johnson said. “Three months ago I was in the grocery store and I ran into an old friend from school that I had not seen in fifty years. We used to be best friends. We were on the track team together. She moved away after we graduated, and I lost touch with her. Her and her husband just moved back into this area. We talked about old times for several hours, then she told me about her life had changed after she moved away. She became a Christian. They moved back to start a new church just over on the other side of town. I have been going with her every weekend.”
“Now I know you are not my grandmother”, Brandon said. “Grandma Johnson wouldn’t step foot inside a church. You used to say all those religious people were hypocrites and liars.”
“Brandon”, she said. I have let Jesus Christ, God’s Son, come into my heart. Maybe, in a way, I have been invaded by a life from ‘beyond this planet’ as you say”, she said.
Suddenly the phone rang. “Mom”, Brandon is missing”. He could hear his mother’s voice even from the other side of the table. “We need to bring Harold over and leave him with you so we can get down to the police station.” Brandon’s mother was crying as she spoke.
“Calm down, honey”, Grandma Johnson said over the phone. “Brandon is over here. I will explain it when you get here. He is fine. Okay, honey. Be careful. I will see you in a few minutes.” She hung up the phone.
“Brandon, your mother will be here in a few minutes. I will explain things to her. I want you to plan on coming back over here after school. I have a lot more to tell you”, she said with a smile.
Danny's Stump 