Kell and the Giants Read online

  KELL

  AND THE GIANTS

  THE ALIENS, INC. SERIES

  Book 3

  KELL

  AND THE GIANTS

  By Darcy Pattison

  pictures by

  Rich Davis

  Mims House / Little Rock, AR

  Text Copyright © 2014 by Darcy Pattison.

  Illustrations Copyright © 2014 by Rich Davis.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Mims House

  1309 S. Broadway

  Little Rock, AR 72202

  www.mimshouse.com.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Book design © 2013 by BookDesignTemplates.com

  Kell, the Alien/ Darcy Pattison — First Edition

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014906313

  Paperback ISBN 978-1-62944-026-2

  Library Paperback ISBN 978-149748-025-4

  Hardcover ISBN 978-1-62944-025-5

  Ebook ISBN 978-1-62944-027-9

  Lexile 540L

  Printed in the United States of America

  Thanks to Todd Hutcheson for his help

  with superheroes. You are a Hulk!

  .

  I bent over the giant state of Texas.

  “Texas is so big,” said Mrs. Crux the art teacher, “that I need three students to work together to paint it: Bree, Roman and Kell.”

  Our art class was painting a map of the United States on the basketball court. Alaska needed three people to paint it, too. Most kids were painting just one state. Some students had two small states to color. One student was painting five small states.

  Roman East dabbed red paint on the south Texas beaches and said, “We need to plan my birthday party. I want a Giant party.”

  I asked, “How big a party do you want?”

  “No,” Roman said. “Not a big party. A party about giants. You know, really tall people.”

  Roman was the tallest kid in third grade. I could understand why he was interested in giants.

  I swiped red paint onto the Panhandle of north Texas.

  Meanwhile, Bree Hendricks, my best friend, was painting red on the east side of Texas. She said, “No one knows anything about giants. Name one giant.”

  Roman said, “There was Cyclops, the one-eyed giant. Paul Bunyan was an American giant who lived in the forests and cut down giant trees. In the Bible, a boy named David killed a nine-foot giant named Goliath.”

  Bree giggled and said, “I just remembered a giant. There’s the Jolly Green Giant who wears green underwear.”

  I frowned. I had only read about Atlas, the giant who is supposed to hold the world on his shoulders. Before my family crash-landed, we got a good look at Earth from space. There isn’t really a giant holding up the Earth. That Atlas story, it’s just a folktale.

  The art class was working outside in the wide-open spaces. And sure enough, a flying bug found me. It zoomed around my ears and then flew high enough to be out of reach. Quick, I dropped to my knees and hissed at Bree, “What kind of bug?”

  Her head circled, following the bug above my head. “It’s a honeybee. It’s OK. Don’t smash it.”

  Slowly, I peeked upward, and the bee dropped a couple inches closer. Terrified, I held very, very, very still. On Earth, there are more bugs than any other kind of animal. I don’t like Earth bugs. You never knew when a bug might bite or sting you. This one had a black head, a golden body, and a stinger.

  I waved at the honeybee to go away. It just circled my head again. I shivered and ducked.

  Just then, Mrs. Lynx, the principal, came out of the school building and trotted over to us. She wore her toe shoes, so she ran very quietly. Running beside her was a dog about as tall as her knees. The dog had a brown head, ears, and neck, but the back part of him was spotted. They stopped at the edge of the map, and Mrs. Lynx said, “Sit.”

  The dog sat.

  Meanwhile, the honeybee was gone, flying away when I wasn’t looking. That didn’t fool me. I knew it would be back.

  “Be careful,” Mrs. Crux said. “The paint is still wet.”

  Mrs. Lynx frowned. “Then how are they getting out of Texas?”

  Bree and I backed into each other and then Roman bumped into us. We had painted ourselves into the very center of Texas. There was no way out!

  Bree said, “It’s OK. We can jump. Kell and I are good at hopscotch.”

  I groaned. I am an alien from the planet Bix. I can do telekinesis, which means I can move things with my mind. Bree wanted me to give her a boost when she jumped. But Mrs. Lynx is President of the S.A.C., the Society of Alien Chasers. If I helped Bree too much, Mrs. Lynx would suspect that I was an alien.

  Still, we were trapped in Texas.

  Mrs. Crux said, “Are you sure, mate, that you can jump far enough?” She is from Australia and says “mate” all the time.

  Bree nodded and said, “I will jump on three.”

  “1, 2, 3!” She leapt high—with a little help from a Bix alien—and landed on the tennis court away from the paint.

  “You next,” I told Roman.

  “I can’t jump that far,” Roman said. He has long legs and I thought he might even be able to take a giant step to get out of Texas. But he wouldn’t try. Instead, he bent and leapt. He’s so big and clumsy that he really needed a boost! He landed just outside Texas and fell into a heap.

  Roman cried out, “What was that?” He twisted around to stare at me.

  Oh, no! He must have felt me giving him a shove.

  Quickly, Bree said, “You’re a great jumper!”

  He stood up and brushed off his shirt. Looking at the distance he had jumped, he stood a bit taller. “I’m a better jumper than I thought.”

  Now, I had to jump. I bent and leapt.

  But right in mid-air—BZZZ! Three honeybees zipped around me. I slapped at them and forgot to do telekinesis. I fell onto the south beaches of Texas.

  “Do you want me to give you jumping lessons?” Roman said. Smiling at his own joke, he held out a hand, and I took it.

  Roman pulled me up halfway, but we got stuck. He pulled and I pulled, but I didn’t go any farther. I was just hanging over Texas.

  I pulled so hard that my arms were tired and shaky. Roman’s arms were shaking, too.

  And then, Roman dropped me!

  “No!” I cried. Plop! I was back in the wet paint.

  Roman swung his arms around to make them feel better. But the rest of the class just pointed and laughed. I dropped my face to my knees and groaned.

  Roman bent down and this time grabbed my right hand with both of his hands. He jerked hard and I tumbled onto the basketball court. I pushed myself up and tried to stand.

  “Look at his pants!”

  “His butt is red!”

  Across the giant map of the United States, kids laughed. I was so upset. To hide the red paint, I sat down on a blue bench.

  Freddy Rubin yelled at me, “NO!”

  What? Quick, I stood up and looked around.

  Oh, no. The bench was splotched with red paint from where I sat. It was times like this that I longed for my home planet of Bix. On Bix, red i
s the color of the sky. That red splotch on the blue bench left an ache, a longing to see the skies of Bix.

  Mrs. Crux smiled at me, “Again, mate?”

  Sadly, I nodded. It was my 14th Accidental Art .

  Mrs. Crux handed me a small paintbrush. “Why don’t you just sign your name? I’ll take a picture of it for the Accidental Art bulletin board. You can go to the office and call your mom to bring you new pants.”

  With a sigh, I took the brush and took some black paint offered by Aja. I painted my name on the bench beside my butt-print: Kell Smith. I may be an alien, but I’m not dumb. I made sure the name was smeared so badly that no one could read it.

  Meanwhile, Mrs. Crux bent to pet Mrs. Lynx’s dog. “When did you get her?”

  Mrs. Lynx’s eyes lit up. “My brother, Ernest, brought her yesterday. She’s a German shorthaired pointer. He trained Gloria, and she’s the best alien pointer dog in the world.”

  “What does a pointer do?”

  “When she smells an alien,” Mrs. Lynx said, “she points and holds that point until I find the right person.”

  Oh, no! I thought. It was never safe with Mrs. Lynx around. She and the S.A.C. kept trying to catch an alien. Someday, she would catch my family and me.

  Roman walked over to look at the dog. “May I pet her?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Lynx said.

  Roman squatted down and starting scratching the dog behind her ears.

  Mrs. Lynx said, “Roman, I hear you’re going to have a Giant birthday party. Aliens, Inc. does a great job with parties.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Roman said. “I hope we have stilts And maybe Big Foot can come.”

  I needed a Look-Up Later list for a Giant party:

  LOOK UP LATER LIST FOR GIANTS

  1. What are stilts?

  2. Who are Cyclops, Paul Bunyan, Goliath, and Big Foot?

  Just then the bell rang, and it was time to go inside. I would go by the office and call Mom to bring me a change of clothes. Bree and I walked way around the other side of the basketball court to stay far away from the alien pointer dog named Gloria. But Gloria was watching me. She didn’t fool me. She smelled me and sooner or later, she would point me out.

  “Hey, I have a riddle for you,” Bree said.

  “OK.”

  “What is the best tasting throw-up?”

  “Yuk,” I said. “No throw up tastes good.”

  “Wrong,” Bree said. “Honeybees eat nectar and then throw up honey.”

  That Bree. Earth girls are full of odd facts.

  At home, Bree and I made peanut butter sandwiches and ate them on the back deck. Just as we finished, we heard Dad’s truck pull in. Dad staggered into the back yard, his arms wrapped around a stack of three white boxes. Awkwardly, he set them beside the greenhouse.

  Mom followed him and set down a plastic bag. She pulled out some white clothes. “Look what we got!”

  Bree’s eyes got wide. “Is that bee keeper clothes?”

  Mom shook out a white hat and slipped it on. A fine net fell down around her neck and chest. “Yes,” she said. “With these clothes on, the bees can’t sting me.”

  Dad stood and gestured to the boxes. “Our first bee hive.”

  I stared at my parents like they were aliens. “Why on Earth would you want a bee hive?”

  “It’s another way to make money,” Mom said. “I already grow flowers, and bees make honey from flowers. We can sell the honey, and we will have money to buy food.”

  Our space ship crashed on Earth a year ago, and we were still figuring out how to make a living. We sold our space ship to buy our house, and the Aliens, Inc. party business was good. Still, Mom worried about food, electricity, and other bills.

  “Mom,” I said, “honeybees are bugs.”

  “Bees are OK if you handle them right,” Mom said.

  Mom was so excited, I couldn’t say anything else.

  Then I remembered: “Mrs. Lynx has a new dog. It’s supposed to be able to smell an alien.”

  Dad frowned. “Did you get close to the dog?”

  “It was across the basketball court from us,” Bree said. “We stayed far away.”

  “But it will be hard to stay away from it all the time,” I said.

  Dad’s face looked grim.

  Just then, the doorbell rang. Because Mom is outside in her greenhouse a lot, Dad had put a ringer out here, too.

  Bree and I ran around the house and found Roman and his Dad there. If Roman was the tallest kid in our class, his Dad was the tallest Earthling I had ever seen. He was six foot nine inches tall, a basketball star in college.

  “Come out back,” I said.

  We sat on the back deck and talked about the Giant party.

  Mr. East stretched out his long legs and I stared at his giant shoes.

  He said, “I’ve never used a party planner before.”

  “We just need to know what you want,” Mom said.

  She was getting better at talking to people about parties.

  “Because we just moved to town, we want to invite Roman’s whole class,” Mr. East said. “He’ll make friends that way.”

  Dad asked, “Mr. East, what do you do?”

  “I’m a doctor.”

  “Oh,” I said. “You’re Dr. East, not Mr. East.”

  He nodded.

  Aliens don’t like Earthling doctors. If Dr. East x-rayed my body, he wouldn’t find a stomach or a heart. He’d find a bligfa and other alien body parts.

  “What kind of doctor?” Bree asked.

  There are different kinds of doctors? I didn’t know that. I guess there would be doctors for Earthling hearts and doctors for Earthling brains and doctors for Earthling feet.

  “I work at the university and do research,” Dr. East said.

  On Bix, Dad is an astro-physicist and does research, too.

  He asked, “What projects are you working on?”

  “Right now, I’m working on a comparison of humans to gorillas.”

  “Comparative biology?” Mom said. “You want to know how humans and gorillas are the same and how they are different.”

  “Yes,” said Dr. East.

  “OK,” Dad said. “But how are you comparing them?”

  “I have studied the human body,” he said, “but I’ve also taken veterinary classes. I am interested in giant animals. Elephants, giraffes, pythons. Why do some animals grow so big?”

  Roman laughed and said, “He’s worried about me. Mom is six foot four, and he thinks I might be close to seven feet tall when I’m all grown.”

  Dr. East laughed, “I’m not worried about you, Roman. It’s just that when you’re a giant, you get interested in giant things.”

  Bree nodded. “If you were an alien, you might be interested in alien things.”

  “Exactly,” Dr. East said.

  I glared at Bree for talking about aliens, but she turned to Roman.

  “For your party, do you want basketball games?” she said.

  “Yes! But I also want things like giant jawbreakers.”

  Mom’s forehead wrinkled. “You want to break the jaws of your friends?”

  Dr. East laughed. “That’s a good joke.”

  Mom laughed, too, but she didn’t understand the joke. I would have to explain later.

  Dr. East said, “You could do giant balloons or top hats to make kids seem even taller. And I have basketball friends who can dress up like giants.”

  I added to my Giant Look Up Later list:

  3. What is a jawbreaker?

  4. Where do you get giant balloons or top hats?

  After a while, Dr. East stood and said, “My wife, Mikki, will be waiting supper for us. We need to go.”

  Dad and Mom walked them out to their car while I walked Bree to her house.

  Bree asked, “What do you think of your mom’s beehives?

  I shuddered. But I didn’t want Bree to know I was scared. So I asked a dumb question: “Here’s a comparative biology question. Do bees s
leep like Earthlings and aliens?”

  Bree said, “Yes, bees sleep. They get very still and don’t move for a long time and their brains take a rest.”

  “Is that the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?” I asked.

  “Yes. I did a research report on honeybees last year.” Bree hit my shoulder and ran up the front steps into her house.

  Wait. Why did she hit me? I will never understand Earthling girls.

  On Mr. Martinez’s desk stood something tall that was covered with a red cloth. On the far wall of the Social Studies room, a giant map hung from the ceiling. Mr. Martinez pointed a red laser at the map’s key.

  Key is an odd Earthling word. Keys are metal things that unlock doors. But a map’s key unlocks information on a map. It tells you what each symbol means. Red lines might mean big roads, and blue lines might mean bigger roads. To understand a map, you have to look at its key.

  Mr. Martinez turned, and the red laser flashed over our heads and jerked around. He turned it off and said, “In two weeks, we will have a Geography Day. Your job is to draw a map. You can draw a map of your neighborhood or your city. Or maybe a map of the school. The winner will receive this.” He pulled the red cloth off the tall thing on his desk.

  It was a globe, which is a ball that looks like the planet Earth. But this ball was black with silver dots for stars. Some stars were connected with lines to show the constellations.

  “See the night stars as you’ve never seen them before.”

  Mr. Martinez flipped a switch on the globe’s cord, and it lit up inside. The stars twinkled, small pinpricks of light. Wow! It was great.

  Mr. Martinez said, “The student with the best map on Geography Day will win this star globe.”

  I had to win that prize! I have studied stars all my life. I know the names of all the major stars. Well, the Bix names. Earthlings call their star, Sol. But on Bix we called Earth’s star Ixfar, which means “small.”