Close Encounters of the Nerd Kind by Kim Harrington

Author:Kim Harrington
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sterling Children's Books

Marcus led me down the hallway, moving so fast I had to almost jog to keep up with his long strides.

“Where are we going?” I asked between ragged breaths.

“The boys’ locker room.”

“What? Why?”

“You’ll see.”

We careened around the corner and found various members of the middle school football team hanging in the hall. They should have been in the locker room getting dressed for practice. Actually, by now they should have been done in the locker room. They should have been out on the field.

“What’s going on?” I asked, just as the door to the locker room opened and one more student came out, his face twisted in anger. Before the door closed shut, I was able to see inside the room. It was a disaster—benches flipped over, clothing strewn about, toilet paper from the bathroom draped around like ugly birthday streamers.

“The locker room got wrecked,” Marcus said. “I asked around. It was fine during gym class in fifth period, but when the football team came after the last bell, it looked like that.”

“So it happened sometime in the last two periods of the school day,” I said, thinking out loud.

Robbie had been pacing back and forth but now stopped beside me. “My locker door was ripped right off its hinges.”

“Wow,” I said. “Just yours?”

“Yeah. I don’t know why whoever did it targeted me. Maybe because I’m the QB. But how would they even know which locker was mine?”

“Was anything stolen?” I asked.

Robbie shook his head. “Nothing important, just the bag of orange slices my mom packs for me every day.”

I swallowed hard. “Did you find anything, um, I mean anyone in there?”

“No,” Robbie said. “And they couldn’t have been hiding because we checked every locker, every stall, every corner. They came in, wrecked the place, and got out.”

Robbie wandered off to talk with other team members. I found Charlie’s eyes in the crowd. He looked concerned, but I could tell he had an idea about what was going on. With the information about the orange slices, I was pretty sure myself.

“We’re going to make them pay,” Robbie yelled suddenly.

The rest of the team cried, “Yeah!”

“They’re going to be sorry that they messed with us!” Robbie held his arm up. “Wolcott on three. One, two, three.”

“Wolcott!” The team screamed, arms raised in the air.

“They think the Runswick Martians did it for a school rivalry prank,” Marcus explained, “to kind of freak them out before the big game.”

I bet I knew who suggested that theory. I glanced at Charlie, who shrugged in response.

“But I don’t think it’s true,” Marcus said.

My head whipped back toward him. “Why?”

“Things don’t add up. The school day in Runswick ends at the same time as ours. They wouldn’t have had enough time to get here and wreck the locker room before our bell rang and the team went inside. Plus, pulling a locker door off its hinge?” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “That smells like monster trouble to me.”

The football coach came out of the locker room and led the team outside.

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