Kell and the detectives, p.1
Kell and the Detectives, page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
THE ALIENS, INC. SERIES
Text Copyright © 2015 by Darcy Pattison.
Question Mark
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
FOR FUN
Kell's Teachers
Aliens Inc. Eggless Cake Recipe
Aliens, inc. Series: Book 1
Aliens, inc. Series: Book 2
Aliens, inc. Series: Book 3
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR
KELL and the DETECTIVES
THE ALIENS, INC. SERIES
KELL and the DETECTIVES
By Darcy Pattison
pictures by
Rich Davis
MIMS HOUSE / LITTLE ROCK, AR
Text Copyright © 2015 by Darcy Pattison.
Illustrations Copyright © 2015 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 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
Pattison, Darcy. 1954-
p.cm.
Summary: When the school principal discovers that aliens have zigzag fingerprints, she thinks she’ll finally track down the aliens at her school.
Kell and the Detectives/by Darcy Pattison
Series: Aliens, Inc. 4
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-62944-028-6
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-62944-029-3
eBook ISBN: 978-1-62944-030-9
1. Aliens-Juvenile fiction 2. Schools- Juvenile fiction 3. Mystery-Juvenile fiction I. Pattison, Darcy II. Kell and the Detectives III. Aliens, Inc Series, Book 4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014918924
Lexile 510L
Printed in the United States of America
My hands dripped with blue paint. On my paper, I finger painted a straight blue line.
Beside me, my best friend Bree swept a finger through red paint.
Mrs. Crux, the art teacher, had shown us a graffiti cartoon called, “Kilroy Was Here.” It was a funny bald man looking over a wall.
“Use finger paint to draw something looking over a wall,” she said. Each table had paper plates with finger paint and rolls of paper towels.
“What are we going to do for you-know-who’s birthday party?” Bree whispered.
She smeared a fat red line on her paper, and then, a bald head.
“Shh. You-know-who is right there.” I nodded toward the table next to us where Aja was drawing bald men, too.
Maybe I would draw a bald girl. Or a bald elephant. Or maybe I would draw my Dad hiding behind a wall and write, “An alien was here.”
My family owns Aliens, Inc., and we do birthday parties for Earthing kids. Aja Dalal’s mom asked us to do a surprise birthday party for Aja. Because he’s a good friend, it’s hard not to tell him about the party. It has to be a surprise, though, or Aliens, Inc. won’t get paid. But without asking Aja, I didn’t know what kind of party to plan.
The classroom door opened, and Mrs. Lynx, the principal, walked in.
“Mrs. Lynx, I am painting bald aliens,” Aja called. “Would you like to see?”
Mrs. Lynx stepped over the Aja’s table and studied his finger painting of an alien. Everyone knew that Mrs. Lynx was the president of the Society of Aliens Chasers, the S.A.C. She only wanted one thing, to catch an alien.
And here’s the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I, Kell Smith, am an alien from the planet of Bix. I worry that some day Mrs. Lynx will catch me and sell me to the government.
“The eyes are wrong,” she said. “Aliens have silver eyes.”
I rolled my silvery eyes at Bree and she shrugged.
“Yes,” Aja said. “But they don’t make silver finger paint.”
“Oh, of course. Well, it’s good except for the eyes.” Mrs. Lynx nodded to him. She walked around looking at paintings thumbtacked to bulletin boards.
Mrs. Lynx stopped in front of a painting of a sky with three suns. She bent closer, and then spun around to stare at the art class. Her voice got excited. “Whose painting is this? You forgot to sign your name.”
I sank down low in my chair. That was my painting of my home planet, Bix.
Mrs. Crux said, “Those aren’t signed because they are just practice pieces.”
“But look!” Mrs. Lynx pointed to my picture. “The fingerprints.”
Aja jumped up and ran to look. “Oh!”
“What?” My voice shook, but no one noticed because they all crowded around my painting.
Aja’s eyes were big. “Human fingerprints have circles. This fingerprint has zigzags. There’s an alien in our class.”
I stared at my hand and fingertips. I didn’t know that Bixsters had
different fingerprints from Earthlings. I was going to be caught. I shivered in fear.
Mrs. Crux waved at the paintings. “These are from all my classes yesterday, mate. I don’t know who did that painting. It could be from any grade.”
That was lucky for me. Bree and I shared an art desk, so she knew it was my painting. But she was the only one who knew.
Aja got up close to the painting and pointed his purple finger at one spot. “Maybe the painter used a pencil point to draw a zigzag on the fingerprint. I wish I had my magnifying glass.”
Mrs. Lynx said, “Yes! If I had my magnifying glass, we could be detectives. We would figure this out.”
Aja’s dark eyes were bright with excitement. “Do all aliens have the same fingerprint? Or does each alien have a different fingerprint, like humans?”
Mrs. Lynx nodded. “Those are good detective questions.”
“I want to be a detective and solve crimes,” Aja said. “The hardest thing is learning to observe. You have to see what is there, not what you expect to see there.”
“It’s the same with chasing aliens,” Mrs. Lynx said. “If you expect to see a person, you see a person. I never expect to just see a person. I always know that there might be an alien around.”
Bree pulled me back to a table away from the other kids and whispered, “I know what kind of party to do for Aja. A detective party.”
“How do you do a detective party?”
“We’ll need detective hats,” Bree said quietly. “They call them Deerstalker hats.”
It was time for a Detective Party Look Up Later List:
1. What is a detective?
2. What is a deerstalker hat?”
Mrs. Lynx tapped my Three Suns Over Bix painting, again. “This is my lucky day. I’m going to catch an alien. Class, hold up your hands for me to look at your fingertips.”
Bree’s back got stiff and straight. She marched up to Mrs. Lynx. “No, ma’am.” She sounded just like her Mom, who is a lawyer. “You can’t look at my hands without my parent’s permission.”
Mrs. Crux nodded. “She’s right, mate.”
Bree had just saved me!
Mrs. Lynx frowned.
The bell rang.
“I have to watch the hallways. Mrs. Crux, please save that painting.” Mrs. Lynx pointed to a bulletin board and said. “Put it over there, so I know where it is.”
Without waiting for an answer, she stomped out to monitor the hallways between classes.
Kids ran back to their tables to clean up and go to the next class.
Mrs. Crux took my Three Suns painting and thumb tacked it to the Accidental Art Bulletin Board. I had 19 other paintings on that Bulletin Board. What if some of those accidentally had my zigzag fingerprints, too? I had signed those paintings and Mrs. Lynx would catch me.
I had two choices. I could destroy all my paintings, even the ones on the Accidental Art Bulletin Board. Or I could put alien fingerprints on lots of paintings.
“Freddy,” I said. “I’ll put up your wet painting.”
I carried paintings for Freddy, Aja, Mary Lee, Bree, and a couple other kids. When I put up a wet painting in a shelf, I also touched a couple others. When someone looked the next day, most of the paintings would have zigzag fingerprints.
That should confuse Mrs. Lynx and the S.A C.
Finally, I went to the sink and washed my hands. Bree was washing finger paint off her hands, too. “Are you OK?”
I dried my hands and stuck them in my armpits to hide the fingerprints. “No.”
“We’ll think of something,” she said.
What did she know? Earthling girls have soft hands and circle fingerprints.
I hid my hands in my pockets all day. After school, Bree and I met on the school playground to walk home. The playgrou
At home, I hurried to the kitchen for a snack. Mom and Dad sat at the table drinking coffee with Doc East. When Mom cooked, the kitchen often smelled like burned toast. Now, it almost smelled like dovitch, which is a Bixster drink. That was impossible, though, because the replicator was still broken.
I looked from Doc East to Mom to Dad. My stomach flip-flopped. Something was going on. Doc East is our family doctor. Mom got sick last month, an allergic reaction to a bee sting. Doc East saved her life. He’s a human doctor, but he is learning to be a doctor for Bix aliens.
“Mom, what’s wrong? Why is Doc East here?”
We gave away the beehives, but I worried every day that she might be allergic to something else on Earth.
“Nothing is wrong.” Mom’s silver eyes lit up. “In fact—”
“What’s that yummy smell?” Bree had followed me inside. She’s a friend, but she does say funny things like “yummy.”
Dad said, “I fixed the replicator. I just made Doc East a cup of dovitch.” He sipped his own cup and looked happy with himself. Back on Bix, Dad is an astro-physicist. Here on Earth, he is a party planner. And he fixes things.
“Why is the Doc here?” I asked.
“We have a surprise for you,” Mom said.
Bree said, “May I try some dovitch?”
I frowned. Bree didn’t like grawlies, my favorite Bix food. I didn’t think she would like dovitch, either.
“I’ll make you a cup,” Dad said. He put white cubes in a coffee cup and stuck it in the replicator.
“What are the white cubes?” I asked. We had used up all the replicator’s starting cubes that we brought from Bix. Dad experimented with lots of different things. Everything he tried stank up the kitchen and didn’t work. Maybe he finally found something to use. I just hoped it was cheap, and it was easy to get.
“I used sugar cubes,” Dad said. “They worked.”
I knew what I was going to have for supper, grawlies!
“Did you hear me?” Mom said. “We have a surprise.”
“OK,” I said. “But first show me your hands.”
I turned her hands over to look at her fingertips.
Bree leaned over to see, too. “The same as yours.”
I held up her hand for Doc East to look. He studies the differences in animals, and he is very interested in how aliens are different from humans.
He looked but shrugged.
Bree said, “It’s like Aja said. People see what they expect to see.” She sipped from her cup and said in surprise, “This dovitch is pretty good.” She spooned in more sugar and took another sip.
I said, “Dad, look at your fingertips, and then, look at Doc East’s fingertips.”
Doc East held out his hand. He’s the tallest Earthling I have ever seen. In college, he played basketball. His hands were so big, he could hold a basketball with just his palms, no fingertips.
Dad, Doc East and Mom all compared fingertips.
Dad said in surprise, “Circles.”
Doc East said in surprise, ”Zigzags.”
“Yes! What are we going to do?” I explained about finger paint, and how I added alien fingerprints to a lot of the pictures in art class.
“Leave it to me,” Dad said. “I’ll think of something.”
Mom crossed her arms. “Now, will you listen to my surprise?”
I nodded.
“No,” Mom said. “I’ll show you my surprise.”
She led us out to the greenhouse. My mom is a botanist on Bix, which means she loves plants. The greenhouse stays warm even in the winter. She grows both Earthling and Bixster plants.
“Look,” she said.
Hidden in the corner of the greenhouse was a red leather cushion. The center was dented. Balanced in the dent lay a soft green, egg-shaped thing. I looked closer. No, it wasn’t egg-shaped. It was an egg.
Mom had laid an egg! Wow!
My Mom had laid an egg. A green egg. An egg!
No wonder Doc East was here. No wonder Mom and Dad were grinning.
“Is that a plastic dinosaur egg?” Bree asked.
Earthling girls see what they expect to see.
“No,” I said. “I’m going to have a brother.”
.
The next morning in Social Studies class, Mr. Martinez’s bald head gleamed in the morning sun. He looked like a real live Kilroy-was-here.
Next to him stood Mrs. Crux, the art teacher.
I groaned. This was going to be another project where two teachers worked together. Those were always hard projects.
Mr. Martinez said, “How do you study history?”
We all looked at each other. Was this a trick question?
Bree raised her hand and said, “You study history by reading the history book.”
Mr. Martinez nodded. “Yes. What I should have said is, how do historians study history?”
We all looked at each other again. This was a very strange question.
I raised my hand and said, “They look at old things and read old books and old documents. I guess they like anything old.”
“Yes,” Mr. Martinez nodded.
But that wasn’t the answer he wanted. He waited.
No one said anything.
Mrs. Crux said, “Historians are almost like detectives. They study clues and made conclusions about the clues.”
“Historians are detectives?” Aja frowned.
Mrs. Crux and Mr. Martinez unrolled a huge piece of paper and taped it to the wall. It was a colorful mess of crazy art. One section had food wrappers taped down. Another section had lots of words.
“This is a piece of graffiti,” Mrs. Crux said. She explained that graffiti is painting or writing on the side of a building, sidewalk, fence, or in some public place. Kilroy-was-here was graffiti when it was drawn in a public place. If you write on the bathroom walls, that’s graffiti. Usually, you get in trouble for making graffiti, and Mrs. Crux reminded us we better not draw on school walls. “This time,” Mrs. Crux said, “I asked some teachers and staff to make graffiti posters.”
“Who made that poster?” Aja asked.
“That’s what you have to figure out.” Mr. Martinez beamed. “You must make observations about the graffiti poster. Next, you will guess who made it. That’s what historians do. They look at pieces of pottery or old letters. Then they guess how ancient people lived. And then they look for more clues to see if they guessed right or not.”
Mrs. Crux held up four more rolls of paper. “If you guess correctly, there will be prizes on Graffiti Day.”
“Prizes!” yelled Freddy. “I love prizes.”
I groaned, “Graffiti Day?”
Mrs. Crux’s beamed. “Graffiti Day has two parts. For the history part of Graffiti Day, you guess who made one of these posters. Remember, each poster was done by someone on the school’s staff. For the art part of Graffiti Day, we will be painting graffiti on the new schoolyard wall.”
That was a great idea. That long white wall needed color.
“What kind of graffiti will we paint?” Bree sounded excited.
“You have to do drawings and have your design approved,” Mrs. Crux said. “But beyond that, it’s up to you.”
Just one more thing worried me about Graffiti Day. “Do we have to work with someone else or just do it alone?”
“Team work!” said Mrs. Crux and Mr. Martinez together.
Mrs. Crux said, “You’ll do your own art project. But to figure out the graffiti posters, you’ll work in a team.”
The whole class slumped in our seats. Graffiti Day had sounded fun, but it was too good to be true. Teamwork was always hard.
Mrs. Crux said, “Each team will be given one poster to figure out.”
My group was just boys: Roman, Freddy, and Aja. Bree got Mary Lee, Ting, and Kailee—all girls. We would show those Earthling girls!
Mrs. Crux said, “Teams can take turns coming up and looking closely at the graffiti poster. Be sure to take notes on what you observe.”
“We need a list,” I said.
Teachers at Our School
Principal: Mrs. Lynx
Art: Mrs. Crux
Music: Mr. Vega
