Rebekah--Girl Detective #2 Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Next Steps

  Now Available In Audio!

  Preview: #3: Magellan Goes Missing

  Other Titles

  Legal Notices

  Rebekah - Girl Detective #2

  Alien Invasion

  By

  PJ Ryan

  Copyright © 2013 PJ Ryan

  Cover Illustration by Carolina Storni

  All rights reserved.

  PJRyanBooks.com

  “Rebekah - Girl Detective” is a short story series for children ages 9-12 with the remaining titles to be published on a regular basis. Each title can be read on its own.

  You can join Rebekah’s fun Facebook page for young detectives here:

  http://www.facebook.com/RebekahGirlDetective

  I’d really love to hear from you!

  I very much appreciate your reviews and comments so thank you in advance for taking a moment to leave one for “Alien Invasion”.

  Sincerely,

  PJ Ryan

  Chapter 1

  “Rebekah how does it feel to be the first ten year old to go into space?” the reporter asked and then shoved the microphone into Rebekah's face. Rebekah, dressed in a lime green space suit, with her bright red curls tucked into her very own space helmet smiled.

  “It is a great honor,” she said. She looked over at the space ship. It was shaped like a circle. Around its curve Rebekah was printed out in bold white letters.

  “What will be your first stop Rebekah?” the reporter asked. “The moon? Mars?”

  “I am planning on getting to the bottom of Saturn's rings,” she replied and lifted her eyes to the crowd around her. “There is something very strange about those rings. I think that planet may be hiding something.”

  “Rebekah,” the reporter called out. “Rebekah!” she said in a more upset tone.

  “I said, Saturn,” Rebekah frowned.

  “Rebekah!” her mother's voice shouted.

  Rebekah's eyes snapped open and she rolled over in her bed. She was not in a lime green space suit. There was no reporter in her room. It had all been just a dream. But she still wondered about that sneaky Saturn.

  “I'm up, I'm up,” Rebekah called out sleepily. Rebekah was normally the first person awake in her family. She liked to keep an eye on everyone and everything and sleep got in the way of that. But the night before she and her best friend Mouse had been out in the backyard very late studying the stars with her brand new telescope. Of course this had stirred up all kinds of questions for her. Science was still one of the great mysteries in her mind. Sure a lot of things had been discovered, but there was still so much more to learn about and get to the bottom of.

  Chapter 2

  When she reached science class she was excited to see that Mr. Woods had set up a projector in the class. She liked it when he showed slides of different bacteria and organisms. Today, however, that was not what he was showing slides of.

  "Today we are going to talk about life on other planets," Mr. Woods said as he dimmed the lights in the classroom. Rebekah looked over at Mouse who was busy trying to make sure his friend for the day, Whiskers, was still safely tucked into his pocket. He knew one incident of one of his mouse friends escaping would get him into some very big trouble.

  Rebekah huffed and raised her hand, demanding Mr. Woods' attention.

  "Yes Rebekah?" he asked as he situated the projector so that its images would shine on the white screen he had pulled down in front of the chalkboard.

  "Mr. Woods, you can't seriously be teaching a class on aliens," Rebekah said with her chin raised high in the air.

  Mr. Woods smiled patiently as he looked at Rebekah. He was a fun teacher most of the time. His hair was always wild and sticking up in different directions. He wore slightly bent glasses that were always crooked on his nose, making his blue eyes look like they were two different sizes. His clothes were always rumpled, and at least three days out of the week he found a reason to wear a white lab coat. He was surely one of Rebekah's more liked teachers, but she did not expect such a silly class from a science teacher.

  "Yes, I am teaching a class about the possibility of life on other planets," he said with a smile. "Who is to say what is beyond what we know?"

  "Uh, I believe that science has made it clear there is no life on other planets," Rebekah pointed out.

  "Actually-”, one of the girls sitting in the front of the class spoke up. "The Mars Rover recently discovered that water was once on the planet and that it might have been habitable. Maybe they will find out that there was once life on it!" she said, her voice full of excitement.

  "There is a big difference between aliens and microbes," Rebekah said sternly. The girl in the front of the class was Libby, and she was rather strange in Rebekah's opinion. She was always wearing t-shirts that had funny pictures of aliens and strange animals on them.

  "Maybe Rebekah," Mr. Woods agreed. "And I am not here to tell you that there is life on other planets, I am just curious what you might think life would be like on other planets."

  "It wouldn't exist," Rebekah said sternly.

  "I think it would be much better than ours," Libby spoke up. "I bet aliens are much more peaceful than we are."

  "No, aliens are not real," Rebekah said firmly.

  "Rebekah, everyone is allowed to have their own ideas," Mr. Woods warned. "We should let Libby share hers too."

  Libby looked over her shoulder at Rebekah and smiled.

  Rebekah forced a smile back and then slumped down in her chair. She did not like where this class was going. For the rest of the class Mr. Woods showed slides of different images of aliens that people had reported seeing or imagined that aliens would look like. At the end of the class he gave an assignment.

  "I want each of you to take some time tonight and think about what a being from another planet might look like. Then you can draw this image for me, and tomorrow we can take a look at everyone's ideas. I think you might be surprised by how different they will be."

  Rebekah rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath about how pointless the assignment was. It was not that she didn’t like drawing, but she felt talking about aliens in science class was silly. As the kids started to leave the classroom she fell into step beside Mouse.

  "This is crazy isn't it?" she asked him.

  "What is?" he tucked his hand in his pocket to keep Whiskers calm.

  "Drawing pictures of aliens. Who really believes in aliens?" she asked.

  "I do," Libby said from behind them.

  "Well you're wrong," Rebekah said as she turned around to face Libby.

  "How do you know?" Libby asked with a smile. She was a friendly girl, just not very bright, in Rebekah's opinion.

  "Because, it has been proven again and again," Rebekah said and shook her head.

  "Not all things can be proven or ruled out by science, at least not yet Rebekah, you should be a little more open about it," Libby suggested sweetly. Then she looked at Mouse.

  "How's Whiskers?" she asked and peeked in his pocket when he held it open for her to see.

  "Happy," he smiled. "She likes the cheese you told me about," he said. When Libby walked away, Rebekah looked at him curiously.

  "What cheese?"

  "Oh I was having a hard time getting him to stay in my pocket, so Libby gave me some goat cheese to try,” he smiled and held out a crumble of the cheese.

  “Ew,” Rebekah scrunched up her nose. “That is smell
y!”

  “Yeah it is, but Whiskers likes it!” he smiled.

  “Well she may know her cheese, but she sure doesn't know her science,” Rebekah smirked.

  “Are you sure?”

  Mouse asked and twitched his nose, not unlike his pet mouse did.

  "Of course I am sure," Rebekah sighed. "Don't tell me you believe all of this stuff too!"

  "I don't believe it," he said with a shrug. "I just don't not believe it either. I mean, lots of things are possible today that we didn't think were possible in the past, so maybe just maybe, we don't know everything," he offered her a silly grin.

  "Maybe," Rebekah said thoughtfully. She had never even considered that aliens could be real. But now that she thought about it, she was curious.

  That afternoon when she got home from school she sat down in front of her computer. She knew that if there were aliens, someone must have seen them. There had to be some proof somewhere. She started looking up information on aliens. The more she looked up, the more shocked she became. There was a lot of information about aliens and people who said they had seen them. One site, the scariest of all, said that some aliens could even look like and talk like human beings!

  "How will we ever know who is an alien if they look like us?" Rebekah wondered with horror. She printed off a list of things to look for when looking for an alien.

  1. Flashing or floating lights in the sky. These floating lights could be alien space craft looking for a good place to land, or other aliens that have already landed!

  2. Odd behavior or a strange appearance. If someone you meet seems very weird, you might just have met an alien.

  3. Oddly shaped eyes. Aliens have huge eyes that are hard to hide. If you see someone with eyes that are strange colors or shapes, this might be an alien.

  4. Glowing or green skin. If someone seems to be glowing, or has green patches on their skin, this might be their true alien being shining through their human disguise.

  She still was not sure if she believed in aliens, but it was good to have a list to use to spot them, just in case. She tucked the list into her camera case and then continued to search. She was a little surprised to find that while there was no scientific proof of aliens, people had been spotting aliens for many years. Some people even thought aliens lived right along beside them. It was an odd idea, and one that Rebekah was sure was not true, but still, she did have to wonder.

  Chapter 3

  That night at dinner she settled her gaze on her mother and father.

  "Are there aliens?" she asked and took a bite of her macaroni and cheese.

  "Uh, well, some people believe there are," her father said, his red mustache hiding his frown.

  "But many people believe there aren't," her mother said as she smiled.

  "That's not an answer," Rebekah sighed and pushed her broccoli around her plate.

  "Well sweetie, not everything in the world has an answer," her father said quietly.

  "But there must be an answer," Rebekah insisted. "It's just like school when you take a test. You might not always know the right answer, but there is always an answer."

  Her mother pointed to her broccoli. "Now you eat that up or you're not getting desert," she warned, before continuing. "It is true that we know a lot about the world around us sweetie, but there are some things we don't even know how to ask questions about. If you don't know every little thing about the universe, well then, you just can't be sure that you have all the answers."

  Rebekah was disappointed that her parents could not give her a straight answer. She usually relied on them to help her figure things out that she wasn't sure about. She polished off her broccoli while still thinking about the aliens.

  "Well there's one thing I can be sure of," she said glumly as she chewed her last bite of broccoli. "If there are aliens, I bet they don't make their kids eat broccoli."

  "Rebekah," her father warned.

  "Rebekah!" her mother sighed.

  "I know, I know, just eat it," she pouted. When she finished dinner she helped her mother clear the plates. After they shared some ice cream she decided that she would just have to look into this matter herself. She waited until it was very dark, then she grabbed her jacket. She went out back and set up her telescope. Mouse couldn't come over because it was a school night, so she called him on her phone instead.

  "Hi, what are you doing?" he asked around a mouthful of popcorn.

  "I'm hunting aliens, what are you doing?" she asked with a grin.

  He coughed on his popcorn. "You're doing what?" he gasped.

  "I'm using my telescope to see if I can find any aliens," she explained and then took a peek through the telescope. "So far, I see stars and more stars."

  "Wow, Libby really made you think, hm?" he asked.

  "Well I looked it up, and it seems that Libby might be on to something, might," she repeated.

  "You never know," he agreed. Rebekah was just about to say goodbye when she saw something strange in the sky.

  "What is that?" she wondered as she peered through the telescope.

  "Do you see something?" Mouse asked hopefully.

  "I think I do," she replied, a little frightened. There was a bright light moving around in the sky. It was much too close to be a star and much too high to be the headlights from a car.

  "What is it?" Mouse asked.

  "I don't know," she whispered and adjusted the telescope. The light was moving this way and that. It even flashed once or twice.

  "Oh no," she groaned as she realized what direction it was coming from.

  "What's wrong?" Mouse asked, eager to know what was happening.

  "It's a strange light, and it looks like it is coming from the school!" she cried out. She remembered the first thing on her list of things to watch for, it was strange lights.

  "The school?" Mouse repeated and laughed. "You're just trying to scare me."

  "No I'm not," Rebekah insisted. "I think there is something very strange going on here."

  "You always think something strange is going on," he reminded her, but his voice was shaky.

  "But think about it Mouse, what if there really are aliens in our school?" she asked with fear in her voice.

  "That's not possible," Mouse said firmly.

  "Like Libby would say, anything is possible," Rebekah argued. "All I know for sure is, there is a bright light moving around in the sky and it is right over our school! Maybe they are dropping off aliens, or picking them up!" she shivered at the very idea of sharing her school with real live aliens.

  "I don't know Rebekah," Mouse said in a quiet tone. "Why would aliens come to our school?"

  "Maybe they're here for Libby," Rebekah shrieked. "That must be it! She called them here, and now they're going to take all of us!"

  "Rebekah," her father called from the back door. "It's time for bed."

  Rebekah fell backwards dramatically in the grass. "He really thinks I can sleep after all of this?" she wondered out loud.

  "I'll see you in the morning Rebekah," Mouse giggled and hung up the phone. Rebekah glared at the phone for a moment. Then she lifted one eyebrow. What kind of kid carried mice around in their pockets anyway? What if it wasn't Libby at all that the aliens were after. Maybe it was Mouse!

  Chapter 4

  The next day when Rebekah arrived at school she was ready to see if there were any aliens hanging around. She waited out front for Mouse to arrive. When he did he looked a little worried.

  "What's wrong?" Rebekah asked and watched him closely.

  "Oh, just had a little accident," he sighed and covered up the pocket in his shirt.

  "What kind of accident?" Rebekah asked feeling a little more suspicious.

  "Well, I was making my picture of what I thought alien life might be like. And of course, I thought it would be really interesting if there were aliens that looked like mice," he sighed heavily. "But everyone knows aliens are green, so I was using green paint and-"

  Whiskers poked his head up out
of Mouse's shirt pocket. He was completely green! Rebekah gasped. She looked from the green mouse to her friend Mouse and narrowed her eyes. He was a very strange person. But that was why she liked him. It did seem odd to her that he was always carrying around mice, but that was just how Mouse was.

  "Are you sure it's paint?" Rebekah asked and poked a finger lightly at the mouse. Whiskers squeaked back at her.

  "Yes, of course it is," Mouse replied. "Unless you think he was abducted by aliens, and they turned him green!" he laughed loudly. Rebekah did not laugh as she looked at Mouse more closely.

  "Hm," she said softly.

  "Rebekah!" Mouse glared back. "Whiskers is not an alien mouse!"

  "Alright, but what about you?" Rebekah asked and tapped her chin lightly.

  "Me?" Mouse threw his hands up in the air. "Of course I am not an alien. Do I look like an alien to you?"

  Rebekah looked from Mouse's mad face to the green palms of his hands.

  "Uh," she said and pointed at his hands.

  Mouse looked at his hands. "Oh Rebekah," he cried out. "It's just paint, see," he pulled out the picture of alien mice he had painted the night before, to show her. There were several green mice on a planet made of bright yellow cheese.

  "Wouldn't they eat their own planet?" she asked and scrunched up her nose.

  "Oh, I didn't really think about that," he said with a frown. "Where's yours?"

  All of the sudden Rebekah remembered that she had homework the night before.

  "Oh no, I didn't do it," Rebekah frowned. "I'll get a zero."

  Mouse looked up at the clock as they walked into the school. "You still have time," he said.

  "But I need to figure out who the alien is," she reminded him.

  "So you know it's not me?" he grinned.

  "Yes, Mouse, you're too weird to be an alien!" she laughed.

  He ducked down into a bow. "Thank you, thank you!"