When he saw the cookies on his desk, his first thought was that he hoped they weren't poisonous. That was just the kind of day it had been. And it was still morning! Having just moved into his house, he had woken up that morning only to realize there was no breakfast. And his car wouldn't start, which actually turned out to be okay, since the garage door wouldn't open either. Which meant he had to call his sister and get driven to work in the squad car. Late, of course.

On the other hand, no one had seemed to notice his late arrival. And there were cookies, which (as long as they weren't poisonous) made any day a good day. "Mmm, chocolate chunk. My favorite." Deciding that chocolate was a perfectly acceptable breakfast food, Harold turned on his computer, happily munching -- after all, what was the likelihood that some crazy person had snuck into his office and left him a plate of poisoned cookies? Much more realistic to attribute the mysterious gift to a co-worker -- who might be crazy, but was less likely to have access to poison. He decided to ask around at lunch, maybe write the person a note to say thank you. After all, it was great timing, to have received cookies on the very day he most needed them.

Harold wasn't the kind of guy who complained a lot about his job. Mostly because his job was easy, and he liked it. Not quite as easy as the job he'd wanted when he was a kid (following in the footsteps of the famous Harold with the purple crayon), but still pretty darn cool. Usually he just answered the phone. If the phone didn't ring, he didn't have to do anything. This led to a great deal of free time during his "work" day.

On the day of the cookies, for example, Harold made phone calls to both of his sisters, leaving messages for each of them. The first one went something like this:

"Charlotte, it's Gabe." (Both of his sisters called him Gabe, ever since they were babies and their parents decided his middle name was easier for toothless mouths than "Harold.") "I really appreciate the ride this morning. How about I take you out to dinner when my car's working again? Give me a call whenever -- be safe busting the bad guys!"

The second message was more like this: "Eliza, I can't ask Charlotte for another ride -- can you pick me up after your last class? I'll be at the grocery store after work -- thanks!"

Harold didn't bother to explain his car situation to Eliza. His sisters kept in constant communication with each other, and Charlotte had no doubt been relating the story as soon as he got out of her car that morning. Eliza, still a full time student, had practically 24-7 access to email and voicemail. Combined with Charlotte's police connections, it was sometimes scary how fast they passed information.

Harold had explained this phenomenon many times to their parents in an attempt to reassure them that "their girls" would be perfectly safe living alone in the family's large house. Finally convinced, they had decided to take a long-desired RV trip across the United States, checking in by email nearly every day, and Harold had moved into his own house a few streets away. The summer had been a transition for all of them, with packing and planning often taking a backseat to reminiscing about the past.

Checking the clock, Harold decided to check out and head for the grocery store. In his desire to move into the new house as soon as possible, he had clearly forgotten a few necessities. Like food. Of course, most of his stuff was still in boxes in the soon-to-be second bedroom, so he'd have to choose carefully. Nothing that required pans. Or a toaster. Or, he realized, silverware.

At least it was a nice day for walking. The downtown grocery store was only about ten minutes away on foot, and living in a college town meant pedestrians not only legally had the right-of-way, they grabbed it, held on, and relished the right-of-way, acknowledging cars and buses only when absolutely necessary. Most classes were over for the day, so the store was crowded, but not as packed as Harold sometimes saw it. He grabbed a basket and started down the nearest aisle, checking off items on his mental list as he went.

As he cruised through the bakery section for muffins, Harold took a look around to see if there were any chocolate chunk cookies like the ones he'd found at his desk that morning. No such look. "Must have been homemade," he thought to himself. "I wonder if I could get the recipe...and then find someone to make it for me." He'd had no luck trying to find his mysterious cookie provider at lunch, but was still curious.

Eliza caught up with him in the checkout line. "You could always eat with us, you know," she told him, giving the food in her brother's basket a skeptical look. Harold rolled his eyes. "Oh yeah?" He couldn't resist teasing his youngest sister. "And what gourmet feast are you and Charlotte preparing tonight?"

Eliza laughed. "Well," she replied, "Mom thinks we're trying out a new recipe for barbecue chicken. We'll probably just grab some pizza on the way home. I am a college student, you know."

"What's Charlotte's excuse?" Harold wanted to know, as he watched his groceries being bagged and waited for change.

"Well, she's moonlighting as a college student, now that the department is paying for her to take one class per semester." Eliza grabbed the bags and insisted, "That counts as being in college, at least enough to consider pizza an acceptable dinner three nights running."

They made their way out to where Eliza's car was parked. "Thanks for the offer, but tonight I've got big plans," Harold announced. "Tonight...is the night I find my silverware!" They both laughed, and Eliza said, "Mom told you to label all those boxes better, but no, you wanted to do it your way! You need any help?"

"No, I've got it." Harold knew the offer was genuine, but, "This is my opportunity to bond with the new house. Besides, I've got all the most important stuff -- mattress, computer, microwave. Actually, it is sort of like college." He smiled. "And don't you have some big project you're supposed to be working on?"

Eliza nodded, and they talked about classes right up until she dropped him off at the front door. "Here we are -- 15 Birch Street -- door to door service provided by the Jones sisters. Give me a call if you need a call if you need a ride tomorrow morning -- Charlotte's got a morning off finally, and she's sleeping in. Good luck with the silverware!"

Harold called a thank you and waved as his youngest sister backed out of the driveway. Walking up to the front door, he was surprised to notice lights on, but figured he must have forgotten to shut them off in the chaos of the morning. Before he stepped through the door, he called a quiet hello to the cat who he'd seen hanging around the neighborhood all summer. Harold enjoyed going through the small tasks of hanging up his coat in the front hall closet and carrying the bags of groceries through the living room to the kitchen --

Where he promptly dropped them, heart racing. A strange man was sitting at his kitchen table. "Hi," the man said, somewhat hesitantly. "I'm really sorry about your car. I hope you liked the cookies."

"So let me see if I've got this right." Harold spoke the words around a bite of hotdog. It was several hours past his usual dinner time, but Al's appearance and subsequent explanations had pushed all thoughts of eating from his mind. But hunger eventually prevailed, and Harold felt weird about eating while a (guest? visitor? extraterrestrial being?) just watched, so they were sharing microwaved hot dogs on paper plates. Luckily, no silverware was required.

Harold paused to swallow, then began again. "Aliens exist. Lots of aliens. Multiple worlds. And not only do the know about Earth -- this planet --" Here he glanced at Al. Apparently "Earth" was considered a somewhat primitive and backwards name for a planet, and he was feeling a little insecure about it. "-- but they use it as a kind of tourist destination?" Al nodded, but stayed silent. "And you're some sort of regional coordinator, and you've been using this house as a base of operations?" Another nod. "Why?"

Al smiled. Not a condescending smile, or a creepy smile, but a nice smile. "Even in a college town, people appearing or disappearing into thin air might raise some suspicion. We find it's easiest to pick some sort of house, preferably empty, to use as a through-point -- people can come and go without anyone noticing. Plus," he added, almost as an afterthought, "it's helpful to have a street address when you order things off the Internet."

"I've been on vacation for the past month, or I would have realized you had moved in. This morning I was looking for the previous owner to ask if he thought I should approach you. But I couldn't find him, so I was checking the garage. Everyone from my planet has a ... unfortunate effect on electronic devices from this world if we're not careful, and I'm afraid that in my haste I may have ... broken your car. And your garage door opener. I can fix them though!"

Al added this last sentence hopefully, looking up at Harold with a mix of anxiety and enthusiasm, but Harold was still stuck on -- "previous owner?" he asked. "Wasn't the bank the previous owner? Why would they be in my garage?"

Now it was Al's turn to look confused. "Bank? No," he said. "I was looking for Mr. Tibbles. You know, the cat?"

Two epic revelations in one day was really more than Harold could handle. He felt like he'd been cool through the whole "I'm an alien who helps organize other aliens' trips to your planet" thing, and even the "I'm an alien who messed up your car and baked you cookies to make up for it" thing, but asking him to process the idea that cats were really in charge of the planet? That was a bit much. After all, he had work the next morning.

"Look," Harold said. "It's been kind of a long day. It's late, and as long as you're not planning to suck my brains out through my ears when I'm asleep, I'm going to go to bed. You obviously don't need my permission to stay or go as you please, but for what it's worth, you're welcome to stay and finish this conversation in the morning." He added belatedly, "But I don't have any extra toothbrushes -- sorry about that," and then trailed off, trying to decide if having emergency toothbrushes for aliens who just happened to show up fell under the category of "things his mom would expect him to be prepared for."

Al responded calmly, as if he dealt with freaked out humans every day. "Who knows," thought Harold, "maybe he does! Maybe this is a standard part of alien training school: 'how to reveal your identity to the locals without causing irreparable damage.'"

"I thank you for your kind offer, but I will be returning to my own planet to apprise them of the situation," Al said, and Harold wondered if he should mind being referred to as a "situation." "Also, you should know that it's considered extremely rude on my world to suck out someone's brains once you've shared a meal with them." Harold stared, but when Al's face broke into a grin, he realized he had just received his first dose of alien humor.

"Ha ha, very funny," said Harold. "I'm going to bed now -- try not to break anything else while I'm sleeping."

He was lying in bed thirty minutes later, listening to the silence in his house, when he realized he had no idea if he would ever see Al again.

Harold stared at the note, which was sitting on top of a plate of cookies. He had woken up that morning thinking he was back at his parents' house, with Boots the cat hogging the middle of his bed. But instead of Boots' black and white features, his eyes had opened to a tabby-colored face peering down at him. "Whoa," he thought, as the previous evening's events returned in a rush. Out loud, he said "Mr. Tibbles, I presume?" No response. "Oh, so you only talk to aliens." This time the cat -- Mr. Tibbles? what kind of a name was that? -- sat on his pillow and began daintily washing each paw. "Okay, I'm feeling kind of silly now. Did Al let you in?" Whisker twitch. "Is this a bad time to mention that I don't have any cat food?" At that, the cat leapt off the bed and stalked out the door, tail held high.

By the time Harold made it out to the kitchen and found Al's note, Mr. Tibbles was sitting in front of the refrigerator, staring intently at it as if willing the door to open. Harold sighed. "You know, probably every house on the street has a dish of cat food sitting out for you. I was planning to myself, I swear. I just forgot yesterday when I was at the store." He stared at the cat, who continued staring at the refrigerator. "Fine. How about I cut up a hot dog for you?" Mr. Tibbles purred. Harold sighed again. It was going to be a long day.

Harold retained a seed of doubt about Al's ability to "fix" the car he had apparently broken, but it disappeared when the car started on the first try and drove beautifully. All day at work, he was distracted. How could aliens have been spending time on Earth with no one noticing? Sure, he hadn't noticed, but someone must have. And then Al had just come out and told him all about it. Harold wondered if he was allowed to tell anyone else the things he'd learned. Not that he wanted to tell the government, or reporters or anything, but his sisters were going to notice something was going on with him. It was a slow day, so he practiced on his coworkers:

First he tried the subtle approach. "Hey, Tim, have you ever noticed anyone acting weird around here? Maybe looking out of place, like they weren't from around here?"

This earned him laughter. Tim said, "Sure I have -- I'm pretty sure that describes every college student around here." Another colleague, overhearing the question, asked Harold, "Has someone been giving you trouble at your new house? You should get that cop sister of yours involved -- I bet she could take care of it for you." Harold rolled his eyes. That was just what he didn't want.

Next, he came at the question from the opposite direction. "So, do you believe that we're alone in the universe?" Unfortunately, that just got him five blank stares, four expositions about Star Trek, and a couple of attempts to recruit him to various churches.

Finally, Harold was fed up. When someone walked into his office (must be a new person, he didn't recognize her, although she looked vaguely familiar), he burst out with, "There's an alien living in my house!"

The woman just looked at him and replied mildly, "Yes, I know. Did Al tell you it was okay to talk about this with complete strangers?"

Harold stammered. He stared. He started fearing for his brains again. Then the woman laughed. "You should see your face! Really, it's fine to tell anyone -- although as you may have already found, they most likely won't believe you. Your people have an amazing ability to rationalize anything they see or hear. Also, Al sent this note. I'll wait for a reply." With that, she handed him a small piece of paper, folded into what appeared to be a paper football.

"Huh." Well, that was intelligent. Harold unfolded the note under the silent scrutiny of the alien woman. "So, do you work here?"

"Something like that," she replied, in a tone of voice that discouraged further questions. She gave the note a significant look. Harold quickly read it.

Harold glanced up, but Al's messenger was staring out the window, obviously waiting for his reply. How did you reply to something like that? He considered for a minute, then wrote:

Then he crumpled up the note and tossed it in the basket of papers to be shredded. Apparently, having his worldview turned upside down was making him a little cranky. Harold took a deep breath, pointedly ignoring the questioning look he was receiving from Al's friend, and took out another sheet of paper.

It wasn't until he had watched his note disappear out the door that he realized he still didn't know the woman's name.

After that, the rest of the day seemed to pass in a crawl. Every person he saw, he wondered about -- were they an alien? Did they know about aliens? Was he the victim of a massive practical joke? He certainly wouldn't put it past his sisters. Maybe he was just going crazy. After all, aliens? Using his house as a doorway to their vacation destinations? That was pretty far-fetched. On the other hand, how else to explain a strange person (and cat) appearing and disappearing in his house? The whole thing gave him a headache.

Finally, it was time to head for home. Not his new home, but his old home, the comforting family residence where he and his sisters grew up. A house of peace and family togetherness, full of happy memories and supportive relatives. With a sigh of relief, Harold pulled out of his parking space.

Actually, thought Harold, as he considered the chaos in front of him, maybe his new home would be more peaceful. Both of his sisters' cars were parked in the road, probably because the driveway was filled with ... something. A pyramid, maybe? Judging by the foam bricks and cans of spray paint and littering the area, it was still in progress. Probably something for one of Eliza's classes. Stepping gingerly through the construction zone, he heard a faint beeping sound coming from the house, almost as if ...

Harold burst through the front door, just in time to see Charlotte race past him on her way to the basement. "It's just dinner, don't worry, we've got it!" she called out. Seconds later, the smoke alarm cut off and he heard her footsteps returning up the basement stairs.

"Do I want to know what we were having?" he asked his normally unflappable sister. It was funny how she could be totally calm facing down a criminal with a gun, or taking on six-foot plus guys in her self-defense classes, and then come totally unglued when cooking a simple dinner.

Charlotte looked sheepish. "We're still having it," she insisted. "It's not even in the oven yet. Eliza turned on the oven to preheat, and we had, um," here she paused and looked away. "We left some pizza in there last night that we had reheated for dinner."

Harold laughed. "If you two would just use the microwave, like normal people..."

They walked into the kitchen together. Eliza was wearing what might have been an Egyptian headdress, if the Egyptians had made their headdresses out of dishtowels. Harold tried to ignore it. Both sisters watched his reaction, waiting for the inevitable comment. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. He tried for casual: "So, I like the new look. And I have to say, if there was one thing I always thought this street needed, it was a pyramid."

"Me too! I'm sure Mrs. Bale would agree, don't you think?" Eliza asked, in her best mock-serious tone. Mrs. Bale had been their childhood nemesis, the classic stern neighbor who liked nothing more than to be complaining and gossiping. She didn't seem to have a job, unless you counted minding everyone else's business and sharing her opinions with anyone in earshot. As they grew up, they got better at staying out of her way, but Harold was sure the pyramid would not go un-remarked upon.

"I'll just tell her it's educational." (This was one of Mrs. Bale's favorite words.) "It is for my Interpretive Shakespeare class, so that's not even a lie," Eliza explained. "We're supposed to take one of Shakespeare's plays and change it somehow -- you know, to prove that his underlying themes are relevant regardless of environment? So my group got Hamlet. We're setting it in Egypt, in the time of the ancient Pharaohs. And we swapped the genders of all the characters. How do you like my headdress?"

"It works for me," said Harold, and Charlotte nodded. "I'm just glad I'm not in the class," she said. "'Cause you know I'd end up being the bad guy. I always have to be the bad guy."

This, of course, led to a spirited discussion of every play, skit, and game the siblings could remember taking part in. Everyone talked over each other, with loud rebuttals and many statements of, "That's not how I remember it..." Harold smiled to himself. No, it wasn't quiet and peaceful, but it was family. Eventually, they would eat, and write a group email to their parents (no doubt leaving out the unfortunate smoke alarm incident), and he would go. After all, he thought wryly, there was a new family member to worry about now -- one Mr. Tibbles, the Fancy Feast-loving cat.

It was after eleven by the time Harold made it back to his house. Eliza had recruited him to help move the pyramid into the garage, and then Charlotte wanted to talk to him about some rumors going around her classes about the company he worked for being sold (typically, he had heard nothing -- the employees were always the last to know). In truth, he had delayed leaving, not sure if he wanted to deal with the whole alien issue so soon. It had seemed so exciting the night before, but now he was wondering if perhaps his life wasn't already exciting enough. Plus, he hated going home to a dark house.

When he turned into his driveway, he realized that at least one of those wasn't going to be an issue. It looked like every light in the house was on. Actually, it was kind of nice. Harold parked in the garage, then walked around to his front door, enjoying the cool night air.

Sitting on his small porch was Mr. Tibbles -- "Can I just call you Mr. T?" -- who stood up to twine around his ankles as he unlocked the door. "You act like a normal cat." For that he got a look of catly disdain. "I know, I know. Just give me some time to process, okay?" The house felt empty except for himself and the cat, and Harold quickly made his way to the kitchen. No Al. No note, even. But sitting on the counter next to the refrigerator was six cans of Fancy Feast cat food.

"What kind of traffic are we talking about?" asked Harold. After a restful night's sleep, he had woken up with Mr. Tibbles on his pillow again, and Al sitting at his kitchen table reading the paper. Oddly, after his freak out moment the day before, he felt quite happy to see both of them. He broke out the muffins for breakfast, regretting again that he hadn't taken the time to find his toaster, and Al was explaining the exact nature of his job, and why he needed Harold's house to do it.

"All of us have our own personal transportation devices -- they allow a teleportation-like effect over short distances. But --"

At this, Harold broke in. "When you say 'short distances'..." He was trying not to make assumptions, and who knew what 'short' was to people who traveled between planets?

"Depending on how much you're carrying with you, the devices have a range of," Al paused and tilted his head to the side, calculating the conversion into something Harold could grasp. "Approximately 500 miles." Harold's eyes widened, but he said nothing. "But interplanetary travel requires more complex technology, as well as a certain measure of supervision. We have regional through-points in the most widely-traveled areas, and individual safe-transfer points all over the world."

"Many of the safe-transfer points are actually dormitory rooms at colleges and universities. No one notices an extra stranger or two on a campus of thousands, and your 'higher education' courses are very popular among the youth of my planet. Once people come through a regional doorway, they can use their personal transporters and jump from point to point until they reach their destination." Al paused, as if to see how Harold was taking this information.

"So there are aliens, enrolled in college, living in the dorms, just for fun? How do they deal with all the paperwork, the records you need?" Surely the inefficiency he'd encountered in his own degree-seeking years couldn't be that bad.

On the other hand, maybe it could. "Of course for fun," Al replied. "Why else would we do it? As for paperwork, well, they are very good with computers. Who can say? Records are lost and mis-filed all the time. Enrolling in school is easy.

"Now houses, that's a bit harder," Al admitted. "For the regional through-points, a house is preferred -- more space, more privacy, and no inconvenient explanations required for the undeniably alien-looking technology needed to create and maintain the doorway. But at least in this country, it's extremely difficult to own our own houses."

"Ah," Harold said. "Taxes, right?"

"No, that's actually easier to get around than you might think." Al leaned closer, and said conspiratorially, "It's the Post Office." Harold gave him a disbelieving look. "I'm serious! They're like bloodhounds, coming after you with their change-of-address forms and their piles of junk mail. I'm telling you, the Post Office should be the most feared institution in your country. They never give up. We tried for years, but eventually gave it up as not worth the effort. Now we mostly use abandoned houses, and the allies." He glanced at Harold. "That would be you, if you're interested."

"You would use my house as one of these ... 'through-points'," Harold clarified. "Is the doorway here now?" Al nodded.

"It's in the basement. I, um, shorted out all the lights down there just in case you got curious and went poking around. I'll fix them this morning." Harold snorted. The basement was packed full of junk -- for all that the main floor and garage had been cleaned out when he moved in, that area seemed to be holding the clutter of generations of home-owners. He probably wouldn't have noticed an alien doorway even if he had gone down.

"Will I have to clean out all that crud in the basement for you to use it?" Harold wanted to know.

"Actually, it's providing great cover. I'd prefer you left it -- I've taken a look at most of it in my time here --" And Harold remembered, now, that Al had been working out of his house for some time before he had ever moved in. "Some of it's nice. You might want it."

"Look," Harold said. "I've never shared my house with an alien doorkeeper before, so I don't know exactly how this works. Can we try it for a while, and see how it goes?"

Al looked relieved. "Yes, of course. I'm here at your discretion. This is wonderful. I could have been in big trouble, you know, for being on vacation when my previously unoccupied house suddenly gained a new owner. I really appreciate this."

With this rush of words, Harold realized that Al was dealing with new territory here, just like he was. Suddenly, Mr. Tibbles, who had been happily munching Fancy Feast off a paper plate, meowed loudly. Al looked at the clock, and Harold followed his gaze. "Oh man, I'm going to be late to work!"

Harold rushed out of the kitchen, speeding up through the living room and grabbing his coat and keys on the way out the door. He thought he heard Al speaking sharply to someone, presumably the cat, about telling them earlier if the time was getting late. He shook his head. He was pretty sure that cats had no concept of being on time for anything, and even if they did, were unlikely to follow any sort of instructions regarding those times.

When Harold moved into his house, he believed he wanted to have somewhere to be alone. After years of dorm living and sharing a house with his parents and two sisters, he thought he was ready to do the "single guy" thing. But after a week, Harold was getting used to living with Al and Mr. Tibbles. He liked sharing breakfast and dinner with Al, and hearing about what had happened in the strange (to him) and exciting world of being a regional coordinator for traveling aliens.

Every night when Harold came home, the outside lights were on, and Mr. Tibbles was waiting for his Fancy Feast. Once or twice, Al had send a note Harold at work, asking if he would mind a guest for dinner. Luckily, EasyMac was very popular among the interplanetary set. Also, Harold had taken some time to unpack some additional essentials: silverware, plates, glasses, and (finally!) his toaster. He still couldn't find his pots and pans. Possibly because there were so few of them.

Everything seemed to be going well. But on Thursday morning, exactly seven days after Harold agreed to share space with Al, he got a phone call. It was Charlotte, speaking quickly and quietly.

"Gabe, it's Charlotte. I'm calling from work. Have you done anything to upset Mrs. Bale lately?"

With a sinking feeling, Harold replied carefully, "No, not that I know of. Why?"

The volume of Charlotte's end of the conversation started to rise. "She just called in a report of suspicious activity at your house, that's why. I'm headed over to check it out right now. Gabe, the crime rate on your street is so low it's non-existent. What's going on?"

"Nothing, I swear." I hope, he added silently to himself. Luckily, he had two phone lines in his office. He dialed Al's emergency number, suddenly wishing he lived further from the center of town. Pick up, pick up, pick up, he repeated the mantra silently, only half listening to his sister. She seemed to be running down a list of possible infractions that could have brought Mrs. Bale's wrath down on his head.

"She said there's lights on all day. And that she hears voices. Not that that surprises me," Charlotte added in an undertone. "And she said something about a cat. You don't even have a cat!"

Al's voice came on the other line. "Hello?"

Harold cut Charlotte off. "Look, I've got a call coming in that I have to answer. Stay on the line, this will just take a minute, okay?" He turned his attention to Al. "Al, are you at the house right now? There's a police cruiser on the way to check out a complaint of suspicious activity. Can you, I don't know, not make any noise for a while? I think Charlotte's just going to check around the outside, maybe peek in the windows and make sure the doors are locked, but she has a key! She could --"

Al interrupted. "Relax, Harold. I promise you it will be fine. I do have some practice in staying unnoticed, you know. I'll warn your cat, too."

"But --" Harold was still freaking out.

"We've got it. No funny noises, no lights going on and off, don't use the microwave until your sister's left. Trust me on this one, she won't suspect a thing."

Feeling slightly reassured, and trying not to think of all the movies he'd seen where the phrase "trust me" was the precursor to some terrible occurrence, Harold got back on the line with Charlotte, who was muttering to herself.

"I'm back. Um, I've sort of been feeding this ... stray cat," he said, almost laughing at his calling the cat who slept on his pillow a stray. "I guess he might have made some noise around the house, but I can't think of anything else. Let me know if you see anything weird, okay? I've got another call. I really appreciate you taking a look and handling this yourself."

"Of course!" Charlotte sounded aggrieved. "As if I would let someone else answer a call about my brother's house! I'll even personally call on Mrs. Bale and let her know there's nothing to worry about, but it'll mean you're cooking next Wednesday."

There was a smile in her voice when she said it, and Harold smiled as well. "It's a deal." When he hung up, he breathed a sigh of relief. Crisis averted. Who said his life wasn't exciting?

When Harold arrived home that evening, there was a plate of fresh-baked cookies waiting for him. "This is your answer to everything, isn't it?" he asked Al. "Not that I'm complaining," he added, carefully selecting a cookie. "Do you make these?" Harold had calmed down significantly since the morning, and was feeling pretty relaxed about the whole hiding from the police incident. It was tough to stay freaked out when the only fallout seemed to be a string of emails from his family making jokes about cat food and taking in strays.

"It's a hobby," said Al, and it took Harold a moment to realize he was talking about the cookies. Al looked intently at him, and said, "I think I should show you just why I wasn't worried about anyone finding me this morning. You might want to sit down."

Harold sat. Al walked into the wall and disappeared. Harold stood up again. "Whoa," he murmured. "How does that work?"

Al reappeared. "It's all electrostatics, really. I can get you a great book on it, if you'd like. But all of us can do that. With a little practice, we can phase other objects too. Given enough time, I could even make the doorway disappear, but it would take some doing." Then, as if he had just remembered it, he added, "Oh, and Mr. Tibbles likes your sister. He thinks you should tell her what's going on."

Harold had actually considered explaining the whole situation to his sisters at their weekly dinner, but found he couldn't quite bring himself to say the words. "I'll think about it," he said. Trying to change the subject, he asked, "So, anything else I should know about? More exciting powers? Flying? Invisibility?"

Al laughed. "Actually, there is something I've been meaning to ask you...."

"Hands-on learning is a key component to schooling on my planet. By the time they graduate from tertiary school, children have visited a wide variety of the habited and uninhabited planets." Here Al paused, considering. "This world is generally considered a safe location for our primary school students. They rotate through the regions on day-long visits, experiencing local culture and sites. I've been putting off my turn because I wasn't sure how you'd react, but my daughter really wants to meet you."

Harold spit out the milk he'd been drinking. While Al was explaining, Harold had been preparing sandwiches. Finally tired of EasyMac, he had picked up rolls and sandwich fixings at the store on the way home, along with milk and more cat food. Al's final statement had come just as Harold was sitting down and taking his first sip of the cool, refreshing drink.

"You have a daughter?" What was Al doing living on Earth if he had a daughter? Was he married? How many parents did alien babies need, anyway?

"You would call her my ... niece, I suppose. We don't differentiate that much on my planet. Sabri is my brother's biological child, but I am considered her second father. Our families are very close knit." Which, as far as Harold was concerned, still didn't explain what Al was doing living on Earth, but he wasn't sure he should ask.

Instead, he focused on the previous conversational topic -- "Are you saying you're going to be a field trip chaperone?" A sudden image popped into Harold's head of Al handing out cookies on a yellow school bus full of kids. The kids in his mental bus started popping from seat to seat using miniature personal transporters. Two of them were fighting. One started crying. "I want my other mommy!" the imaginary girl wailed.

"Actually --" the real Al interrupted Harold's mental movie, just as the Al in his head threw his hands up in the air.

Harold shook his head to clear it. "I'm sorry," he said, refocusing on Al. "I'm listening now. So Earth is like a starter field trip?"

"Well," Al replied, "many children take offworld trips with their families at young ages, but the primary school 'Earth trip' is the first school-sponsored visit to another planet. It gives them experience with being the 'minority', and they get to see an alien culture first-hand with very little risk."

It gave Harold a small shock to hear the words "alien culture" being applied to his culture, but it made sense when he thought about it. Obviously, to Al, he was the alien. "Okay, and then they move on to more challenging planets as they get older?" Harold guessed out loud.

"Yes, but Earth always maintains a certain place of ... honor ... for our students." Al had a funny look on his face, as if he were holding back a smile. Harold raised his eyebrows at him, and he explained.

"Well, it's considered traditional for students to perform some sort of prank while they're in school. It started long before my school years -- I always suspected it was actually the primary school instructors who came up with the idea. Instead of dealing with daily tricks and jokes, they got the students to channel all their devious energy into creating one single prank each. Technically, you can pull your prank at any time, but students typically wait until secondary or even tertiary school -- when they have access to the greatest number of resources and time."

"Your planet, Earth, is a favorite testing ground. Some of the most creative students even use Earth as the final setting for their prank. Remember 'All your base R belong to us'?" Harold nodded. "That was us," Al said smugly, and Harold laughed.

"Why?" Harold asked. "What was the point?"

"Why do people do anything?" Al said. "It's fun, it's a challenge, it passes the time. I think in that particular case, it was a dare."

They were both silent for a moment. "How did we get on this topic?" Harold finally asked.

Al, oddly, looked uncomfortable. "It's my turn to host a group of students on their Earth trip." Now Al was starting to look nervous. Harold began to feel nervous himself. What was Al getting at?

"I'll have six to eight students, including my daughter. They'll arrive through the doorway around ten in the morning, Earth time, with another parent. We'll spend most of the day visiting the local area, but the kids need to have an Earth-based emergency contact in case they get separated from the group for any reason. I was wondering if you would mind being the contact."

That was it? A simple matter of being part of the backup system for a school field trip to a planet considered to be one of the safest around? "Of course I'll do it," Harold told Al. After all, he thought to himself, what could go wrong?

Field trip day, as Harold was calling it, was set for the second Monday after their conversation. Apparently, that was to give the school plenty of time to prepare the kids and finish their unit on Earth culture. Harold often wondered how similar their schools were to his own elementary school experiences. He imagined big cardboard posters with marker drawings of Earth's solar system, with arrows coming off the third planet and leading to cut-out pictures of things like MacDonalds and WalMart.

Harold wanted to ask Al about it, but Al seemed very busy with traffic through the doorway in the basement, and also seemed to be highly stressed by the prospect of being responsible for eight young children for a day. When he wasn't ushering chatty aliens on or off the planet, he wandered around the house, muttering things like, "Only (insert number of days here) days left." Once Harold even caught him neatening things in the living room.

"Al," he had said, "relax, will you? These kids are something like eight years old, right?" Al had tried to explain the relative time differences between their two planets, and how old the students were in the counting systems of various worlds, but most of it had gone over Harold's head. " It's not like they're going to see a lot of the house, anyway." Harold paused. "They're not, are they?" he asked, somewhat nervous. Harold suddenly had an urge to neaten things, but he ruthlessly suppressed it.

Al shook his head. "I'm just nervous. I'm one of the youngest regional coordinators on your planet, and this is my first chaperoning. And my daughter's going to be there. And with the whole --" he broke off, glancing at Harold. The look on his face clearly said, "there's something important I'm not telling you," but he merely ended with, "Well, I'm just a little worried about having all those kids here."

Harold rolled his eyes as soon as Al's back was turned. Another "I can't tell you because we weren't born on the same planet" thing, then. Based on previous experience, it could be something as small as hoping none of the kids had any allergies they didn't know about, to something as big as dealing with a major interplanetary incident. But it wouldn't do any good to ask, so Harold didn't.

As far as Harold was concerned, the days leading up to the field trip were pretty standard. He got up, went to work, came home, sat on his porch, maybe did some unpacking. The spare room was almost clear of boxes, though he still ran into problems when he realized he simply didn't own something he needed for living on his own. For instance, he didn't own a vacuum cleaner -- so he borrowed Charlotte and Eliza's, and hoped they wouldn't notice. He also didn't own a frying pan, but he went to the mall for that one. Mostly, Harold watched Al count down the days to the big field trip.

Someone was knocking on Harold's door. "Go away, Eliza," he muttered sleepily. The knocking got louder.

"I know you're awake, Harold," called a voice. Al's voice. Al had never, ever, knocked on his door before. Definitely never at -- what time was it, anyway? It was still dark out, he knew that much. Wasn't something important happening that day? Harold remembered the field trip, and groaned. Of course. He knew he shouldn't have asked what could go wrong, even in his own head. Now he'd have to get up and find out what was going on.

Harold stood up and stepped off his mattress, sparing a moment's irritation that the perfect bedframe he'd found online had been backordered for almost a month. When he opened the door and saw Al's frantic face, however, all his impending crankiness disappeared. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"Ilia Cal just got called away." At Harold's blank stare, Al added, "She's supposed to be my co-chaperone!"

That's not too bad, Harold thought sleepily to himself. Did that mean the field trip was canceled?

Al was speaking again. "And I was just informed that the students will be arriving an hour early!"

"What?" That got Harold's attention. "They're still coming? Who's coming with them? Why are they coming early?" And, as another thought occurred to him -- "Why are you telling me all this at" (he glanced at his watch) "6:23 in the morning?"

Al just stared at him. "Oh, no," said Harold. "You are not asking me to be a substitute chaperone, are you? Because that would just be..." Okay, he thought to himself, that might actually be kind of cool.

"Is that what you're asking?" Al nodded. "All right, I'll do it," Harold said.

Two hours later, freshly showered and shaved, and feeling much more awake, Harold was sitting at the kitchen table sipping his coffee. He had called in sick to work, and was staring out the back door at his sun-filled yard, wondering what he had gotten himself into. Al was explaining their itinerary for the day.

"The kids will arrive around nine," Al said. Apparently, students were supposed to have one last talk about appropriate offworld behavior, which the Cal children's mother was going to have given. Now that she was out of the picture, it fell to Al to give what he called the "don't mess up" lecture, and the kids were arriving early to hear it. "I'll give the talk and check their stuff to make sure they didn't bring anything that could get them into trouble."

"Then we head downtown," Al continued. Harold nodded. There was a bus stop at the end of the street, and while it wasn't a long walk to the downtown area, he couldn't quite imagine doing it with seven eight-year-olds.

"We'll do the scavenger hunt--" Here Harold laughed; apparently field trip activities didn't vary that much, even for aliens. "--and then go to the student union building for lunch around 1:30. A couple volunteers will be joining us for the meal. Tina and Sam both take classes at the university and aren't old enough to be chaperones, but they can count any time they spend helping us out today as part of their community service hours."

Harold felt exhausted just listening to the schedule. "What about after lunch?" he asked warily.

"That's the easy part, hopefully," Al said. "Tina booked us a theater in the student union building. We're watching a movie. Tina says it represents 'Earth's views on aliens and the reasons they'll never figure us out' all in one kid-friendly package. She cleared it with the school, but won't tell me what it is." Al looked skeptical for a moment, but then shrugged. "Earth movies are a pretty popular part of these trips, so I'm not too worried."

"After the movie, it's just a bus ride back here and back through the doorway." Al finished his explanation just as his watch beeped, indicating that someone had requested doorway activation from the other end. "That's them," he said. "Ready?" He looked at Harold.

"I was born ready," Harold responded automatically, then added, "Actually, not at all. Is it too late to go back to bed?" They both laughed as the headed down to the basement.

Harold looked out over the group of -- was it really only seven? -- kids. They were arrayed in a neat semicircle on the living room floor, each with a matching school backpack in front of them. The navy and silver would certainly make the students more identifiable as a group, he acknowledged, backing up their cover story of being from an out-of-state private school touring the university. As a bonus, each backpack had the student's name embroidered into it. While Al talked, Harold did his best to match faces to names.

Sabri, Al's daughter, had decorated her backpack with glittery stars. She was on one end of the semicircle, and on her left was a girl with curly blond hair and what looked like a dragon sewn onto her backpack. The name on the bag said Pjerin, but she had introduced herself to Harold as "PJ," and he was going to stick with that. He wondered about the dragon -- perhaps the creatures were not quite as mythical on other planets?

Next to PJ sat Damaris, a quiet boy with a stylized cat on his backpack. Much to Harold's surprise, he also had a real cat in his lap. Mr. Tibbles, who had been making himself scarce in the past few days, had shown up as soon as the first student stepped through the doorway. He sat quietly until Damaris arrived, and then made a beeline for the boy, twining around his ankles and purring loudly. It was silly, Harold told himself, to feel jealous of an eight-year-old over the affection of a stray cat, but he still felt it.

To be honest, as soon as Mr. Tibbles appeared, Harold had expected the students to rush around the sleek tabby, all wanting a turn to hold him and pat him. Instead, they all kept a respectful distance, not petting him unless he approached them first, as he had with Damaris. Must be an alien thing, Harold thought. At least it meant he wouldn't be forgetting Damaris' name. Still, the whole thing left him with a weird vibe.

At the exact center of the semicircle was one of the Cal twins -- Nadeka, according to the name on the backpack. The boy, then. It was amazing how similar he and his sister looked. Both Nadeka and Lishendri had a single flowy glyph decorating their bag under their name. To Harold, they looked like runes, or Japanese calligraphy. He wondered what they said, if they said anything at all.

Both twins had a somewhat aloof air, despite their placement in the center of the students. Harold hoped they weren't upset that he had taken their mom's place as chaperone; he didn't want to start out on the wrong foot with any of the kids, and having grown up with two sisters, he knew firsthand how much trouble siblings could cause if they wanted to. Speaking of which... Harold noticed at the same time Al did.

"Nadeka and Lishendri Cal," Al said sternly. "Are you showing respect right now?"

"... No sir," they replied in unison. "Nadeka" traded bags with "Lishendri," to the sound of soft giggling from the other students.

"Thank you," said Al. Harold smiled to himself. With any set of twins, he knew, there were always ways to tell them apart. Looking closely, he scrutinized the two for differences. Both had dark hair, but Lishendri had two tiny braids on one side, and when Nadeka turned his head to take his rightful backpack, Harold saw an earring in his left ear. Also, Al had told him that Nadeka was slightly taller, which should help when they were walking.

Meshkalla, the next student in the semicircle, was still giggling slightly when Harold turned his gaze to her. She had obviously taken the personalization of her backpack to the extreme; it was covered with intricate designs of vines and flowers.

Zahar, to her left, was staring out the window. His backpack had a bright red spaceship on it. He wasn't sure if it was meant to be a joke, but it looked just like an Earth-created cartoon depiction of a UFO. Very subtle, thought Harold.

He was pretty sure he had the names down. He went back over them in his head: Sabri, PJ, Damaris, Lishendri, Nadeka, Meshkalla, Zahar. Of course, the real test would be if he still recognized them when they were all standing up and moving around, but he'd cross that bridge when he came to it. Meanwhile, Al was wrapping up his talk.

"Okay, I think that pretty much covers it. What's rule one?" Al asked, addressing everyone but making specific eye contact with Zahar and both of the Cals.

"Stay with the group!" the students answered enthusiastically.

"And rule two?" This time Al directed his gaze at Sabri, who looked slightly abashed, but answered just as loudly as the others:

"Don't talk to strangers!"

"Last one: what's rule three?" Al raised his voice, focusing all the energy in the room on that one question.

"Speak English!" the students yelled.

"That's right," Al said. "Stay with the group, don't talk to strangers, and remember to speak English at all times. Don't leave anything behind, and don't take anything without asking myself or Mr. Jones, even if someone gives it to you." Al started around the circle, beginning with Zahar, checking everyone's backpack for items that were banned from the trip. He also quizzed the students on field trip procedures, calling on students individually.

"What would you do if someone overhears you talking about something you shouldn't be talking about ... Meshkalla?" Al asked. Harold thought it was a smart question. It was easy to tell eight-year-olds not to talk about something, but impossible to expect them to be able to follow that rule for a whole day.

Meshkalla adopted such an absolutely innocent expression that Harold blinked. "We're going to be in a play!" she bubbled happily. "We're practicing. Do you want to hear all my lines? I'm an alien princess."

Whoa, Harold thought. That was good. And somewhat scary. Al just said, "Excellent, good creative answer. Damaris, what should you do if you get separated from the group?"

"Stay where I am!" Damaris said excitedly, though he was careful not to jar Mr. Tibbles, who appeared to be sleeping. "Tell my emergency contact numbers to a policeman, or a cashier, or someone wearing a nametag."

"Good," said Al. "Everyone has their emergency numbers?" Seven cards were pulled out of various pockets and waved in the air. Harold looked at his own copy of the emergency contact card. He was listed as "Mr. Harold G. Jones," with his home, work, and cell numbers all listed. Interestingly, Al was listed simply as "Al," with a cell phone number. Tina, the student-volunteer who had picked their movie, had been added to the list at the last minute when Harold had become an impromptu chaperone. Both her cell phone and dorm room numbers were on the card, although Harold noted that it didn't actually indicate that one of their "responsible parties" was living in the university dormitories. Probably a good idea, he thought to himself.

As Al worked his way around the semicircle, asking questions and checking bags, Harold was watching in amazement as the pile of confiscated items grew. One cool but very alien-looking gadget al had called a camera, a couple of things that looked just like e-book readers, snacks, drinks, and even one kid-sized personal transporter, smuggled in by PJ. The only tense moment was when Al told Nadeka he'd have to leave his watch behind. "But what if my mom tries to call us?" the boy had asked in a worried voice.

"She'll call me first," Al reassured him. He'd had to promise to tell Nadeka right away if he got a call before the watch (apparently also a communications device of some sort) was surrendered.

Finally, they were ready for the final check. All confiscated items had been stowed in the basement, bathroom trips had been completed, bottled water had been distributed, and everyone was lined up at the front door, even Mr. Tibbles. Harold wondered how far the cat would accompany them. He was pretty sure cats weren't allowed on the bus, but he'd never actually seen someone try to bring one on, either.

Al stood at the front of the line. "Everyone has their backpack? Coat? We're not coming back if you forgot something, so make sure you have everything you're supposed to have." There was a lot of shuffling and rustling as pockets were checked and zippers were zipped and unzipped. "All right, are we ready?" Al called out.

"Yes!" the students called back.

"Sound off," Al said. The students stood in pairs, and each called out their name.

"Sabri!"

"PJ!"

"Lishendri!"

"Nadeka!"

"Damaris!"

"Meshkalla!"

"Zahar!"

Zahar ended up in the back of the line, next to Harold, who made eye contact with Al and nodded. "We're ready to go," he said, and everyone trooped out the front door. Please let Mrs. Bale not be walking by, he prayed silently.

The street was empty. Their group walked towards the bus stop, chattering excitedly. Harold glanced back to see Mr. Tibbles sitting as still as a statue on his porch, watching them go.

On the bus, Al handed out a sheet of paper to each student. This, Harold knew, was the "scavenger hunt." Really, it was more like an odd sort of Bingo card, with 25 squares placed in a grid. At the top of the page was the heading "Identify One...", and each square had something the students were supposed to look for. Al had given Harold a master list of all the questions, explaining that usually, the chaperones weren't allowed to help, but since Harold was from Earth, he technically counted as a "potential source of information." "I'm not sure how quickly the kids will figure that out," Al had told him, "but once they do, you should feel free to answer (or not answer) anything they ask you. It's up to you."

The students talked quietly as they looked over their sheets. Al handed out mechanical pencils, reminding the kids not to lose them. Harold knew this was more about reinforcing personal responsibility than any real danger of being unable to complete the scavenger hunt -- Al had about a hundred of the twist-out pencils stashed in his backpack. Harold had laughed when he asked about it and heard an Earth saying coming from his alien friend. "Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst."

Harold felt a tug on his sleeve, and turned to look down at the student on his left. "Mr. Jones, can we count this bus as a form of public transportation?" Zahar asked. Harold glanced at Al, who shrugged, then nodded. The only real rule about the scavenger hunts was that the students had to actually see the things they wrote down.

"Sure," Harold replied. "I'd say the bus counts."

"Mr. Jones," another voice piped up, "Do you own a S.U.V.?" PJ, he thought. Obviously the kids had figured out he was fair game sooner, rather than later.

"Sorry, no," he told the girl. "Even if I did, you haven't seen it, so you couldn't count it, could you?" Pjerin looked disappointed. "But I bet there is something else on this bus that you might have on your sheet," Harold said, pointedly looking up at the advertisements ringing the upper walls of the vehicle. All of the students looked up as well, carefully reading each brightly-colored poster and flyer, and exclaiming when they found one they could use.

"Look!" Nadeka pointed at an "Army of One" poster. "It's a recruitment poster, for their military!"

The kid sounded way too excited about that, thought Harold. But the group was starting to attract some curious stares from other passengers. Showtime. He caught the eye of a woman sitting nearby and smiled reassuringly. Leaning towards her, he tried for his most confident tone of voice, and said, "We're practicing. For a play."

"Oh," the woman said, nodding in an understanding way. "Good luck with it!" Then she turned back to her magazine.

Harold breathed a sigh of relief. It worked! He looked back at the students. Sabri was talking a mile a minute at Al, who was smiling indulgently at her. Harold couldn't hear everything she was saying, but from the words he could catch, it seemed to be a lengthy update on what the rest of the family was doing.

PJ was studying her worksheet carefully, brow furrowed, as she slowly mouthed the words. Although all the kids spoke English easily, reading and writing in a non-native language was more difficult. According to Al, many students were fluent in three to four languages by this age, but speaking was emphasized over reading. Harold made a mental note to keep an eye on anyone who seemed like they were struggling. He didn't want any tears on this trip.

Damaris and the Cals were still examining the signs inside the bus. Since the backpack incident, Lishendri and Nadeka had been on their best behavior. Harold wasn't sure how long it would last, but he was trying to enjoy it while it did. Meshkalla was searching for something in her backpack. After a minute, she pulled out her water and carefully unscrewed the top, mindful of the swaying bus as she sipped. Zahar, sitting next to Harold, was staring out the window again.

Harold looked at his watch. It read 10:25 am. It was going to be a long day.

Harold had lived in the same town for his whole life, first in his parents' house, then in the university dorms, then back in his parents' house, and finally in his own home on Birch Street. He was confident in his ability to give directions to anywhere in town, either walking or driving. Sometimes he felt like he could make his way through town sleepwalking. Certainly it had been many years since he had looked at things with new eyes.

But somehow, Al's students had completely drawn him into their scavenger hunt, and he found himself as excited as they were with each new find. "I see an animal!" one of the kids would call out, and he would crane his neck around just like the students. "I think it's a squirrel!" Harold even started wishing he had his own Bingo card, so he could check things off as they went.

Form of personal transportation? Check -- a skateboarder had nearly run them over, irritating Al but delighting the students.

Type of outdoor group recreation? Check -- the ever-present college Frisbee game was in full swing as they walked past the grassy lawn of one of the campus buildings.

Food-bearing tree? That one was a bit harder, but they finally located a crab-apple tree in one of the town's public garden areas, and Al said it was close enough. Harold was amazed to realize he had never seen the tree before.

Evidence of a democratic government? Check -- it was September, and "Vote for Me for Your Class Senator / Representative / President" signs were everywhere around the university. This one also counted for the educational system square, much to the kids' delight.

For the example of a market-based economy (just how advanced were these kids, anyway, Harold wondered), Al led the group to the local dollar store. Once there, everyone was allowed to spread out on their own after a quick review of rule number three. "Remember," Al said, "No taking anything without asking myself or Mr. Jones first. You may not leave the store. We will meet at the register--" Here he pointed at the counter just inside the door, "--in thirty minutes. Everyone is allowed to purchase one item. You must use your own money, and you are responsible for carrying whatever it is for the rest of the day. We're trusting you with this freedom, so let's see some smart choices."

Seven heads nodded solemnly, and they were released into the store. Al followed them into the maze of crowded aisles. Harold positioned himself by the door, where he could make sure none of the students was tempted to break the rules and do a little impromptu exploring on their own. Plus, there was a great display of cheap sunglasses right there.

Harold figured he wouldn't see any of the students until their thirty minutes was up. He hadn't counted on them all wanting his opinion on their purchases. First it was PJ, who had made a complete circuit of the store in record time and come back to look at the suncatchers hanging in the window. "Which one do you like best, Mr. Jones?" she asked him.

Harold had no idea what to tell her. In truth, he thought they were all kind of tacky looking, but he couldn't say that to the adorable eight-year old in front of him. "Well," he started slowly, "I think it depends what you're looking for. What's your favorite color, PJ?"

"Yellow!" Since this was the color of the dragon on her backpack, Harold had been hoping that was the case. He pointed at one of the suncatchers.

"This one has a lot of yellow in it," he said. "It's a sunflower design." He pointed out another colorful picture. "This one's pretty cool, too. It looks like a unicorn." He was pretty sure that's what it was supposed to be, anyway.

"What about that one?" PJ asked him. Harold followed her finger to one at the very top of the window, and squinted at it against the glare.

"It's a ..." Harold paused, trying to get a better view. "It's a house," he said finally. It reminded him of the witch's gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel, all curlicue trim and perfect windowboxes.

"I want that one," PJ decided suddenly. "It's just like your house!"

Pjerin headed off, clutching her suncatcher in one hand. Harold went back to perusing the sunglasses, only to be interrupted by Damaris. "Mr. Jones? Does this count as one item?" He held up a glow-in-the-dark paint set, with four different colors and two paintbrushes.

It was all in the same plastic pack, so Harold assured the nervous-looking boy that it was a fine choice. Harold also noted to himself that it looked like one of those packages where the plastic was so firmly attached to the bright cardboard backing that it would require some serious tools to get it off. He just hoped Damaris would be safely back on his own planet before he unleashed his inner artist.

After about 25 minutes, the students began gathering at the front register. Al was first with the Cal twins, followed by Damaris and Zahar. Sabri and PJ showed up next, chattering away about ... something. Harold wasn't sure he even wanted to know. Where was Meshkalla? Al got the kids lined up, and Harold went to look for her.

He found her staring at two stuffed animals. One was a teddy bear wearing an apron and a bonnet. The other was a chicken wearing a raincoat. "I can't decide!" Meshkalla wailed. "I want this one, and this one!"

Now this, Harold felt confident in. Both Charlotte and Eliza had gone through a "indecisive" phase. Actually, he thought, Eliza had never really grown out of that phase.

"Hmm..." Harold pretended to study the stuffed animals. "Pick this one," he said, pointing at the teddy bear.

"But I like the chicken better!" Meshkalla said

"There you go," Harold said. "Now you know which one you really want."

"Wow! Thanks, Mr. Jones." Meshkalla slid her hand into his as they walked back towards the front of the store.

Meshkalla joined in the line at the register when they arrived, and Harold moved to the front. All the students had their own US money (Harold had asked about that, and been told simply that money could be changed at the border, and how 'bout that exchange rate?). Al was overseeing the transactions, and attaching each students receipt to their scavenger hunt sheet with a stapler he'd bought in the store.

Lishendri had picked out a baseball cap embroidered with the words "Cal Tech." Nadeka had a bag of mixed hard candy. Damaris had stuck with the glow-in-the-dark paints, and Harold smiled to see PJ's suncatcher.

Only to groan as he saw the item Zahar placed on the counter. A kazoo. Great. They were so going to regret that.

Sabri had picked a bag of brightly colored plastic beads in flower shapes. Lastly, Meshkalla paid for her raincoat-wearing chicken, which all the kids exclaimed over.

Checking the time, Harold realized the whole morning had passed. It was time to head for lunch at the student union building. He felt a sense of pride as the students lined up outside the store and sounded off again, each calling their name.

Sabri, PJ, Nadeka, Damaris, Lishendri, Zahar, Meshkalla. Al took his place between PJ and Nadeka, and Harold stepped in between Lishendri and Zahar. Everyone grabbed hands to cross the street.

"Gabe? Is that you?" A woman's voice called out loudly, and Harold groaned under his breath. "Hey, I haven't seen you since the department's last softball game! How's it going?"

It must be one of Charlotte's friends from the police department, Harold thought. Sarah, maybe? "Hi!," he said brightly, hoping enthusiasm would cover the fact that he couldn't remember her name. "It's great to see you!" (Total lie, his mental voice said.) Harold had been hoping to get through the day without seeing anyone he knew, although he knew the chances of that were slim.

"I can see you're busy," the woman-whose-name-might-be-Sarah said. "I just wanted to say hi. See you around!" And she was gone. Harold relaxed. That hadn't been so bad.

"That wasn't so bad," he said to Al.

"I'm hungry," said one of the kids.

"I'm thirsty. My water's all gone," chimed in another.

"I'm tired. Can we sit down?" Now they were all getting into it.

"I have to go to the bathroom."

"Look," said Al. "See that building? That's where we're going to eat lunch. They have food, and water, and bathrooms. And," he said, pausing to ensure he had everyone's full attention, "Tina and Sam will be there."

After that it was just a matter of trying to keep up, as Al and Harold followed the re-energized kids up the stairs and into the building.

Tina and Sam were waiting for them when they arrived at the food court. Harold was surprised to see that "Tina" was the same person who had delivered Al's note to him at work two weeks ago. She smiled and waved when she saw him. "Hi Harold!" she called. "How's it going, Al?" Then she and Sam dove into greeting each kid, by name, with individual questions and comments for each one. In no time, they were the center of a laughing, chattering circle of students, exclaiming over completed worksheets and oohing and aahing about each new story.

Harold was astounded by their energy. "I feel exhausted just watching them," he told Al.

"Remember," Al said, "Tina and Sam only have to be able to keep that up for 45 minutes. They're here to make sure we can get a break if we need one. Why don't you head off for a while, and meet us back here towards the end of lunch?"

"What about you?" Harold was trying to be nice. A break sounded really good, though. It had been a long time since he dealt with eight-year-olds, and never seven at once.

"Sabri asked me to be her 'lunch buddy,'" Al said ruefully. "I shudder to think what she's going to get for us to eat, but I don't want to her to be disappointed. I'll just relax during the movie."

And so Harold found himself wandering through the student union building, looking at groups of students typing studiously on laptop computers or laughing with friends as they carried rented pool cues and balls to the game room. He actually felt a little naked without the borrowed backpack he'd been wearing all day. It had the first aid kit in it, so he'd passed it off to Sam for the lunch break.

College had always brought out the introspective side of Harold, and today was no different. He sat idly on an outdoor balcony, staring at the small stream that passed by the building. He thought about family, and children, and tried to imagine himself, or Charlotte, or Eliza with a baby. He thought about how many of the students he'd seen that day might be really out-of-state, and if it mattered.

Then he got tired of deep thoughts, and headed for the bookstore/gift shop he knew was located on the first floor of the building. Harold wanted to give all the field trippers something to remember this trip by, something special. The bookstore always had little touristy stuff imprinted with the university logo; he figured that would be pretty special if you were eight and from another planet.

Ten minutes later, Harold waited in line with a dozen keychain flashlights. "Hey, you're Harold Jones, right?" The cashier greeted him cheerfully.

"Um, yeah," Harold replied. "How --?"

"Are these for the students who are visiting? Great idea! They'll love these."

Harold was confused. "Who are you? How do you know my name?"

"Zahar is my brother," the cashier explained. "I was hoping to help out today with lunch, but I couldn't get off of work. Can you tell him I said hi? I'm Toby, by the way."

"Right. Sure. Toby, Zahar, brother, said hi." Harold's brain was rapidly trying to catch up with what was happening around him. "I've got it. I think."

Toby smiled at him. "You really got thrown in on the deep end with this field trip, huh? Don't worry about it. It takes some getting used to, but Al says you're doing great."

"Thanks," Harold said. "I appreciate the confidence." As he signed his receipt, he paused. "Can I ask you something?" he asked Toby, who nodded.

"Sure, go for it."

"How come all the students have kind of ... exotic-sounding names, but the rest of you have names like Toby, and Al?" Harold had been wondering about that all day, but it had never seemed like a good moment to ask.

"It's mostly for convenience, actually," Toby said. It's just easier to have a common name -- fewer questions about where you're from, stuff like that. We usually pick one we like for any planet we're going to be on for a while."

By that time it, another customer was headed for the register, so Harold collected his keychains and waved a goodbye to Toby. "Thanks Toby," he called back to the young cashier. "I'll let Zahar know I ran into you!"

There must have been a time, Harold thought, that watching movies with 3-D glasses was really cool. This was not that time. He tried to get his cardboard glasses to sit evenly over his ears without looking completely silly. Actually, Harold wasn't sure that you could look un-silly wearing cardboard glasses with one red and one blue "lens." On the other hand, it was certainly a novel way to spend the afternoon, and he was enjoying seeing how many ways the writers could find to get characters to spit things at the screen.

Harold was sitting alone in the second row from the front of the theater, on what he was privately thinking of as "the girls side." Their group had the room to themselves, and he and Al had allowed the kids to sit wherever they wanted. All four of the girls immediately clustered near the middle of one side. The three boys spread out on the other side, with Al taking a seat in the back row.

Hopefully, the arrangement would allow Harold and Al to keep an eye on anyone going or coming, while still allowing the kids a sense of freedom. Harold gave up on his glasses and settled in to enjoy the movie. He could hear the girls whispering somewhere behind him. From the other side of the room, he heard plastic rustling -- probably Nadeka, opening his candy, Harold thought. Everything seemed to be going well.

Until 90 minutes later, when the movie ended, and the lights came on.

"Were you sleeping?" Sabri asked Al delightedly. "I saw -- your eyes were closed!"

"I have to go to the bathroom!" This from Meshkalla, although several other students nodded in agreement.

And then the one thing Harold least wanted to hear: "Hey, where's Zahar?" A quick headcount revealed that they had ended the movie with one less person than they'd begun with. Zahar was not in the theater.

"Okay, let's not panic here," said Al reassuringly. He looked worried. Harold started to panic. What if Zahar had been kidnapped? What if he'd been discovered? What if they couldn't find him? He couldn't believe they'd lost one of the students!

Just then, Al's cell phone rang. A second later, Harold's also began ringing. They glanced at each other, then grabbed for their phones.

"Hello?" Harold said breathlessly.

"Is this Mr. Harold G. Jones?" the voice at the other end asked.

"Yes," Harold replied. This better not be a telemarketer, he thought to himself.

"My name is Matt, and I'm with campus security. You're listed as one of the emergency contacts for a boy named Zahar?"

"Yes, is he with you?" Harold crossed his fingers.

"He is. Seems he got a bit turned around on his way back from the bathroom. He was smart, though, and as soon as he figured out he was lost he sat right down and wouldn't budge." Matt sounded approving.

"Lucky for him, he was smack outside the security office. We heard him crying out in the hall, and he gave us a card with your phone number on it. Right now we're headed in your direction with a girl who goes to school here, listed as his first emergency contact?"

Tina, Harold thought with relief. He looked at Al, who indicated that he was getting the whole story from Tina at that very moment.

"Thank you," Harold told Matt wholeheartedly. "We'll meet you outside theater two." He ushered the students out to the small lounge area outside the theater while Al continued his conversation.

"Was that about Zahar?"

"Is he okay?"

"What happened?"

"Where is he?"

All the students clamored for answers, and Harold held up his hands. "Whoa," he said. "One at a time. Yes, that was about Zahar. He's fine, he just got lost, and now he's on his way back here with Tina." That seemed to satisfy everyone's curiosity, and Harold quickly distracted them with questions about how they'd liked the movie.

When Al snapped his phone shut and walked over to the group, Harold looked up expectantly. Sure enough, Zahar and Tina, and a man in uniform who must be Matt, were just coming around the corner. All traces of tears had been scrubbed from Zahar's face, and he was sucking happily on a lollipop. The sight prompted some rebellious murmurs from the other students, and Harold was sure he heard someone mutter, "I wanna go get losted too," but at Al's stern look, they subsided.

Harold hadn't even know Al had a stern look. He pondered this while Al spoke first with Matt, then Tina, and finally Zahar. Matt departed with a genial smile and a pat on the back for Zahar. Tina ruffled the boy's hair and waved to the rest of the group. "Hope you liked the movie! I've got to get back to class now -- I'm playing Hamlet as an Egyptian queen, and I've got loads of lines to memorize!"

No way, thought Harold, as the kids' shouts goodbye swirled around him. No way is she in Eliza's class. But how many Egyptian-themed, gender-swapping versions of Hamlet could be being performed on campus that semester? He wanted to ask Tina about it, and maybe ask her not to tell Eliza what he was doing while he was officially "home sick", but she was already gone.

After Zahar's adventure, the trip back to Harold's house seemed almost anti-climactic. They caught a bus right outside the student union building. The students seemed worn out after their day on the town, and the clouds that had covered the sun while they'd been inside made everyone mellow.

It was late afternoon when seven tired kids and two tired chaperones trooped back through the front door of 15 Birch Street. Everyone headed for the living room, where backpacks were dropped and shoes were removed. Mr. Tibbles appeared from somewhere (Harold still hadn't figured out how he got in and out of the house when no one was there) and made a beeline for Damaris, walking unerringly through the students sprawled over furniture and floor.

There were about thirty minutes before the students were scheduled to head back through the doorway. Harold figured that would be just about enough time for everyone to use the bathroom again. It was like a chain reaction--as soon as one person asked to go, everyone suddenly wanted to go. With fifteen minutes to go, Al called for everyone's attention. Harold had asked for his advice on the best way to present his gifts during the bus ride home, and Al had been thrilled.

"Listen up, everyone!" Al raised his voice just enough to be heard over individual conversations. "Overall, we had a very successful field trip today. A couple of difficult moments, to be sure--" Here Al looked at Zahar, who blushed. "--but they were well-handled, and showed smart thinking under pressure." Everyone applauded.

"As you know," Al continued. "Mr. Jones volunteered at the last minute to stand in as chaperone, to make this field trip possible." More applause. "He'd like to say a few words."

Harold stepped up next to Al, glaring at him. This had not been part of the plan. "Well," he started. "I just want to say thank you. I had a great day with all of you, and I wanted to give you a little something to help you remember your first field trip." He pulled out the bag of flashlights, and handed one to each student.

"Wow!"

"Thanks, Mr. Jones!"

"Check it out, a flashlight!"

"I want to put mine on my backpack!"

"Mine won't light up! Oh, wait. Now it does!"

Lastly, Harold held out one of the little keychains to Al, who took it with a grin. "Why thank you, Mr. Jones," he said. Then, to the group, "What do you say to Mr. Jones?"

"Thank you, Mr. Jones!" the students chorused.

"Nice work today, everyone," Al said cheerily. "Now let's get our shoes on and line up to head home!"

The lights went out. A few startled exclamations later, eight flashlights clicked on, making wild shadows on the walls of the dim room. Harold fumbled with the bag he was still holding in his hand, and a ninth light joined the others. "Well, that's weird," Al's voice commented calmly. "Good timing with the flashlights, by the way."

There was a crash from the direction of the television, and Harold winced. "Why doesn't everyone sit down where they are," he said, in his best imitation of Al's calm voice. "I'm going to go check if anyone else has power."

Harold walked carefully to the front door and looked out. It wasn't full dark yet, but it was late enough for lights to be necessary if you wanted to do anything inside, and most people on the street would be home by now. Not a single light burned anywhere on the street that he could see. Okay, he thought, not an isolated phenomenon, then.

With Al's help, they shepherded the excited students into the kitchen, where the sliding doors let in the maximum amount of light from outside. While the students peered out the doors, Harold pulled Al aside. "Will the doorway work if the power's out?" he asked quietly.

Al frowned. "I'm not sure," he said. "I need to check it, see if I can at least get a message through. Are you okay with these guys for a few minutes?" Harold nodded, and Al headed towards the basement stairs.

A few minutes later, Al was back. The frown was still there. "No go," he said, in response to Harold's questioning look. "No communication at all. I've shut the doorway down completely; disconnected it as much as I could. There's no way to know what's going on at the other end." He looked a lot more worried than Harold was feeling, and Harold wondered what he was missing.

"We're stuck here for the night, at least," said Al. "And we need to talk."

Okay, now Harold was worried.

As much as possible, they tried to make it a game. Harold knew from dealing with his own younger sisters that the more calm he and Al stayed, the more calm the kids would stay. He also knew they did not want to have seven hysterical eight-year-olds on their hands.

But eight-year-olds like to pretend, and they like to feel important. So Harold and Al quickly came up with a rough plan.

Al called the students into a group huddle. "We've got a situation on our hands," he said gravely. All the kids stared at him with wide eyes. "Here's what we know: it's getting dark out. And we can't turn on the lights. What we need..." he paused, and Harold jumped in.

"What we need is more flashlights. So we're going to send each of you on a mission." Now the kids looked excited.

"What kind of mission?" Meshkalla asked. "Should I put my shoes back on?"

Harold grinned. "Nope. We're going to gather up all the flashlights in the house. Here's the plan." He leaned in closer and lowered his voice, noticing that his move was mirrored by the students.

In the end, they split the group into teams of two, figuring the buddy system was as good an idea as any. Meshkalla and Lishendri were sent to the front hall shelves; Damaris and Zahar headed to Harold's closet--there was supposed to be a light fixture in there, but Harold hadn't gotten around to putting a bulb in yet, so he'd been using a flashlight.

Sabri and Pjerin had the least distance to travel, but the hardest search. "I know there's a flashlight in one of these drawers," Harold said, indicating the kitchen countertop area. "I'm just not sure which one."

Al paired up with Nadeka to retrieve the flashlight stored on the basement stairs, and Harold ran out to his car to grab the emergency flashlight he kept in there. Everyone met back in the kitchen, displaying their prizes. Harold gave thanks that he'd checked and replaced all the batteries when he'd moved in.

A few minutes later, Harold was also giving thanks for the deviousness of his sisters. He'd led the group (now in possession of a startling five large flashlights, plus the little keychain penlights) to the spare room all the unpacked boxes were stored in. He and Al were trying to keep the kids occupied as much as possible, and there was always a chance something useful would be found.

And it definitely had. Somehow, Harold had ended up with all of the family's camping gear. No doubt his sisters were just waiting to see how long it took him to figure it out; he thought they'd looked pretty smug when he'd insisted (untruthfully, obviously) that he was all unpacked. Who's laughing now, Harold thought to himself. Out loud, he said, "Let's get these boxes into the kitchen!"

Two battery-powered lanterns, one more flashlight, and best of all, an air mattress were the big finds. Everyone took turns using the foot pump to inflate the air mattress, and that got people thinking about where they were going to sleep. Harold and Al conferred again, ignoring the increasingly cranky-sounding conversation flying around them.

"I want to sleep on the sofa!"

"No, I do!"

"Who gets to sleep on the air mattress?"

"This isn't fair! I want to go--"

"Okay," Al said, raising his hands for quiet. Whoops, thought Harold. The stern voice was back. "Here's what we're going to do. Nadeka, Zahar, Damaris: the boy's will be sharing Harold's room. You get his mattress and two camping mats, and we flip for who gets what. Lishendri, PJ, Meshkalla, and Sabri: girls are in the living room. You get the sofa, other living room furniture, and the air mattress. Again, any debates will be settled by coin toss. Any questions?" Al's tone indicated that there better not be.

There weren't. Al took one of the lanterns and led the boys to the front corner bedroom, with a quick stop in the living room to collect backpacks and shoes. Harold took the other lantern and steeled himself to deal with the girls.

Much to his surprise, they sorted themselves out pretty quickly. Harold had expected the outspoken Sabri to take charge, but it was Lishendri who stepped up and addressed the group. "Okay," she said, obviously imitating Al's effective opener. Harold tried and failed to suppress a grin, but it was hidden by the darkness. In a matter of minutes, everyone had picked a spot, had it approved by Lishendri, and turned to him looking for blankets and pillows. Wow, Harold thought.

Harold left the girls arranging their backpacks and shoes by their chosen spots and went to check on Al. Actually he was headed for the closet just outside the bathroom that held all his extra sheets and blankets, but since that happened to also be next to the bedroom, he figured it was a good time for multitasking. He met Al coming out the bedroom door. "Everyone all set in there?" he asked.

"Just waiting for blankets and stuff," Al said. Harold opened the closet door and started pulling things out. He decided to send his mom a nice present when this was all over; she had organized the housewarming gifts. She herself had stocked this closet, and his sisters had provided all the throw pillows in the living room. His dad went a little overboard with the garage; he'd sent Harold a thank-you note, for giving him an excuse to buy all the cool guy toys he couldn't justify getting for himself.

Once Harold and Al had determined that there were enough blankets for everyone, they began gathering the students back in the kitchen. No one had complained of hunger yet, but Harold knew it was just a matter of time. And with eight-year-olds, it was a real short trip from "kind of hungry" to "cranky and whining." They needed something simple and fast, preferably that everyone would eat.

A quick glance at the pantry revealed that all the staples were well stocked. Sugary cereal, crunchy and smooth peanut butter, and a whole dish of Al's latest batch of cookies. "Perfect," said Harold.

They ate in a circle, by lantern light. The small table had been pushed against the side wall. Since there were only two chairs, everyone was sitting on the floor. Bowls of cereal and peanut butter sandwiches were devoured as if the kids hadn't eaten all day. Water bottles were refilled from the tap and used as glasses. Everyone seemed reluctant to leave the pool of light created by the small lantern, so food was spread out in the middle of the circle and passed from person to person.

It was the oddest meal Harold had ever eaten, seated on his kitchen floor and arguing the merits of Lucky Charms versus Frosted Flakes with seven kids from another planet. At the same time, it was a memory he knew he'd cherish, the warm feeling of community filling him with contentment. "Did you just sprinkle Frosted Flakes on your peanut butter?" he asked Pjerin, disbelievingly.

She nodded, having just taken a large bite of the unlikely sandwich. "It's really good," Sabri assured him. "You want to try one?"

What the heck. "Sure," Harold said, recklessly abandoning all thoughts of proper separation of cereals and nut butters. "Pass me a plate." All the students watched intently as he constructed his sandwich. He held it up for their inspection, then tentatively took a bite, chewing slowly.

Finally, the silence was broken by Al. "Well? How is it?"

"Actually, it's pretty good," admitted Harold. PJ beamed.

Harold wasn't sure exactly when that warm fuzzy feeling had disappeared. It had lasted through a lantern-lit tour of the house to make sure all the kids knew where everything was and weren't going to fall down the stairs if they got up in the middle of the night. It had lasted through a thrilling but very noisy game of flashlight tag that had sent Mr. Tibbles racing for the basement. And it had really only faded a little when he made his second trip to investigate "a scary noise" that had all the girls crowding into the back bedroom and insisting that something awful must be happening outside.

Harold wasn't sure when the feeling had completely vanished, but it was gone now. He stared at Al in disbelief. "Are you saying that monkeys are responsible for this power outage?"

Al looked uncomfortable. "Well, it's possible that it's just some odd coincidence; that the power on this side of the doorway just happened to go out at the same time it went out on the other side, and the two events are completely unrelated." He paused. "But it's not very likely."

"And monkeys is a more rational explanation?" Harold asked, still disbelieving.

"Look," said Al. "Are you going to let me explain or not?" Harold nodded and gestured for Al to begin.

"As you know, monkeys are highly intelligent." Actually, Harold hadn't known that, but he didn't want to interrupt Al again. "For centuries, monkeys have also been one of the most popular pets on my planet. Children and adults all over the world raise their pet monkeys and enjoy their clever and mischievous companionship."

"But over the last few decades, the monkeys have been growing discontented. They've banded together more than ever before, with the stated goal of taking over the world."

Al sounded so serious that Harold felt compelled to believe him. Still he couldn't help asking: "How do you know that's what they want? Did they say it? Write it down? Send a subliminal message?" Harold was trying to keep his tone as serious as Al's, but knew he wasn't succeeding.

"Of course not," Al said. "Everyone knows monkeys can't talk. But they can use computers and they know how to organize. When they all started wearing t-shirts that said 'We will take over the world,' people started catching on. But most people don't take them seriously."

Harold nodded gravely, but couldn't keep the humor out of his voice. "Maybe it's because they're not wearing any pants."

"Harold!" Al exploded. "This is serious! I realize you're finding this funny, but at this very moment my planet could be being taken over by monkeys!" He was almost shouting, and Harold finally sobered.

"Al, I'm sorry," he apologized. "I'm listening, really."

Al took a deep breath. "Okay, so a couple of weeks ago all of the doorkeepers were alerted that the doorways themselves would be a major target if anything happened. If you control the doorways, you control the planet. This morning, Ilia Cal was called to an emergency strategy session--no one's supposed to know; I only found out because she was my co-chaperone. But it had to be because they suspected the monkeys were finally going to make their move!"

He looked at Harold with wild eyes. Harold didn't know what to do, so he handed Al a bottle of water. When it looked like Al was a little calmer, he tentatively ventured a question. "So...why are all the lights out?"

"The doorways draw power from the local electrical grids on either end. Most of us leave our doorways minimally powered up and connected at all times, for convenience and communication. Theoretically, a strong enough power surge on my planet could travel through the gate and knock out power on both sides. I think the monkeys decided to let everyone know they were serious. The only question is whether this was a warning shot, or the start of an all-out attack."

"What should we do?" Harold asked.

"For now? We wait for the power to come back on. Keep the kids safe, and see what happens in the morning." By now it was late, and Harold and Al ventured out for one more check of the house.

The talking and giggling had tapered off a while ago, but light was still spilling into the hallway from the boys' room. When Harold poked his head in, he saw the lantern still turned on, sitting on the bedside table. All the boys were asleep, curled up puppy-style on the large mattress.

The girls had also left their lantern turned on, in the center of the floor. Pjerin, whose short frame fit perfectly on the padded bench she'd chosen for her bed, woke up as Harold and Al tiptoed into the living room. The other three girls stayed soundly asleep; Sabri on the couch and Meshkalla and Lishendri sharing the air mattress. PJ smiled at the two men, and they waved.

"Happy dreaming," Al whispered, as they turned to leave. Everyone was safe and sleeping. Flashlights had been placed around the house in case anyone needed to get up. Outside doors had been checked and locked, blinds had been drawn to reflect and magnify their small lights, and there was nothing left to do but sleep. They slept.

When the power outage struck, Harold hadn't spared a thought for his sisters, just a few streets over. If he'd thought about it, he might have realized that an utter lack of communication between the siblings during such an event was unusual. He might even have predicted that one or both of his sisters would try to get in touch with him. But it had been a long day, and a longer night, and it simply didn't occur to Harold that anyone would be worried. And so when morning came, Harold was tucked in the back corner of the house, asleep and oblivious to the growing commotion in his front hall.

For Charlotte, the power outage meant an after-hours call into the station. Extra staff was always required to answer the phones and check on the elderly in "emergency" situations; in a small town, that meant the police department. Eliza had already been asleep when she finally got home, and Charlotte had gone straight to bed.

In the morning, the sisters had compared notes and realized that neither of them had seen or heard from their brother since Sunday. When a quick phone call revealed that his phone wasn't working, Charlotte decided to stop by his house and catch him before he left for work. She was feeling magnanimous, so she even picked him up a dozen donuts on her way.

It wasn't until Charlotte knocked on the door that she got the first niggling feeling that something was going on. It wasn't that she expected Harold to answer her knock; he never did, she just did it so he couldn't complain when she used her key. It was the cat sitting on the front steps. It was staring at her. And when she unlocked the door and pushed it open, the door to the living room, a door she'd never seen in any position but wide open, was closed.

Weird, Charlotte thought. She leaned over the shelves in the front hall and banged on the wall next to the door. Charlotte grinned at the thought of her brother sleeping on the other side of the wall. "Gabe!" she yelled. "Wake up! It's the police!"

Charlotte leaned against the windowsill, crossing her arms and waiting for the living room door to open. It took longer than she expected, and she was considering banging on the wall again when the door finally edged open. But instead of her brother's glare, she saw three sleepy-looking boys with tousled hair and wide eyes.

"Are you really a police officer?" one of them asked in an awed tone. "But we're not lost." He seemed confused.

Another boy hushed him. "Shh. You'll wake the girls."

"Too late -- what's going on?" And Charlotte's eyes widened as a curly blond head joined the others in the doorway. How many kids were there, anyway? And what were they doing in Gabe's house?

"Where's Gabe?" she asked slowly. At their uncomprehending looks, Charlotte tried again. "Harold? The person who lives here?"

Three more girls crowded into the door, rubbing their eyes and staring out at her. "I'll go get Al," one of them volunteered, and disappeared back into the house. The other kids kept staring. One of them yawned. Charlotte felt like she was in the Twilight Zone.

The girl who'd gone looking for "Al" reappeared, holding a tall, worried-looking man by the hand. "Sabri, what's going--" He broke off when he saw Charlotte. "Oh." Then, visibly pulling himself together, he smiled and extended his hand over the children's' heads. "Good morning. You must be Charlotte. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Charlotte shook his hand, but regarded him suspiciously. "Who are you? How do you know my name? What are you doing here? Where's my brother."

"I'm right here, Charlotte." Harold walked up next to Al and leaned tiredly on the wall. He looked sleepier than the kids, who all brightened when they saw him.

"Good morning Mr. Jones!" several of them called at once.

"Mr. Jones, this lady says she's a police officer!"

"She's looking for someone named Gabe!"

"And someone named Harold!"

"Do you think they're criminals? Maybe they escaped from jail!"

Harold smiled and knelt down so he was on eye level with all the kids. "Hey guys, everyone sleep well?" Nods all around. Harold jumped back in before they could start telling him their dreams. "This lady is my sister. Her name is Charlotte, and I'm pretty sure she's just looking for me. Why don't you go fold up your blankets and open some shades?" Six pairs of bare feet ran off through the house. "Don't forget to put your flashlights in your backpacks!" Harold called after them.

Al was talking to the little girl holding his hand, too quietly for Charlotte to hear. Then he stood, ruffling her hair and patting her back to send her on her way. The girl looked back once, then joined the other girls in neatening up the living room.

Charlotte was trying to be patient. It had never been her strongest quality. "Gabe?" she said in her most pleasant tone. "What's going on?"

"Well..." Harold looked at Al helplessly. All he could think of to say in a situation like this was that they were practicing, for a play, but that didn't seem quite right.

Al jumped in. "Harold was kind enough to offer his house to us when we were left stranded by the power outage. Why do you call him Gabe?

"Don't think you can distract me with questions," Charlotte answered. "Apparently, I'm the one who knows the least about what's happening, and that means I get to ask the questions. Starting with you." She gave Al her most police-officerish stare, the one that said she was estimating your vital stats and memorizing distinguishing characteristics, probably by imagining you in a mug shot. "What's your last name?"

Al gave her an innocent look. "Baxter."

Harold, who apparently hadn't been listening when Charlotte said she'd be asking the questions, interrupted. "Why didn't you just call?"

"We tried. Your phone's broken."

Broken, Harold wondered? Suddenly Meshkalla popped up by his elbow and tugged on his shirt. He leaned down and she said quietly, "I might have, accidentally, you know..." She looked at Al.

"Run into it in the dark last night?" Al said helpfully. Meshkalla nodded.

"Yeah, run into it," she said. "I'm really sorry, Mr. Jones."

"Apology accepted," Harold told her. "Don't worry about it."

In an undertone, Al said to Harold, "Probably the boys did the same thing to the phone in your room. I'll take a look at them."

Harold turned back to his sister. "Look, Charlotte, this is kind of a bad time..."

She raised an eyebrow. "If you think I'm going anywhere, without hearing the story behind this--" Her cell phone rang. She checked the number and swore. "I've got to go. It's the station, and I'm on call. I better be finding out what's going on though!" Charlotte pointed a finger at Harold as she flipped open her phone and headed out the door. "You're not getting out of this that easy!"

When she was gone, Harold looked at Al. "That was easy?" he asked.

"At least the power's back on," Al said pragmatically. "And your sister left us donuts, so now we can eat breakfast." It was true. In the confusion, Charlotte had set down the box of donuts and forgotten all about them. "Let's get everyone in the kitchen and divvy these up, and then I'll check the doorway," he said, grabbing the box and practically bouncing into the living room.

It is way too early to be dealing with this, Harold thought, trailing after his friend.

Three hours later, Harold was sitting alone on his kitchen floor, leaning against the cool glass of the sliding door. He stared at the empty box of donuts and tried to process everything that had happened since he woke up.

The power had returned sometime in the very early morning, but all the clocks were still blinking. Harold felt as if he should do something with the day, but couldn't quite work up the energy. After the bizarre conversation with his sister in the front hall, Al had taken charge, making sure everyone ate and organizing the kids into a cleaning brigade. They had swept through the house folding and straightening, putting flashlights away and making sure no one left anything behind. Al had even fixed his phones.

Al disappeared into the basement while Harold distracted the kids with the classic "I Spy"--made more exciting by the fact that they were on an alien planet. When Al returned, he was all smiles. "We're good," he said. "Let's go home!" The kids cheered, and as they scrambled to tie shoes and grab backpacks, Al handed Harold a note.

Harold unfolded the piece of paper now to read it again.

Harold-

Harold felt vaguely depressed. Was it possible to get empty nest syndrome after just a day's exposure to children? Was he going to get in trouble at work for calling in sick on a Monday, and then not showing up the next day either? Also, why hadn't he known that his phone had programmable speed dial?

He decided that he could at least call the office; maybe a late-morning sick call was better than none at all. Still sitting on the floor, he grabbed the phone from the table next to him. He stared out the door as he dialed, idly wondering where Mr. Tibbles had gotten to.

"Good morning," said a cheery voice on the other end of the line. "This is Tina speaking, how may I help you?"

Whoa, Harold thought. That was weird on so many different levels. Out loud he said, "Tina? This is Harold Jones."

"Harold! How's it going? Heard Al got into a bit of a situation this morning with your sister." Harold could practically hear the smirk in her voice. "Everyone home okay now?"

"Yeah," Harold said, hesitating; he had no idea how much Tina knew about the whole monkey coup danger. Although considering the way news seemed to travel among the aliens he knew... "Hey, how did you find out about Charlotte being here this morning?" he asked suddenly.

"Oh, I had an email from Trudy waiting for me as soon as I got in this morning. Seems Charlotte ran a background check on Mr. Al Baxter. Don't worry, Trudy's got our backs for stuff like that. You should give her a call; get yourself on the phone tree. I bet Al even programmed her into your speed dial already. He always thinks of stuff like that. Oops, I've got another call coming in, gotta go! Talk to you later!"

The fast-talking Tina abruptly hung up, before Harold could ask what she was doing working in his building. Wasn't she supposed to be a student? Should he call back and try again? He decided to try the mysterious Trudy instead. Luckily, the speed dial function was easy to decipher.

"Hello?" The voice sounded like a little girl, no older than Sabri or PJ the day before.

"Hi," Harold said. "I'm calling for Trudy. Is she there right now?"

"You're speaking to her. Hey, is this Harold Jones? Tina told me you might be calling today."

Whoa, Harold thought again. That was fast. "How old are you?" he couldn't help asking.

A sigh. "Everyone asks me that! Does it matter?"

"I guess not," Harold said. "Al told me I could call you if I had any questions?"

"Sure. Ask away." Trudy sounded distracted now, and Harold could hear faint sounds of typing in the background.

"Is Al's last name really Baxter?" It wasn't the most important question he could be asking right now, but it was the first thing that popped into his head.

Trudy laughed delightedly. Harold hoped that meant he was forgiven for the age question. "No--actually, Baxter is my last name. Al uses it if he gets in trouble; it's flagged in my system so I get alerted whenever someone searches for it." What followed was a complex explanation with a lot of big technological-sounding words that Harold didn't really understand. Something about networks, and dummy files, and security. Harold patted the cat, who had appeared and demanded breakfast.

When Trudy finished talking, Harold said. "Hmm. That sounds very ... complicated. So Al has nothing to worry about from the police?"

"Nope!" Trudy sounded gleeful. Harold wasn't sure whether to be relieved that there was no threat, or worried that a little kid had apparently found a way to circumvent a national police network. He decided to pick "ambivalent" for the time being, and shelve the issue for later.

Harold and Trudy chatted inconsequentially for several minutes, until Harold finally asked the question that had been lurking in the back of his head. "Trudy," he said seriously. "What do you know about the monkeys?"

There was a long pause. When Trudy spoke, her voice was quiet. "Officially?" she said. "Nothing. And neither do you. But Al likes you and Tina trusts you, so unofficially? I think they're bad news. And I don't think they're finished yet." Now Trudy sounded uncomfortable. "Look, I've got to go. Call if you need anything, okay?"

Harold stared at the phone for a long time after he hung up. Eventually, he decided that no matter what happened next, he needed groceries. Cereal. Peanut butter. Water. Batteries. He'd already left a message for Charlotte and Eliza telling them he'd be over for dinner to explain everything, and Trudy had helped him recruit Tina to show up as well. "Tonight, explanations," Harold said to Mr. Tibbles. "For now, I think we need to stock up on cat food."

Harold was exhausted. He sat slumped on the sofa. Mr. Tibbles had climbed up into his lap when Harold arrived home, and Harold was running his fingers slowly through the cat's soft fur. Mr. Tibbles purred. Most of the house was dark, since Harold had gotten used to Al turning on the lights, and had gotten out of the habit of making sure several were on before leaving for an evening with his sisters.

Tonight, Harold and his sisters had been joined by Tina, for Harold's big explanation of why seven kids and a man his sisters had never met were all sleeping at his house. Harold knew it would be difficult as soon as he got there.

Harold had arrived early, and was met at the door by Eliza. "Did you bring the pizza?" she asked him, and he handed over the boxes. When he stepped inside, she continued looking out the door, peering around as if looking for something.

"What is it?" Harold asked.

"Just checking to see if you have any little kids stashed in your car," Eliza said in a mischievous tone. "Charlotte was flipping out when she called me," Eliza added more seriously. "It was like she was worried that you'd been brainwashed or something."

They walked towards the kitchen together, Eliza giving him speculative looks at his continued silence. Harold was feeling worried. He realized it did look pretty weird, but he wasn't sure his explanation would help things at all. Harold had tried to imagine how the upcoming conversation would go; he'd even tried to plan out the best way to bring up the whole aliens among us issue, but nothing had seemed quite right.

Eventually he decided to go with the blunt truth. So while Charlotte set out plates and Eliza poured drinks, Harold took a deep breath and said, "They're aliens. The kids at my house this morning, they were on a field trip, but they got stranded when the power went out, so they stayed overnight."

Charlotte and Eliza stared at him. "You know, Gabe," Charlotte said softly. "We're not kids anymore. You don't need to lie to us about what's really going on."

Now it was Harold's turn to stare. What did she think was really going on? Was this some weird police technique? Thankfully, the doorbell rang at that moment; Tina had arrived.

Nobody moved from the frozen tableau in the kitchen. Tina apparently was prepared for something like this; she let herself in and bounced into the room. "Hi Harold!" she said. Turning to face the girls, she started in surprise. "Oh--hi Eliza! What are you doing here?"

"What am I doing here? I live here. What are you doing here?" Now it was Eliza's turn to look baffled. Harold was actually glad; at least he wasn't the only one.

"I was invited," Tina said indignantly. She faced Harold. "You know, you could have told me that one of your sisters was in a class with me." Harold started to apologize, but Tina suddenly whipped around to look at Eliza. "I thought you only had one brother," she said.

"I do," Eliza said. She pointed at Harold. "He's right there."

"But I thought your brother's name was Gabe. Isn't his name Harold?" Tina asked.

"Yeah, but when we were little, Charlotte and I couldn't say Harold, so mom had us call him by his middle name, Gabe. It kind of stuck." As Eliza explained, Tina's eyes widened.

"You mean Harold is Gabe?" Tina sounded disbelieving, and Harold wondered what kind of stories Eliza was telling about him in class. Tina turned back to Harold. "Wow, kind of puts you in a whole new light. You're Gabe, huh? I guess that answers my question."

Before Harold could ask exactly what question she was talking about, Tina clapped her hands together and said briskly, "So, we're here to do the whole alien intro thing, right?" She grabbed a piece of pizza and sat down at the table. "Well, Gabe/Harold isn't crazy. There's loads of aliens out there. Actually," she said thoughtfully, "there's loads of aliens around here, too. This planet is really popular for some reason. Maybe it's the food."

Charlotte broke in. "So you're saying you believe Gabe's story?"

"Believe it?" Tina giggled. "I'm living it." She phased her hand through the table.

Charlotte gaped. Eliza said just one word, "Whoa." Harold smirked, although he was actually feeling pretty grateful that he'd had Al's much gentler presentation for his first time around. Although the pizza did taste better than the hot dogs he'd been eating then. Everything's a tradeoff, he supposed.

After that, it was pretty much a fast-paced question and answer session between Tina and his sisters. Harold listened distractedly; occasionally a question would catch his attention and he'd focus on the answer, but mostly he used the time to plot his revenge. Not for not believing him; that had been pretty funny, but he couldn't let the camping gear incident go without retaliation.

However, when Tina got up to explaining the field trip, she turned to Harold. "I'm interested in hearing this too; what happened in the parts where I wasn't there?"

And Harold was forced to relive the day and night practically minute by minute for his highly curious audience. Although he usually enjoyed storytelling, his late night the day before was catching up with him. By the time Charlotte and Eliza were satisfied and Harold and Tina departed, he was exhausted, and gratefully headed home to collapse on his couch and pat the cat.

After some serious cat time, Mr. Tibbles gracefully leapt off Harold's lap. The big cat seemed to flow towards the basement stairs, then turned around to stare at Harold. "I know. I miss him too." Harold sighed and got up off the sofa, following Mr. Tibbles around the stairs and towards his bedroom.

Oddly, it looked as if there was a slight glow coming out of the room. Harold hastened his steps, only to stop abruptly in the doorway. Every wall was covered with glowing pictures. In his tired state, it took him a few minutes to put two and two together and remember Damaris' glow-in-the-dark paint from the field trip. Apparently, the boys had been busy last night.

Harold walked around the room, looking at each picture individually. They looked like...constellations? Not from Earth's sky, though, as far as he could tell. A tree, a cat, what looked like a waterfall. The drawings had been invisible during the day because the glow paint was so light-colored, but in the dark, it was amazing.

Harold wondered if it had been one artist, or if all three boys had taken turns. He found the answer on the last wall he looked at. In the corner by the closet, down by the floor, he found three names written in shaky English. Next to them were what he assumed were the boys' signatures in their native script.

Wow, Harold thought. He was pretty sure no one had ever done something like this for him before. Sure, it kind of disrupted his plans to actually put things on those walls, but as Harold lay on his mattress and stared around the room, he knew it was worth it. He fell asleep that night and dreamed of cats flying spaceships and children drawing in the stars.

For the next two weeks, Harold went to work, came home, and wondered how things were going on Al's planet. Wednesday dinners with Charlotte and Eliza were subdued, as if they sensed his anxiety. They never asked about it, and he never volunteered.

Instead, they all discussed school and work and current events as if nothing had changed, but conversations were stilted. Harold wondered how long this rift would last, and if there was anything he could do to bring back their easy friendship. Sometimes he caught Eliza eyeing him consideringly, and he thought she might be talking with Tina at the university. He couldn't be sure, though, since he never saw her without Charlotte around.

Eliza had taken the news of aliens living on Earth in stride. She tended to be the most easygoing of the family, and being a college student had broadened her worldview considerably. Apparently, adding aliens to the mix wasn't too big a leap.

Charlotte, on the other hand, was more upset. Always the most literal-minded of the three, she'd often said the reason she chose police work was because it gave her the opportunity to "create order from chaos." Aliens were an unknown; they didn't fit into her carefully ordered world. Harold knew, or at least hoped, that she would eventually find a place for it. Until then, it was best not to mention the A-word around Charlotte.

As the days passed, Harold grew more worried about Al. September turned to October. Although days were still warm, the nights had a chill that reminded him fall was on its way. Harold started biking to work. He told himself it was because he wanted to get more exercise, but in reality, it was just a way to spend more time away from his empty house. Even Mr. Tibbles had been making himself scarce.

On the second Friday after the field trip, Harold took a long, circuitous route on his way home. He saw a new hotdog vendor set up in one of the university parking lots, and biked over. Might as well eat dinner now, he thought.

The vendor smiled when Harold approached. The sign over his cart said "Nick's Hotdogs: Better than Nuking!" Harold assumed it referred to the taste benefits of fresh-steamed versus microwaved, but couldn't rule out the possibility that "Nick" was advertising his hotdogs as an alternative to nuclear warfare. And if it was the latter, was Nick advocating the sharing of food as a way to promote peaceful resolution to problems, or saying that his hotdogs were so chemically dangerous that they could be used to eradicate one's enemies?

"Nice sign," Harold said. "Are you Nick?"

"Nope, I'm Steve. Nick's my partner; he's walking the dog. And thanks--we came up with that slogan ourselves!" The young man spoke earnestly, before enthusiastically gesturing to the sign.

"I never would have guessed," Harold said dryly. He ordered two hotdogs with everything, then walked a short distance away to a grassy lawn to eat. The hotdogs were delicious; he hoped they weren't lethal as well.

It was dusk when Harold stowed his bike in the garage and walked to the front door. He still couldn't remember to leave lights on when he left in the morning, but he'd gotten in the habit of turning lights on all over the house as soon as he got home. When Harold flipped the switches in the living room, what he saw startled him so much that he jumped back in surprise.

Al was back.

Al had been asleep when Harold entered the room; he mumbled and shifted as the lights came on, but didn't wake. Harold took a quick minute to debate waking Al up to find out what had been going on versus leaving him to sleep. He decided on a compromise. Al was really too tall to sleep comfortably on Harold's couch.

Harold shook Al's shoulder gently. "Al?" he said. "Why don't we get you to bed?" Al mumbled again and turned towards the back of the couch. Up close, Al looked awful, like he hadn't slept in days. Time for plan B.

Harold pulled off Al's shoes and set them at the end of the couch. He grabbed a pillow and blanket from the guest bedroom and did his best to arrange Al more comfortably. Then he went to the kitchen and grabbed a pad of paper.

Harold hesitated over the "welcome back." He wanted to say "I missed you" and "what happened" and "you said you'd be back in a few days," but he didn't. Instead, he put the note on the small table beside the couch, along with a glass of water and two aspirin. Then Harold turned off the lights, locked the door, and went to bed. He had the feeling tomorrow was going to be an interesting day.

When Harold woke up, his first thought was to wonder if he had dreamed it, or if he'd really come home the night before to find Al asleep on his sofa. He padded out the door barefoot and peered over the stair railing into the living room. Nope, not a dream. Harold could see Al's wild hair at one end of the sofa, and his feet hanging off the other end. It looked like the aspirin was gone. Harold hoped Al had taken it, and it hadn't just been appropriated as a toy (or eaten) by Mr. Tibbles.

After his shower, Harold wandered into the kitchen and poured some cereal into a bowl. Checking the refrigerator, he realized he was out of milk. Harold tried to remember the last time he'd been to the grocery store. He couldn't.

Al was still sleeping. Harold had half-expected Mr. Tibbles to show up, as the cat seemed to have some kind of sixth sense regarding aliens, but he was strangely absent. Harold started the coffeemaker and headed for the spare bedroom, munching on cereal. He'd originally kept his laptop in the front bedroom, but for safety, he had moved it when the kids slept over. Harold found he liked being able to stare out at the backyard as he worked, so he'd never moved the computer back.

Harold was a man on a mission. His personal email account was with one of the small free service providers. Unfortunately, they had just merged with another provider, and it had caused the entire email system to crash. Harold had been trying for several days to access his account and retrieve his mail.

He'd even broken down and called the help hotline the companies set up, but at the end of an increasingly complex menu of options, he'd ended up with a recorded message that said, "We regret that no operators are available to take your calls regarding this issue. We are working diligently to rectify the errors in the area with which you are experiencing difficulty. The email system will be fully operational as soon as possible, although some loss of messages may occur. If you would like to speak to a customer service representative, please stay on the line. Current wait time is estimated at: 14 hours." Harold hung up.

He was still trying to convince the computer that he really was "H_G_J15," and should be allowed to log in, when Al appeared in the doorway with two cups of coffee. "Thanks for the aspirin," Al said. "I helped myself to the coffee." He handed Harold one of the cups, then crossed the room to sit tiredly on the bed.

"You look awful," Harold commented. It was the first thing that popped into his head; he had never seen Al look anything but calm and collected. He felt a sudden sense of dread, that whatever had kept Al away so long and then brought him back to Earth in this condition couldn't be good.

"Thanks," Al smiled wryly as he answered. "It's been a tense couple of weeks." He paused and took a deep breath. "The doorkeepers weren't called back for debriefing because of the power outage. The situation is much more serious than I was led to believe. We were creating an evacuation plan."

"For...a city?" Harold guessed.

"No," Al corrected. "For the planet." Harold stared at him, and Al sighed. "I know. We never thought it would go this far."

"What happened?" Harold asked. "I thought things were going into negotiations."

"The negotiations were a farce. As far as we can tell, they were just a ploy to buy time. The power outage wasn't a warning shot; it was a test, to see what our reaction would be. The monkeys have been planning this for a lot longer than we thought."

"Exactly what are they planning?" Harold couldn't think of anything a group of monkeys could pull off that would require the evacuation of an entire planet. But who could predict monkeys?

"No one's exactly sure. But it's a lot more than domination of one world. They want to become a galactic power. We believe the monkeys plan to go for a coup, taking over world governments simultaneously and replacing our leaders with theirs. During the chaos and confusion that causes, they'll be infiltrating every level of society."

"But their ultimate goal has to be control of the doorways," Al continued. "And for that, they need people."

Harold, who had been silent up to this point, interrupted. "Why?"

"Each doorway is keyed to a specific keeper. Only that keeper can operate it. None of the keepers would willingly help the monkeys on their own, but if there were hostages involved...the monkeys have already shown they're willing to use fear and threats to get what they want."

"There are enough monkeys on my planet to make finding refuge on-world nearly impossible. But off-world...well, it might work." Al looked at Harold expectantly as he said this, and Harold wondered what he had missed.

"What?" Harold said.

"I told you," Al replied. "We're going to evacuate the planet." A hint of excitement was entering his tired voice. "That's what we were planning for the last two weeks. Nothing like this has ever been tried before. A planetary evacuation, under cover of darkness, in less than a day? It's crazy."

"But if it works," Al continued. "The monkeys will be trapped, with no way to move from planet to planet. Hopefully, that will let us start some real negotiations."

"What if it doesn't work?" Harold asked. Not that he was trying to be negative, but he was getting that feeling of impending doom again.

Al was quiet. "If it doesn't work? Harold, there are so many things that could go wrong with this plan...it's an indication of just how out of control the situation has gotten that evacuation was even considered, much less that it's ended up as the actual plan."

Harold said, "Okay, we need to move this to the kitchen. I need more coffee, and you need to tell me more about this plan."

Once in the kitchen, Harold and Al sat at the kitchen table with fresh coffee. Al started with a brief description of how the doorway system worked. "On my planet," Al explained, "the doorways are usually grouped together, sort of like an airport here. You can go to the 'terminal,' and pick any doorway; each one leads somewhere different. There's some sort of terminal in almost every town, with more in big cities. Not every terminal has a doorway to all end points; some planets are more common destinations than others."

"Once you've picked the correct doorway for the planet you want, you select a specific region of that planet. The regional coordinator will activate the doorway on their end, and you're set to go."

Harold broke in. "That's you, right?"

Al nodded. "Yes, I'm the regional coordinator for this area. This is a fairly popular destination, and has an unusually large concentration of us living here semi-permanently."

"Okay." Harold was following so far. "So how's this evacuation going to work? Won't the monkeys notice when large numbers of people start disappearing?"

"We're going to give them something else to notice," said Al. "As far as we can tell, the monkeys are still getting into position for their coup. Until they're ready, they'll continue going through the motions of negotiations. We figure we have less than a week. Over the next three days, people will begin leaving. This is prime vacation time on my planet, and the negotiations have made a lot of people nervous. Hopefully, that means that large numbers of travelers through the doorways won't seem suspicious."

"On the third day, global protests will begin. Marches, sit-ins, walk-outs, boycotts, demonstrations; any kind of civil unrest they can think of. The stated reason will be to protest the negotiations--a loud and unmistakable anti-monkey movement. We give the monkeys something to focus on, and meanwhile we continue moving people out through the doorways."

"How are you communicating the need to evacuate to everyone without the monkeys finding out?" Harold asked. He pictured some sort of coded message, broadcast globally, or maybe some amazing alien technology.

Al gave him an odd look. "Word of mouth, of course. We're using the family networks, the one thing the monkeys have never been able to infiltrate."

The way Al said "family" made Harold think of the mob. "Family networks?" he questioned.

"Everyone has relatives, Harold. How do you think we find things out so quickly here on your planet?"

Actually, Harold had always wondered about that. He'd assumed it was the quick-witted Trudy, who'd been leaving him an average of three messages a day on his cell phone since he joined the "phone tree." Out loud, Harold said, "So you're all related?"

"Pretty much," Al replied. "The point is, getting the word out isn't going to be a problem. It's getting people to the doorways that we're worried about."

"At the end of the third day, the protesters will start sweeping people up and moving in ever-increasing numbers towards major terminals. We'll start rolling blackouts moving across the planet in seemingly random patterns, and--"

"Wait," Harold interrupted. "I thought when the monkeys knocked out power, it disabled the doorways."

"Well, yes," Al said. He fidgeted in his chair. "We know. This is one of the more...untested...parts of the plan."

Uh oh, thought Harold. In other words, whatever they were going to do was so crazy no one had been willing to try it before.

"Right now the doorways are drawing power pretty equally from both ends," said Al. Harold nodded. "We're going to hardwire the gates into the endpoint grids, making them completely independent of my planet's electrical grid."

"What?! Is that possible?" Harold had absolutely no idea of the science that made Al's doorway work, but what Al was saying didn't sound like a smart plan to him.

"I hope so." Al sounded serious. "Because we're going to do it."

"When the power outages start on my planet, the biggest push of the evacuation will also begin. The monkeys are mostly dormant at night, so we'll be following dusk around the planet and evacuating the majority of the population in each region as night falls."

"The trickiest part of the plan comes halfway through that time, when the first zone to be evacuated rotates around to the day side of the planet. We'll be leaving small numbers of people in place as a ruse, and we can only hope that the blackouts disrupt communication enough so the monkeys can't coordinate a response before the entire planet is clear." Al looked worried, and Harold could understand why. That was a big assumption that was being incorporated as a massive part of this crazy plan.

"What happens to the people who are still there?" Harold wasn't sure he wanted to know what would happen if the monkeys could coordinate a response in time. This seemed a safer question.

"They all volunteered," Al said, and Harold wasn't sure which one of them Al was trying to reassure. "Most of them are military; they know better than anyone their chances are better this way than in an all out war."

"If they can, they'll make their way to an open doorway. The doorkeepers will hold them open for as long as possible. But once the monkeys figure out what's happening, the keepers will have to shut their doorways down. Most likely, everyone who stays behind will go into hiding--if it's few enough people, they could stay hidden indefinitely, always moving one step ahead of the monkeys."

Harold couldn't bear to see Al look so unhappy. "But this is all temporary, right? To gain some leverage and be able to start some real negotiations?"

Al shook himself out of whatever dark thoughts he'd been having. "Yeah, that's the goal," he said. "But who can predict monkeys?"

Harold nearly smiled as Al unknowingly echoed his earlier thought. "So what do we need to do?" he said.

"First I need to ask if it's okay with you that we use your house for this evacuation. There's going to be a lot of people coming through in the next three to four days. Some of them may need to stay overnight before they can be moved to a safe location. We're going to be pushing the limits of hospitality all over your world for this plan. Also..." and here Al paused, and bit his lip. "There's a small possibility that the doorway may explode."

Harold, who had been nodding as Al talked, wondering why Al even felt he needed to ask permission for something this important, even though he appreciated the courtesy, and had Al just said the doorway might blow up? "Did you just say the doorway might blow up?" he asked.

"We've never actually tested how much traffic the doorway system can handle," Al said. "This plan calls for the system to be continuously active for over a day, connecting to doorways that are being jury-rigged into alien power sources. There's a little uncertainty about what will happen. Exploding didn't get a high probability when we charted it, but it's definitely a possibility."

Harold considered for a moment. There was really only one answer he could give. "Let's do it," he told Al, who broke into a relieved smile. Harold looked around. "I guess I need to get some groceries."

Several hours later, Harold still hadn't gone to the store. Instead, he and Al were sitting on the kitchen floor with a massive map laid out between them. Harold wasn't exactly sure where the map had come from; Al had gone into the living room saying he needed something from his backpack, and he'd come back with it. It had looked a lot smaller then.

Now it covered nearly half the kitchen floor. The table had been pushed over towards the actual "kitchen" area, leaving the "dining" half of the room clear. Both Harold and Al were talking on the phone. Al had Trudy on the kitchen line, on speaker phone; Harold was working his way through the levels of bureaucracy at the local convention center.

"Trudy, what about the Madisons?" Al was saying. "Bob's been on the phone tree for years, and I think all their kids are at school now."

"No, you heard right." Pause. "Yes, I realize it's short notice...It was a surprise, you see...Yes, I'll hold" Harold glanced at Al.

Al raised an eyebrow at Harold's words, and whispered, "A surprise family reunion?"

Harold shrugged, then held up a hand as the person he'd been speaking to returned. "Well, we need as many as are available."

Al rolled his eyes, but returned his attention to his own conversation. "Have any of the college kids emailed back? If they've got any space at all, we'll take it." He scribbled furiously on a sheet of paper.

"Eighty-nine? And families are okay, right?"

"You're figuring twenty at the duplex, right? I bet we could take that many...maybe if we cleared the basement..."

"Great, we'll take them. That's going to be reserved under Baxter. B-a-x-t-e-r, yes."

"Fifty? That's right, they have that second property now..."

Harold was rapidly multiplying numbers in an old notebook. He circled the bottom number and tapped the notebook on the floor to get Al's attention. "356 at the convention center," Harold said. "Eighty-nine rooms, figuring four to a room. Want me to get started on the hotels and motels?"

"Did you get that, Trudy?" Al was tallying on one side of his paper. "We're up to...about 600."

Which meant at least 1400 more to go. Harold went for his laptop. When he returned, Al had produced a dry erase marker from somewhere, and was filling notes and numbers next to buildings and street names all over the map.

Harold hooked up his computer and set up a search for local hotels, motels, inns; anywhere you could rent a room for multiple days in a row. In minutes, Harold was back on the phone, and it sounded like Trudy was getting some call-backs from people who'd gotten her messages.

"Hello, Aubrey Inn? Do you have any rooms available right now?"

"The Walkers just had a new baby, right? Are they going to be okay with ten houseguests?"

"What's your policy on pets at Comforts of Home? ... Smaller than a breadbox? Yeah, I think so..."

"No kids under ten with old Mr. G...Okay, I've got it written down."

"See, I've got family visiting...Well, how many rooms do you have?"

"Kaleb's apartment doesn't allow cats, does it?"

"Um, yeah...we're a pretty big family... ten rooms? And three suites? What's your max capacity on those suites?"

"Yes! I knew the Taylors would come through for us. Their house is huge, too. How many are they signing on for?"

At each hotel, Harold made reservations under the name Baxter, using a credit card provided by Al. He hoped the exchange rate really was as good as Al said, because last-minute reservations weren't cheap. But Al didn't look worried, and it was times like this that really made you figure that a lot of things are more important than money.

Finally, things started winding down. Between the hotels and the people opening up their homes, Al's total slowly worked its way to the 2000 mark. At quarter of twelve, when Harold had just finished reserving nineteen rooms at the T-Bird Motor Inn, Al let out a massive whoop.

"Two thousand, one hundred, and eighteen!" he yelled. Trudy cheered. Harold's stomach rumbled.

"Sorry," Harold laughed. "I can't quite believe we made it."

Al laughed as well. "Me neither. Trudy, we couldn't have done it without you. You'll keep fielding calls for us?"

Trudy agreed, and broke the connection. Al turned to Harold. "I'm starving," he said. "Is there any food here except cereal?"

It turned out there really wasn't, so Harold and Al took the carton into the living room and sat on the couch, staring out the windows and passing the box back and forth. "Shouldn't there be people coming through the doorway right now?" Harold asked.

"No, we split up the days, so no one would be trying to use the doorways at the same time the keeper was switching the power source." Al took the box of cereal. "You know, this would taste a lot better with milk. Or even peanut butter."

Harold grabbed for the box. "Really? I kind of like it this way. Now none of the sugar gets wasted in the milk." Al just looked at him. "Okay, milk goes on the list. I guess we've got our afternoon jobs all laid out, huh? You, find a way to make the doorway run entirely on Earth power, expanding the range of what's considered possible by your planet. Me, I'll buy some groceries. That seems fair."

Harold left Al in the basement, pulling wires out of the ceiling and mumbling to himself. Harold was pretty sure he didn't want to watch this part of the plan unfold; he was happier to remain ignorant of exactly what Al was doing to his house. Instead, Harold drove to the local grocery store. After all, he thought, might as well go to the closest possible store.

Harold hadn't counted on the fact that any trip to the grocery store in a small town would include meeting multiple people that he knew.

"Hey, Harold! How've you been?" Tim from work called out to Harold as he surveyed the bread aisle. "Whoa, that's a lot of peanut butter! You having a peanut butter party or something?"

Harold closed his eyes and counted to ten. Tim drove him nuts. Also, how was he going to explain this?

"I'm just stocking up on a few things," Harold said finally. Then he gave Tim a bright smile. "You know how it is."

Harold had learned that the less you said when lying, the better it generally turned out. Also, implying that the other person should already know what was going on often helped. Harold grabbed several loaves of bread off the shelves and pushed his cart past Tim.

He hit another snag in the checkout line. The woman working the register had known Harold ever since his mom had brought him shopping with her when he was a baby. "That sure is a lot of food, Harold," she said. "Planning on having some company over?"

"Something like that," Harold said, trying to buy time. Shoot, he thought. She was way too smart to fall for his "I'm having a party" explanation. She'd worked in a grocery store for over twenty years; she knew no one served EasyMac and peanut butter sandwiches at a party.

"Charlotte was in this morning," the woman said. "She didn't say anything about you having guests."

"Well, it's sort of a surprise," Harold said. Sue's eyes lit up. She loved family intrigue. "You won't tell my sisters, will you?"

"Oh, no, of course not. My lips are sealed, young man. Just remember to come in and tell me all about it when it's over, you hear?"

"You know I will," Harold replied, smiling. To himself, he thought, I'll come in as soon as I can make up something believable, as long as my house doesn't blow up.

It was while he was watching one of the college student employees (new, he thought) bag his groceries that his cell phone rang. It was Al. Uh-oh, Harold thought.

"Hi, this is Harold." He tried to speak quietly, knowing it was rude to talk on the phone while he was still in the store. But if something was on fire, he wanted to know right away. "Yeah, I'm just leaving now...You what?...A generator, huh?...Okay, how many?" By now Harold was drawing quite a few curious glances. "I'll see what I can do...Yeah, you too. Be careful." He hung up, looked around, and decided no explanation was going to cover this one. Instead he turned to the bagger. "Could I get that milk double bagged, please?"

After the grocery store incident, Harold decided that local was definitely not the way to go. He dropped the groceries off at home and headed for the nearest WalMart. In the huge store, no one even batted an eye when he dragged five of their highest powered generators to his car.

Then he cruised the store, pushing one cart in front and pulling another behind. The seemingly random layout of the store actually helped Harold, since he was using the "see it, think it might be useful, put it in the cart" method of shopping. Dry erase markers, air mattresses, battery-powered pumps, lots of batteries, name tags, packs of index cards, pillows... There was a sale on fleece blankets, but he couldn't find towels. Halfway through the store he stumbled over a huge display of beach towels. Jackpot, Harold thought.

Harold's last stop was the technology department. Al had been adamant about this point. Every adult who came through the doorway was to be given their own cell phone. Most of them would already have one; apparently they were quite a novelty item on Al's planet right now. But "most" of 2000 still left a big number of people with no method of communication. Harold bought out the department.

That one did get him a few odd looks. Harold put on his best "eccentric billionaire" expression, and tried not to look nervous when the cashier called the manager to verify his payment. Once he was back in his car, Harold laughed out loud. His adrenaline was still surging, and he rolled the windows down and cranked the radio up. Harold sped down the highways, headed for home.

It was evening when Harold arrived back at his house and got everything unloaded. Al emerged briefly from the basement to help him carry the generators down the stairs and get them into position, then returned to his task. He hardly looked up when Harold brought him a Power Bar and a bottle of water. Harold bit his tongue to keep himself from asking whether exhaustion had been factored into their "probability of the doorway exploding" calculations.

Around seven, Sam showed up with a couple of his roommates. In exchange for two large pizzas with everything, they helped Harold hang Al's giant map on the only basement wall well lit enough to see it easily (also the one closest to the doorway, where Al was working). And they cleaned out the entire floor, hauling what seemed like an endless supply of old furniture, boxes, and knick-knacks up the basement stairs, out the back door, and around into the garage.

Harold pulled Sam aside at one point. "What did you tell them about the doorway? And the map?" Not a single one of the students had seemed to find anything odd about Harold having a somewhat crazed-looking man in his basement, doing something possibly illegal with the town's electricity.

"I just told them you and Al were electrical engineering grad students working on your thesis project. Believe me, they would be more surprised to see something that they did understand down there. Electrical engineers are crazy."

Sam offered this explanation with a grin, and Harold couldn't help being impressed by its genius. "Good thinking," he said.

The bonus of clearing the basement was that they'd found some useful stuff, like a couple of dusty but not too old camp cots. Harold was sitting on one of those cots now, watching Al make some final adjustments to his masterpiece. At Harold's feet were piles of cell phones; upstairs he had them charging in nearly every available outlet. As soon as each was ready to use, he programmed in three emergency numbers: his cell, Al's cell, and Trudy. He'd been planning to use his home phone number, but remembering how easily the kids had "broken" it last time, he'd changed his mind.

Next to Harold were stacks and stacks of index cards. Each one had his full name and street address written on it. Every person through the doorway would receive one of these emergency cards. Harold and Al had discussed giving everyone cards with the address of the location they'd be staying at, but decided that would be too difficult. Instead, Al would keep a master list of where everyone was supposed to be, and if people got lost they could just come back to Harold's house and figure it out. Also, Al wanted to make sure everyone knew where the doorway was.

"That card is their ticket home," he'd told Harold, "just like the phone is their key to communication on this side of the doorway."

Harold wasn't sure he wanted that much responsibility; what if they lost someone? What if he smudged the map and accidentally erased someone's name? What if he programmed one of the phones wrong? Harold tried not to let his anxiety show; Al looked stressed enough as it was.

"I think that's done it," Al said suddenly. Harold looked up and saw Al sitting back on his heels, staring at the gate. "Cross your fingers."

Harold went one step further and closed his eyes, but couldn't help peeking as he heard Al flipping switches. Generators hummed to life. Harold's lights flickered, but stayed on. Harold held his breath. The doorway powered up, and suddenly Harold could see a worried face looking through from the other side.

"Al," the man said. "Thank goodness it's you; you're the last to check back in. Is everything okay over there?"

Al blushed. "Yeah, I...uh, fell asleep when I first got here. We're ready to go now."

"Got it. We've started shipping out the 'vacationers.' No trouble so far. Are you all set to receive?"

Al looked at Harold. Harold gave him a thumbs up, and Al turned back to the doorway. "Yes, we're good to go on this end." The man who had greeted Al moved aside, and Harold could see a family in the background. Their first evacuees were on their way.

It was the backpack that Harold noticed first. Since people had started arriving, Harold had seen trunks, duffel bags, suitcases, huge rolling carts and tiny knapsacks. But he hadn't seen any of the distinctive navy and silver backpacks he remembered from the field trip. Until a diminutive figure sprinted through the doorway and threw herself into Al's arms.

"Al!" she yelled. "Can we stay here with you and Harold? Mama said we'd have to ask, but I told her you wouldn't mind, and you don't, right?" She turned to the woman who'd come through the doorway after her. "See Mama, Al doesn't mind."

The woman also hugged Al, murmuring something low in his ear that Harold couldn't hear. Al closed his eyes. When he opened them, it looked as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

"Of course you will stay here, Sabri," he said to the little girl. "How else would Harold have an excuse to eat his cereal in the middle of his sandwich?"

Sabri laughed delightedly. "You remembered!"

Most people had only stayed a few moments, just long enough to receive their emergency cards and phones from Harold, have their names written in Al's master log, and see their destination on the map. Harold would give them his schpiel while Al matched them to an appropriate spot and recorded them on the map. Because the people coming through now were able to bring luggage with them, most were headed to motels, but some, like Sabri, had relatives on Earth and had to be sorted out of the crowd.

Sabri and her mom headed up the stairs, but returned as soon as they'd dropped off their luggage in the living room. "What can we do to help?"

Harold explained the phone and index card procedure to Sabri while Al went over the map and log with her mother. There was a lull, as would be expected throughout the next two days. Periods of extreme craziness interspersed with absolute boredom. Harold was trying not to think about things like doorways exploding, or monkeys taking over the world, or what would happen if Al's people couldn't ever return home, or how he was going to handle going to work (or not) come Monday.

Instead, Harold compiled a mental list of the top five weirdest things he'd seen since he'd learned about Al's insane plan.

1. Al flipping out when a grandmotherly-type woman came through the doorway with a bureau. She had patted them all on the head, even Harold, and called them "nice boys" as she told a somewhat rambling story about the bureau being a family heirloom. Al had been unable to be rude to her face, but once she had departed, he'd exploded. "This is supposed to be subtle!" Al had shouted. "Who takes a bureau on vacation?"

2. Waking up after a quick nap on a cot he was quickly coming to regard as "his cot," with a little boy poking him and saying, "You can't stay here. You have to ask Al where to go." Harold had been disoriented for a moment, then assured the boy that he actually lived here. The boy had given him a skeptical look and said, "You don't look like an alien."

3. Cookies. For some reason that Harold still hadn't quite figured out, they had plates of them, platters of them, bowls, and alien Tupperware-like containers full of cookies; all types and flavors. Nearly everyone through the doorway brought cookies with them. It added an odd sense of fresh-baked, home-like atmosphere to the situation.

4. Seeing the rest of Sabri's family arrive, and hearing her call all two men (including Al) her fathers, and all three women her mothers. It was obvious they were a close-knit group, but the mom/dad thing was a real culture gap.

Number five was completely unexpected and came out of the blue on what Harold later figured out was early Sunday morning. He'd been asleep; in his own room, even. One of Sabri's parents was spelling him on cell phone handout duty. He woke up to a loud knocking on his window. What? Harold thought, fighting for full consciousness.

It was Charlotte. He waved sleepily to her, and she gestured for him to come to the window. So far, the visit wasn't even beating out finding Al asleep on his sofa, so Harold walked over and opened the window, leaning on the sill.

"Harold, you need to leave right now."

Okay, Harold thought. That's weird. Charlotte never called him Harold; he'd been Gabe to his sisters ever since they were old enough to talk.

"What's going on?" he asked her.

"You need to leave," she insisted. "Come outside and I'll tell you."

Harold's eyes narrowed. "Why don't you come in?"

"I can't let them get to me too!" Charlotte sounded very agitated.

Harold's bedroom door opened as he was trying to decipher what Charlotte was talking about. "Who are you talking to?" Sabri bounced into the room. She had obviously had a good night's sleep and was full of energy. "Hey, it's the police lady! You're not going to yell, are you? Harold's your brother, right? He told me I could call him Harold. You don't live here. Why are you at the window? Why isn't your house on the map?" Sabri ran out of breath and paused.

Charlotte paled. Harold wondered yet again what she was doing there. "What are you doing here, Charlotte?" he asked.

"I'm here to save you!" she said loudly. "These...people are clearly some kind of cult, and they've got you believing in them and letting them live at your house and eat your food!"

Ah, Harold thought. Sue the register lady never could remember whether she was supposed to keep things secret or not.

"And you know what, when it was just you I was willing to let it go, because I've never seen you taken in by anything like this, but now they've got Eliza too, and--"

"What?" Harold broke in. "What's going on with Eliza?"

"She's missing! That's what I've been trying to tell you! Your cult has her!" Charlotte's police negotiating training had clearly flown out the window when family became involved.

Harold sighed. "Look, it's not a cult, and I can't leave right now. You're welcome to come in and have some breakfast if you want. Why do you think Eliza's here?" As far as Harold knew, she wasn't.

"Not here," Charlotte said in an exasperated tone. "With Tina, that girl from school."

Oh no, Harold thought. At least he knew now that Eliza had been talking with Tina. And she probably didn't think he was crazy. Harold wondered if lunacy was above or below cult member on the list of undesirable traits in a sibling.

One of Sabri's moms burst through the door. "There you are!" she said scoldingly, and Harold wasn't sure if it was directed at Sabri, or him, or both. "We need help in the basement now." She pointed at Charlotte through the window. "You too. Either go away or come in here and help."

It looked like "the mom voice" still worked wonders. Charlotte followed them down the stairs without comment, and ended up taking charge of the very pregnant woman who was giving birth on Harold's cot. Harold found himself relegated to the kitchen, boiling water.

"When did my life turn into an episode of Star Trek?" Harold asked the pot of water. He didn't even hear Sabri's other father, Al's brother, come into the room.

"I'm not sure," the man said, "but it could have been when you started talking to cookingware."

Harold started at the voice, then laughed. "It's just that everything is so crazy right now. One of my sisters thinks I've joined a cult, and the other sister is missing, and there's a woman having a baby in my basement!"

Sabri's dad smiled. "Actually, I think it may be twins." Harold threw his hands up in the air, and the man's smile widened. "Seriously, though, what's this about your sisters?"

Harold explained the situation, including his suspicion that Eliza was with Tina. Sabri's dad--Harold still couldn't remember anyone's names, but he'd been introduced twice now, and felt uncomfortable asking again--suggested he call Tina. When Harold dialed, using his land line so he wouldn't tie up his cell, a very excited-sounding Eliza answered.

"Tina's cell phone, what can I do for you?"

Definitely Eliza. "Eliza?" Harold asked.

"Gabe! Do you know where Charlotte is? I've called the house, but no one answered."

"Charlotte's here. She's been trying to reach you. Where's your cell phone?" Harold decided not to tell her about the cult, or the babies.

"My phone's charging," Eliza said, as if that explained everything. "We've been using Tina's."

"Where are you?" Harold could hear other people talking in the background.

"Right now? The mall. We're the shopping brigade, you know." Eliza sounded smug. Harold wished he had some idea what she was talking about. "Whenever one of your 'friends' comes through the doorway and realizes they forgot their toothbrush, or whatever, they can call us and we'll go get them a new one."

"Okay," said Harold, a little stunned by the news of his youngest sister's involvement with the evacuation. "So can I tell Charlotte that she can get in touch with you at this number?"

"If you have to," Eliza said, in her best 'I'm the youngest sibling and everyone's always checking up on me' voice. "But I might not be able to talk; we're pretty busy."

They exchanged their goodbyes, and when Harold hung up he turned to Sabri's dad, who gave him a questioning look. "She's fine," Harold said. "She's with Tina. They're shopping."

Sabri's dad nodded as if this was perfectly reasonable. Definitely top five weirdest list material, Harold thought to himself.

It was Sunday afternoon when Al stood up, held out his hand, and said, "I'd like the extra large fries with that pickle," and collapsed. Everyone stared. Harold was glad Charlotte had gone home; she'd seemed convinced by seeing the doorway in action and talking with Al's brother, but Harold didn't want to push their luck. Seeing Al keel over from exhaustion, Harold thought, would do nothing for their credibility.

"Well, that's no good," said one of Sabri's moms, after they had tried and failed to wake Al. "Now what are we supposed to do?"

Harold remembered that the doorways were keyed to a single person, and couldn't be operated without that person. This was definitely bad.

Sabri's family was talking a mile a minute. Most of it seemed to be about how terrible this was, and hadn't anybody been checking to see if Al was eating and taking naps? Harold raised his hand, and everybody turned to stare at him.

"What if somebody else just hold's Al's fingers on the activation...thing...and enters the code?"

Silence.

Then, "No, that wouldn't work."

"Wait, maybe it would."

"Has anybody ever tried that before?"

"Not that I've heard of; what happens if it doesn't work?"

"I don't know, the doorway's supposed to know somehow."

"It would have to be someone genetically similar."

"Good thing I'm here, then."

"And someone who'd sworn an oath of loyalty to the royal family."

"Oh."

Harold had tried his best to follow the rush of words, feeling a little like a spectator at a four-person tennis match, looking around the group trying to follow the verbal ball. He thought it must have been Al's brother who volunteered to be the "genetically similar" guinea pig in this little experiment, but after that he was lost.

"Someone royal must have come through by now."

"Do we have time to call Trudy?"

"No, remember, they're trying to split up the family as much as possible."

"That's right; ours aren't getting here until the end."

Sabri, who had been quiet up until that point, suddenly jumped into the conversational pool. "What about me?"

Everyone looked confused. Harold was just glad he wasn't the only one anymore.

"You tell the story all the time! You know, about when I was born, and the twins were born, and my dads were celebrating with their dad, and they were joking around..."

"...And you were promised into the royal family!" One of the moms jumped in. "Wow, do you think it counts if it was just a joke?"

"It's worth a shot, I guess." Al's brother glanced around the group and got nods from everyone. He led a bemused Sabri over to one of the cots and sat her down. Then he went down on one knee and began to speak. "I, Tassin Zabela, do hereby swear my allegiance and loyalty..."

Tassin's oath did the trick; the doorway would accept the activation code when Al was asleep as long as his brother manipulated Al's fingers on the keypad. Harold was glad he'd finally learned one of Sabri's parents' names. He figured if he kept it up at a rate of one per day, he'd know them all in less than a week.

One of the moms had called Trudy to get the word out about how to fool the doorway. There had been a brief debate about sharing such a potentially volatile piece of information, but it was agreed that in this situation, it was more important for the keepers to be able to at least take some sort of break during the ongoing evacuation. Among Harold and his houseguests, there was a sort of unofficial countdown going on for the huge push to empty Al's planet. Harold's internal clock was totally thrown off by the odd hours he'd been keeping since Al's return, and it seemed the others were having similar problems. "How long till it starts?" they kept asking each other.

Harold was also keeping his own countdown, of the time until he was supposed to be at work Monday morning. He knew his first commitment was to family, a category he already considered Al to be a part of. But what to do about his job?

If it had been a bigger company, or a bigger town, Harold might have tried the old 'family emergency' excuse. As it was, the minute he called in and announced a family emergency, half the people in the building would be on the phone to Charlotte or Eliza to find out what was going on. "I need a good reason; something so people won't expect me to come to work, but won't try to come visit me either."

"How about your parents coming to visit?" Tassin seemed to share his brother's knack for fixing things, and he'd offered to take a look at Harold's computer. He and Harold were sitting in the kitchen; the group's unofficial base of operations. Tassin offered the suggestion somewhat absently, keeping his eyes on the screen. "By the way, your computer's all set. The email program's accepting your login name fine now."

"No, that won't work. It's got the same problems as calling in with a family emergency; people will just call my sisters to get all the gossip." Harold suddenly looked sharply at Tassin. "Wait, that was just a random suggestion, right? My parents aren't really coming, are they?"

Tassin turned the computer so it was facing Harold. There on the screen was his email inbox, filled with message after message from his parents. From the subject lines, it looked like they'd decided to visit several days ago, and would be there on Wednesday, and why wasn't Harold answering his email? Was everything okay? Maybe they would come on Tuesday instead. Would that be okay?

Harold groaned. "I can't believe it. What am I going to tell them? They can't come home now; they're supposed to be touring the country!"

Tassin had turned the computer back around and was apparently reading the messages. "It looks like they found a huge flea market last weekend, and now they want to drop off the stuff they bought at home so there's more room in the RV." Harold hoped there was nothing embarrassing in his inbox, since Tassin didn't seem to plan on asking permission. On the other hand, without Tassin's help, Harold wouldn't be able to read his mail, so perhaps having Tassin read them as well was a small price to pay.

Also, it was a pretty good excuse. Harold's boss was dealing with his own difficult parents, and he gave Harold the whole week off as 'personal leave.' "If they're anything like my parents," he'd said, "you'll need the extra days for preparation and recovery."

After that, all that was left was figuring out what to do when his parents actually arrived. Harold put the question to everyone as they sat in the basement on camp chairs and ancient cots, eating microwaved macaroni and cheese. Al was awake, sitting next to Tassin. Harold was sharing his cot with Sabri, who perched on the edge and swung her legs happily, obviously having the time of her life. Sabri's three moms had pulled the other cot closer, so they all formed a semi-circle around the doorway.

"...So they'll probably arrive sometime in the middle of the 24 hour evacuation," Harold finished. "Any suggestions?"

"Tell them your house is being fumigated!" Sabri had just learned the word 'fumigated' that day, and was using it at every possible opportunity.

"Tell them you're sick!" This was from one of the moms, and it made Tassin shake his head, then wave his hand for attention before offering his own suggestion:

"Tell them you have no running water!"

"Tell them you can't leave because the plumber's coming to fix your water, but they can't come in because the plumber's paranoid!" Sabri again, who was determined to help.

"Tell them your cat doesn't like strangers!" The woman who'd arrived with Sabri didn't seem to think her suggestion was at all unusual. Harold wondered again where Mr. Tibbles had gotten to.

Finally, Al spoke up. "Tell them your house is full of alien evacuees and ask for their help." Everyone nodded.

"Look, I just don't think it's a good idea," Harold said. "I already have one sister thinking I've been conned by some cult; I really don't want my parents thinking I'm crazy too."

The group argued the point until the doorway pinged to indicate incoming travelers. Sabri helped Harold gather the dishes, and everyone went back to work

Finally, Monday night arrived. Harold thought that the last three days had been the longest of his life so far, but he was fairly confident that the next three days would seem even longer. Day/night cycles were improbably similar on Earth and Al's planet, but they didn't match up exactly.

Al had said that darkness would hit the first zone on his planet around 7:15 pm Earth time. He would open the doorway and it would remain open for 24 hours, until the doorway on the other end was shut down. This was the trickiest phase of the plan; it was critical that it succeed, but no one could predict the outcome.

In Harold's house, tensions were running high. As the final hours wound down, everyone tried to keep busy. They knew rest would be impossible, so they spent the time moving furniture and carting bottles of water into the basement. It seemed like every time Harold looked into the kitchen, one of Sabri's family was standing on the back porch, staring off into the distance. Once, he glanced in and the porch was empty, so Harold took a turn, leaning on the railing and gazing at the trees.

Harold considered everything he knew about war, and fear, and family and community. He thought about what it meant to give up your house, and what made a home, and about moving on. He thought about his parents, and his sisters, and the new 'family' he'd been adopted into in the last few days. Harold thought and thought, but found no answers in the great outdoors. He went back inside and instantly got distracted by the fact that they had somehow run out of milk already.

At 7:00, everyone gathered in the basement. At 7:05, Al activated the doorway. "Just to be ready," he said. At 7:08, Sabri announced that she had to go to the bathroom, and Tassin hustled her up the stairs. They returned in what had to be a record-setting time. Everyone stared at the doorway.

At exactly 7:15, the people they'd seen milling purposefully through the departure center began moving towards the doorways. After that, it was a steady stream. Harold lost track of how many people came through. Most carried only backpacks; some had nothing but the clothes on their backs.

Al and the moms were on recording duty; one of the women had brought a chair from the kitchen to stand on to reach the top sections of the map. Harold, Tassin, and Sabri were the welcoming committee; they handed out cell phones (one for every family) and emergency cards (one for every person, even the babies). It went on, and on, and on.

"Welcome to Earth," Harold would say, trying to catch as many people's eyes as possible. "This is your emergency card; don't lose it. That's the address for this location; that card tells you where the doorway is." This part of the talk made even the people who'd been eyeing him skeptically clutch the card a little tighter.

"If you get lost while you're on this planet, come back here; we can tell you where you're supposed to be. This is your cell phone. Only one per family, sorry. My number, Al's number, and Trudy's number are programmed in. If you need anything, call one of us. Just pick one of us; if you should be talking to someone else, we'll tell you."

Harold had learned quickly not to ask if anyone had questions. They'd just fled a possible monkey coup to an alien world; of course they had questions. Instead, he just said, "Everyone know where they're going? Good. Remember, don't lose your cards and phones." And the group would activate their personal transportation devices and disappear from the basement.

Harold had a chance to listen to Sabri's welcome speech at one point, and he was impressed. They began an unspoken competition to see who could get their groups through the process fastest. When Tassin joined in, it became a full-fledged game, with rules and points and everything. One point for every arrival you could lure into your group; bonus points if they had a baby; double bonus points if they had a pet. Points were lost if anyone in the group had to ask you to speak up or repeat something.

Harold gained ground when he instituted the 'points for every time you say Earth without it sounding like there are quote marks around it' rule, then lost it when Tassin came up with the 'point gained for every baby you make smile; point lost for every baby who cries' rule. Harold wasn't good with babies.

It was Sabri who came up with the word challenge, after her 'points for every person who pats you on the head and says "Thank you, dear"' rule was shot down. Every hour or so, one of them would pick a word. Each time you managed to use that word in your welcome speech, your score for the group doubled. The tricky part was that if anyone in the group asked about it, all points for that group were lost.

The new challenge helped pass the hours after the coffee ran out. Some words were easy: "Welcome to 'marvelous' Earth," Harold might say. Others were more difficult. "If you need anything, even a 'hot dog', call one of us."

Harold caught a few odd looks from the other half of their meet and greet team, but Al and the moms were too busy getting everyone onto the map to really pay attention. As the darkness was just beginning to fade outside the basement windows, another familiar face popped through the doorway. It was Damaris, with two people Harold assumed were his parents right behind him.

Al sent all three of them upstairs with one of the moms. One of the benefits of being the doorkeeper was that he got to pick and choose who stayed at his location. Harold wondered how many of the field trip kids would end up back in the house by the time the day was over, and why. So Sabri would have the familiar faces of her classmates around? So Harold wouldn't feel totally overwhelmed by strangers? Who knew? Sometimes Al was as hard to predict as a monkey.

Shortly after Damaris' arrival, one of the generators began to whine. Harold pulled out his phone and dialed Eliza's number with a certain sense of glee. If he was going to be awake at this time of day, he was going to make sure his sister was too.

But the voice that answered after a single ring didn't sound sleepy. In fact, it sounded disgustingly perky and awake. "Super Shoppers Hotline, what can I do for you?"

"Eliza, how much coffee have you had?"

"Hey Gabe! Um...I lost track. Why, you guys need more?"

"Actually, we need another generator. But coffee would be good too." Al held up two fingers. "Two coffees; no, wait, two generators. Just bring two of everything, I guess. Oh, and milk. We're out of milk" By now it seemed like everyone in the room was gesturing; Harold had no idea what they were trying to tell him. But they seemed satisfied with the 'two of everything' plan, so Harold let Eliza hang up and get back to her shopping. "She bumped us to the top of the list; they'll be here in less than 30 minutes," Harold told the group.

Actually, it was more like 15, and Harold wondered how many speed limits Eliza and Tina had broken to get there so quickly. Al hooked the new generators into the system on the fly. Luckily, no one who came through the doorway while he was doing it seemed familiar enough with Earth technology to figure out what was going on.

The day wore on. They swapped off taking naps on Harold's cot. Someone brought a radio down from the kitchen; only one station would come in, and it provided a sometimes comforting, sometimes eerie counterpoint to the massive flow of people moving through the doorway.

Harold saw Meshkalla arrive in the midst of a large group of women and girls; she waved to him, but they didn't stay. Zahar came through the doorway alone, looking nervous and determined all at the same time. He collected his phone and emergency card before popping out to stay with his brother. Toby, Harold remembered from the field trip; the cashier at the bookstore.

It was afternoon when the faces coming through the doorway began looking more worried. The evacuation so far was going as planned, with even low-tech Earth keeping up with the flow of traffic, but everyone knew that the longer it took, the more likely it was that the monkeys would figure out what was going on. Many were worried they had already waited too long, and some people were calling for the doorways to be shut down now, before the planned 24 hours were up.

"But, wouldn't that defeat the purpose, if there were still zones of people left on the planet?" Harold asked.

"Thank you!" Al sounded exasperated. "Yes, it would." One of the mom's made a soothing gesture in his direction, and Al sighed. "Look, I understand that people are scared, and want to do anything to keep their families safe. But this plan is our best hope; we have to see it through to the end, or it won't work at all. You can't just do it halfway and get half the benefit; it's all or nothing."

"You don't need to convince us, Al," Tassin said, and everyone smiled. They were the slightly punchy smiles of people who'd been awake for a very long time, and still had quite a few hours to go before they could expect to stop being awake, but they were still smiles, because really everything was pretty funny after 30-plus hours without sleep.

As seven pm drew closer, traffic through the doorway increased. No one seemed sure if they were going to be able to finish in time. So far, the decoy protests were working, but they'd had to leave large numbers of people behind to make them convincingly distracting.

By six-thirty, the protesters had started swarming into the doorway terminals and leaving. Harold thought he saw Pjerin headed up the basement stairs in the arms of one of her dads, still clutching her "Don't Trust Monkeys" sign. There was a flurry of excitement when Nadeka and Lishendri arrived, flanked on either side by two security guards. The twins looked exhausted.

"What happened?" Al asked. "You were supposed to arrive this morning!"

They were? Harold thought to himself. Shoot, nobody ever tells me anything.

One of the guards stepped out of formation to address Al. "Had a little trouble with the monkeys monitoring the residence. Took a ...circuitous route to the doorway."

The man was apparently a master of understatement. Ten hours late was a circuitous route? Also, why did the Cals need a four-person security team? And where were their parents? Harold had the sneaking suspicion that there were a lot more things he hadn't been told yet. He certainly wasn't going to ask any of the menacing-looking guards, though.

Or maybe not so menacing. Harold's eyes widened as he watched Nadeka reach up and tug on one of the guards' sleeves. "Tom," he said. "I'm tired." It was a tone Harold remembered well from when Eliza was little; the boy was trying not to whine, but not quite succeeding, and was obviously nearing the end of his rope.

"I know, kiddo." The man's voice was now gentle and friendly. 'Tom' knelt down and helped Nadeka climb onto his back piggy-back style. "Let's go upstairs and get you two settled in." They headed up the basement stairs, followed by Lishendri, holding the hand of another one of the guards.

Al motioned for the remaining security personnel to stay behind. "Where are their parents?" he asked in a low voice.

The woman looked exasperated. "You know them. They won't leave until the very last minute. They know as soon as they go through a doorway, the game will be up; they're trying to give as many people as possible the chance to get out."

"They're cutting it awfully close," Al replied. "What's the situation over there?"

"The blackouts and protests are working. The monkeys seem confused and disoriented. You know how bad they are in the dark. As far as we know, they haven't caught on to the evacuation. Ilia came up with an additional sonic disturbance that we've been blaming on the power fluctuations. That really threw 'em off." The woman grinned.

Al nodded. Harold still felt confused. Nothing new there, he thought to himself.

Seven pm came and went. The flow of people through the doorway had slowed considerably. By 7:15, it was a trickle. Technically, 24 hours was up. Harold looked at Al, who looked only at the doorway. Tassin had hooked Harold's laptop up to the Internet for up-to-the-minute reports from Trudy. "Doorways are being shut down," he announced. Al stared at the doorway, as if he could make the Cals appear by sheer force of will.

And then, suddenly, they did. Heading for the doorway at a full out sprint, trailed by two more security guards, they tumbled through the doorway in a breathless heap. The far end went dark, and Harold silently thanked the doorkeeper for staying as long as they had.

"Shut it down, Al," said the man who Harold assumed must be Nadeka and Lishendri's father. "Everyone's through who's going through." Al quickly deactivated the gate, and it seemed like everyone in the room took a deep breath, looking around like they were just waking up from some kind of crazy dream.

"All Earth doorways are deactivated," Tassin said.

"It's over," said Al.

The twins' father sighed. "No. I'm very much afraid that this is just the beginning."

When Harold woke up, he felt groggy and disoriented. A quick glance at his watch showed that it was 7:35 pm. Since the sun was shining, he decided that was probably wrong. He really needed to get one of those wind-up watches if he was going to be having lots of aliens around all the time.

Harold looked at the clock next to the bed instead. 2:30 pm. That looked better. Harold was alone in the room; he wondered where everyone else was. He thought he remembered waking up at one point to go to the bathroom, and having to step carefully through the sleeping forms of Al's whole family. Now all the blankets were gone, although the empty mats and cots remained.

Harold cautiously opened the bedroom door and paused to listen. Silence. No, not quite silence. There was a radio playing softly somewhere in the house, probably the kitchen. He couldn't hear any voices. Where was everyone?

A look across the stairs into the living room showed where all the blankets were, at least. It looked like every blanket in the house had been used to create a massive fort city. Harold couldn't even tell what had been used to suspend some of the blankets; he had the sudden to go play in the colorful structures. But he was also drawn to the kitchen, which potentially held the missing aliens. Also, the kitchen had food.

Both the bathroom and the guest bedroom were empty. The bathroom looked amazingly clean for having twenty plus people in the house. There was a vaguely fruity scent in the air. The guest bedroom had been given to the Cals, or at least that had been the original plan. Harold wasn't sure what had actually happened; everything after the doorway closed the night before was a little fuzzy. He continued on to the kitchen.

Where he found the radio, a plate of cinnamon buns, and Al, asleep on the floor. Al was lying next to a large cardboard box full of...kittens? Harold stared, in shock. Mr. Tibbles--no, Mama Tibbles--stared back at him, her expression smug. "So that's where you've been," Harold murmured.

Al started and jerked into a sitting position. "I'm awake," he said quickly. "Everything's fine."

Harold smiled. "Al, your eyes are still closed."

Al slumped against the leg of the table and rubbed his eyes. "Harold!" he said, his voice a mix of sleepy and happy. "We wondered when you'd wake up."

"It looks like you didn't have any trouble finding things to do," Harold replied. "Who made breakfast? These cinnamon buns are delicious." He handed one to Al, who looked like he could use all the sugar he could get. "And where is everybody? Why are there kittens in the kitchen?"

Al chewed thoughtfully on the roll. "I don't know who made them. One of the guards, probably. Or PJ's parents; they like to cook stuff, I think." He looked at the box of kittens. "You may have noticed that your cat decided to have kittens. And bring them here."

"Yeah, I thought you said she was a he," Harold interrupted. "What's up with that?"

"Well, it's not like I was going to check," Al replied. "That would have been rude."

"Of course," Harold said, somewhat disbelieving. "You wouldn't have wanted to be rude; perfectly understandable." He decided it was time to move on. "So where is everybody?"

"Well, we had to get some stuff for these guys." Al indicated the kittens, who were just starting to wake up. "All the kids went in your car with Tassin and Tom to the store for cat food and toys and stuff."

"All the kids?" Harold asked. "In my car?"

Al grinned. "Yeah, I'm not sure how they plan on fitting any stuff in with all those kids in the car. None of the women would have anything to do with it, so Tom and my brother got volunteered."

Al continued, listing off people on his fingers as he went. "Let's see. Damaris' parents took the bus downtown to buy posterboard, PJ's parents went with them to get...toothbrushes and stuff, I guess. And Ilia and Janar are with the rest of the guards, renting some vehicles." He tilted his head to the side and stared off into space. "Sabri's moms...actually, I'm not sure where they are. They're not here either." He looked at Harold.

Harold was still stuck on Damaris' parents. "Posterboard?" he asked.

"To keep the kittens from crawling through the railings and falling down the stairs," Al explained, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Oh," said Harold. "Okay. That makes sense." He sat down on the floor next to Al, and they both watched the kittens.

Harold and Al were still watching when the first car pulled into the driveway, followed right away by two more. "That would be the Cals," Al said, getting up from the floor stiffly and stretching his arms over his head. He held out a hand and helped Harold stand as well, and they headed for the front door.

"Look," Al said, somewhat tentatively. "There's something you should, well, know about the Cals. They're kind of...important people on our planet."

"Uh huh." Harold had guessed as much from the six security guards accompanying the family. He waited for Al to continue.

"They're sort of...leaders," Al said.

"Of what?" Harold asked. Scientific, military, political? Harold remembered that Ilia had been planning on being a field trip chaperone, so it couldn't be too critical.

Al stopped. He turned to look at Harold. "Well... the planet."

"What?! The whole planet?" Harold was shocked. He'd made the leaders of a whole planet sleep in the guest bedroom! Who was Al, anyway? He called the people running his planet by their first names and chaperoned their kids' field trip!

"What should I do?" Harold asked frantically.

"Relax," Al said. Harold looked at him like he was crazy. "No, I'm serious. Relax. Ilia and Janar are great, you'll love them. I just told you so you wouldn't be surprised if it comes up later."

The door opened, and a very excited Ilia Cal bounced inside. "Al! Harold! You're awake! Wonderful! Great house, Harold. Come outside, both of you and see what we got!" She darted back out the door. Harold looked at Al.

"See what I mean?" Al said wryly. "And this is Ilia after just a few hours sleep. Usually she's more energetic, if you can believe it."

Harold couldn't. They walked outside. There in the driveway were three massive vehicles. Harold wasn't even sure they counted as cars. Two men and a woman were peering under the hood of one of them, and it looked like the other three people were exploring the inside of another.

"I picked the black one," Ilia said gleefully. "It's called an 'Armada'."

Harold could see why. The hulking black SUV looked like it could hold an armada. He thought it was rather sinister looking, actually. On the other hand, it looked like it might have one of those built-in backseat dvd players.

The other vehicles were the same model, but different colors. One was sky blue, and one was red. He wondered who had picked out those colors.

"Janar, come say hello to Harold!" One of the men broke away from the group checking under the black Armada's hood, and walked over to Ilia.

Harold eyed him carefully, trying to figure out if he should have been able to tell somehow that this man helped lead a planet. He looked perfectly normal; average height, slightly receding hairline, genial smile. He was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt.

Harold was introduced to Janar, and then to each of the security people in turn. They all shook his hand and smiled. They seemed genuinely friendly, as opposed to simply polite. Before he knew quite what was happening, Harold and Al had been included in a group discussion regarding ways to improve gas mileage, with ideas ranging from slow acceleration to letting some of the more technologically-minded aliens tinker with the engines.

When the bus pulled to a stop at the end of the street, everyone turned to look. Sure enough, four people got off and were headed towards them, their arms full of bags and packages. Harold, Al, and the rest of the group went to help them carry their purchases into the house.

Harold had just started helping Damaris' parents weave the sheets of white posterboard in between the stair rails when he heard another car pull up to the house. It was too bad they'd filled up the garage with all the stuff from the basement, Harold thought. It really would've come in handy to have some extra car storage space right now.

Five kids burst through the front door and blew past Harold on their way to the kitchen. They were followed much more slowly by Tom and Tassin, who were loaded down by bag upon bag of cat supplies. Cat food, kitten food, beds, heated blankets, toys (lots of toys), litter boxes ("You'll need more than one in a multiple cat household," Tassin said). Harold hoped he was joking. How had his house become a multiple cat household?

After ooh-ing and aah-ing over the kittens, the kids allowed themselves to be distracted by setting up their stuff in the bathroom. Everyone, even Harold, got their own toothbrush, and a plastic cup to set it in. Harold's was orange, he was informed by Sabri. This seemed to get all the kids thinking about bedtime. It was still afternoon, but their schedules had been pretty wacky the last couple days.

Al suggested a brief "siesta" in the blanket forts in the living room. Harold was surprised that all the kids agreed, but apparently saying "nap" in another language made it seem strange and exciting. Or maybe it was the forts; they were pretty cool. Harold wouldn't have minded a nap himself, but thought it would be a bit much, seeing as he'd been asleep until a short time ago.

All the adults gathered in the kitchen. "Does anyone know where Sabri's moms are?" Al asked.

"They're not here?"

"Where did they go?"

"I think they were still here when we left."

"Are you sure they're not here?"

"When did they leave?"

Everyone was talking over each other, so they didn't hear the front door opening. Al was looking exasperated and gesturing for quiet when the women in question walked into the kitchen. With them were Charlotte, Eliza, and Tina, all smiling.

"Hey guys! Did you miss us?" Tina hugged Al, speaking softly. "Congratulations--you did it, boss."

Al blushed. "I couldn't have done it without help," he said.

"Well obviously," Tina replied, and everyone laughed.

Harold thought he should invest in more chairs and a bigger table, if he was going to keep having this many people wanting to gather in the kitchen. On the other hand, they all seemed fairly happy to sit on the floor, so maybe not. Sabri's moms, whose names Harold still didn't know, explained that they had walked over to Charlotte and Eliza's house to see if they needed any help.

"They made us breakfast!" Eliza exclaimed.

"And helped us get ready for mom and dad coming," Charlotte added.

Harold's eyes widened. "Oh no," he said. "I forgot all about them coming!" It was true. In the rush of preparation for the evacuation, and then the evacuation itself, his parents' upcoming visit had never even crossed his mind. He guessed he was lucky they hadn't showed up the day before, but his luck couldn't last forever.

Just then, there was a knock at the door.

Harold took a deep breath before opening the front door to greet his parents. "Hi mom," he said. "Hi dad. How are you?"

Both parents looked slightly shocked by Harold's appearance. "We're fine, dear," his mother said. "How are you? We didn't...wake you up, did we?" She sounded horrified by the idea, like even implying that her oldest son might have been sleeping at 4:00 in the afternoon was a near impossibility.

"No...um, no, I was awake." Harold stumbled over the words, as he realized that he was still in his pajamas, and hadn't shaved in...he tried to figure out the days and hours in his head, but couldn't. A long time. "Hey, where's the RV?" Harold peered out the door, winced when he saw the Armadas towering over his car and filling the driveway, even though the RV was nowhere to be seen. Maybe that wasn't the best change in subject.

But his dad answered anyway. "We parked it at the house, but Charlotte and Eliza weren't there. Your mother decided it would be a good idea to walk over and see you." He smiled at Harold, and his tone implied that he would have at least called first.

Harold's mom rolled right past the implication. "Yes, of course. Do you know where your sisters are, Harold? They said they were planning on being home when we arrived."

Harold, of course, knew exactly where his sisters were. They were in the living room with most of the other adults, waking up the kids and pulling down the blanket fort. There was no way to make the house look like the bachelor residence Harold's parents believed it to be, but Charlotte and Eliza were trying to at least give people places to sit. Hopefully that would keep their parents out of the kitchen, where Al and the security people were removing the most obvious evidence that Harold's house was being used as the staging point for an alien evacuation.

That was why Harold was still standing in the doorway, trying to look casual as he didn't invite his parents to come in. "Actually, Charlotte and Eliza are both here," he said. Harold really hoped this plan worked.

"I've been really sick," Harold said, trying to look pathetic and harmless. "They came over to see how I was doing." He hoped everyone was in place. Mentally crossing his fingers, Harold pulled out the big guns. "And my cat just showed up with six kittens, this morning."

"Kittens? Oh, I have to see them! And you should sit down, dear. I can't believe your sisters let you answer the door with you being so sick." Harold's mom bustled him into the living room, leaving his father to close the door and follow.

Harold stopped and stared when he entered the living room. All the furniture had been moved back into position. The blankets and air mattresses were gone, as were all the backpacks and suitcases. A furtive look towards the kitchen showed that everything looked normal there as well. Best of all, someone had moved Mama Tibbles and her kittens into the living room, which quickly drew both his parents' attention.

"Oh, they're so adorable! Aren't they precious, Henry?" Harold's father nodded, but his attention was taken by Mama Tibbles.

"Did you say this was your cat, Harold?" His father sounded curious.

Charlotte and Eliza hurried into the room from the kitchen. "Mom! Dad!" Eliza greeted them cheerfully, moving in for hugs as Charlotte gave Harold a quiet thumbs-up behind their backs. Harold breathed a sigh of relief.

The rest of his parents' visit was surreal. Charlotte boiled water for tea and coffee, and everyone sat around sipping tea and exclaiming every time the kittens did something cute. They talked about the weather, and RV travel, and flea markets. Eliza told a long story about her theater class's Egyptian-themed, gender-swapping adaptation of Hamlet. Charlotte came through with a story about a police vehicle test drive to explain the cars in Harold's driveway.

Then, to Harold's surprise, everyone went home. His mom felt his forehead and made mom sounds, settling him in on the couch with a fresh mug of tea. His dad reminded him that he had a garage for a reason, and should really think about getting the car under cover. Charlotte and Eliza went out with them, shooting glances back at Harold that clearly told him to call and let them know what happened. Harold heard their voices descending the steps, then fading as they headed down the driveway.

The house was quiet. Harold realized the radio was still playing softly in the kitchen. It was a station he'd never been able to get good reception with in the past. Sometimes he really loved knowing Al.

When Harold opened the back door of the garage, he didn't see anything except the piles of boxes and furniture they'd moved up from the basement. Remembering some of the aliens' more unique talents, he called out, "Hey, it's me. The coast is clear; you guys can all come back inside now." Then Harold stepped back to enjoy the show.

He wasn't disappointed. There were literally aliens coming out of the woodwork. Most of the adults had phased into the walls, although a few emerged from some of the larger pieces of furniture. The kids, who couldn't phase yet, crawled out from their hiding places among the boxes. As they walked across the back of the house towards the kitchen doors, Harold was regaled with tales of the great escape.

"I wanted to go out the window!" Nadeka said. "But Tom said I had to go out the back door like everyone else."

"Are your parents nice?" Sabri wanted to know. "Can we meet them?"

PJ piped up with the question that was clearly on all the kids' minds. "Can we put our fort back up?"

Harold laughed, and agreed. "Only if you'll let me help this time," he said. It seemed they had all made it through the parental visit without any real trouble. Harold was relieved, and suggested celebrating with pizza. While they waited for the delivery, blankets, clothespins, safety pins, and string were gathered. It was time to rebuild a fort.

Sleeping arrangements were adjusted slightly after the fort was completed. All the kids wanted to sleep in the living room. They had picked Kyp, Suzy, and Tom, three of the Cal's guards, as the 'coolest' adults to stay with them. Ilia and Janar decided to stay in the back bedroom, along with the three remaining guards. Pjerin and Damaris' parents had volunteered to move their cots and air mattresses into the kitchen, leaving Harold and Sabri's family in the main bedroom.

Harold decided he was really getting to like his cot. He lay with his hands behind his head, staring at the glowing constellations on his walls. He'd already had his turn in the bathroom, dutifully using the orange toothbrush picked out for him and then placing it back in the row of cups that ran all along the back of the sink and onto the adjoining shelf. Now he was just enjoying listening to the sounds of his house settling down for the night.

Harold was also contemplating their plans for the next day. He couldn't believe it was going to be Thursday already. I guess that's what happens when you sleep through most of Wednesday, he thought to himself. Ilia, Janar, and Al were heading up to Trudy's house to meet in person about the evacuation and how people were settling in. Harold assumed they'd be taking some of the security personnel with them; he hadn't quite figured out how the six guards were normally split up among the family members.

Everyone else's plans were somewhat more vague. Harold's To-Do List for the day looked something like this:

1. get up

2. eat breakfast

3. see what everyone else is doing

And really, he wouldn't mind swapping the order of two and three. He was a flexible kind of guy.

Sabri's moms were already in the room, but Harold felt nervous saying anything to them, since he still couldn't remember their names. Al and Tassin walked in, talking softly to each other. Harold liked watching the whole family interact; it reminded him of his own family, and he wondered what his sisters and parents were doing right then.

"Oh wow," Tassin said, looking around the room. "I thought I'd just dreamed this. Who did these pictures on your walls?"

Harold looked at Al. He didn't want to get anyone in trouble, but there really wasn't any non-alien-related way the pictures could have appeared. "Well..." he started.

"Don't worry," Al said. "I saw the signatures this morning. As long as you don't mind, I think it's kind of cute. The boys obviously liked you."

Al's family was looking confused. Harold explained: "When Al and I chaperoned the field trip, this became the boys' room when the power went out. One of them had some glow-in-the-dark paint, and they decided to decorate. I didn't know about it until after they'd all left. I like it, though. I assume they're constellations?"

Harold fell asleep to the sound of Al's voice naming each star grouping and telling the story behind the pictures.

Harold was one of the first to wake up in the morning. Understandable, since he'd been the last to wake up the day before. Unfortunate, since he woke up starving, and there were still four people asleep in his kitchen.

Harold briefly considered going out the window, but decided he'd probably make more noise doing that than just using the door. Also, there was the potential danger of getting stuck, or falling into the bushes, or being seen by a neighbor walking by on the street. He grimaced at the thought of Mrs. Bale relating that story to his parents.

Harold tiptoed out of the bedroom and down the hall, switching to normal walking through the living room. He really didn't want a twitchy security guard thinking he was a threat. Finally, Harold made it to the front entrance, and he grabbed a coat as he went out the door.

There was a woman jogging down the street, and Harold took a moment to be thankful that he wasn't at that very moment hanging out his bedroom window. He walked down the driveway, wondering if anyone had gotten the mail yesterday. The jogger drew nearer; she looked familiar, Harold realized, kind of like Eliza.

It was Eliza. She was panting as she came to a stop next to Harold's mailbox. "You better appreciate this," she got out between breaths.

Harold had no idea why he was supposed to appreciate his sister going for a jog. "Hey Eliza," he said. "I thought you hated jogging."

He got a dirty look. "I do," Eliza said. "But Mom and Dad think I'm the flighty one. They'd never believe that Charlotte had decided to take up jogging."

Harold was still confused. What did their parents have to do with this? "What's going on?" he asked. "Is everything okay?"

Eliza was getting her breath back now. "Our little deception yesterday? Not so deceiving to Mom and Dad, apparently. As soon as we got home they started grilling us about what was going on with you. I think Mom's leaning towards some sort of government involvement, but Dad's a little more skeptical. I'm pretty sure he thinks you're running some sort of illegal kitten operation out of your house. I know he thinks you stole that cat."

"What?!" Harold couldn't believe his ears. "I didn't steal Mama Tibbles!" Although, he thought to himself, the government one was pretty close. Just not Earth's government. Suddenly he was glad the Cals were going to be visiting Trudy that day.

Harold realized he was getting sidetracked. "Okay," he said. "What are they planning to do?"

Eliza shrugged. "I have no idea. Tina showed up in the middle of our 'conversation,' and was her usual charming self. Now I think Mom and Dad think we're involved in whatever you're involved in. This is the first chance I've had to get out of the house without making them too suspicious."

Harold groaned. Tina was great once you got to know her, but she had a somewhat twisted sense of humor, and generally made a terrible first impression. He decided he was better off not knowing what she'd said to his parents.

"Thanks for the heads up," he said to Eliza. "I'll be on the lookout." Eliza left at a walk, presumably saving up her energy for one last spurt of jogging once she got within sight of the house.

Harold shook his head. At least his parents weren't likely to call the police, if they thought Charlotte was involved. He couldn't believe his dad thought he'd stolen Mama Tibbles! It's not like he'd asked her to bring the kittens to his house.

Harold shared the news with the rest of the household over a breakfast of scrambled eggs and cereal. It was a tight squeeze, fitting 18 adults and 5 kids into the kitchen, but somehow they made it work. All the furniture had been pushed up against the walls, and people were sitting on cots, mattresses, the floor, the table... People who hadn't managed to snag a seat were leaning against the walls and countertops. Bowls and plates were balanced precariously on knees or simply held in one hand.

Nobody seemed very worried when Harold finished relating what Eliza had told him. This made Harold worry more. "Look," he said. "This is serious!"

Damaris' mom spoke up. "Harold, we've just escaped a planet being overrun by monkeys. Having your parents worry about you isn't exactly a level ten worrying event for us. Just tell your mom she's right, but you can't talk about it. Get Tom to lurk in the background; it'll discourage questions."

Harold blinked. That was actually a really good idea. And, after all, it was sort of true. "Thanks," he said.

"Any time," the woman replied. "I'm happy to provide assistance to anyone who's willing to eat a peanut butter and Frosted Flakes sandwich."

The room erupted in happy laughter, and even Harold managed a small chuckle. The sandwich story had apparently made the rounds of all the parents; he'd already heard it mentioned several times in the past day and a half. "It was good," he insisted, and the laughter increased.

"No, really! I liked it!" Harold considered throwing a spoonful of cereal in Al's direction, as he was laughing the loudest. But the kids were all in the room, and he couldn't count on them to stick to cereal if he started a food fight. Harold really didn't want to spend the rest of the day cleaning scrambled eggs off of every surface in the kitchen.

Al had offered Harold the opportunity to come along on the trip to Trudy's house. But the allure of finding out just how old Trudy really was, and being elsewhere if his parents came looking for him, couldn't beat the alternative.

"I'm sorry, Al," Harold said with mock regret in his voice. "But your daughter told me I could name a kitten if I stay here today. Plus, I've heard rumors of a Frisbee game."

Al clapped him on the back. "Smart choice," he said. "I'd stay too, with an offer like that."

"Too bad for you," Janar said playfully, coming up behind them. "No Frisbee for us. We've got to find a way to save the planet!"

They headed out the door, and Harold wondered again at the aliens' sense of humor. Weird, he thought, and went to find the Frisbee.

Mama Tibbles watched the goings-on around her with an aloof expression. She knew the people around her were harmless; after all, she'd picked them to help raise her kittens. Right now they seemed to be arguing about who would name each kitten. Which was silly; obviously, she would name them. But since cat names were difficult for people to pronounce, it was useful to have a person-name as well. Sort of like an alias.

"This one should be named Kermit!"

"Who said you got to name that one?"

"Kermit was a frog, stupid, not a cat."

"Nadeka, you shouldn't call your sister stupid."

"Can I name mine Harold?"

"Sure!"

"No! None of the kittens will be named Harold!"

"What about Bob?"

"I like the name Sima."

"Sima? Yeah, that's cool."

"I still like Kermit."

"Can I call him Harold Junior?"

"What about Harold the Second?"

"Hey, there's no one really crummy on this world named Yanos, is there? 'Cause I don't want to name the cat after someone crummy."

"At least Kermit is better than Gonzo."

"Actually, I like Gonzo better."

"Shut up!"

"What about Rex? You know, like a Tyrannosaurus!"

"What are you going to name yours?"

"I can't decide!"

Harold tried to stay out of the naming discussion as much as possible. After all, he had his own kitten name to think about. Ideas seemed split between alien and Earth names. Harold wasn't sure how many came from Al's planet, and how many were from other worlds they'd studied or visited. He tried to loudly discourage the name 'Harold' in any form, but it kept coming up.

In the end, each kid was allowed to pick a name, plus Harold. Harold went with 'Bob.' Bob was a brownish ball of fluff that seemed particularly average. Harold thought it was a good choice. 'Bob' was joined by Sima, Kermit, Yanos, Makuri, and, lastly, Harold. Harold the cat was the wildest of the bunch, already exploring all around his little box world and climbing on top of his mom.

Mama Tibbles was content. She licked each of her kittens a few times, giving them their cat names. Then she curled herself around them and went to sleep. Life was good.

Lunch was a smorgasbord of leftovers and whatever could be scrounged from the kitchen, followed by cookies. After Harold's inclusion in the kids' group for kitten naming, he was summarily dismissed for the Frisbee game. Lishendri had taken charge of team assignments; apparently, she thought that in a game of kids vs. adults, it would be better to fill out the kid team with three security guards, rather than Harold.

Harold agreed easily, and ended up on the 'grown-up' team with Tassin, Damaris' and PJ's parents, and the last guard. Sabri's moms decided not to play. "We'll be spectators," they said. "And judges!"

Everyone trooped into the backyard. Quite a bit of time was taken up trying to find a compromise between Earth and alien rules; finally the moms stepped in and decided. After that, play was fast and furious.

Harold was having a blast. Coats and sweatshirts were rapidly discarded and used to mark the borders and 'goal' lines. It was like being back in elementary school, playing at recess. The kids had the advantage of speed and agility, but the adults were more wily, with more hand-eye coordination. Harold's team was leading by a wide margin when BT, the guard on his team, called for a time-out. "Water break, everyone!" he yelled. Then he gestured Harold over.

"Did you know there's two people watching us?" BT asked. "I'm fairly sure they're your parents. Short, red-haired woman; taller man with short brown hair?"

Harold nodded. Yup, those were his parents. He wondered how a backyard Frisbee game fit into their theories. "Let them watch," he said. Harold was feeling remarkably relaxed by the game. "Unless you think we should invite them to play?"

BT grinned. "No way--they might give away our secret weapon!" Harold had let his teammates in on some information he'd chosen not to share with the kids; he'd played Frisbee practically every day in college, even joining the club team and competing with other schools. "Seriously, I don't think they're a threat. I just thought you should know."

"Thanks," Harold said. He was glad BT didn't consider his parents a threat, since he was a little worried what that would mean. It still creeped Harold out when the guards switched between their regular every-day friendly selves to their menacing threat-assessing guard selves.

Harold thought he'd have trouble getting back into the game, thinking about his parents watching, but he quickly forgot all about them. In fact, they didn't even cross his mind again until the cooling air drove the group back inside. Talking and laughing, they headed for the sliding doors. Harold was in the back, going over the highlights of the game with Tassin. Suddenly the front of the group went quiet, and stopped moving forward. Harold peered over their heads, trying to see what they were looking at.

Maybe he should have been thinking about his parents a little bit more during the game, Harold thought. Because there they were, sitting at his kitchen table, and staring at Harold with serious expressions.

His mother spoke first, breaking the silence. "We need to talk."

Harold stared. The kids and parents moved silently to the sides; he was at the center of the group and the center of attention.

But not for long. Before Harold could voice a single word, there was a popping sound, and Al, Ilia, Janar, and two security guards appeared in the kitchen. There was a small girl in the center of their group. Harold realized it must be the infamous Trudy. He fought a sudden and doubtless inappropriate urge to yell, "I knew it! I knew you were a little kid! Ha!" Luckily, Harold managed to stay quiet.

"We've got a situation," Ilia said, as serious as Harold had ever heard her. Ilia's eyes took in the group at the door. "Everyone here? Good." She turned to Harold's parents. "You must be Mr. and Mrs. Jones."

How did she know that, Harold wondered. His parents eyes were wide with shock. "I'm sorry," Ilia continued, "but we don't really have time for introductions right now. You're welcome to stay or go, but explanations will have to wait."

Harold's parents nodded. They still looked shocked, but didn't get up to leave. He saw his mother reach for his dad's hand under the table, and felt a surge of pride.

"Let's move this to the living room," Janar said. "I'm afraid we'll have to take the fort down again."

It was an indication of how much the seriousness of the situation had communicated itself, even to the kids, that there were no complaints. Everybody pitched in, and in no time, neat piles of blankets and connecting bits were all that were left of the fort.

Once everyone was seated, Ilia took back the conversational thread. "Here's the situation," she said. "When we evacuated, we planned on check-ins every 48 hours. Every doorkeeper was to be ready by their doorway at the appointed time, because the update from our planet was to come from, and too, a randomly picked location, different each time. The first check-in should have been tonight."

Harold wondered about the choice of 48 hours. Obviously, while Al had stated that they hoped to be back on their world in just a few days, the plan was designed to work for a much longer period of time. Harold also wondered what his parents thought of the phrase "our planet." He wanted to turn and look, but they were almost directly behind him. It would have been too obvious, and he didn't want to miss anything Ilia was saying.

"Today, while we were meeting with Miss Baxter--" Trudy waved, and Ilia gave her a little half-smile. "--we received news that a doorway had been activated, and a message sent through. Apparently, the monkeys are ready to talk."

This caused a stir in the listeners. A low murmur of conversation started, then cut off as Ilia raised a hand. "I know. It sounds like a trap. But there's more. The message Trudy received states that there is unrest between the monkey factions. You know they all came together extremely quickly; it sounds like there may be some...differences of opinion...that were never worked out."

"According to our source, several of the factions were actually against the coup. They've 'requested' a meeting with us to discuss matters."

Janar gave a wry smile. "Actually," he said, "they demanded an audience with the Cals, on this side of the doorway, as well as full amnesty once they got to Earth, but this is what they're getting."

Harold was getting nervous. This side of the doorway? Not that he wanted to put anyone in danger by sending them back into danger, but was it wise to allow any monkeys at all through the doorway? Into his house?

He was trying to work up the nerve to ask when he heard a police siren, getting louder and louder. Uh-oh, Harold thought. When it sounded like the siren was right outside his house, the noise cut off. Seconds later, the front door slammed open. Tina exploded into the living room, with Charlotte and Eliza hot on her heels.

Al opened his mouth to say something, and Tina cut him off. "I already explained the situation on the way over, boss," she said. "We're here to help."

"Plus, a police cruiser pulling in with sirens blaring will definitely discourage visitors," Charlotte added smugly. Harold stared at her. Wow. So not only had Charlotte decided he wasn't part of a cult; now she was actively breaking police rules to help them. What had the girls been getting up to the last few days? He looked suspiciously at Sabri's three moms, but they were all wearing their best innocent expressions.

"Good thinking," Janar said mildly. "Here's the plan: if the message we received is correct, this could be an incredible opportunity. But we have to be prepared for the possibility that it's a setup for some sort of attack."

Harold was impressed at how smoothly Ilia and Janar passed the explanation back and forth. They were so clearly a team; they made it look easy, and Harold thought they must be good leaders.

Ilia was speaking now. "Trudy is here to watch the children. Nadeka, Lishendri? Please listen to Trudy the same way you listen to your guards; she is in charge of your safety until this is over. Sabri, PJ, Damaris? Remember that all of you are more important to us than we can say. Stay safe, and listen to Trudy."

Harold wondered again just who Trudy was. Putting a child in charge of other children seemed risky, even with these kids, who were more disciplined than any he'd ever met on Earth. He was pretty sure Trudy was Earth-born, but not positive. Did she have parents? Did she go to school? She seemed to spend an awful lot of time on the computer, and bear a lot of responsibility, for someone so young.

On the other hand, Harold thought, maybe she wasn't really that young. He was trying not to make so many assumptions; a lesson hard-learned from his alien encounters. Maybe Trudy just looked young.

Harold was distracted from his thoughts by seeing the Cals take off their 'watches' and hand them to Nadeka and Lishendri, who put them on solemnly. Harold knew the wrist devices were actually the personal transporter devices that all the adults used. Damaris, Sabri, and PJ were also given transporters from their parents.

"All the children, plus Trudy, will be in the front bedroom. Once the monkeys' representatives arrive through the doorway, we will escort them to the living room for the discussion. If things go wrong, you are to transport to Trudy's house immediately, where she will spread the word and organize a response. Everyone remembers how to do a group transport with a ride-along?" The kids nodded. Harold realized that must be how Trudy had gotten to his house in the first place; both her wrists were bare. Not from Al's planet, then, he thought, or they'd just give her one too.

Janar was talking again. "In one hour, we will be allowing the leaders of four dissenting factions through the doorway. Each claims that they were against the planned takeover and want to negotiate. We have agreed to a discussion, and we have offered each leader the opportunity to bring along a single bodyguard or assistant as a show of our good faith." Making a total of eight monkeys, Harold thought. With 23 adults, that was a ratio of almost three people for every one monkey. Was that good odds, or bad, he wondered.

One of the guards took up the narrative. "The most likely place for an attack or ambush will be right when we open the doorway and the monkeys begin coming through. There could be trouble from the group that contacted us, or from some of the other factions, if they discover what's going on. Or," he added, almost casually, "the whole thing could be a setup. Which it probably is."

"Yes, we know your opinion, Gary," Ilia broke in. "And you know why we have to do this. Can we move on now?"

Gary looked not at all abashed. "Sure thing, boss," he said, winking at Ilia. "Just making sure my objection is on public record."

"Of course," she replied, mock-seriously. "I'll just go note that down in the log book, yes?"

"Okay, seriously, people," BT spoke up. Harold liked BT. He seemed to be a no-nonsense, straight-forward kind of guy, less prone to these conversational side-trips than some of the other aliens. "If the monkeys attack, they're most likely to do it at the site of the doorway. If that happens, the key is to keep them from swinging. Also, no conventional weapons. Monkeys move fast, and we're more likely to take our own people down than the monkeys. Best option is nets."

Nets? Harold thought. It made sense, sort of. Did he have any nets in the house?

"Do you have any nets in the house?" BT asked, unconsciously echoing Harold's thought. We've all got some--" he gestured to the guards, who all nodded, "--but not enough for everyone."

"Um..." Harold racked his brain for anything even remotely net-like in the house.

"We've got some fishing nets in the RV," his dad volunteered, at the same time his mom asked, "What about pillowcases?"

"Fishing nets are good," BT said. "Pillowcases will do in a pinch. Excellent." Harold knew there weren't any spare pillowcases left in his house, so he gathered the kids up and sent them to pull the cases off all the pillows they could find. He heard the distinctive popping sound of personal transporters, and assumed the RV and his sisters house were also being stripped of pillowcases. It took several people working together to transport someone without a device, but it was fast, and time was of the essence.

In minutes, there was a huge pile of pillowcases in the center of the living room, along with several fishing nets. His dad looked smug, and Harold realized that he was probably thinking that Mom would never be able to nag him about how useless those nets were anymore. He tried to imagine his parents driving in the RV, his mom asking why he needed another fishing net, and his dad saying, "Hey, those things can really come in handy. Why, remember that time we helped defend the planet against alien monkeys?"

Pillowcases and nets were distributed, and a guard whose name Harold thought was Suzy started assigning positions within the house. "We'll start with 12 people in the basement," she said. "It's important that those people can work together in case of an attack. Monkeys are always unpredictable; if you can't at least predict the movements of the people you're working with, it's much more difficult to contain them."

Harold saw Suzy glance at the kids several times while she was talking, and he wondered how much she was editing her words so as not to frighten them too much. Most of them looked plenty scared already. Damaris sat sandwiched between his parents; each one had an arm around his shoulders. PJ was on one of her dad's laps, clinging to him. The Cals had taken Nadeka and Lishendri off to the side for a whispered conversation, and Al was doing the same with Sabri on the other side of the room.

"The other 11 people will be upstairs. If the arrival goes as planned, the next hurdle will be the stairs. We'll position people all along them; once everyone's in the living room, several people will remain by the staircase in case of trouble." She looked around at everyone's serious faces. "Relax, people," she said. "We can do this."

And so it was that Harold found himself, a little over an hour later, standing between Pjerin's dads and trying not to yawn. It was harder than he'd thought, to look capable and vigilant, at the same time he tried to surreptitiously lean against the stair railing behind him to ease the ache in his legs. He glanced around the room.

After hearing the basic description of the plan, Harold had been put on the "door securing" team. Their goal was to contain the monkeys as much as possible within the house. It looked strange to have all the doors in the house closed; he almost always left them open. Now, he knew, they were not only closed, but jammed shut. Harold's job on the team had been finding appropriate doorstops; the aliens would put them in place, then phase back through the door. In case those doors failed, all the outside doors and windows were also locked.

The shades in the living room had been pulled down to keep any prying eyes from seeing the meeting taking place inside. All the furniture that could be moved had been relocated to the kitchen and bedrooms; even the massive floor-to-ceiling bookshelf had been emptied of its contents. That had been the kids' doing. Harold thought they had relished the job a little too much, tossing the books and cds from kid to kid in a relay between the bookshelf and the back bedroom. But they hadn't dropped very many, and it had definitely kept them occupied.

Now all the kids, plus Trudy, were safely ensconced in the front bedroom. Harold hadn't been on the 'meet-and-greet' team in the basement, but the monkeys' arrival seemed to go without a hitch. They acted subdued as they were led up the stairs and into the living room, but Harold knew unpredictability was the monkeys' trademark, so who knew?

All the negotiators were seated. The four monkey leaders were in a row, their backs to the stairs (and Harold), facing Ilia, Janar, and Al. Both groups had four guards lined up behind them in a second row. Harold wasn't sure whose idea it had been to have all the guards stand, but he'd like to have a talk with them. His legs were killing him!

On the other hand, Harold had to admit that BT, Rose, Kyp, and Gary looked very menacing, standing in what looked like an official military 'at ease' position, eyes locked straight ahead. If things went south, their first priority was to protect the Cals. Everyone else was supposed to make sure the monkeys couldn't leave the building, no matter what.

Harold hadn't liked the sound of the "no matter what" part of the arrangement. The Cals were great, and he certainly didn't want any crazy alien monkeys running around loose on Earth, but this was his house they were talking about. Couldn't they at least try to keep damage to a minimum?

He shifted his weight from his left foot to his right foot, and tried not to make eye contact with anyone. Positioning in the room had been based mainly on strategy. The most experienced fighters were placed in the most important areas; that was why four members of the Cals security team were standing directly behind the negotiating team, and the other two were guarding the open entrances to the kitchen and back hallway. But good poker faces were also a factor.

Harold distracted himself by remembering the "test" all the adults had been given to test their ability to maintain a blank, yet menacing, expression. They had stood in a row, and the kids roamed up and down the line, trying to make them laugh. Ilia and Janar watched. Harold hadn't been the first to break down (that was Tassin, who was laughing practically before they started), but he was in the first five. That was why he'd ended up behind the monkeys, along the stair railing.

Charlotte, with her police training, earned a spot by the windows, facing the monkey delegation. Two of Sabri's moms also passed the laugh test, and were stationed along the wall to Harold's left. Those moms could be scary; they must learn the 'mom look' at the same time they got the 'mom voice.' Although Sabri's moms were particularly good at it; Harold's own mom had dropped out of the contest early. She resisted the kids easily enough, but she said there was no way she'd be able to keep it up with real monkeys.

To Harold's surprise, Eliza did an amazing job on the test. She credited her theater classes, and maybe that was it. Harold had seen her studying Rose's posture and attitude, and she appeared to be duplicating it nearly exactly. Harold thought maybe Eliza just watched too many spy movies.

Unfortunately, after the excitement and tension of the afternoon, Harold was struggling to stay alert during the actual negotiations. He should have realized it earlier; after all, he knew the aliens could speak multiple languages. And the language of negotiations was not, apparently, English.

For Harold, the atmosphere was still tense, but could in now way be considered exciting. He had been watching incomprehensible hand signs and hearing indecipherable words for what seemed like hours. With the shades pulled, he couldn't even tell how dark it was outside, and he didn't think checking his watch would be a good idea.

Harold had no idea how the discussion was going. All of the monkeys seemed insane. And of course, he was facing the same direction as the monkeys, so everyone whose expression he could see was projecting vigilant neutrality.

Suddenly, Harold felt a nudge from his right side. One of PJ's dads was trying to get his attention, or maybe trying to get him to stop fidgeting. Harold tried to look sideways without turning his head. PJ's dad was still staring straight ahead, expression blank, but Harold saw his arm moving behind his back. It looked like he was holding something. A cell phone? Actually, it looked like his cell phone.

The phone was passed to Harold, who tried very hard not to think about dropping it. He snuck a peek at the screen; it was his phone. PJ's dad--Harold knew he should remember the man's name, but couldn't--had activated the text message feature. In large blocky letters was a single word:

Bored?

Harold quickly moved the phone behind his back. Eyeing the rest of the room, it didn't look like he'd attracted any unwanted attention. Yet. But he knew this was his chance to maybe find out what was going on, and he didn't want to miss it. Besides, from what he'd been able to pick up, both of Pjerin's dads worked as some kind of self-defense instructors for the Cals. If they thought it was safe to text back and forth, it probably was.

As Harold fingered the buttons on the phone, mentally reviewing where each letter was located, he took a moment to be grateful he'd gone with the quiet-touch keypad when he'd bought his latest cell phone. The loud clicking his old phone made would have been instantly audible in the crowded room. Harold also pondered his return message. Knowing how difficult it was to type a text message, even when he could see the keys, he decided to skip the obvious 'Yes' that would answer the question he'd received.

In fact, Harold was planning to skip anything not completely necessary, including punctuation. He was impressed that PJ's dad had managed to find the question mark, and wondered at the man's familiarity with Harold's phone, but didn't feel the need to repeat his feat. Eventually, Harold wrote just two words before passing the phone back to his right.

Whats happening

It took a minute or two before Harold felt the phone once again pressing into his hands. This time the message required a bit of deciphering.

M offer help fighting

Harold considered this. M probably meant monkeys; they were offering to help the Cals fight the other monkeys? Huh, Harold thought. Did the monkeys think they were stupid? Harold struggled with the second line, then figured out that 'I' must mean Ilia. Ilia was no dummy, obviously, and was insisting on a peaceful solution. After all, if it was a fight they'd wanted, they wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of evacuating the planet.

Whos winning

Harold typed in the question, wondering if it was possible to tell even if you did understand what the participants were saying.

Ilia

Harold felt relieved, although he wasn't sure that PJ's dad wouldn't just say that out of loyalty, or to keep Harold from panicking.

For a moment, the monkeys exploded into a riot of sounds and gestures, causing everyone in the room to tense. Harold felt for his hidden pillowcases behind his back, the conversation temporarily forgotten. But no attack came, and he eventually relaxed enough to type a question and pass the phone back to his right.

It hadn't looked minor to Harold. His heart was still pounding; adrenaline was coursing through him, and his body couldn't seem to decide whether 'fight' or 'flight' was the best option. He hoped it really was almost over.

Sure enough, within five minutes, Ilia, Janar, and Al were bowing to the monkey representatives and clasping their hands. Paws? Harold wanted to applaud, although he had no idea whether or not the agreement reached was one he should be happy about; for all he knew, Ilia had won the monkeys' support for her plan by promising them Earth as a signing bonus.

Also, Harold knew that the danger wasn't over yet. If the monkeys were planning a double-cross, they were running out of time to pull it off. The departure would be just as difficult as the arrival, and hopefully just as well executed. Harold tried to increase his alertness level even more as he turned to watch the monkeys being escorted down the basement stairs. It seemed like he held his breath as he waited for the sounds of the doorway activating.

Finally, a whoop of joy sounded from the basement, followed by noisy congratulations and backslapping. Harold's sigh of relief was echoed by the rest of his family; he realized that they must have been in the dark about what was going on as much as he was. Harold leaned against the railing and slid down to sit on the floor.

"Did we win?" he asked the room at large.

Al's jubilant voice answered as the departure party came back upstairs to the living room. "Yup! And actually, we have you to think for it!"

"Me?" Harold knew he sounded disbelieving; he wondered if Al was being serious. He hadn't done anything!

"Well, not you exactly," Janar said. "But if you hadn't let Al keep the doorway here, we wouldn't have met with the monkeys in your house, and then this whole thing would have been much less simple!"

Simple? Harold looked at his watch. It was still broken, but he was sure that hours must have passed. That was simple? He couldn't find the words to express how un-simple that was.

Luckily, Eliza had no such problem "If you call that simple, I'd hate to see what you call complicated!" She was also sitting on the floor, rotating her ankles.

By now almost everyone had decided non-vertical was the way to go. Of course, there was no furniture left in the room, so they were all scattered around the floor. Sitting, lounging, lying down: Harold did a quick headcount and came up one short. Someone was missing. Before he could start worrying, five kids came barreling around the staircase and headed straight for their parents. Trudy arrived more slowly, deeply involved in a serious-looking conversation with Ilia.

It's the pitter-patter of little feet, Harold thought to himself. Then he thought maybe he was more tired than he'd previously guessed. Sleep would be good. He closed his eyes, then opened them abruptly when he heard his mom's voice.

"Would this be a good time to ask what's going on?" she asked tentatively.

Ilia laughed. Harold looked over at her; she seemed perfectly willing to coordinate an explanation, so he closed his eyes again. The woman was a machine, he thought enviously. She could probably do the whole thing again, then go to a photo shoot, without breaking a sweat. They probably made her the leader just to give her something to do with all that energy.

As Harold was drifting off, he thought he heard someone ask, "Hey Kaloyan, what were you and Harold doing over there?" That's his name, Harold thought. Kaloyan. I knew that.

Harold dozed through most of Ilia's explanation. He thought he mostly managed to stay upright, although he was still leaning against the railing, but he couldn't be sure. He was jolted fully awake by a huge crash from the kitchen.

"Everything's fine!" called a voice he thought must be Trudy. "Nothing to worry about!"

Harold blinked to clear his eyes and sat up straight, wincing at the stiffness in his neck. He looked sleepily towards the kitchen. It looked like all five kids were in there, plus Trudy, doing something that apparently required a great deal of running around. The only counter space Harold could see was covered with dishes and pots. Harold wasn't sure he even owned that many pots, and he wondered if he should go investigate the crashing sound.

PJ's dad's voice came from his right. "Don't worry about the kitchen; the kids have got it under control. They 'volunteered' to make us dinner."

Harold focused his gaze on the source of the voice and did a double take. "Hey, weren't you...on that side..." he gestured vaguely to his left.

The man grinned. "Yeah, we moved around a bit while you were..." he paused, as if searching for the right word. "...resting." Harold studied the room more carefully, and saw that while people were still scattered around the perimeter, most of them had clustered into groups. Both of PJ's dad's were on his right now, and Damaris' mom had moved to his left.

Ilia and Janar were holding hands and leaning against the door that led to the kitchen. Harold thought it was interesting that the more tired they got, the more regal they appeared. He wondered how hard they worked to cultivate the laid-back, 'just regular folks' attitude they normally exuded.

In the far corner, by the windows, the six-person Cal security team was playing cards. Everyone else was listening to Ilia's story. Harold tuned back in when he heard her say, "So that's how we ended up with eight monkeys in the living room."

This was the part Harold had been waiting to hear. The text messages had kept him awake, but weren't detailed enough to keep him informed on what was being decided.

"So we'd basically been going around the same arguments for a while," Ilia said. "We weren't willing to start an all-out war, and the monkeys kept changing their demands. As I've always said..."

"You can't predict monkeys," the aliens voiced the words all together, like it was an oft-repeated phrase for anyone who knew the Cals.

Ilia laughed. "Well, it's true! I thought it might end in stalemate, but then Mama Tibbles got involved."

Harold reviewed that last sentence in his head. His cat had gotten involved in the negotiation? He hadn't even seen her enter the room, although that didn't mean much. Harold had noticed that the kittens' box was now in the living room, and when he craned his neck, he could see that Mama Tibbles wasn't in the box with her babies. He waited as patiently as he could for Ilia to continue.

"She sure showed those monkeys who was boss. For a minute, I thought the claws were going to come out, but she never had to use them. She said she'd had enough of all our bickering; her babies couldn't sleep with all the noise. Then she told us that if we couldn't work things out ourselves, she was going to decide for us. The monkeys followed her back through the doorway just as gentle as can be."

"What's she going to do?" said Harold's mom, still tentative, like maybe she was just humoring the crazy person who thought that a cat had been talking and was going to do something about a group of monkeys who were supposedly trying to stage a coup on an alien planet.

At the same time, Harold's dad asked, "What about the kittens, though?" Harold thought this highlighted an interesting difference in his parents' priorities, but he didn't have the brain power to figure it out right then.

"Oh, she'll be back in a few hours," Ilia said with a wave of her hand, skimming over the first question and only vaguely answering the second. "I don't doubt she could wrap it up even faster if she had a mind to, but you know how it is. You can't rush a cat."

Translation, Harold thought: Ilia didn't really know what was going on either, but like any good leader, she was willing to delegate, and act confident to reassure her people. Harold's parents certainly seemed reassured. They both nodded, although his mom still had a slight frown on her face, like she was trying to figure something out.

"Dinner's ready!" Little Pjerin popped into the living room with a huge smile on her face. "Come on in!"

Everyone shuffled to their feet and made their way into the kitchen. Since there were 29 of them, it took some doing just to get all of them standing in the same space. It had worked in the living room, but then again, there was no furniture in the living room.

Someone clapped and called for attention, and Harold saw Trudy standing on a chair. "We did a big thing today," she said. "A good thing, too. There's a lot of people who'll sleep easier tonight knowing what you all did for them."

Applause broke out, and Harold joined in. To be honest, he still wasn't entirely sure what exactly was done, but he was willing to join in the celebratory spirit.

"A couple people in particular wanted to express their thanks," Trudy continued. "They couldn't be here with us, but they sent along a few tokens of their gratitude." She looked down and said something too quiet for Harold to hear, but he saw movement in the crowd.

"Right now we're passing out trays for everyone; we don't have a table big enough for all of us, but I think you'll like these. A little gift from the woman warrior crew."

The who? Harold had no idea what Trudy was talking about. Al, who'd ended up next to him in the packed kitchen, explained quietly, "That'd be Meshkalla's clan. They've got a tribal name, but Trudy can't pronounce it, and they're mostly women, so she just calls them the women warriors. I'm guessing the other gifts are from Zahar and Toby, probably food."

Harold had really gotten used to the feeling of being clueless since he met Al, and this was no exception. Al was right, however; Toby apparently had an 'in' with the university caterers, and had provided enough sandwiches, fruit, chips, cookies, and water to feed fifty people.

Trudy was really getting into her announcer role. "Meat-free sandwiches are next to the refrigerator; meat sandwiches are by the sink; everything else is set out on the table. Grab a water on your way out and head back for the living room!" More applause as she jumped down from the chair.

Harold accepted his 'tray' from Sabri and looked at Al questioningly. It didn't look like a tray. It looked and felt like two incredibly light tubes of plastic attached together. Al took one tube in each hand and pulled them apart, revealing a translucent flat surface between them. "Meshkalla's people travel a lot," he said. "They've got all sorts of stuff like this. I think..." and he flipped the tray over, studying the bottom. "I'm pretty sure they've got extendable legs, too. Yup, there we go." He did something to the tubes, and four sturdy-looking legs appeared. "I've always wanted one of these!"

They grabbed sandwiches from the 'meat' pile. Ham and cheese for Harold, salami with pickles for Al. Slowly working their way through the crowded room, they made it all the way back to the living room before realizing they'd forgotten drinks. "I'll get them," offered Harold. Al nodded and indicated that he'd find them both a place to sit. Harold headed back, feeling like a fish swimming against the current.

After eating, Harold felt much more awake. Nobody wanted to go to bed until they found out what happened with Mama Tibbles, so they found themselves looking for ways to pass the time. First they moved all the furniture back into the living room and returned the house (mostly) to its former state. Someone put in a cd, which reassured Harold because it meant his cd player wasn't broken yet. Not that the aliens ever meant to break anything, it was just that sometimes they forgot their anti-electronics abilities, especially the kids.

Eliza had produced an astounding array of nail polish from somewhere, and for a while all the kids painted their nails. The guards restarted their card game, drawing more participants as well as spectators. Al wandered into the kitchen, and when he came back he was carrying an armful of thin boxes. He dumped them next to Harold and sat down. Every box had the same brightly-colored words printed on it, proclaiming that it contained "100 plastic drinking straws!" Harold knew those weren't from his kitchen, but he felt there were more important questions.

"What are you going to do with those?" he asked Al.

Al gave him an odd look. "I'm going to build with them," he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Want to help?"

And so they began. Al showed Harold that if you cut a tiny slit in the end of one straw, it would slide over another straw. Sabri was the first kid to join in, followed by PJ and the Cal twins. Damaris was asleep by the kittens; Harold wondered what his reaction would be when he woke up to find Lishendri had painted his toenails.

By the time Al's wrist device beeped, announcing that one traveler was requesting entrance through the doorway, even the security team was passing scissors and straws back and forth. Harold wasn't sure if straw-building was a big activity on Al's planet, or if it was just one of those activities that seemed cool in the circumstances, and would seem crazy again in the morning.

Everyone still awake descended the stairs to welcome Mama Tibbles home. Harold wondered at the complete lack of security precautions, but apparently everybody had faith in the cat's abilities. She arrived through the doorway with her tail held high, prancing gracefully over to the Cals. Ilia and Janar both bowed, then the applause started again. Mama Tibbles seemed to accept it as her due, sitting quietly until the noise died down. Then she stood up and walked up the stairs, presumably to return to her kittens.

Harold followed the cat to the living room and saw her lick Damaris' face before leaping into the box to see her babies. It appeared the danger was past. Everyone was very mellow as they hugged, did a sketchy cleaning of the living room, and went to bed. Al and a couple of the guards took Trudy home. Charlotte, Eliza, Tina, and the Jones parents also headed out; Charlotte and Tina in Charlotte's police car, and the rest in Harold's car.

One by one, Harold's guests rotated through the bathroom and settled down with their blankets and pillows. Lights blinked off all over the house. Finally, just Harold and Al were left, standing talking in the hallway.

"Is it over?" Harold asked in a quiet voice.

Al sighed. "Yeah, it should be. No one's going to argue with a cat; everyone knows that's just a waste of breath."

"What...happened, exactly?" Harold thought maybe he should already know, but he trusted Al not to be too exasperated.

"She won't say," Al replied. "You know how cats are. All she told us is that the monkeys have all agreed to stand down and cease hostilities. Quote, 'you don't need to worry about them any more.'

"Any more like right now, or any more ever?" This all seemed very vague to Harold, and it was making him uneasy.

"Ever, I think." Another sigh. "This is the problem with getting cats involved. They're wonderfully effective, but don't feel the need to communicate the details to us mere mortals."

Harold gave a quiet laugh. "So what happens now?"

"Now? We sleep. Tomorrow will be soon enough to get started with announcements and getting people moving back home. We don't have to do it all in a day this time, so that should make things easier. After that, who knows? Maybe things will get back to normal around here."

Normal, Harold thought. No blanket forts in the living room, no Frisbee games in the backyard. No waiting for the bathroom or eating on the floor, either. Suddenly suspicious, he asked, "You'll still be around, right?"

"Of course," Al said indignantly. "I'm perfectly normal! And you're going to need some help with those kittens." Al paused, then added thoughtfully, "I figured we'd keep the cookies, too."

Harold laughed again, and went to bed. All was right with the world.

It was hard for Harold to believe that it was only Friday. Exactly one week since Al had reappeared on Harold's couch and asked for his help. Since then, Harold had helped plan a planet-wide evacuation, hosted twenty plus aliens in his house, and been generally confused most of the time.

The cheery attitude of Thursday night persisted into Friday morning. Breakfast was a come-as-you-are and eat-what-you-want-as-long-as-you-make-it-yourself kind of meal. By ten o'clock, almost everyone was still in their pajamas, and the kids were starting to get restless.

"Okay, everybody get your shoes and coats on!" Harold heard one of the parents call from the living room. Harold was in the back bedroom with Al, Tassin, and the Cals, having an impromptu strategy session about how to work the reverse evacuation. He glanced at Al when he heard the voice, but Al shook his head to indicate that 'everybody' apparently didn't include them.

There was a knock at the door, and Damaris' mom stuck her head in the door. "We're taking everyone's kids to the park," she said. "Let them run around, get some energy out. We'll feed them, too, so hopefully you guys can have some peace and quiet for a few hours."

"Are they still wearing their pajamas?" Tassin asked, smiling.

"Yeah. That's what's making a 'trip to the park' seem new and exciting. Don't worry; I doubt a few extra people wearing flannel pants and sweatshirts will raise any eyebrows in this town."

Harold silently agreed. That was the unofficial 'uniform' of university students; if anything, it was the parents who would seem out of place. A thought suddenly occurred to him.

"Are you taking the Armadas?" he asked. Those would definitely draw attention.

"No, we figured it'd take longer to find a place to park them than it would to just walk. Isn't it family weekend at the university?"

Harold wasn't sure. It was somewhat disturbing to think that an alien visitor knew more about his town than he did, but he was getting used to it.

"Sounds good," said Janar. "Be safe, have fun, enjoy. We'll take the kids when you get back."

Damaris' mom ducked back out of the room, closing the door behind her. Harold could hear people moving all over the house, talking, looking for coats, shoes, backpacks; the front door slammed once, someone yelled an apology, then silence.

"Well, that was exciting," Al said. "Where were we?"

Eventually it was decided that they would create a sort of sign-up sheet. Actually, Al got Trudy on speakerphone, and she agreed to create the sign-up sheet and post it online. All the people who'd come through Al's doorway would go back home the same way; they could sign up for a departure time online, then just pop into the basement at the appointed time.

Harold was impressed by the efficiency of the plan. It was obviously much faster to make governmental decisions when only a few people had to be consulted. They even had time to order in some pizzas and lounge around the living room before the kids got back.

"Harold," Ilia said at one point, "Did you know there's a woman watching your house with binoculars?" Her tone was conversational, almost casual, as she looked out the front-facing window.

"Where?" Harold asked. "What does she look like?" It was probably just old Mrs. Bale, but it wouldn't hurt to make sure.

"She's in the house diagonally across from this one. Older woman, sort of grandmother crossed with prison guard." Ilia turned away from the window as she spoke, still sounding calm and poised.

Harold stifled a laugh at her description. "Yeah, that's Mrs. Bale. Sort of a childhood nemesis of my sisters and me; pretty much harmless. Now that my parents know what's going on, and we've got Charlotte covering the police department angle, I don't think there's anyone left for her to snitch to. Should make the next town meeting exciting, though."

"I could come with you," Al offered. He gave a wicked smile. "Shake things up a little, offer my support, that kind of thing."

This time Harold did laugh. "I'll think about it," he said, trying to picture Al going head to head with the 'Neighborhood for the Neighbors' committee.

Ilia actually looked slightly alarmed. "You're not going to get in any kind of trouble, are you?" Harold thought it was funny that she seemed to be more worried about him than herself. He figured that was the hallmark of a good leader.

"No, it's fine. She just likes to make noise," Harold answered. He joined Ilia at the window. Feeling reckless, he looked straight at Mrs. Bale and waved.

The weekend passed in a blur. The Cals left early Friday evening, reducing the number of people in the house to thirteen, including Harold. Damaris', PJ's, and Sabri's families all seemed to treat the remaining time as a sort of vacation. They went to the movies, took day trips to visit various friends, walked on the beaches and shopped in the malls. Harold was always invited, but he mostly chose to stay home with Al, who was dealing with all the traffic back through the doorway.

By Sunday, the kittens eyes had opened. According to Harold's recent Google search, that placed their age at a little over one week. Everyone left in the house spent the afternoon rearranging furniture and cleaning. With so many people helping, it often seemed more like a game than a chore. Although Nadeka and Lishendri were gone, two eight year-olds and one "almost nine!", as Damaris continually reminded him, certainly added their share of excitement.

"Harold, what's this?" Sabri asked at one point. Harold had gotten tired of all the kids calling him 'Mr. Jones,' which had been especially confusing when his parents were around, and he'd asked them to just call him Harold. Sabri was holding a small elephant sculpture carved out of some exotic wood. Apparently elephants were one of the Earth animals not covered in her school's curriculum.

Harold took the elephant and stared at it, wondering where she'd found it, and what she'd been doing there. "It's an elephant," he said. "A large mammal that lives in places like Africa and India." That was the extent of Harold's knowledge about elephants, and he hoped Sabri didn't ask anything else. He decided to try distracting her with information about the item itself.

"One of my relatives brought that back for me when they took a trip to India," Harold said. Actually, if he remembered correctly, the elephant had been one of a set of three animals; one for each sibling. He'd wanted the tiger, or even the giraffe, but his parents let his sisters choose first. Now the elephant was one of those things he didn't really want, but felt guilty about getting rid of. This could be the perfect opportunity.

"You can keep it, if you want," he offered Sabri.

"Really?" She looked ecstatic. "Wait till I tell the others!" She raced off, leaving Harold to give a mental groan. Now they were all going to want one.

Luckily, the other kids seemed satisfied with non-elephant items. Since they helped with the cleaning, he let them pick out something from one of the boxes that had never quite gotten unpacked. Harold figured that if he hadn't missed it by now, he wasn't going to.

Damaris ended up with a university baseball cap Harold didn't even know he owned, while PJ opted for a paperweight with Harold's company logo engraved on it. Harold actually felt a little guilty, like he was passing off junk as some kind of cool gift, but the kids' parents seemed genuinely pleased.

In the evening, the whole group went out to dinner. Harold decided he wouldn't be able to make fun of Charlotte and Eliza for eating pizza all the time after this was over. But the wide variety of choices and buffet-style serving made it perfect for a large group, especially one that included kids.

When the time to actually step through the doorway arrived, there were hugs, tears, and lots of promises to stay in touch and visit. Harold and Al breathed simultaneous sighs of relief as the doorway closed. It was the last scheduled departure for the day, so Al could relax, although he'd offered to do a sweep through the house and check for any electronics needing fixing.

Sure enough, by the time Al rejoined Harold in the living room, he'd reset every clock in the house, fiddled around with the microwave, and spent several minutes communing with the shower radio, or whatever it was he did to fix these things. Even Harold's electric razor had apparently come in for some kid play. Al said that as they grew up, they'd learn better control over their...skill. Until then, they left a pretty clear fingerprint on anything electronic that they touched.

Harold offered his thanks, but Al waved it off. "I should be thanking you," he said. "We never could have pulled this off without so much support on this end." Al sat down on the couch and pulled something out of his pocket. "Plus, I think this GPS device is kaput. I found it under the desk in the guest bedroom; I think one of the kids must have tried to fix it after they broke it. I can mess around with it, but it might be easier just to get a new one."

Harold looked at Al, then at the object he was holding, then back at Al. Finally he said, "That's not mine. I don't own a GPS device."

"Oh," Al said. "Well, that's weird."

"It might belong to my parents," Harold offered. He paused. "I guess I know what to get them for Christmas, now."

Al grinned. "Hey, who knows? Maybe I can get it working again, and you can just give them this one! It's like taking re-gifting to a whole new level!"

Later that night, Harold lay in bed, trying to fall asleep. He was alone in the room for the first time in days, and the silence seemed as strange as the noise had been that first night. Even though he knew Al was sleeping down the hall, the house felt empty. Harold knew he should get some rest; he had to be at work by nine the next morning, but he could feel sleep slipping further and further away.

Harold got up as quietly as he could and grabbed a sweatshirt from the closet. As soon as he opened the bedroom door, he realized there was no need to tiptoe past Al's door. The cool glow of the television was coming from the living room, and Harold quickly joined Al on the sofa.

"Couldn't sleep?" Harold asked.

"Too quiet," said Al. "You?"

"Same." Al tossed him a fleece blanket from the neat pile beside the sofa, and Harold wrapped it around his bare feet. He turned to the television, and he and Al fell asleep to the hum of old tv shows.

The evacuation happened in the third week of October. By the time Harold felt like things were getting back on an even keel, it was time for Halloween. His parents were back on the road, and Al was back as a semi-permanent resident in his home. The kittens were growing up fast, with Kermit and 'Harold' taking the early lead in size and activity level.

Several days before the town's official trick-or-treat, Al asked Harold if he could invite Sabri over to experience the event. "We don't have anything like this on our planet," Al explained. "I think it would be a good break for her." Harold readily agreed, though he wondered whether eight-year-olds ever really needed a 'break,' especially one that involved large amounts of candy.

The next day, Al asked if it would be okay if maybe Sabri brought a friend. "You know, so she won't feel like she's the only one," he said. Harold agreed again, and refrained from pointing out that every other child in the town would likely be out trick-or-treating, making it nearly impossible to feel like 'the only one.'

Harold got a call from Al while he was at work that day. "How would you feel if there were a couple friends involved?" Al asked.

"How many friends are we talking about?" Harold wanted to know. "And is there a reason you think I would mind? You said Sabri was planning on coming over just for the trick-or-treat hours, not even staying overnight. You're the one who's going to be going around with them, right?" Harold was planning to stay home and pass out candy, as he did every year.

"Actually," Al began, and hesitated. Harold started to get nervous. "The kids want you to come to," Al said.

"Uh-huh." Harold paused. "How many kids?"

"Oh, all of them want you to come." Harold couldn't tell if Al was being deliberately obtuse, of if he was just imagining it.

Harold counted to ten silently, then asked as slowly and clearly as possible, "How many kids are coming?"

There was a long pause at the other end of the line. "Well...actually, Sabri's whole class wants to come. Everyone who was on the field trip. They've promised to be on their best behavior, though!"

Harold considered this for a moment. It would be nice to see all the kids again, although hyped up on sugar wasn't usually when most young people were at their best. Seven kids with just two adults for trick-or-treat, though... "Any chance of backup from the college gang?" he asked Al, referring to Tina, Sam, and Toby.

"I haven't asked them yet," Al replied. "I wanted to run it by you first. But I'm sure we'll be able to get at least one or two of them."

There was one more pressing detail weighing on Harold's mind. "Do I get to dress up?" he asked.

"I'm going to," said Al. "Does that mean yes, the kids can all come?"

"Sure, invite 'em all," Harold said recklessly. He really hoped he wouldn't regret this.

"Trick-or-treat!" A ghost, a witch, a dinosaur, a cat, two aliens, and a clown all called the words in unison, earning a smile from the woman at the door.

"Look at those adorable costumes!" she exclaimed. "Here, take two each, there's plenty for everyone." As the kids picked their candy, the woman asked, "Now where are you all from? Somewhere out of town?"

Harold held back a laugh. It was true that usually people could identify many of their trick-or-treaters in a town like this. The students usually kept to the dorms or headed to parties, leaving the younger kids to roam the residential streets. Luckily, Al had rehearsed this question with everyone before leaving the house, and his answer hadn't failed them yet.

"We go to school together," said the dinosaur earnestly. "Hey, does this one have nuts in it? 'Cause I'm allergic to nuts."

This sufficiently distracted the woman, and Harold took a minute to give thanks that none of the kids were actually allergic to nuts.

At the next house, an older man answered the door. He offered a huge bowl of Tootsie-Pops to the kids, then turned his attention to their escorts. "What are you supposed to be?" The man had just identified each of the kids costumes, and now he was looking at Tina. Harold assumed he was more trying to start a conversation than anything else.

"I'm a hobo," Tina announced proudly, displaying the stick that was resting over her shoulder, complete with bandana tied around the end, although it was stuffed with paper towels, rather than all her worldly possessions.

"I'm a ninja warrior," offered Toby. Harold thought his costume was stretching it a little; it was really just black sweatpants with a long-sleeved black shirt. On the other hand, it did look cool in the dark. Plus, Harold figured that most college students didn't have a lot of great Halloween costume material lying around their dorm rooms.

"And what about you?" the man looked suspiciously at Harold and Al, who were dressed in matching black suits.

In a somewhat-practiced move, they both pulled sunglasses out of their coat pockets and slid them on. "We're the men in black," said Al.

"You know, from the movie," added Harold.

The man frowned for a second, then nodded as if figuring out what they were talking about. "You'd be keeping an eye on these two aliens, then," he said, gesturing to the kids currently searching through the candy bowl.

When Al spoke, he used his most serious tone. "Actually, we're watching all of them. Don't want any aliens to slip through the cracks, you know." Harold tried to keep the smile off his face as he considered just how true that statement was.

"No one cried, no one got lost, and no one got arrested -- I consider that a successful evening." Al slumped into the sofa as he spoke. "And we got to send them home to their parents before the sugar really hit, which is even better."

It was true. Harold and Al had bribed the kids by promising a trip to Nick's Hotdog stand if they didn't eat any candy before they got home. Harold personally thought the best part of the evening had been seeing Nick and Steve's dog dressed up in a tiny devil costume, sitting under the condiments table.

Harold sat down on what he considered 'his' end of the sofa and leaned his head back on the cushions. "I don't remember trick-or-treat being this tiring when I was a kid," he said. "I'm exhausted."

"Me too," said Al. There was a pause. "Let's do it again sometime."

Harold's parents had decided not to come home for Thanksgiving and Christmas. They said they'd had enough family excitement for a while, and would keep in touch by email. Harold had been worried at first, but their messages to him and his sisters had been full of questions about Al and Tina and all of their "friends." Harold read the most recent aloud to Al one morning at breakfast,

Good morning...from 500 miles away!

Harold automatically looked around for the kittens when he finished reading his mother's post post script. Once they started walking and exploring outside their box, he and Al had put up baby gates in both kitchen doors to keep them in. Within days, the kittens were climbing over the gates, and Mama Tibbles was giving Harold dirty looks whenever she had to leap over a gate to go fetch one of her babies.

After that, Harold and Al rethought their strategy. They spent a Saturday 'kitten-proofing' the house as much as possible, closed all the inside doors, and let the kittens loose in the kitchen-living room-hallway area.

The only problem area was the basement stairs. The posterboard between the railings worked beautifully, and so far the kittens hadn't managed to scale the smooth-surfaced card table lashed to the top of the stairs. No, the problem wasn't that the kittens could get downstairs, it was more that it was exceedingly difficult for anyone else to get down there. Al had taken to just vaulting over the railing onto the top stair whenever he needed to access the doorway.

Harold didn't see Yanos, who was indeed still the smallest of the kittens. Makuri and Kermit usually spent breakfast curled up next to each other in Al's lap. Harold and Sima were the most interested in eating, and could often be found haunting the food dishes looking for tidbits left behind by the others. Bob was the explorer of the group; he had grown infamous over the past few weeks for getting stuck in odd places and then howling to be rescued.

"Don't push your chair back," Al said, smiling. "Our 'runt' is parked right behind you."

Harold twisted carefully around in his chair. Sure enough, right behind the left back leg of his chair, little Yanos was curled up with his favorite toy. The black stuffed rat was as big as the kitten, and they looked a little ridiculous next to each other.

"How am I supposed to get out of my chair and go to work now?" Harold directed the question towards the kitten, who remained sleeping.

"You could always call in sick," offered Al.

"Yeah, I can picture that going over well," Harold replied. "'I'm sorry, I can't come in to work today, because I don't want to disturb the cat.'"

"Hey, your boss was understanding about the whole parental visit thing, right? Maybe he'd go for the cat thing too."

"Hmm. Somehow I don't think so." As Harold spoke, he studied the situation. He carefully angled his chair and slid out, leaving Yanos and his rat undisturbed. "There we go; problem solved."

Al applauded. "Well done. Cat and kitten caretakers everywhere bow down in awe of your skill."

Harold laughed, and headed off to another day at work. Hopefully he'd get a chance to email his parents during his morning break.

Christmas was Harold's favorite holiday. He liked the music, and the lights, and how everyone seemed to try to be nicer to each other for a while. Harold even liked the snow, to a certain extent. What he didn't like was all the obligations; the traditions, the expectations, the pressure to guess what someone else was getting him so he could get them something equivalent.

This year, Harold had vowed, would be different. With his parents halfway across the country getting a tan, he and his sisters had decided to be casual about Christmas for once. No big family parties, no massive dinners. Harold was going over to his sisters' house Christmas afternoon to open presents and eat dinner; other than that, the siblings were on their own to spend the holiday however they chose.

Harold chose to spend it at home. Al had explained that his planet did have solstice celebrations, but they didn't coincide with any of the major Earth holidays. However, since Christmas time coincided neatly with the kittens ten-week birthday, Harold was throwing a combined Christmas and birthday party in their honor for his alien friends. He'd consulted extensively with Al about gift-giving etiquette among his people, and Al had given him the go-ahead.

On the day of December 23rd, Al and Harold welcomed their guests through the doorway. Sabri, along with Tassin and her moms, came through first. Next was PJ and PJ's dads, followed by the Cal family and Damaris.

"No security guards today? Did you give Tom and his gang the slip?" Al asked jokingly.

"Nope! We're playing hooky, so we left them in charge, along with Damaris' parents. Who send their regrets, by the way. Sadly, someone had to stay behind and run the planet." Ilia smiled as she said it, but Harold wondered how much of her statement was actually the truth. He'd always wondered about the connections between the Cals and the other families. 'Our kids all go to school together' didn't seem like quite enough of an explanation for the close friendships and trust that obviously existed between them.

The happy greetings paused as they heard a crash from upstairs. Al rolled his eyes. "I told you getting that tree was a mistake," he said to Harold.

"And I told you that it's not Christmas without a tree. This is my first Christmas living here, and we're having a tree." Harold's tone indicated that they'd had this discussion many times. "At least it didn't sound big enough for them to have knocked it over again."

"They were probably just 'playing; with the ornaments again," Al agreed. "I'll go check on it."

But at the first mention of the kittens, all the kids raced upstairs. The adults followed behind more slowly. By the time Harold reached the living room, everyone was ooh-ing and aah-ing over the cats. The tree looked fine; either someone had already cleaned up the mess, or the crash they'd heard had been something else. Looking more closely, Harold could see that the Frosty the Snowman ornament seemed a little more bedraggled than before, and might have lost another button. That was probably it, then; that ornament seemed to be a particular favorite of the kittens.

Harold liked the tree. It was small, but full, and it smelled like Christmas should smell. He and Al had decorated it with non-breakable, cat-friendly ornaments, and the kittens had showed their gratitude by promptly climbing up the tree and knocking it over. After that Harold bought a sturdier tree stand, and hooked the tree to the windows behind it using fishing line. So far, the kittens hadn't been able to knock it down again, but they kept trying.

The living room was carefully set up to accommodate the fifteen people gathered in it. Furniture had been pushed back and more chairs had been brought in, along with plenty of pillows and blankets for those choosing to sit on the floor. In the middle of the room was a low table with crackers and cheese, along with assorted fruits and vegetables cut up to finger-food size. A Christmas cd was playing in the background.

Harold thought that the only way it could seem more Christmas-like would be if it was snowing. Instead, they were experiencing an unseasonably warm spell, and the sun was shining brightly to melt the small amount of snow they'd already received.

While the kids played with the kittens, the adults caught each other up on all the latest news. Through Al, Harold had learned that the monkeys were keeping up with their side of the bargain, and unrest had died down. It was actually the quiet time of year on Al's planet, with most people either on the move or deeply involved in the growing season. Which was why the Cals were able to play 'hooky,' and probably wouldn't even be missed.

"We're thinking about starting a cultural exchange program between our planet and yours," Ilia said. "For our primary schoolers; sort of a multi-discipline classroom communication project."

Harold obviously looked as confused as he felt, because Al quickly clarified. "Like pen pals," Al explained.

"Oh," Harold said. "That sounds like a great idea. Are you looking for volunteers?"

"Are you volunteering?" countered Janar. Al coughed, like he was trying to cover a laugh, obviously familiar with Harold's inconsistent email habits.

"Actually, I was thinking of my parents," Harold said. "They're always asking about you guys, and they love email. Plus they've got plenty of time on their hands, and they're traveling--seeing lots of different parts of the country." Harold felt a twinge of guilt for volunteering his parents to do this without asking them first, but it passed quickly.

When Al said, "Hey, that's a great idea," Harold felt even that tiny twinge disappear. His parents liked Al a lot, and if both Harold and Al told them being pen-pals to a classroom of alien eight-year-olds would be a fun time and a nice thing to do, they'd probably go for it.

Once conversation started to wind down, Harold stood up. He cleared his throat, and everyone turned towards him. "On Earth, Christmas is a holiday where people who care about each other give each other gifts. All of you have brought a lot of joy...and often excitement...into my life since I met you, and I want to give something back." The kids looked excited; the adults looked curious.

Harold took a deep breath. "You were all here when Mama Tibbles brought her kittens to us. Now that they're old enough to go off on their own, I'd like you to help me find homes for them. With yourselves."

"Wow!"

"You really mean it?"

"Harold, are you sure about this?"

The last question came from Pjerin's dad. Not Kaloyan, Harold thought, the other one.

"Yes, I'm sure," Harold responded. "Mama Tibbles knew here family would be safe here with all of us. Al and I have enjoyed watching them grow up this far, but it's time for these little ones to join their rightful families." Harold observed his audience carefully as he spoke; Al had coached him in the best way to say this, and it looked like it was working.

It was Ilia who spoke next. "We would be honored to share in the lives of these young cats, and we thank you for your generosity."

After that, it was just a matter of deciding which kitten would go with which family. Harold thought the easiest plan was just to split the kittens up based on who had named them, but of course it wasn't that easy. No, there had to be some complex ritual for an event like this. Al had warned him about it ahead of time. "Basically, it's an ancient custom," Al had said, "based on predicting the wishes of both the mother cat and each of her kittens. Honestly, I'd be surprised if it doesn't end up happening just the way you think it should."

Al was right. Harold had been excused to the kitchen for the "ritual," where he passed the time heating another pot of water and making more hot chocolate for everyone. When he returned to the living room, the kittens were all playing pounce and wrestle games with each other, except for Makuri, who was climbing on Damaris, and Bob, who was sitting in Al's lap.

"We've decided that you and Al should keep Bob," Sabri said. "After all, you named him."

So much for the mysterious ritual, Harold thought to himself. Outwardly, he just smiled. "Are you sure?" he asked. Everyone nodded. "I don't know if we can handle just being a two cat household after this," Harold joked. Secretly, he was happy that they were going to get to keep one of the kittens. Harold had always had a soft spot for Bob, even when he got into trouble.

By the time everyone when back through the doorway, five very happy kids with kittens wrapped in blankets in their arms, Harold was exhausted. He loved being around all of the families, but they were so full of energy, and they seemed to feed off each other when they were all together. It was like a rollercoaster ride; once it was over, you needed a bit of a break.

Harold and Al gathered glasses and plates from the living room, carrying them into the kitchen to set them beside the sink. Then they pulled the sofa around so it was facing the television, put their feet up on the coffee table, and cued up The Muppet Christmas Carol. Bob was wiped out; Harold picked him up and deposited him in Al's lap. A few minutes later, Mama Tibbles climbed up on the sofa next to Harold. They watched the movie in silence, until Harold spoke.

"Merry Christmas, Al."

"Merry Christmas, Harold."

"52 card pick up!"

Harold sighed, then smiled. Even after a year, the "card game" Al had taught Sabri hadn't lost its appeal for the now nine-year-old. The other kids in the group shrieked with hysterical laughter, scrambling for cards. The adults just rolled their eyes, although Harold thought he saw Tassin shoot a glare in Al's direction.

Harold was actually grateful for the short reprieve. They were deep into a game that combined the classic Earth deck of cards with a set of rules devised by Al's planet. It seemed like every time Harold played, new rules were mysteriously introduced. He still hadn't figured out if they were real, or if Al and company were just playing a long and involved practical joke on him.

Over the past year, Harold's house had become a popular stomping ground for the aliens he'd first met as refugees. Harold had been (justifiably, he maintained) surprised to find out that it wasn't just the Cals who were important figures on their planet. In fact, he'd been hosting the government's top three advisory branches as well, introduced to him as 'Sabri's parents.' 'Damaris' parents,' and 'PJ's parents.' At least that had explained why they all went to school together.

Harold remember asking Ilia once, "Why do you come to Earth, when you could have anything you ask for on your own planet?" In a rare moment of seriousness, she had replied, "Think about it. Everyone wants to be queen, but no one wants to be the queen all the time. Here I can just be Ilia, and my kids can just be kids, not having to worry all the time about other people watching them." Of course, after that she added, "Plus on Earth I get to drive the Armada."

It was true; Ilia had fallen in love with the monstrous black rental vehicle, and ended up buying one just like it. The big SUV was stored in Harold's garage for easy access. Less easy when Al kept taking it apart to 'tinker,' of course, but easier than having to rent one all the time.

Initially, Harold had been nervous about what people might say about the random car in his garage, but he never heard a word about it. Until Eliza let him in on the 'word on the street,' which apparently ranged from Harold being a secret government agent to Harold's house being a safe house for international spies. So far nothing about aliens. Harold was thinking about starting that one himself.

It was nearly impossible for all the families to be off planet at the same time, although they were planning another Christmas get-together in just a few weeks. They were currently in the midst of a "Guys Night Out," which had somehow expanded to include all the kids. Harold looked around the group as Tom began dealing the cards, thinking about how his life had changed since meeting Al.

"Harold, it's your turn! What are you thinking about? Do you need help figuring out what to do?" Sabri's voice interrupted his thoughts.

"No!" Believe me, Harold thought to himself, I definitely don't need help, at least your help. Sabri had already pranked him one too many times offering 'helpful' tips on how to play this game. "I was just thinking about--"

"Cookies!" Nadeka's voice broke in, and Harold turned to look. Sure enough, there was Kaloyan, making his way down the stairs. His progress was hindered by an excited Bob. The growing cat was weaving around Kaloyan's ankles as if his one goal in life was to be petted on the stairs.

"Are those pumpkin-oatmeal-chocolate chip?" asked PJ. "Those are my favorite!"

There was a pause in the game as everyone dropped their cards and gathered around the cookies. Mmm, Harold thought. Fresh from the oven. Or something. Actually, it was kind of funny how--

"Hey, what were you going to say before?" Tom asked. Trust the security guard to never leave a loose end, even if in a conversation. Harold had to think for a minute to remember his previous train of thought.

"Oh," he said. "I was just thinking about how--"

"Mama Tibbles! No, those are our cards! You're not supposed to eat them!" This time it was Lishendri who interrupted. Harold spun around to see Mama Tibbles flop down on the large discard pile in the center of the card game circle. It looked like she'd already walked around the outside; each person's carefully stacked cards were knocked over and mixed together. The large tabby had one card in her mouth, speared by a single sharp tooth. She looked smug.

"I guess we can't play anymore." Damaris didn't sound too upset about it. His turn had been right after Harold's, and they shared a similar lack of success with the game. Harold wouldn't have put it past Damaris to have orchestrated Mama Tibbles little show. He gave the boy a suspicious glance, but Damaris was wearing his most innocent expression. Just goes to show, Harold thought, it's always the quiet ones.

"Let's go upstairs!" Damaris' suggestion seemed to confirm Harold's suspicion.

"Let's deal again! I bet Harold has another deck!" Sabri accepted it as a given that they wouldn't disturb the cat. In fact, Harold did have several decks. This wasn't the first time a game had been interrupted by curious felines.

"Let's let Harold finish whatever he keeps trying to say!" Al gave Harold a wry grin as he spoke.

"Well," Harold began. "I was just thinking about how it's been over a year--"

Al's incoming doorway alert buzzer sounded. Someone was requesting Earth access at Al's through-point. Harold still found it hard to believe that this amazing piece of technology was operating in his basement, and turned to watch. The rest of the group was still 'discussing' what to do next, and didn't bat an eye when five people stepped through the doorway with stacks of luggage and floral print Hawaiian shirts.

Harold saw one of the Hawaiian-shirted travelers do a double-take, probably at the sight of his planet's leader fighting with a nine-year-old over the last cookie. The rest of the incoming group was focused on Al.

"You mean this isn't the Maui doorway?"

Harold smirked. He loved this part.

"Ah, no," Al said. "I'm afraid not. You'll have to go back, and, ah, try again."

"Aw, man! Mom's gonna razz us on this forever!"

The group was still grumbling as they hefted their luggage and disappeared back through the doorway. Harold couldn't hold back a laugh.

"That sign you put up is working great!" he said to Al.. Al grabbed his notebook from a nearby table and marked down five more hash marks.

"I know! That makes eleven, just today!" Al crowed with delight, and high-fived Harold. As they turned towards the other end of the basement to find out what the kids had voted to do next, Al paused. "You know, if someone had told me when I first met you that this is where we'd end up in a year, I never would have believed them. Things sure have changed a lot."

Harold smiled. Finally, it had gotten said, even if he hadn't been the one to say it. "I was just thinking the same thing."