I Am Number Four

“Good job, buddy. I think we have a new morning ritual.”

I pull my bag from over my shoulders, unzip it, and remove a package with a few strips of bacon and I give them to him. He scarfs them down.

“Okay, boy, I’m heading in. Go on home. Henri’s waiting.”

He watches me for a second, and then goes off trotting towards home. His comprehension completely amazes me. Then I turn and walk into the building and head for the shower.

I am the second person to enter astronomy. Sam is the first, already sitting in his normal seat at the back of the class.

“Whoa,” I say. “No glasses. What gives?”

He shrugs. “I thought about what you said. It’s probably stupid for me to wear them.”

I sit beside him and smile. It’s hard to imagine I’ll ever get used to his eyes looking so beady. I give him back the issue ofThey Walk Among Us . He tucks it into his bag. I hold up my fingers like a gun and nudge him.

“Bang!” I say.

He starts laughing. Then I do, too. Neither of us can stop. Every time one of us is close the other starts laughing and it begins all over again. People stare at us when they enter. Then comes Sarah. She walks in by herself, saunters up to us with a look of confusion and sits in the seat beside me.

“What are you guys laughing at?”

“I’m not really sure,” I say, and then laugh a little more.

Mark is the last person to walk in. He sits in his usual seat, but instead of Sarah sitting beside him today there’s another girl. I think she’s a senior. Sarah reaches beneath the table and grabs hold of my hand.

“There is something I need to talk to you about,” she says.

“What?”

“I know it’s last-minute, but my parents want to have you and your dad over for Thanksgiving di

“Wow. That would be awesome. I have to ask, but I know we don’t have plans, so I assume the answer is yes.”

She smiles. “Great.”

“Since it’s just the two of us, we don’t usually even do Thanksgiving.”

“Well, we really go all out. And my brothers will both be home from college. They want to meet you.”

“How do they know about me?”

“How do you think?”

The teacher walks in and Sarah winks, then we both start taking notes.

Henri is waiting for me as usual, Bernie Kosar propped up on the passenger seat with his tail wagging, thumping the side of the door the second he sees me. I slide in.

“Athens,” says Henri.

“Athens?”

“Athens, Ohio.”

“Why?”

“That’s where the issues ofThey Walk Among Us are being written, and printed. It’s where they are being mailed.”

“How did you find that out?”

“I have my ways.”

I look at him.

“Okay, okay. It took three emails and five phone calls, but now I have the number.” He looks over at me. “That is to say, it wasn’t all that hard to find with a little effort.”

I nod. I know what he is telling me. The Mogadorians would have found it just as easily as he did.

Which means, of course, that the scale now tips in favor of Henri’s second possibility—that somebody got to the publisher before the story further developed.

“How far away is Athens?”

“Two hours by car.”

“Are you going?”

“I hope not. I’m going to call first.”

When we get home Henri immediately picks up the phone and sits at the kitchen table. I sit down across from him and listen.

“Yes, I’m calling to inquire about an article in last month’s issue ofThey Walk Among Us.”

A deep voice responds on the other end. I can’t hear what is said.

Henri smiles. “Yes,” he says, then pauses.

“No, I’m not a subscriber. But a friend of mine is.”

Another pause. “No, thank you.”

He nods his head.

“Well, I’m curious about the article written on the Mogadorians. There was never a follow-up in this month’s issue as expected.”

I lean in and strain to hear, my body tense and rigid. When the reply comes the voice sounds shaken, disturbed. Then the phone goes dead.

“Hello?”

Henri pulls the phone away from his ear, looks at it, then brings it back in.

“Hello?” he says again.

Then he closes the phone and sets it on the table. He looks at me.

“He said, ‘Don’t call here again.’ Then he hung up on me.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

AFTER DEBATING IT FOR SEVERAL HOURS,Henri wakes up the next morning and prints door-to-door directions from here to Athens, Ohio. He tells me he’ll be home early enough so we can go to Thanksgiving di

“Are you sure this is worth it?” I ask.

“We have to figure out what’s going on.”

I sigh. “I think we both know what is going on.”

“Maybe,” he says, but with full authority and none of the uncertainty usually accompanying the word.

“You do realize what you would tell me if the roles were reversed, right?”

Henri smiles. “Yes, John. I know what I would say. But I think this will help us. I want to find out what they have done to scare this man so badly. I want to know if they have mentioned us, if they are searching for us by means that we haven’t yet thought of. It will help us to stay hidden, stay ahead of them. And if this man has seen them, we’ll learn what they look like.”

“We already know what they look like.”

“We knew what they looked like when they attacked, over ten years ago, but they might have changed.

They’ve been on Earth a long time now. I want to know how they’re blending in.”

“Even if we know what they look like, by the time we see them on the street, it’s probably going to be too late.”

“Maybe, maybe not. I see one, I’m going to try and kill it. There’s no guarantee it’s going to be able to kill me,” he says, this time with the uncertainty and none of the authority.

I give up. I don’t like a single thing about him driving to Athens while I sit around at home. But I know my objections will continue to fall on deaf ears.

“You sure you’ll be back on time?” I ask.

“I’m leaving now, which puts me there about nine. I doubt I’ll stay more than an hour, two at the most. I should be back by one.”

“So why do I have this?” I ask, and hold up the slip of paper with the address and phone number.

He shrugs. “Well, you never know.”

“Which is precisely why I don’t think you should go.”

“Touche,” he says, bringing an end to the discussion. He gathers his papers, stands from the table, and pushes in the chair.

“I’ll see you this afternoon.”

“Okay,” I say.

He walks out to the truck and gets inside. Bernie Kosar and I walk out to the front porch and watch him drive away. I don’t know why, but I have a bad feeling. I hope he makes it back.

It’s a long day. One of those days where time slows down and every minute seems like ten, every hour seems like twenty. I play video games and surf the internet. I look for news that might be related to one of the other children. I don’t find anything, which makes me happy. That means we’re staying under the radar. Avoiding our enemies.

I periodically check my phone. I send a text message to Henri at noon. He doesn’t reply. I eat lunch and feed Bernie, and then I send another. No reply. A nervous, unsettled feeling creeps in. Henri has never failed to text back immediately. Maybe his phone is off. Maybe his battery has died. I try to convince myself of these possibilities, but I know that neither of them is true.

At two o’clock I start to get worried. Really worried. We’re supposed to be at the Harts’ in an hour.

Henri knows the di