1DANI
THERE WAS AN ALIEN in Cat Mulvaney’s bedroom.
That’s what Dani thought in the split second before she realized that the alien was Cat. The other girl was wearing enormous safety goggles that magnified her eyes, making her look like an insect. She had a striped scarf covering her nose and mouth, but it had slipped down just enough for the pale freckled skin on the bridge of her nose to peek out. Her hair was tucked up under a ratty gray knit cap, but some frizzy blond strands had escaped to stick out sideways. Her hands were encased in yellow rubber gloves, and she wore a coat that was olive green, puffy, and about four sizes too big.
Cat caught Dani staring and pulled the scarf away from her face. “You’re here! Welcome!”
Dani entered Cat’s attic lair. That was really the only way to describe it: Her bedroom was like a mad scientist, a conspiracy theorist, and a detective had opened an interior-decorating business. One wall was papered with pictures of UFOs and imaginary creatures, like the Loch Ness Monster. Another had a giant map of the United States, dotted with pushpins and crisscrossed with multicolored strings. The ceiling was painted black, with tons of those stick-on glow-in-the-dark stars arranged into patterns that looked, to Dani’s somewhat-knowledgeable eyes, astronomically accurate. There was an overflowing bookshelf, a desk with some lab equipment Dani didn’t know seventh graders could even have at home, and a fancy telescope poking out of one window.
“Cool, right?” Cat beamed at the way Dani’s eyes jumped from one strange thing to the next. “I moved up here a couple of years ago. It’s still a work in progress. My mom doesn’t care what I do with the space, as long as I don’t burn down the house.”
“Oh,” Dani said. Her bedroom had a quaint seaside sunrise theme. Dani’s mom was an artist and had picked out bedding, curtains, a rug, and lampshades to match two of her own paintings. The only thing in the room that felt like Dani—besides the science texts piled around the desk—was the periodic table of the elements Dani had found at Goodwill last year. Since it was done in watercolors and complemented the overall color scheme, her mom had let her put it up.
“Is that my doorknob?” Cat asked, pointing.
Dani looked down at her hand. “Yeah. It, um … came off?”
“It does that.” Cat turned back to her desk, where a brown goo was bubbling in a glass beaker over a gas flame. She used a pipette to squeeze a drop of blue liquid into the mixture and then jotted something down on a notepad.
Dani still couldn’t believe she was in Cat Mulvaney’s house. Cat was the designated school weirdo. She seemed nice enough, but she and Dani were not friends. They were partners—by default. Dani and Cat were the only two kids in their middle school who had applied to compete for this year’s McMurray Youth Science Award. Dani had tried to convince each of her best friends to join her, but they’d all said no … and so here she was.
As she watched Cat conduct her experiment, Dani felt her heart begin to rise. Cat clearly knew her way around a Bunsen burner.
Then the other girl said, “I suspect a haunting.”
“A haunting?” Dani repeated faintly.
“The doorknob,” Cat explained. “My tests have all come back negative, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a paranormal presence here. I mean, this house is two hundred years old.”
Dani’s heart fell back down to the pit of her stomach. “You believe in ghosts?”
“Of course. There’s a lot of evidence that supports— Ack!” The gooey substance in the glass beaker had begun to smoke. Cat rushed to put out the flame. “You jinxed me!” she joked. “I said that thing about Mom not wanting me to burn down the house and then … well, look.”
While Cat fanned gross-smelling plumes out the open window, Dani took a closer look at the map on the wall. Each pushpin had a date written next to it, plus some letters and symbols. Dani had no clue what any of it meant.
When the air had cleared, Cat pushed her safety goggles up onto her forehead. The thick plastic had left a deep red groove around both eyes and across her nose. “Anyway, thanks for coming over to talk about our project,” she said, rubbing furiously at her face.
“Thanks for inviting me,” Dani said. “I brought a list of ideas. You have our registration packet, right?” Dani had been home sick all of last week, but she’d made sure to check in with Ms. Blanks, their science teacher and contest sponsor. The McMurray Competition was too important to not have all their ducks in a row.
“Ms. Blanks gave me our packet, yes…,” Cat said slowly.
Dani pulled a piece of paper from her bag and unfolded it, smoothing out the creases. “We could test for contaminants in the reservoir. Like, is there runoff from the Bug-Be-Gone plant that’s affecting the water quality? I also thought a plant study in the Hilldale Marsh could be—”
“Actually,” Cat interrupted, “we’re all set.”
“All set?” Dani’s pulse sputtered. “What do you mean?”
“I already submitted our proposal. Don’t worry. You’re gonna love it.” Cat peeled off her rubber gloves and shrugged out of her coat. Underneath, she wore faded jeans and a tie-dyed T-shirt with a picture of a space alien wearing aviator shades. She started doing a drumroll on her desk. “For the tenth annual McMurray Youth Science Competition, we will be investigating…”
Not ghosts, Dani thought desperately. Anything but ghosts!
“The Weston Farm Circles!” Cat finished, making jazz hands for emphasis.
If Dani’s heart had been in her stomach before, now it was in her feet. “No,” she said.
“Yes,” Cat said back.
To be fair to Cat, it was exactly the kind of thing Dani had expected her partner to propose. Cat had an alien on her T-shirt, aliens on her bedroom walls, and a bumper sticker on her door that read, “Aliens are real—just ask Bigfoot!” Little green men were her thing. Thus: designated school weirdo. But that’s why Dani had come up with a list of awesome project ideas herself. Every one of her proposals was a potential winner.
And the Weston Farm Circles?
Every thirteen years, their tiny town became a tiny bit famous. What happened at Weston Farm was the reason why. “Everyone knows the circles are fake,” Dani said. “There’s nothing to investigate. Anyway, the McMurray is a science award.”
Cat looked wounded. “Confirming the existence of extraterrestrial life is scientific. It’s my life’s work.”
What was Dani supposed to say to a girl who genuinely believed aliens visited their small town every thirteen years to leave fancy patterns in a field?
Maybe Ms. Blanks could petition the McMurray committee to let Dani enter the competition on her own, even though the projects were supposed to be done in pairs. Dani knew she was one of Ms. Blanks’s favorite students. Science was her best subject. And winning this award … well, it would mean everything.
Along with the trophy, McMurray winners received a full scholarship to a six-week summer science camp, ScienceU, held at one of the state’s top universities. Dani was desperate to attend ScienceU. But her parents ran an arts day camp here in town, and every time she asked to do something else, they pointed out that the best—and cheapest—option was right here. If Dani won a full scholarship to ScienceU, they couldn’t say it was too expensive. They would have to let her go.
She would be the best student ScienceU had ever seen. They’d offer her a full scholarship for the next summer and the next. And then nothing like the Dance of Doom would ever happen again.
The lights flickered.
Cat squealed with excitement. “It’s beginning!” She lowered her voice so it was deep and serious. “There are signs before the circles. Power surges. Strange lights in the sky. Other unexplainable phenomena.”
Dani scoffed. “There are plenty of explanations for lights flickering. You said your house is two hundred years old. I bet you blow fuses constantly.”
“Nope,” Cat said. “Dad paid to have an electrician update everything a few years ago.”
The lights flickered again.
And again.
And again, four more times.
“Explain that,” Cat said triumphantly.
“Um.” To be honest, Dani was out of theories. Electrical stuff wasn’t her area of expertise.
But she knew it wasn’t aliens.
“It’s a sign.” Cat pulled out an oversize desk calendar and drew a big red X beside today’s date. “The first sign. There’s more coming. Just you wait.”
“Well, it’s getting late,” Dani said, backing toward the stairs. “I should probably—”
“No way.” Cat spun around. “We’re going on a field trip.”
“My parents want me home for dinner—”
“This won’t take long. I have to show you something.”
Dani sighed. “What is it?”
“A surprise.” Cat wiggled her eyebrows.
“I have a lot of homework…,” Dani tried.
“This has to do with our project. It counts as homework.” Cat thrust a heavy backpack into Dani’s arms. “You rode your bike, right? Can you carry this? We aren’t going far.” She slung a second backpack over her own shoulders and headed for the stairs.
Dani hesitated, looking again at the UFO photos on the wall and the stars on the ceiling. Arguing with Cat felt like being blown along by a gust of wind.
“Fine,” she finally said. “But only this once.”
2CAT
DANI WILLIAMS WAS NOT what Cat had expected. She didn’t know her very well, of course, but in class she’d always seemed to be a hardworking student, genuinely interested in science.
Turned out, she was also kind of a complainer.
They were only riding their bikes a little less than a mile from Cat’s house. And Dani wasn’t even carrying the heaviest equipment.
Some people just didn’t have the drive to go the extra mile for research.
But Cat wasn’t about to let that get her down. If her calculations were correct—and they almost always were—she had quite the surprise in store for Dani.
“Where are we going again?” Dani asked for the third time. Cat sighed and brushed away the hair that kept slipping out from under her knit cap.
“The power substation. It’s just up this hill.” The road began to take a steep incline.
Dani groaned. “Why is it so important we go there now? My parents won’t be thrilled that I’m out here alone, now that it’s getting dark.” She eyed the woods on either side of the road.
“Well, you’re not alone. I’m here, too, and I know this path like the back of my hand. It’s a safe neighborhood. My mom can vouch for that.” Cat smiled. “As for why … you’ll see. Five minutes after we get there, give or take. We’ll have just enough time to set up the equipment.”
They rode up the hill, Cat’s adrenaline pumping. She was beyond excited to be participating in the McMurray Youth Science Competition for the first time. It was only open to grades seven through twelve, and each school in the state could send two projects per grade level. The contest was sponsored by the McMurray Corporation, which did pharmaceutical research, and the judges were always leaders in their various scientific fields.
No seventh-grade team had ever won the Grades Seven to Nine category. Cat planned to be the first.
But to Cat, this project was about so much more than just a science fair or even a scholarship to science camp. She knew aliens existed, and she wanted to prove it. Her dad was a scientist at NASA, and he lived for his work. Which was why he didn’t live with them anymore. He had the coolest job in the world. For her tenth birthday, he had taken Cat to the NASA facility where the Apollo 11 mission control had been. She’d even had the chance to say a very nervous hello to one of the astronauts on the International Space Station. It was the best birthday ever.
Copyright © 2024 by MarcyKate Connolly and Kathryn Holmes
Copyright © 2024 by Brittney Bond
