Twelve Impossible Things Before Breakfast by Jane Yolen Page A

reputation, after all, and it wasn’t exactly for telling the truth. His father said he stretched things too often and his mother said he had only a nodding acquaintance with reality. His teacher had once called him a name that rhymed with “fire,” and not in a joking way, either.
    On Wednesday he saw the third alien—a red one—eating a raccoon. By then it was really too late to tell because by Wednesday, everyone knew about them. And the aliens were moving up and down the food chain faster than anyone could imagine, eating all kinds of animals, from birds to squirrels to rabbits to raccoons to cats and dogs.
    The way everyone got to know about the aliens was that Old Lady Montague’s barn cats disappeared in an awful gray slosh while she watched from her kitchen window. She dialed 911 immediately, plaguing the police with stories about three Martians landing. Of course, she’d done that before, so they didn’t really believe her right away. But then Colonel Brighton’s pit bull, the one that had bitten three kids and had to wear a muzzle, was slurped up while the colonel and a neighbor looked on. So this time the police had to listen. However, by the time the police arrived, all that was left of the dog were a couple of toenails, its heavy chain, the muzzle, and that awful smell.
    Hard Copy sent a reporter to cover the invasion, if you can call three aliens an invasion; which of course the reporter did, though only those three—the gray, the green, and the red—were ever seen. Brandon’s science teacher was interviewed, and Captain Covey of the state police was, too. Even the mayor said a few words, because it was an election year, though he was cut off in midsentence by a commercial. But really, all they managed was “We haven’t a due.” A conservative study group blamed satanists, the D&D after-school gaming society, and proponents of the ERA, in that order. Everybody was hoping for Oprah or Rikki Lake, and one group of mothers from a nurs ery play group actually put a call in to Montel. All they got was Hard Copy. Hard Copy had no pictures, except of the townspeople talking, because the three creatures didn’t seem to stay in any one place long enough, unless you counted the smell they left behind. No one could figure out where they’d be next, and you can’t videotape an odor.
    â€œThe reporter should have interviewed me. I could have told him plenty,” Brandon complained to Freddy over the phone. “After all, I saw the aliens first, up close and personal. When they were still working on just the small stuff.” But Freddy was mad at him for not having said anything on Monday, so Freddy wasn’t quite as sympathetic as he could have been.
    Brandon knew the grown-ups were really getting scared when Dad drove him and his sister to school, then picked them up after school and drove them home again. He showed them how to use the pellet gun, the fire extinguisher, and the pepper spray. Mom canceled their piano lessons, Brandon’s hockey practice, Kathy’s ballet class, and the paper. Well, she didn’t exactly cancel the paper. But the paperboy refused to deliver any more.
    In effect, the entire family was grounded.
    Heck—the entire town was grounded.
    â€œAnd all just because of three hungry aliens,” Brandon complained to Freddy’s answering machine. Freddy and his family weren’t answering in person. They had gone for a long visit to Freddy’s grandmother, who lived in Miami. They weren’t coming back till the aliens were gone. “At least Miami’s aliens are human,” the machine said with Freddy’s stepdad’s voice.
    By now the aliens had moved on to horses. And cows. CNN came to town and reported that, so it had to be true. But no one knew why the aliens were there, except as a bold new venture in eating out. Going where no aliens had gone before. That kind of stuff. And no