Out in the street, Ringo and his friends were still standing there, as though stuck to the pavement by some invisible force.
“What was that?” asked a small, skinny boy who went by the name of Whippet.
“Dunno,” said the huge boy they called Tank, scratching his head.
“Well, I wasn’t scared,” said Ringo defiantly.
“Neither was I,” chorused all the others quickly.
“I was just going to have a word with that weirdo in the space suit when it got frightened and ran away.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” his friends all agreed quickly. “Course you were, Ringo. Course you were.”
“So I think,” Ringo went on, “you”—he pointed at the newest member of his gang—“should ring the doorbell.”
“Me?” The boy gulped.
“You said you weren’t scared,” said Ringo.
“I’m not!” he squeaked.
“Then you can ring the bell, can’t you?”
“Why can’t you do it?” asked the new boy.
“Because I asked you first. Go on.” Ringo glared at the boy. “Do you wanna be part of this gang?”
“Yes!” said the boy, wondering which was worse—meeting a spaceman and suffering the curse of Alien Life or making Ringo angry. He settled for the spaceman—at least he wouldn’t have to see him every day at school. He edged toward Eric’s front door uneasily.
“Then ring the bell, Zit,” said Ringo, “or you’ll be an ex-member of this gang.”
“Okay,” muttered Zit, who didn’t like his special new gang name much either. The others all took a few steps backward.
The new boy’s finger hovered over the bell.
“Ringo,” said one of the others suddenly, “what’re we gonna do if he opens the door?”
“What’re we gonna do if he opens the door?” Ringo echoed the question while he tried to think of an answer. He lookayed up at the sky as though searching for an idea. “We’re gonna—” Even Ringo wasn’t being his usual confident, thuggish self. But before he could come up with an answer, he let out a shout of pain. “Arrrrggghhhh!” he yelped as a hand grabbed him by the ear and twisted it very hard.
“What,” said a stern voice, “are you boys doing, hanging around in the street?” It was Dr. Reeper—Ringo and George’s class teacher from school. He had Ringo firmly by the ear and clearly didn’t intend to let go. The boys were very startled to see a teacher outside the school grounds—they never imagined that teachers actually had other lives to lead or had anywhere to go but their classrooms.
“We’re not doing nothing,” squealed Ringo.
“I think you mean, ‘We are not doing anything,’ ” corrected Dr. Reeper in a teacherly voice, “which in any case isn’t true. You are obviously doing something, and if I find out that that something has to do with bullying smaller children—like, for example, George . . .” Dr. Reeper stared very hard at all the boys to see if any of them flinched at the mention of George’s name.
“No sir no sir no sir no sir,” said Ringo, who feared his ear might come off in the teacher’s hand. “We never touched him. We were running after him because he . . .”
“Left-his-lunchbox-behind-at-school,” said Whippet very quickly.
“And we wanted to give it back to him before he got home,” added Zit, the new boy.
“And did you succeed?” said Dr. Reeper with a nasty smile, letting go of Ringo’s ear just a little bit.
“We were just about to hand it over,” improvised Ringo, “when he went into that house.” He pointed at Eric’s front door. “So we were ringing the bell to give it to him.”
Dr. Reeper let go of Ringo’s ear so suddenly that Ringo fell to the ground.
“He went in there?” Dr. Reeper questioned them sharply as Ringo staggered to his feet again.
“Yeah.” They all nodded in unison.
“Why don’t you boys,” said Dr. Reeper slowly, “let me have George’s lunchbox and I’ll hand it back to him.” He fished around in his pocket and brought out a crumpled ten-dollar bill, which he dangled in front of their noses.
“Who’s got the lunchbox?” questioned Ringo.
“Not me,” said Whippet immediately.
“Not me,” mumbled Tank.
“It must be you then,” said Ringo, pointing at Zit.
“Ringo, I haven’t . . . I didn’t . . . I wasn’t . . .” Zit was panicking now.
“Very well,” said Dr. Reeper, glaring at the four of them. He put the money back in his pocket. “In that case, I think you’d better scram. Do you hear me? Scram!”
Once the boys—who didn’t need telling twice—were gone, Dr. Reeper stood in the street, smiling to himself. It wasn’t a pleasant sight. Checking that no one else was coming or going, he went up to Eric’s front window and squinted through it. The curtains were drawn, so he only had a small opening to look through. He couldn’t see much, just two strangely shaped, shadowy figures, which seemed to be standing near some kind of doorway inside the house.
“Interesting,” he muttered to himself. “Very, very interesting.”
Suddenly, the temperature in the street dropped dramatically. For a second it felt as though air from the North Pole were blowing along the street. Strangely, the bitter wind seemed to be coming from under Eric’s front door, but as Dr. Reeper bent down to investigate, it stopped. When he went back to look through the window, the two figures had gone and there was no inside doorway to be seen.
Dr. Reeper nodded to himself. “Ah, the chill of outer space—how I long to feel it,” he whispered, rubbing his hands together. “At last, Eric, I’ve found you! I knew you’d come back one day.”
