"Do you think they'll want an interview?" Greg asked hopefully. John shrugged, opening a bag of potato chips and watching as the reporters and journalists all crashed through the stalks.
"Maybe later." He shrugged, shoving as many chips into his mouth as he could because he didn't feel like dropping any back into the bag.
"I heard someone say that this is probably the work of something out of Star Trek." Harry pointed out. "I fear for society."
"You are society, and you're as caught up in this as they are!" John debated.
"I know the difference between real aliens and Starfleet." Harry debated, curling up in a little ball on the picnic table, her alien action figures peeking out of her sweatshirt pocket.
"You don't even know what Starfleet is." John insisted.
"I do too!" she whined, hitting him lightly before pouting a little bit.
"Maybe they'll all get lost out there, or abducted." Greg suggested.
"That will be a liability I think." John guessed.
"They were here on their choice. In fact, I didn't hear anyone even ask permission." Greg admitted.
"Who even told them in the first place?" John asked, craning his neck as if someone were on the phone at the moment, calling the Crazy Club.
"The neighbors of course, they call in everything from a shadow on their property to a crop circle." Harry pointed out.
"Ya, I guess so." John agreed solemnly, looking over to see both of his crazy neighbors standing on their own picnic table with a very high powered camera, as if to document this whole thing.
"John, Greg!" said an excited voice from behind them. John groaned, knowing without even turning around that Mike had officially arrived.
"Hey mate; we were wondering how long it would take you to show up!" Greg said happily. John couldn't decide if he was pretending to be excited or he was just playing the role of supportive friend, but John could say quite honestly that he was far from thrilled about Mike's presence.
"So this is it then, another crop circles, in John Watson's own backyard! How ironic." Mike laughed.
"It's happened before." John grumbled.
"Ya, but the night after you made fun of aliens? They're listening, they're always listening." Mike insisted, tapping his ears to get his point across. John rolled his eyes, setting the bag of chips aside and crossing his arms.
"Are you here to taunt me or go get some pictures?" John asked.
"Well, both I suppose. I'll go in once the reporters are done, but they're sloppy and have no respect for any of the corn, they'll knock down stalks left and right, that's what always makes it hard to tell if a crop circle was made neatly or not." Mike shrugged.
"It was neat; John and I saw it from his window." Harry said happily. Mike looked down on her in surprise, as if not noticing her presence until now.
"Who are you?" he asked, looking intrigued by another alien believer.
"Harry Watson, I'm John's sister." She said proudly.
"Hello Harry Watson, I'm Mike. Now what was this about an aerial view?" he asked.
"No way, absolutely not, you are not going in my house." John insisted, shaking his head to get his point across.
"You can stand on the picnic table." Greg offered. Mike smiled, and John knew that Greg had officially done it. So, the rest of a whole hour was dedicated to skirting around Mike's sneakers, trying to pretend that it wasn't terribly uncomfortable to have the wooden planks move up and down on his spine as Mike stepped around with his camera, trying to get shots from above.
"It looks pretty circular, I must admit, it looks authentic." Mike decided. John just rolled his eyes, not really in the mood for hearing his constant rambling.
"It would be authentic if aliens existed." John muttered.
"Hey, I heard that." Mike insisted, kicking John lightly in the back of the head with his converse. John groaned, but shut his mouth, watching as yet another news channel went rushing into the corn, followed by a group of tourists, all decked out in their alien merchandise, looking very guilty as they tried to discreetly sneak into the field.
"Does this destroy the farmer's crops?" Greg wondered.
"I'd imagine, especially if the kids get creative and try to go bigger." John decided.
"It's not kids doing it!" Mike insisted again, still balancing on the table for a better angle.
"Ya, ya, whatever you say." John sighed. When it started to get later, eventually all the news crews packed up and drove off, leaving without even a goodbye, or, to Greg's disappointment, an interview. Mike had to go home before he could go poke around in the corn, claiming that his mom had dinner ready and he would be yelled at if he stayed out too long. Greg said his goodbyes as well, tagging along with Mike as he walked off towards town. So soon it was just John, Harry, and their neighbors, who now had taken advantage of the free space to wander around in the fields themselves.
"So do you think it's a hoax?" Mr. Watson asked over dinner. They were having vegetable beef soup, not really a meal for a warm day, but it was still very tasty.
"Of course it's a hoax." John laughed, and Mr. Watson cracked a guilty smile.
"Well, I don't know, this one seems different than the other thousand that were spotted in this area." He insisted.
"How?" Mrs. Watson asked.
"I'm sure you can ask the researchers, they'll make up some sort of excuse tomorrow morning." he decided. The two Watson parents burst into judgmental laughter, and John sort of forced a smile. He had been thinking exactly what his father had been joking about, how this one circle seemed a lot different than the other ones. This one had an air of secrecy to it, an air of forbidding that kept John from investigating himself. Harry of course was all moody at her parent's mockery, the only person in the family that actually took this whole alien rubbish seriously.
"Don't laugh, it might be real." She insisted, letting her spoon sink the floating bits of carrot and potato before letting them reemerge a moment later. This seemed to entertain her more than the idea of actually eating the soup did.
"Harry, honey, aliens may exist in your Barbie's world, but they don't exist here. There may be microscopic lifeforms on other planets, but it took millions and millions of years for us to evolve from the single celled organisms we originated from. If there was any sign of intelligent life on another planet, we would've known about it by now." Mrs. Watson insisted.
"But we do know about it, people are just too naive to realize what they're looking at!" Harry exclaimed, throwing her spoon into her soup and crossing her arms in a bit of a bit.
"Harry honey, we're not making fun of you, we're just trying to make sure you're not getting lured into this crazy lifestyle." Mrs. Watson insisted.
"They're not crazy mom, they're real." She insisted, and with that she scrambled out of her chair and ran up to her room, as if she didn't have time to deal with her mother and her facts.
"Well, overdramatic much." John decided as he helped himself to second helpings of soup. When the dishes were done and the soup put away, John walked up to his room, making sure this time to lock the door tight, maybe even push a chair up against the door to make sure his sister couldn't come and wake him. Then again, that was the alarm clock's job, the most miserable sound in the world. So he simply sat on his bed and watched sports again, this time checking every once and while to see if there were any signs of activity going on, in the cornfield or on his roof. When no movement came and no sound was heard, John decided that it was once again the stupid work of some crazy kids or some equally if not more crazy adults, trying to get their forgery on national television.
The alarm clock proved its worth at six o'clock in the morning, beeping loudly so that John had to open his eyes and groan. The temptation to hit snooze was overpowering, but slowly John crawled out of bed and turned it off, looking over at his drawers to see what he was to wear today. Of course, being a guy, he wore the same five outfits on different days of the week; he didn't have time for color coordinating his shirts with khakis or jeans, or shoe and sock coordination like most of the insane guys in his school. John grabbed some clothes blindly and stumbled into the bathroom, making sure his hair wasn't sticking up in all the wrong places and trying to make himself look and smell like he wasn't a zombie, or in this town, an alien. When John lumbered down the stairs, yawning and rubbing his eyes, the smell of pancakes made this early morning suffering just a little bit more worth it.
"What's all this?" John asked in a surprised tone.
"Well, I decided that you all need a nice Monday morning treat." Mrs. Watson decided, flipping the pancakes on the griddle with a smile.
"Mom, you're a saint." John decided, going over to his seat at the table where there were already a couple of pancakes sitting on a plate. So, after lathering them in butter and drowning them in syrup, he indulged in some well-deserved heaven.
"Is your sister up yet?" Mrs. Watson asked as she tipped a couple of more pancakes onto John's mess of a plate.
"She doesn't need to be, she goes to school later anyway." John shrugged.
"Yes well, I don't want to be cooking all morning." Mrs. Watson sighed.
"I'll get her when I'm done." John shrugged. Mrs. Watson poured more batter onto the pan and sighed, leaning on the counter and staring out the glass deck door.
"What are your thoughts on the whole crop circle then?" she asked. John just laughed, pretending like the whole thing didn't bother him at all
"I think it's rubbish. I don't know how we could've missed some kids out there all night." He shrugged.
"You don't believe aliens did it?" she asked.
"Do you?" John laughed, looking at his mother in shock. Of course Harry was the only Watson who was crazy enough to believe all of that crap.
"No, of course not, I just didn't want to drown you out with skepticism, that's all." She insisted.
"It's Harry you have to worry about, with her action figures and all that." John shrugged.
"Yes well, she's young; you used to believe in aliens too, when you were her age." Mrs. Watson pointed out.
"Ya, but not to that extent. She's smart, she uses facts, I just liked the idea of aliens in our backyard." John insisted. Mrs. Watson laughed, going over to check that the pancakes weren't burning or anything.
"Yes well, she's a very smart girl, I don't know where she got that from." She laughed. John shrugged, finishing off the last of his pancakes and running up the stairs to get Harry, who was still sleeping under her large floral comforter.
"Harry, there's pancakes downstairs if you want them." John muttered, shaking her shoulder lightly. Harry opened an eye carelessly, groaning not unlike John did when he was woken up prematurely.
"Pancakes?" she asked hopefully.
"Ya, want some?" John asked. A large smile spread on her face, which was the exact opposite of what John would've done.
"Ya I want some." She agreed, rolling out of bed and scampering down in her pajamas.
"Alright then." John muttered, going back to his room and making sure he had all of his homework done before packing up his bags and walking down the stairs.
"Bye family!" John called, opening the front door.
"Bye John!" the all chorused back, and with that he walked out into the sunny morning, shutting the door behind him and wandering around his driveway to wait for the bus. When finally the big yellow torture machine arrived, John hopped on, towing his large soccer bag in his wake, and went to find an empty seat next to Greg. Once you get older in this school it was a lot easier to get your own seat on the bus. Mostly all of the seniors drive, and since John was a senior without a license, he was forced to take the bus. The only good part about that was that he got to sit in the very back, where Greg was already lounging against the window; trying to get some more sleep if that was even possible. Greg had his license, but being Greg, he was too lazy to get up and actually do something with it.
"Hey." John muttered.
"Hey." Greg agreed. "Any more reporters come around?" he asked, straightening up and checking his hair in the window.
"Nah, they lost interest." John shrugged.
"And no Mike?" Greg asked. John just laughed, shaking his head.
"Thankfully Mike has kept his distance as well." He agreed.
"Well, he'll drill you with questions when practice starts, so be prepared." Greg insisted. John just groaned, only imagining all of the things Mike could have to ask him.
"Well, I'll just make stuff up; see how much rubbish he'll believe before he starts catching on." John decided.
"Then he'll get mad; think you're making fun of him." Greg pointed out.
"Oh come on, he knows everyone's making fun of him, how can you not?" John insisted.
"Come on John; be nice, he's a good kid honestly. Maybe a bit mental, but he's nice all the same." Greg shrugged.
"And he's a good soccer player, and really that's the only thing I really care about. We've got a league to win." John decided.
"We will, don't worry." Greg insisted with a nod. John shrugged, watching as the bus rounded the corner towards the school, seeing the building looming up ahead of them like a prison. They unloaded onto the sidewalk, all of them stampeding into the building in a torrent of basketball shorts and crop tops, floral print backpacks and high top sneakers. High school really was the place to figure out what type of people you hate the most, and for John, well, it was everyone. He dropped his soccer bag off into the locker room and wandered to his locker, pushing past large groups of freshman who wandered around the hallway in packs, seeming to gravitate to the middle so that there was no way to get around them without getting aggressive. Well, that was the price they had to pay for being so bloody annoying. When he got to his locker he opened it and stuffed his lunch box and water bottle inside, picking out the biology textbook he needed for first period and shutting the locker with a rather moody snap. It was too early for this. Greg wasn't in John's first class; in fact he was pretty much lonely except for some losers that he connected with better than the populars, the nerds that were nice and sometimes fun to talk to. But for the most part he sat in the back of the class, twirling his mechanical pencil between his fingers and trying his best to tune the teacher out, thinking about soccer, friends, soccer, aliens, and soccer. It was always soccer, that sport kind of controlled his life, it was the reason he lived really, his true calling. Of course he wasn't the best on the team, unfortunately that would be good old Mike, with a body built for soccer and a brain built for anything nerdy. But John was captain and loved it all the same. He was staring blindly at the turtle that was in a tank next to his seat, bobbing its head above the water and sending little bubbles from its nose. It really was cute, but John hated this class so much that it didn't really seem to matter. Finally when trigonometry came around he walked on over to that class, thankfully sharing it with Greg, who made all these nearly impossible formulas a bit more entertaining. Greg was awful at math to be honest, but with his optimism and good sense of humor, he made anything a lot more fun to be honest. So John had a good time in that class, learning just about nothing because he was playing hangman on the side of his paper. Finally it was time for lunch, which meant John and Greg sat near the end of a long table, sitting next to each other and discussing everything from soccer games to their next classes to the girls they found attractive this week. Today though, John really wasn't into arguing over who was better, Arsenal or Tottenham, he just kind of stared at his ham sandwich with a loss of appetite.