Aliens In The Family Read Online Free

and great battles between the forces of good and evil. She hated science fiction. What she enjoyed were ballet books about girls dancing beautifully in rose pink dresses, or homely comfortable stories, and, though she did not tell anyone, she still enjoyed reading her old copies of Milly Molly Mandy. Horror stories on the other hand filled her with dread, not because she actually believed in werewolves and vampires, but because the stories always suggested some unnamed thing, huge and hairy, moving through the darkness. Now she looked at Jake with despair. Jake smiled with one side of her mouth and not the other which looked more like a sneer. Picking up her pack, Jake hoisted it onto her shoulder with a movement that was easy but at the same time seemed resigned.
    "Let me carry that for you," suggested David. "Come on, Jackie, don't be difficult."
    "It's not heavy," she argued. "Anyhow, I'm used to carrying my own heavy things."
    David took it from her all the same. "You're sharing—you've got to share—" he paused, "Dora's room."
    Jake looked at Dora. "Right on!" she said quietly, unsmiling, and followed David. She might as well have said "That's the end! That's the absolute pits!"
    "Mum," whispered Dora as the door closed behind Jake and her father, "I hate her."
    "Don't be silly," Philippa whispered back. "Of course you don't. You can't! But... oh dear... she certainly is different from what David said she was like."
    "He said she could ride horses. That all she thought about was horses. I thought she'd be the sort of person who wore a silk shirt and jodphurs—a real rider," muttered Dora.
    "I thought David was being too confident," commented Philippa. "He wanted to believe things would be straightforward. Never mind! We'll manage."
    "How long is she staying?" asked Dora.
    "Not long! Well—just until the end of the school holidays." Philippa spoke in a subdued voice.
    "That's ages. I think I might be glad to go back to school again, even though I am going to be in Mrs Winward's class!"
    "Give her a chance, poor girl!" exclaimed Philippa. "In a day or two she'll probably be like one of us."
    But Dora thought that families were like planets. Each had its own creatures breathing its own special air, and no-one as alien as Jake could ever live happily on their particular planet.

Three - Space Invaders
    Gliding slowly down the street, Bond looked so bright and energetic that some people smiled to see him go by while others frowned, mistrusting his roller skates on a busy city footpath, or puzzled by his suit of many pockets. Pockets of orange, green and gold, all differently shaped, were sewn down the legs of his blue jeans, and there were others like bright windows on his brown shirt. He was still dazed by his surroundings, for although he had been given what the Galgonqua called 'false' or 'induced' memories which enabled him to recognize and understand the uses of things he had never seen before, it did not altogether take the surprise out of those things. That's a bicycle! thought Bond, amazed, for it seemed to him that the pedalling motion of the rider was winding up invisible thread from the road behind him.
    As he skated weaving along the street, Bond was performing two functions—both part of his test. He was receiving all sorts of signals, but was trying to untangle one in particular—the faint, unconscious trace emitted by the 'missing' Companion. It was also part of the talent of the Galgonqua that they should record. So Bond looked at things differently from anyone else in the street—for he looked at everything twice. His first glance was the surprised one, and his second was the remembering one. He chose to remember the most ordinary things: empty Coca-Cola cans in the gutter, the ill-shaven old man selling lottery tickets and horse-racing news, people's cars, shoes, shorts, shirts, the chains around their necks, the rings on their fingers. Their faces interested him too but he didn't dare look at them