Bug Eyed Monsters Read Online Free Page B

something you would have to ask them!’
    Joe said, ‘I would, if I could find one.’
    â€˜Ah, well, that’s the difficulty, isn’t it? Finding one, when they look just the same as everyone else! Ryan, would you collect all the essays for me? Yes, Harry! Did you want to ask something?’
    â€˜What d’you think about the food, miss? D’you reckon they could eat our stuff?’
    â€˜I’m sure some of them,’ said Miss Beam, ‘would have no difficulty tucking into a big bowl of chips!’
    Year 6 appreciated this. They honked happily. Miss Beam was known to be very fond of her chips.
    â€˜There might even be those from some planets,’ she said, ‘who would consider chips a rare delicacy.’
    â€˜Like when people go to France and eat snails,’ suggested Ryan.
    â€˜Well, yes, maybe.’ Miss Beam didn’t sound quite so sure about snails. ‘For my part, I think I’ll stick to chips!’
    â€˜Me, too,’ said Ryan. ‘I’d eat chips all the time if they’d let us. Which they don’t. Unfortunately.’
    â€˜Ah, well, you’re not an alien!’ said Miss Beam, collecting up her books. ‘Well done again on that essay, Harry!’
    â€˜Know what?’ said Bal, as Miss Beam left the room. ‘I bet same as they can change what they look like, they can change how their bodies work. That way,’ said Bal,‘they could eat whatever they like… chips, and snails, whatever turns ‘em on.’
    Or, said Harry, it could be that the only sort of aliens that came here were the sort that could naturally eat chips and stuff.
    Joe shook his head. Far more likely, he said, they would just bring a load of pills with them.
    â€˜But we’ve seen them eating,’ said Bal. ‘All of ‘em!’
    At this, Joe abruptly lost interest in what aliens might eat. He gave it as his opinion that what aliens ate, or did not eat, was of very little importance. What he wanted to know was what kind of language they spoke.
    â€˜Guess that would depend,’ said Ryan. ‘There’s got to be all different sorts out there. Could be like giant reptiles, some of ‘em.’
    â€˜Or insects,’ said Bal. ‘I reckon if they were insects they’d most likely make clicking noises.’
    â€˜Could be all soft and jellified, like great pools of gunge, sliming about… dunno what sort of sound
they’d
make.’
    â€˜They’d plonk and gurgle,’ said Joe. ‘Like when your stomach’s empty and it goes
blurp.’
    Five seconds later Mr Trout entered the room to find the whole of Year 6 busily blurping and plonking, clicking and gurgling, shrieking and howling. A zoo! A veritable zoo!
    â€˜What is going on?’ bawled Mr Trout. ‘Be quiet this instant, we are going to do fractions!’
    â€˜Oh, sir, not fractions, sir!’
    â€˜There’s something we wanted to ask – ’
    â€˜Being as you’re an expert, sir – ’
    â€˜What kind of language, sir, would aliens speak?’
    Mr Trout breathed very deeply through hairy nostrils. Did the boys take him for an idiot?
    â€˜Fractions,’
said Mr Trout.
    Nobody played the same trick on him twice!
    It was an interesting point, though. What kind of language
would
aliens speak?

Chapter Four
Blop
    Late in the night – maybe as late as midnight, but certainly long after lights out – Harry padded down the passage to the boys’ bathroom. Mr Snitcher, next door, had his own bathroom. All the housemasters had. It didn’t really seem quite fair, but then as Joe pointed out, life wasn’t.
    â€˜No use expecting it.’
    Unlike Joe, Harry couldn’t honestly have said that he was bothered one way or the other. There wasn’t very much that bothered Harry. He was quite a laid back sort of person. He had admittedly felt a few prickles when he’d seen the bright