My Cousin, the Alien Read Online Free PDF Page B

gardens, seemed less sinister. I pushed their disturbing bits of conversation aside.
    Over breakfast, everyone had different ideas about what to do that day. My dad wanted to go to Sunken River Caverns. We had found brochures about it stuck under our doors that morning. Uncle Paul opted for golf, while Mom and Aunt Marsha were all for visiting antique shops. I wanted horseback riding, but Ethan was set on swimming.
    After much wild gesturing with buttery toast, we compromised. It was supposed to be sunny today, but rainy tomorrow. So today we’d do outdoors stuff, then visit underground caverns the next day. As for Ethan and me, we’d swim in the morning and in the afternoon head to the stables.
    The swimming was okay and so was our pizza lunch, but the afternoon went from bad to worse. A great deal worse. As we headed along the wooded path to the stables, we didn’t see a single fat, bald guy, but Ethan walked like it was to his execution.
    “Come off it,” I said at last. “You’re acting as if horses are saber-toothed tigers. A real alien prince would have to get along with different species. Some alien species are a lot odder than horses, I bet.”
    “Sure, but I wouldn’t have to climb on top of them. It’s beneath my dignity.”
    “Dignity, ha! You’re just scared.”
    His pale face flushed red, and I wished I hadn’t said that. “Scared has nothing to do with it. I just know the limits of my species. We do not ride other creatures. Period.”
    I dropped the subject. If he were an alien, I decided, his would be the most pig-headed species in the universe.
    When that wonderfully exciting horsey smell greeted us, I left Ethan to gripe about the stink and sit on a bench studying his star guide. Leaning over the fence, I watched the horses and bubbled with envy as a family mounted up for a trail ride.
    I’d learned to ride one summer at camp and longed for more chances. So why not now? I slammed a defiant fist against the fence. Ethan could sit around moping over his supposed star home, but I could go riding.
    My happy surge of independence fizzled. I couldn’t just go off and leave him any more than I could not put out food for stray cats. True, Ethan’s parents probably wouldn’t care. They seemed to love him, in a vague kind of way, but they usually acted like having a kid was a bother. My parents, though, would chew me out. And even if they didn’t, I’d chew myself out.
    Efforts to interest Ethan in trying a short, calm-looking palomino failed, so we headed back to the hotel. I stomped along grumpily, imagining myself on the big black stallion I’d seen.
    Ethan’s thoughts were in their usual orbit. “I still think this pendant has got to be more than just a star map. It must be some sort of weapon. My people would have given me something to protect myself with. Maybe that flying cat was a guardian from my home planet, but maybe he got killed before he could teach me how to use the pendant.”
    I just grunted. He went on.
    “Maybe if I made a big model of all the bumps on the pendant, I’d see a pattern easier. If we do it outside, I could try punching different combinations of bumps on the real pendant and not risk blowing up the hotel if I get it to work.”
    I didn’t even grunt.
    We were passing through the woods beside the golf course. Suddenly, Ethan jogged off into a pine grove and started brushing away pine needles with his feet. Reluctantly I helped. I figured I was building ammunition to make him go horseback riding later.
    The pine needles gave off a sweet, spicy smell, and dust caught in the shafts of sunlight like flecks of gold. Ethan’s pendant glinted fiercely as he set it in the center of the clearing and began arranging rocks and pine cones on the ground, copying its pattern.
    I kind of let the angry springs inside me loosen. Sitting back against a pine, I listened to the afternoon woods—a mourning dove calling, insects buzzing, the distant voices of golfers. The air felt