The Mystery of the U.F.O. by David A. Adler Read Free Book Online Page A

ate the tuna fish. Cam reached out for the kitten.

    Eric was holding his camera. “Smile,” he said, and he took a picture just as the kitten jumped into Cam’s arms.
    “I’ll call the picture ‘Local Girl Saves Untamed Feline.’ ”
    Cam turned to put the kitten down. Then she stopped. She heard noises. Across the street people were shouting and pointing. Cam looked to see what they were pointing at.
    In the distance Cam and Eric saw floating green, yellow, blue, arid red lights. The lights seemed to brush against one of the trees at the edge of the park. Cam looked straight at the lights and said, “ Click. ”

Chapter Two
     
     
     
    E ric aimed his camera at the lights. He pressed the shutter button, and the camera went click.
    The lights were rising, but they weren’t going straight up. They were moving from side to side and up and down. It almost seemed that the wind was moving the lights.
    Eric aimed his camera again. He pressed the shutter button. Click. He pressed it once more. Click.
    “I’m not sure I’m doing this right,” Eric said. “It’s getting dark, and the lights are so far away. I hope at least one picture comes out.”
    Cam wasn’t really listening. She was watching the lights.
    “I’ve seen lights in the sky before,” she said, “but they were from helicopters or airplanes or fireworks. I don’t know what these are.”
    “Let’s go over there,” Eric said, pointing to the parking lot. “Maybe those people know.”
    Cam put the kitten down. Cam was picking up her books when she heard the kitten cry. The kitten was up in the tree again.
    “That cat doesn’t seem to learn,” Cam said.
    “The last time she was up there, you fed her some tuna fish,” Eric said. “The kitten learned that if she climbs a tree, she gets something to eat.”
    Cam opened her lunch box. “Well, all I have this time is bread.”
    Cam reached up and put the bread on the branch. The kitten turned around carefully. She came down the branch and ate the bread.
    “I’m going to hold on to you,” Cam said as she put the kitten in her coat pocket. “If I don’t, you’ll just climb that tree again.”
    Cam and Eric crossed the street. The people in the brightly lit parking lot were all looking up. Some children were taking photographs. A man and a woman were looking through pairs of binoculars.
    “Six lights, no, seven,” the man said. “Three green lights, two yellow, one blue, and two red. That’s eight. I have to get this right if I’m going to write it down.”
    The man was wearing a big open shoulder bag. A notebook and a book called Bird Watcher’s Guide were sticking out.

    “I’ve got it!” the man said as he put the binoculars in his bag. “Seven flying lights.
    “You said we wouldn’t see anything,” he told the woman next to him, “but you were wrong. We’ve seen a red-backed sandpiper, a bufflehead, an old-squaw, and now this.”
    The woman put her binoculars into a case. “It wasn’t a sandpiper,” she said. “It was a golden plover. The old-squaw you thought we saw was a pintail. And there are eight lights up there, not seven.”
    Cam and Eric could hardly see the lights now. They were just tiny dots of color.
    “Can I look through those?” Cam asked the woman.
    The woman took the binoculars out of the case and handed them to Cam.
    Cam could see why the couple had trouble counting the lights. Sometimes one would move one way, while another moved in a different direction. Sometimes one light moved behind the others and could not be seen at all. Cam also saw lines, like thin wires, pointing down from each light.
    Cam looked straight at the lights and said, “ Click. ”
    “Let me see,” Eric said.
    “Just a minute.”
    The lights were floating up. Cam looked carefully at just one light, a blue one. At first Cam thought it was round, but it wasn’t. It was shaped like an egg with a point at the bottom. Cam looked straight at the light and said, “ Click. ” Then