Visitors by R. L. Stine Read Free Book Online

sneakers and a jacket and followed her outside.
    We rode our bikes through my neighborhood and out onto Route 13, leading downtown. We passed a new development of adobe houses, then a strip mall.
    Something caught my eye on the side of the road. A small bush I’d never noticed before.
    I pulled over and stopped, staring at the plant.
    “Have you ever noticed a plant like this around here before?” I asked Summer.
    “No. But then, I’m not exactly into plants.”
    I wasn’t sure what it was, but it looked a lot like holly—that stuff you see all over Christmas cards. It had large red berries growing inside pointy green leaves.
    One of the signs of alien invasion was the sudden growth of non-native plants. Was this holly plant native to New Mexico? How come I’d never seen one like it?
    “Are we going to stand here, staring at that bush all day, or what?” Summer said.
    “It’s just that—never mind.” She’d never believe that a bush could be proof of alien life. I mounted my bike and started pedaling toward town.
    We turned off Route 13 onto Main Street. The downtown area of Bitter Lake was really small. Main Street was about seven blocks long, lined with shopsthat had been there since the fifties. A drugstore, a grocery store, a diner, a gift shop…
    We rode through town. The new ice rink stood at the very end of Main Street, where it intersected with the highway. It was called the Ice Castle.
    It was huge and white, built to look like a castle. The outside was lit up with colored lights, even though it was daytime. And it was packed with kids.
    “Where’s Jeff?” I asked.
    “Home playing video games,” Summer replied. “You know him. He doesn’t like sports much. Except for pro wrestling.”
    I knew what she meant. I wasn’t crazy about sports myself. I didn’t even like wrestling.
    “I haven’t been ice-skating in a couple of years,” I admitted. “I might be a little klutzy.”
    “You’ll be fine,” Summer said. “It’s like riding a bike.”
    We rented ice skates. Then she led me onto the ice. People zipped past me, skating to the beat of the dance music.
    I stepped onto the ice, wobbling a little. My ankles felt loose, kind of weak. But soon I was skating smoothly.
    Summer zipped around the rink, skating forward, backward, and sideways. I just stuck to plain old straight ahead.
    In the center of the rink I spotted DennisCorcoran. I braced myself for another belly-button assault. But he just smiled and waved at me. Everyone was having such a good time skating, they forgot to tease me.
    Then, through the crowd of skaters, I spotted a flash of blue hair. Who was that?
    The blue-haired girl turned around. Rikki Mosely.
    I grabbed Summer as she whizzed past me. “Look who’s here,” I whispered, nodding at Rikki.
    “Check out her hair,” Summer whispered back. “Can you believe she colored it blue? And those clothes…”
    Rikki was wearing a neon-green-striped shirt with orange-and-white-checked pants. They clashed with her blue hair.
    But I didn’t care about her clothes. I was wondering about that thing I’d glimpsed in the woods. That flash of blue.
    Could it have been Rikki? Could the flash of blue have been her hair in the beam of my flashlight?
    Summer grabbed my wrist. “Come on, Ben. Let’s skate.”
    I took another turn around the rink. But I kept glancing at Rikki. She was skating alone in the center of the ice.
    Something else was bothering me about her.
    I watched her as she skated, keeping her eyes on the ice. She skated around and around by herself,first on one skate, then on another. She looked as if she were trying to draw something on the ice with her skate. Trying to draw a very particular figure.
    “Look!” I said to Summer. “Look at the way she’s skating. She’s making the exact same shape as that burn mark we saw in the woods!”
    “Yeah,” Summer said, rolling her eyes. “It’s called a figure eight. All figure skaters do it!”
    “Maybe so,” I