TAKE OUT

On their first day of kindergarten, Jake, Zach, and Alberto discovered that they shared the same birthday, April fifteenth—also the birthday of Leonardo da Vinci. The boys were inseparable from that point on . . . which is probably why they didn’t realize just how unusual they were. They spent most of their time together, just the three of them, all through their childhood and into middle school. And if they noticed in that time that they were more intelligent than those around them, they didn’t think too much of it. They simply assumed that if there were three brains like theirs in a small town like Athena, Oregon, then surely there must be a lot more out there somewhere. But there weren’t. In 1978, Jake, Zach, and Alberto really were the three smartest boys on earth.

People in Athena got used to seeing the threesome huddled together, poring over math textbooks or drafting ideas for new inventions (flying cars were high on their “must create” list). Sometimes, Zach’s mom joked that a mysterious force had brought the boys together, what with the shared birthday and the big brains and all. It was their Saturday night routine that made life in Athena almost perfect for Jake, Zach, and Alberto. Each week, they’d get together at one of their houses for pizza and a Star Trek rerun. They’d play video games, read comics, solve complex math problems, and argue about the latest UFO sightings. Sometimes they’d even haul out Zach’s telescope and scan the night sky—or just keep an eye on Mount Rainier, which loomed like a ghost on the horizon. The stratovolcano had been the site, in 1948, of one of the most famous UFO sightings of all time.

They called their weekly ritual Nerd Night. The seventh Nerd Night of 1978 started out during a freak winter thunderstorm. Jagged bolts of lightning ripped across the evening sky. Jake and Alberto showed up at Zach’s house right as his parents were rushing out the front door, already late for their bowling league.

“I just ordered the pizza,” Zach’s mom hollered over her shoulder. “It should be here in forty-five minutes or so. If you need us, call the bowling alley.”

When the door slammed closed behind the boys, Nerd Night had officially begun.

“Up here!” Zach hollered from the top of the stairs.

Jake and Alberto knew the drill. They dropped their coats in a pile on the floor and darted up the stairs, following Zach into his bedroom. Alberto flopped down onto a beanbag chair and started complaining almost immediately.

“How come your mom waited so long to order the pizza? I’m starving. . . .”

“You’re always starving,” Zach said, which was true enough.

“That’s because Alberto doesn’t realize he has a parasitic alien twin living inside his body,” said Jake. “In order for the twin to finish its plans for world conquest, it needs fuel . . . as in cheese, pepperoni, and more cheese.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” said Alberto, throwing a comic book in Jake’s general direction. It missed and smacked Zach in the face.

“How about Oreos while we wait?” Zach suggested, throwing a pillow back at Alberto, who grabbed it in midair with his teeth and pretended to eat it. Zach was already scrambling off his bed.

“There’s only eleven Oreos left, and eleven isn’t divisible by three,” he said. “Last one there gets the short end of the deal!”

The three friends ran out into the hallway, then pushed and shoved all the way down the stairs. They arrived at the kitchen in a pack—just as a mighty crash of thunder rang out. The floor shook, and the windows rattled, followed almost immediately by a brilliant flash that lit up every window in the kitchen.

“Whoa! That was right overhead,” Jake said.

“And weird,” said Zach.

“What do you mean, weird?” asked Alberto. “It’s a storm. It happens.”

“I mean the thunder came first, then the lightning. That’s not normal.”

All three boys looked at each other. They knew the events were out of order, but they also knew it was impossible.

“Maybe we should go up on the roof,” Alberto said. “See if it happens again.”

“Yeah,” Jake said, rolling his eyes. “And get fried by one hundred million volts of electricity.”

“And turned into charcoal by an air temperature of fifty thousand degrees Fahrenheit,” added Zach.

Before Jake had a chance to reply, there was another flash outside, then a rolling thunderclap. This time, there was nothing unusual about the sequence, and the boys all shrugged at once. Zach mumbled something about a trick of light and sound — then he nearly jumped when the doorbell rang.

“You guys expecting anybody?” he asked.

“Just pizza,” Alberto muttered hopefully, licking his lips.

Zach frowned and glanced at his official Darth Vader watch, which was guaranteed water-resistant to one hundred meters. Pizza already? No way. His mom and dad had barely been gone five minutes. The doorbell rang again.

“Okay, okay, on our way!” Zach yelled.

Zach hurried toward the front door, followed closely by Jake and Alberto. As they passed through the living room, Zach glanced out the front window. Despite the darkness outside, he could see a long, low-slung car idling next to the curb. Can’t be Joey, he thought to himself. Joey Turley was the regular pizza delivery guy on Saturday nights, and he always drove a beat-up, dirt-colored Ford Pinto. Alberto pushed past Zach so he could reach the door first. No surprise there. He was still hoping for the fastest pizza delivery on record. He jerked open the door, took one look at the person standing there, and stumbled back, pulling Zach in front of him for protection.

“Hey, knock it off,” Zach said. And then he noticed the man, too, and his mouth went dry.

“You . . . you aren’t Joey,” Jake stammered.

The man didn’t say anything for a moment. He was dressed in a dark suit that didn’t quite fit, a white shirt, and a purple tie. On his feet was a pair of red Chuck Taylor sneakers. His eyes—and most of his face—were hidden behind an upturned collar and mirrored sunglasses, even though it had been dark for over an hour already. And wow—he was tall.

Whoever this guy was, he had to be pushing seven feet. He held out a flat cardboard box and said one word:

“Pizza.”

The voice was slow and monotone, almost like a robot’s.

“No, thank you,” Jake said quickly, his voice cracking. “Wrong address.”

He reached past Zach and began pushing the door closed. The man stuck his long arm out, holding the door firmly open.

“Pizza.”

Alberto gulped audibly as the man held the pizza box out even farther toward the boys.

“For you,” he insisted in the same metallic voice.

“Th-that was fast,” Alberto said, reaching his hand out slowly until his fingers touched the white cardboard. “Thank you. We really appreciate it. And you’re really tall.”

Alberto pulled the box into the house, and the man’s arm receded into the darkness. And that’s when it hit Zach: This was a prank. It had to be.

“Is that you in there, Joey? Are you on stilts or what?”

But whoever it was turned and started to leave.

“Okay, whatever,” Zach said with a laugh.

As far as pranks went, this one was pretty cool.

“Wait — how much do we owe you?”

“No . . . charge,” the man said over his shoulder.

Then he marched down the steps, crossed the lawn, and climbed into the weird car.

“Wacko,” Zach said as he watched the car’s purple taillights disappear slowly down the street.

He closed the door, and after a moment’s hesitation, he locked the dead bolt. Zach joined his two friends in the kitchen. They grabbed plates and sodas, then trooped upstairs to Zach’s room. Alberto turned on the TV and adjusted the antenna, and they all settled in for Star Trek. They’d seen the episode before, but that didn’t matter. It was still great. And the pizza was perfect—exactly how they liked it. The dough was thick and chewy, the tomato sauce was rich and tangy, the cheese was fresh, and the top was loaded with pepperoni.

“I think I’m gonna die,” Alberto burped twenty minutes later—then he checked the pizza box for any leftovers. “That had to be the greatest pizza the universe has ever known.”

Zach and Jake nodded their agreement. It really had been an amazing pizza.

“And the night’s only going to get better from there,” Zach said with a grin. He reached under his bed and pulled out the latest game console from Atari: the 2600.

“No way!” Jake howled. “You got it!”

“Sweet!” Alberto yelled. “Why didn’t you tell us sooner? We could have been playing instead of watching reruns!”

“I love that episode. And no way did I want you getting pizza grease all over the joysticks. Now, who wants to be my first victim in Combat?”

Alberto, Jake, and Zach immersed themselves in Combat, battling each other to the death as they talked about the computer programming that must have been used to create such amazing graphics.

“Has to be, like, a billion lines of code,” said Zach.

“Ten billion,” said Jake.

If they’d looked outside at that moment, they would have noticed that the storm had passed and the night sky had cleared. They’d have seen Mount Rainier glimmering faintly in the moonlight. And if they’d looked down at the street, they would have also noticed that the strange pizza deliveryman was back. He was standing motionless next to his dark, low-slung car, its purple tail-lights glowing brightly. He was staring up at Zach’s room.

“You know,” Alberto yawned, “the only reason you keep winning is because you’ve had more practice.”

Zach fought back a yawn of his own.

“In your dreams,” he said. “Who’s next?”

But instead of a smart-aleck retort, Zach heard a different sound. Jake was lying facedown on the floor, snoring.

“What a big baby,” Zach said with a shake of his head. He turned his attention to Alberto. “I guess that means it’s you and m —”

Alberto was sitting on the floor, leaning up against the bookshelf. His eyes were closed. Zach rubbed his face, yawned, and then struggled to his feet. Something weird was going on, but he was so tired, he couldn’t quite pin it down. He glanced out the window, and some part of his brain noticed a car with purple tail-lights parked in front of his house.

“What’s he doing here?” Zach asked himself.

But he was suddenly so tired, he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer. The last thing he saw was the man taking something out of his pocket and pointing it at the house. There was a little purple dot of light, then nothing.

Zach sat down on the floor, curled up into a ball, and fell fast asleep.

And then the pizza box started to move.