8 The World’s Biggest iPod

Chapter 8 The World's Biggest iPod All afternoon I was watching Mr. Granite very carefully to see if his face was going to come off. Finally, three o'clock came and the bell rang. "Any questions?" Mr. Granite said as we got our stuff out of our cubbies. "Are you going to destroy our planet?" I asked. "Will you peel off your face?" Neil asked. "Don't be silly," replied Mr. Granite. Once we got outside, me, Michael, and Ryan raced to the bike rack. Andrea and Emily were already there. "How will we find out where Mr. Granite

lives?" asked Emily. "We should drop pieces of candy on the ground," said Ryan. "That's what the boy did in E.T." "I'm not wasting my candy," I said. "We should stalk Mr. Granite," suggested Michael. "You mean we should hit him with celery?" I asked. "What good would that do?" "No, dumbhead!" said Andrea. "Stalking is—" She never got the chance to finish her sentence, because at that very second Mr. Granite zoomed past us on his bike. "Look!" said Ryan. "There he goes!" We all hopped on our bikes and followed Mr. Granite, being careful not to let him see us. "Maybe Mr. Granite will make our bikes

fly," said Ryan. "That's what E.T. did." "Will you forget about E.T. already?" Michael told Ryan. Finally, Mr. Granite turned into a driveway. Well, I don't mean he became a driveway. That would be weird. He just rode his bike up into a driveway next to a house. There was a big white box in front of the garage. It had the word "PODS" on it. "Hey, check it out!" I told everybody. "Look at the size of that iPod!" "Mr. Granite lives in an iPod?" asked Michael.

"Man!" I said. "How many songs do you think will fit on that iPod?" "It's not an iPod, dumbheads," said Andrea. "It's one of those big storage boxes. It says PODS." Oh. It made sense that Mr. Granite lived in a pod. I saw this movie called Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It had these pod people who look just like humans. But they worked secretly to spread more pods until they could replace the entire human race. It was cool.

"Anybody who lives in a pod has to be an alien," I said. "My mom says we should accept people no matter where they live," Emily said. "Your mom is weird," I told her. "Maybe he's building a transmitter in there to contact his home planet," said Ryan. "Like in E.T." "Give it a rest with E.T., will you?" I told Ryan. Mr. Granite opened a door and went inside the pod thing. We all snuck up to it, like we were secret agents. It was cool. Andrea took a little camera out of her backpack. "I'll bet he's taking off his human mask in there," Michael whispered. "I'll snap the picture when he peels off his face," Andrea whispered. "That will be a real Kodak moment," I

whispered. "I'm scared!" whispered Emily. "Maybe we should—" But she never got the chance to finish her sentence. Because at that very second, Mr. Granite popped out of the pod! "EEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKK!" we all screamed. "G'day, mates!" Mr. Granite said. He looked completely normal. "What can I do for you blokes?" "Uh," I said, "we were just wondering if you trim your nose hair." "You followed me home to ask if I trim my nose hair?" asked Mr. Granite. "Well, actually, we wanted to know where you were born," said Andrea. "I came from Neptune," said Mr. Granite. "WOW," we all said, which is "MOM"