My parents spend their days in the fields under the dry Idaho sun. Their skin tends to be almost as baked as my brain is after a day at school. There are days when I would much rather have followed my parents to the fields, but Papa always says the same thing, "Mario, you're going to have an education -- a good one; you won't get that from the sugar beets."

College, too -- they want me to go to college. And not just any college, and not one of those two-year colleges. It's gotta be a good four-year one where I can do pre-med or pre-law or something that'll put some real meat on the table. But it takes money to get money, and it takes a lot of work to get that kind of money for college when you're only a farm worker.

I tell Papa that there's scholarships, especially for people like me, but he doesn't want me to use the color of my skin or where I was born to get into school; he's too proud for that -- he wants me to use my brains, my abilities. I tell him that if I use both race and abilities that I'll have a lot of money for school, but he doesn't listen -- he just continues to cook up one scheme after another to get rich. And you know, sometimes they almost work.

Like this last spring, Papa had brought home a copy of his one big luxury -- The Weekly Globe Views. Mama and I laugh at it, but he takes it pretty seriously. I remember several years ago, while we were still going back and forth to Texas every year, The Weekly Globe Views had a story on how to trap a ghost with a candle, a glass jar, and a Tootsie Roll for bait. Papa had decided Grandfather's house was haunted and he nearly burned down the shack trying to trick the ghosts into the jar. Anyway, Papa decided he was going to place an ad in The Globe.

According to Papa, we live close enough to Nevada to get some of their UFO traffic. The thought was that he could use the forty acres of desert land he bought at an auction for one-hundred dollars last year. Someday he and Mama are going to build a house on it when they finally get enough money, but I guess he thought he might as well use it to actually make money in the meantime. Papa decided to run an ad offering the forty acres, for a fee, to aliens who need a place to land or keep their craft safe for awhile. Papa figured that when business took off, he would start charging people to go out and watch the crafts land. It was brilliant -- he'd make a bundle.

Mama and I felt bad about him wasting his money. We knew aliens don't exist, and even if they did, they don't have money -- not American currency anyway. Besides, who's going to want to land in Southern Idaho? What are they going to do? Shop at the Burley Mall? I can just see it now -- little green men hanging at the pizza joinr.

Mama suggested that Papa just run an ad saying that there had already been sightings out in the desert and rent the space out to people who want to wait for the aliens. Papa wouldn't do that, though; he said it was dishonest.

So Papa placed an ad and it ran for three weeks in June. Papa wanted it to run longer, but he couldn't even really afford the three weeks. (He even flushed the savings for the new house on it.) Papa was so proud of his words sitting there in The Weekly Globe Views; he took issues around to all his friends to show them he'd been "published." The ad looked like this:

40 acres of low-traffic Idaho desert ready for your UFO. $200.00 to land, $50.00 per night to park. Lots of local entertainment & other amenities.

I was proud, too; I helped him write it. "Amenities" and "per night" were totally my contribution.

At first, when Papa's ad didn't get any response, he thought it was because the aliens were shy or they hadn't heard of his ad in The Globe. But just before August, when Papa decided that his idea was stupid and wasteful (evidently aliens don't read The Weekly Globe Views) he received a reply.

Someone wanted to land a small craft on the 40 acres; they were willing to pay for the entire 40 acres to insure privacy, if necessary. They would be arriving on the 13th at around 3:00 a.m. MST and they would pay for use of the land for two evenings, plus the cost of the initial parking job. We were to send the coordinates to a P.O. box in Albuquerque.

Papa was ecstatic -- his business was finally taking off. All Mama and I could do was shake our heads. Obviously, someone was playing a cruel joke.

When the 13th came around, Mama made Papa let me be the one to meet his "customers" out in the desert. She said it was so that she and Papa could have some "quality" time together, but I know she was just trying to protect him from waiting out at the 40 acres all night long. She knew he'd go early just in case they arrived before 3:00 and he'd wait all night until they came, or didn't come.

I decided it was a good opportunity for me to have some quality time, too. I would be able to watch the beautiful star-filled skies and think without being bothered by the rest of the world. I could camp out in the back of the pickup. It would be an adventure.

Papa made me leave around 10:00 p.m. -- he said he wanted me to be there if they were early, but I know he made me go extra early so he could get started on his time with Mama.

Mama had fixed me some tortillas and beans to take with me while I waited. The food was still warm and smoky from the roasted peppers. The scent filled the cab of the truck, overpowering any remains of the smells from the sugar and potato factories -- smells I still can't get used to even though my family's been here on and off since before I was born.

When I got out to the desert, I arranged my blanket in the back of the truck so I'd be comfortable while I watched the stars, ate my tortillas and beans, and thought about my life and the universe and everything else worthy of such a perfect night.

I thought about the girl that had been in my Advanced Math II class the spring before. I remembered the flow of her dark hair and almond eyes, how her coffee skin blended with her purple eye shadow, how she wore that white sweater once a week. I liked to think she did that just for me.

I thought about why I was taking an advanced math class in the first place and not geometry like a lot of other Sophomores and how I'd be starting AP Calculus in a couple of weeks. I wondered if the girl would be in that class. I thought about how I would rather be a doctor than a lawyer. Maybe I'd be a Neurologist. I had really liked that section of Honors Biology and Biology II where we had studied the brain and nervous system.

And somewhere around that thought I must have fallen asleep.

I think it was the electronic beeps that I heard first. For a moment I thought I was at Curtis' (he's a big techno fan), but when I finally opened my eyes, the sky was totally and completely glazed over in spinning matte silver. Then the silver sky moved north. I was tangled in my blanket and couldn't get up. When I finally separated myself from the blanket, I turned around toward the cab and looked to the sky.

The silver wasn't above me anymore -- it was several yards in front of me now, and it kept moving slowly. When it was about twenty yards in front of me, it stopped, freezing in midair. And then it slowly descended to the surface of the desert to meet with the scrub.

I jumped over the side of the pickup bed and hurried into the cab to put the keys in the truck's ignition so I could turn on the headlights. I fumbled and dropped the keys, picked them up and tried again to start the old Ford. Finally, the keys clicked, the engine turned over, and I turned the lights on. A small hatch opened on the right of the large disk where the silver ended and the night began. Three short human-like beings came out of the hatch and began to make their way towards the truck. At first I thought it was a dream -- a combination of my father's aspirations and too much Mulder and Scully.

Long, anorexic arms shielded large, slanted eyes from the headlights. They were maybe four-and-a-half feet tall, with thin bodies, and long limbs in relation to the rest of their build. They looked almost like the starving Ethiopians I saw on the TV at Curtis' except for the sickly gray sheen of their skin.

Like all strong, brave Idaho cowboys, my first instinct was to run. As I looked towards the gearshift in preparation to flee, I saw one of Papa's copies of The Weekly Globe Views sitting on the passenger side of the seat. I remembered why I was there. Papa deserved to make his dreams come true, and I wanted to make him proud. I wanted my family to have beef to eat instead of beans, real Coca-Cola to drink and not Kool-Aid all the time.

I turned the truck off, took the keys from the ignition, left the lights on and stepped from the cab. I floated to them, as if on a cloud. When we met in the middle of the Idaho desert, the one on the left offered me a rolled up newspaper with his graceful four-fingered hand. I took it and unrolled it. It was a copy of The Globe. I nodded. I think he smiled at me, but it was hard to tell because his mouth was so tiny. The one in the middle handed me a metallic cylinder about three inches long. I took this, too. A thought flashed through my mind -- "Cash."

"Thanks," I said.

The thought came into my mind, "A place to stay?" Where could I send them? The Budget Inn? The Burley Inn? The small, but secluded and more anonymous Twin Pines Motolodge?

"Do we embarrass you?" came into my head. I looked at the aliens in the eyes.

"No," I said, "But it's not like you can just come and get a hotel room. This isn't Nevada. You'll scare people," I explained.

"Are you scared?"

"No," I said, "I don't think so," but I wasn't really sure what I felt. "You could stay at our house. We don't really have a lot of space exactly, but I know you'd be welcome." The one in the middle blinked, first lids moved from each side of his eye to meet in the middle over his pupil, then a set of lids came down to cover the first set.

"That would be fine," came a thought. I watched as the three gray aliens changed before my eyes, morphing into three young twenty-somethings in T-shirts, jeans and Nikes.

"Do you have any bags?" I asked.

"Bags?" the one on the left asked. "You know, luggage? Your belongings -- clothes, toiletries?" I asked.

"No, we don't need anything like that, thanks though," said the one on the left. And so I took the three aliens home -- the ones who said to call them John and Frank piled into the back of the truck and the one who had stood in the middle, Vince, sat up front in the cab with me.

They were on a break from "Training" and had borrowed Vince's dad's ship to come to Idaho. It was a reward for doing so well the previous "semester". (They didn't know how else to describe it to me). Nevada was too much of a tourist trap Vince's dad has said, but Idaho was nice and you could get a great burger here. That's why he, John and Frank had mostly come -- for a burger.

"A hamburger? You flew how many thousands of miles for a hamburger?"

"Well, yeah," said Vince, "It's an Oasis burger."

Of course. I should have known. Oasis burger. Why else come to Rupert, Idaho?

"You mind taking us there tomorrow?" said Vince.

"Sure," I said. What else could I say?

When we pulled up to the house, I gave the three aliens my room. There was a single bed and a set of bunks in my room that had been left by the farmer for the last family who had lived here. They'd had seven kids.

After they got settled, I crept into Mama and Papa's room, shook Papa and tried to quietly take him out to the truck to talk. When we got ourselves into the cab he exploded, "You got them? Aliens? Did you get them?" He was so excited his English slurred. My parents always spoke English to me -- "It will give you a better future," they said.

"Oh, yeah, Papa, and they're just like you said, only not green and slimy; they look pretty dry, and they're gray, but they're real."

"Where are they? Where did they go?"

"They're sleeping in my room."

A sly smile crept over his face, "They're in the house?"

"Yes, Papa. I'm sorry -- I know I probably should have taken them to a hotel, but…"

"No, son -- you did exactly the right thing. They should be here with us."

"Tomorrow I promised to take them to get a burger. That's why they came."

"A burger?" I watched him as he fingered the copies of The Globe that had been in the front seat when he sat down -- the one he had left in there and the one Frank, Vince and John had brought.

"Of course," he exclaimed, "They're crazy for hamburger! How else do you explain cattle mutilations? That's probably why they're here -- to mutilate some cows. The hamburger story is a cover!"

"No, Papa," I said, "I don't think so. I honestly think they're here for a burger and a vacation."

"Where's the money?" he asked. I handed him the cylinder. He opened it to find three hundred dollars in fifties. He grabbed me yelling, "You see this? We're going to be rich!" Some spittle landed on my face. I wiped it off as he ran into the house.

I followed him soon after. He had obviously gone to bed, and I curled up on the avocado green couch that sat in our cramped living room/dining room/kitchen area.

When I'm a doctor, I'll live in a house that has a kitchen that's separate from the living room and dining room, and we'll have one of those real wooden tables to eat off of like Curtis' mom has, not a card table. I thought as I fell asleep for the second time that night.

Mama woke me about 9:30 that morning. I sat up and rubbed my eyes and shook my head. It felt heavy. "Mario, who are those guys asleep in your room?" Her voice was sharp.

Now I was awake. "They're the ones that parked their ship in the desert, Mama."

"You're telling me three punks rented some land from your papa through The Weekly Globe Views to park their "ship"?"

"Yeah, that's pretty much it," I said.

"¡Aye caramba! I can't imagine what your papa is up to now. Go wash up. You have guests to entertain. I imagine they'll be up soon, too. I wish I had known; I really have nothing to feed them but leftovers from last night."

"It's okay, Mama," I said, "They want to go get an Oasis burger anyway."

She just looked at me, "What?"

"They want me to take them to the Oasis and get them a burger."

"How are you going to do that?" she asked, "Borrow a tractor? Your papa's already gone with the truck."

But my best friend Curtis had a Honda and a love for Oasis burgers. I called him and we were off. Vince, John, Frank, Curtis and I arrived at the Oasis at about 11:00.

The restaurant was located on the North Side, out by the desert in the real rural part of Rupert. They usually served hungry farmers -- really hungry farmers. One Oasis burger and fries could feed a couple of famished people or four kids. If someone was starving, they could probably eat a whole one by themselves. If you ate two Oasis burgers, your third one was free and you got your picture up on the wall. There was only one picture up there. He was a huge man, with a scraggy brown beard and greasy baseball cap. After his third Oasis burger, no one ever saw him again, not that anyone personally knew him to have seen him before.

I had only been here a couple of times with Curtis. Franci, the owner of The Oasis, made some of the best food I had ever had. I could only eat about half a burger and half my fries. Curtis could eat a whole burger, all of his fries and finish my food off, but afterwards his stomach was usually pretty sick.

We walked into the Oasis and Curtis explained how the burger policy worked. He showed Vince, Frank and John the picture of the guy who had eaten three burgers. Frank and John began to laugh. Frank said, "Hey Vince, it's your dad!" Curtis laughed, too. I think he thought they might have been joking. I wasn't so sure.

We sat down and Vince announced, "An Oasis burger fries and Coke for all of us! It's on me."

"You betcha!" yelled Franci from behind the grill as she slapped five mounds of meat onto the grill. The meat sizzled as she sprinkled salt, pepper, and her special spices on the patties. The smell of fresh cooking meat wafted to our table and my stomach growled.

Franci grabbed five large glasses, filled them a fourth of the way up with cubed ice, and then topped them off with fizzy Coca-Cola from the fountain. She placed them on a round tray and carried them over to our table.

"I know these two," she said as she gave Curtis and me our Cokes, "But I don't know you three." They introduced themselves and I bent my head down to sip from my straw. Microscopic Coke bubbles burst against my nose and upper lip. I held the chilled slurp of Coke in my mouth, savoring the sweetness of the syrup and the sparkle of the carbonation.

"I could get used to this," said Frank as he drank his Coke, "There's nothing better on Earth than a cold Coke." I agreed in my head, too busy to come up for air from my pop.

Our burgers came soon after, as did refills of our Cokes. Each of the burgers were placed on a huge platter - a half pound of meat on a huge bun, piled with real cheese (none of that processed garbage), thick sliced ruby red tomatoes, sweet onions and crisp lettuce, ketchup, mustard and mayo, the top of the bun off to the side of the platter, waiting to be put on top.

"Eat up, boys," said Franci. "You finish this and I'll make you another!" She walked away from our table, cackling. I put the top of my bun on my burger and squeezed everything together so I could fit a bite into my mouth. It was hot right from the grill, spicy from the pepper, and cool and crisp from the fresh vegetables. My eyes closed from wonder and I moaned.

I looked up at the visitors. They sat in their seats, a look of utter ecstasy on their faces as they used their knives to cut small pieces off their burger to shove into their mouths. We gorged and gorged. They had finished their first burger by the time I was only a quarter of the way through mine.

"Another, please Franci, for all of us," said John. "And more Coke, please," said Vince as he wiped some mustard from the corner of his mouth.

By the time I passed the last quarter of my burger to Curtis, Vince, Frank, and John had their free burger from Franci, who was obviously pleased to be serving such ravenous guests.

My meal over, my mind turned to my family. I was concerned about what Papa might be up to. I excused myself to go to the payphone at the gas station next door and call home.

Mama answered, "Hello?" she sounded a little frazzled

"Mama? Are you okay?"

She suddenly switched to a harsh Spanish whisper, "Where are you?"

"At the Oasis, getting a burger, like I told you," I answered back in Spanish.

"You are in trouble," she whispered, "you have got to come home! They're looking for you!"

"Who, Mama?"

"Your papa went out to the desert where he says he found a huge space ship. He called the government. I don't know what they think is going on, but there are agents in the living room right now, waiting for you and your friends. They have agents out in the desert waiting, too. Your papa said they're giving him big money for this."

"Money?" I said. Yes, aliens would bring lots of money, and their ship would bring lots of money and the stories in the papers would bring lots of money. My family would be rich. We would have a nice house and meat every day. I leaned my head against the side of the phone booth. It was hot in the summer heat.

I gulped for air. "Oh, Mama. You didn't tell them where we were, did you?"

"Of course not. I love your Papa, but I can't support such crazy things. Who does he think those kids are anyway? Criminals? Aliens? I told them you took your friends shopping on the square -- some of them are there now, looking for you."

"Please keep the rest of them there, Mama. I'll be home soon."

"Okay, Marta," my mama said, "Hasta luego..--Just my sister, officer," I heard my mama say as she hung up the phone.

I ran into the Oasis, heart pounding and stomach churning from the hamburger. Franci was holding up a Polaroid camera, taking Frank's, John's and Vince's picture.

"We've got to go," I said.

"Hold on," said Franci, "I want to make sure this turns out, and I called my husband to come meet these three fine young men." The three fine young men beamed.

"We don't have time," I said, "We have got to go."

Just then Franci looked up from her picture and a slow grin formed on her face, "Welcome to Earth!" she said.

I grabbed the picture. In it sat three small, emaciated gray large-eyed creatures.

Curtis came up behind me. "Holy Hannah," he murmured. Frank stood up.

"Everyone just sit down." He said.

We all sat.

"What's going on?" he asked me.

"My papa turned you into the government. They've got agents at the house and they've got your ship. They're waiting for you. I am so sorry," my eyes began to fill with tears.

"My dad is going to kill me," muttered Vince, "That ship's a classic. How are we going to get home?"

"They've got our technology," John murmured, growing pale.

"Don't worry about it," said Franci as she munched on one of Curtis' left over fries.

Five sets of young male eyes stared at her in disbelief. "No, really. It's a classic, right? Ever heard of Roswell?"

"Sure," said Vince, "It was a bunch of teenagers out joy riding. They crashed and got taken to Nevada for research. Their parents are still pissed that they never got the bodies of their sons back."

"Anyway, is your ship any newer than that ship?" asked Franci.

"Jeez no," said Vince, "Like I said, it's a classic -- it's way older than that ship."

"Problem number one solved," said Franci, "They'll get technology they already have. Nothing new. And they already know you exist anyway. No big whoop." She picked up another fry.

"Fine," said Vince, "but my dad's still lost his classic VH-173."

"Trust me," said Franci, "He'll be much happier to have you home alive."

"It's true," said Frank, "but there's still the problem of getting home in the first place."

"Eh," said Franci, "We'll get you to Nevada or New Mexico. Someone will be happy to give you a lift, I'm sure. Or you can get word to your folks to come pick you up."

"How would we do that?" asked John.

"Easy," said Franci, "My brother is starting an Oasis Burger down in the Nevada desert. He's hoping to cash in on the pilots of those top-secret aircraft like I cash in on the farmers out here. He'll take you in and help you get home. He has connections," she said as she winked at John, one set of lids joining to close over the pupil, another set, more human-like, closing over those.

"All right, kids," she said to Curtis and me, "It's time for you to go home; I'll take care of these guys. Anyway, I think they can tell me what happened to other guy on my wall."

"That's Dad," said Vince. "Can't be," said Curtis, "He's not an alien in the picture -- he's a greasy old truck driver."

"Let's just say Dad has a much more developed brain than we do; we're still in training," Vince said.

"Now get home before I have agents knocking on my door looking for more than a burger," said Franci.

Curtis took me home where we convinced the agents that the aliens had forced us to take them out to the desert over by Oakley where they got out of the car, said something about getting some cows for experiments and then just disappeared in a flash of golden light.

I guess the agents must have found us convincing because they left us alone. We haven't heard from them since. They haven't even sent the "finders fee" for the spacecraft they promised Papa.

The Oasis closed down a month later. There was a note on the door saying that the owners had decided to return home. I imagine Vince, Frank and John caught a ride.

Papa's still trying to get some extra cash since he hasn't had any other customers for his desert UFO landing site. He tried to sell the story of "The Aliens Who Came to Idaho for a Burger" to a couple of glossy magazines, but so far only the tabloids are biting.

Papa seems to think we can ride this for a while, and sell enough stories to the tabloids to put me through college. He's going to the college in Pocatello next month to talk to the Bigfoot researcher up there. He'll collect the story, liven it up, and I'll write it down. And if this doesn't work out? Well, there are always scholarships.

Another new member of the anotherealm fraternity is Marguerite. I like stories like hers. They make me smile. Make me smile and you’ve got a good chance to get published here—-even when your tale has a few flaws. This one has a few—-but creativity isn’t one of them. Tell us what you think on the BBS.