Charlie Numbers and the UFO Bash

By Ben Mezrich and Tonya Mezrich

Charlie and the Whiz Kids must separate fact from otherworldly fiction as they set out to find their missing classmate in this action-packed fourth novel of the Charlie Numbers Adventures series.

As his school’s resident numbers guy, Charlie Lewis has always thought that if something can’t be proven with a math equation, it might as well be myth—which is exactly how he feels about UFOs.

Charlie just can’t believe in the existence of aliens without verifiable proof. Not even Janice, who’s the smartest kid Charlie knows, can convince him. But when Charlie’s classmate Anthem mysteriously disappears after bringing a supposed space rock to show-and-tell, it’s up the Whiz Kids to uncover the truth. As Charlie and the gang trace Anthem’s steps to his eerily empty house, it soon becomes clear that perhaps Anthem and his father are involved in something much bigger than a lost rock.

From meeting with UFO enthusiasts, sneaking into hidden rooms, and being following by shadowy and dangerous agents, Charlie is finding it more and more difficult to stick to his convictions—because what if aliens do exist?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
• Release date: Aug 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9781534441088

Ben Mezrich

Ben Mezrich graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 1991. He has published twelve books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Accidental Billionaires, which was adapted into the Academy Award-winning film The Social Network, and Bringing Down the House, which has sold more than 1.5 million copies in twelve languages and became the basis for the Kevin Spacey movie 21. Mezrich has also published the national bestsellers Sex on the Moon, Ugly Americans, Rigged, and Busting Vegas. He lives in Boston.

Book preview

1

A WARM SUMMER WIND pulled at Charlie Lewis’s hair as he navigated his way through the thick woods, each of his steps cushioned by the dewy grass that blanketed the narrow trail beneath his feet. An errant branch reached for his face, like the curled fingers of some terrifying apparition. Charlie did his best to ignore it, ducking below the leaves. He was determined not to let anything slow his progress, break his will. His nerves were sparking off like fireworks on the Fourth of July, but he pushed the fear deep down. If he turned back now, he knew he’d never forgive himself. The air was humid, mossy and moist in his nostrils, even though it was only the first week of June.

Three days earlier, Charlie’s summer vacation had officially begun. Usually, this was his favorite time of the year—the pressures of school dwindling in the rearview mirror, months of science camps, swimming pools, and slumber parties with his friends ahead. But at the moment, memories of summer and school were far from his thoughts. Charlie had been moving through the overgrown forest for what seemed like hours, tripping over roots and careening through dried-up streambeds, and every step seemed to take him farther away from the warm, comforting world he understood, of science and history and logic, and toward something else, something dark and confusing and scary—

And suddenly, right in front of him, there was a flash as bright as lightning, so stark white that it made him blink and stumble. In that first split second, eyes watering, off-balance, Charlie still had the presence of mind to reach for his camera. He had been carrying the darn thing around for days—an old digital point-and-shoot model that he’d found in his dad’s desk drawer—and was sure this was the right moment to use it. No one really used these types of cameras anymore, unless concerns of electromagnetic waves were involved…. He hurriedly snapped open the lens cap and hit the tiny black plastic button on the top, attempting to turn the old beast on—

Silence.

He had pushed this button so many times before and had always heard the familiar beep of the camera going on. How could it fail him now?

He squinted down at the camera’s casing and realized the LED light wasn’t on.

No power.

He quickly reached into his pocket and dug out a spare battery. He ripped the compartment open, tossed the dead battery to the side, shoved the fresh one in, and hit the button—

And again, no beep, no LED light, no power. How was that possible? One burned-out battery okay, maybe. But two?

Charlie looked up from the camera, bewildered, when just as quickly as it had come, the bright light was gone, the forest once again plunged into pitch-blackness. Charlie blinked several times to adjust his eyes. Still nothing. No light, no shadows, just ebony sky above. An overwhelming, enveloping darkness, one that was almost liquid, like oil blanketing everything—

And then, from somewhere ahead, there was a sound. A rustling, tree branches being pushed to the side, something moving along the ground, through the trees. Toward him.

Charlie froze. He had hiked these very woods before, a year earlier, on a camping trip with his dad. Normally, sounds in the woods didn’t scare him. But this rustling—scraping, even—was something different.

It certainly wasn’t his friends, three of whom he knew were somewhere behind him in the forest. He’d foolishly sprinted ahead when they’d first arrived—his eagerness, curiosity, and yes, disbelief at what they had found over the past few weeks getting the better of him, spurring him to take unnecessary risks—and now he regretted not pacing himself so they could keep up.

And then suddenly the sound stopped, and a strange, burning-plastic smell filled the air. Charlie coughed, momentarily choking, and just as he was about to turn around and sprint back the way he’d come, the bright light exploded in front of him again.

Charlie gasped, falling backward for a second, then caught his footing and peered through the trees. Everything was suddenly visible.

He could see in that instant that ten yards in front of him there was an opening in the woods. The opening was circular with a perfect ring of trees surrounding it, and in the center, Charlie could make out a formation of rocks, also in a circle, mimicking the trees.

Wow, Charlie whispered. What the heck was he looking at?

Without thinking, he lifted his camera, flicked the switch… but it was still dead.

Charlie steadied himself, then shielded his eyes with his hand, trying to get a glimpse at what was creating the incredibly bright light. But before he could see anything, the brightness flashed on and off again, like a lightning storm; then the forest was enveloped in blackness. Charlie kept his eyes open, his neck craned. But there was nothing but blackness, and in that moment Charlie realized:

The moon and stars had disappeared too.

2

Newton, Massachusetts

Two months earlier

IT WAS A FEW minutes past eight a.m. on a Thursday, and Charlie was at his locker, quickly shoving books into his already overstuffed backpack. The morning bell would not go off for another ten minutes, but today Charlie didn’t want to take any chances. He’d been late to homeroom three times this week already—which in itself wasn’t such a big deal, but recently Mrs. Kenrick had discontinued the notion of assigned seats. Which basically meant the later Charlie arrived to homeroom, the farther back he was going to end up sitting. Not because his classmates were choosing to be closer to Mrs. Kenrick; rather, they were trying to avoid the back row of the classroom and the thick shag carpet that ran under the windows overlooking the soccer field. Mildew Alley, as it was commonly known among Charlie and his friends, gave off such a thick smell of mold, especially if it happened to be raining outside, that you could almost see the spores dancing in the air in front of your eyes.

Charlie didn’t know if he could stomach another morning of inhaling a scent so heavy and noxious, it seemed to have a personality of its own. And even without Mildew Alley, he didn’t like being late; he’d always been one of those kids who took school seriously, even homeroom. But unfortunately, occasional tardiness was one of the drawbacks of having two absent-minded, overworked professors for parents—especially when they had papers due in the same week. The day before, not only had Charlie been late, but his mom had packed him a set of test tubes and Bunsen burners from her lab at MIT in place of his lunch. His dad could be even worse; he’d started the week off by mixing Monday up for Sunday, letting Charlie sleep all the way past history before he’d realized he was missing school.

At least today, Charlie was in the right place at the right time. He had his last book tucked away and was just shutting his locker door and about to head to class, when a sudden sound ricocheted down the hallway from somewhere near the front of the school.

It was something like the shrieking of a baby deer. Charlie craned his head over the handful of students gathered in the hallway, about to head to their own classes, and caught a familiar sight: the trio of Dylan Wigglesworth and his two friends, Dusty Bickle and Liam Anthony. Many times larger than any of the other sixth graders, with a mop of thick dark hair, Dylan had been bullying his way through the halls of Nagassack Middle School and, before that, Nagassack Elementary since the first day of kindergarten. Seven years later, not much had changed; even Dylan’s sidekicks remained the same, with their curly blond hair and freckled faces. As usual, all three bullies wore matching striped Little League jerseys, even though it wasn’t a game day.

From Charlie’s vantage point at the end of the hallway, he could barely tell what the three of them were playing, but as Charlie edged closer, pushing between a pair of giggling sixth graders in pigtails and matching field hockey skirts, he saw it had nothing to do with baseball.

Hanging from Dylan’s hands, swinging back and forth like a rag doll, was Nagassack Middle’s newest student, Anthem Miller. The poor classmate, barely four feet on the best of days, looked even tinier hanging in the air in front of what must have been his own locker, his shoulders pinned back against the steel by Dylan’s fingers, the back of his collar caught on the hook normally used to hang his jacket. When Dylan stepped back to enjoy his handiwork, Anthem remained suspended, his white sneakers dangling helplessly a foot above the floor.

See, Dylan sneered. It’s not so hard being new! You’re definitely getting the HANG of it!

Liam and Dusty laughed, and a good portion of the kids gathered in the hallway joined in. It was easy to make fun of the new kid, and it didn’t help that Anthem Miller was a slight, skinny kid, or that he had joined the school only a few weeks earlier, so deep into sixth grade. Charlie had heard through the grapevine that Anthem’s pop was a scientist like his own, and that Anthem and his dad had relocated to Newton when he had taken a job at one of the nearby tech companies out on Route 128. His parents were divorced, his mom living somewhere out west.

That, alone, would have made Charlie feel sympathy for the kid. They were pretty similar, at least in build and background. Charlie could only imagine how hard it was being small, physically weak, and also the new student. Charlie was lucky to have the Whiz Kids, but even so, he’d been the target of Dylan’s bullying more times than he could count. He knew oh so well what it was like to be in Dylan’s line of fire without anyone around to help you lick your wounds after the dust settled.

Looking at Anthem’s face, his cheeks as pale as his shoes, his eyes wide like saucers, Charlie came to a sudden decision.

Before he could change his mind, he was moving forward again, pushing past kid after kid until he was at the front of the hallway, just a few feet behind Dylan and his buddies.

Anthem, Dylan was saying in a singsongy voice as he pushed the poor guy back and forth like some sort of flesh-and-blood piñata. Is that like the national anthem? Oh say can you swing!

Dylan gave Anthem another hard shove,