What you think does matter

 Hi, I’m Ellie, and this is the story of how I almost helped an alien take over my neighborhood. It all started with a tiny yellow stone I found in my backyard. I was digging around in the garden, looking for interesting rocks to add to my collection, when I saw it: a smooth, round stone that seemed to glow faintly, even in the shade. It was bright yellow, almost like a drop of liquid sunlight. “This would be perfect for Mom’s necklace,” I thought. My mom’s a jeweler, and she’s always restoring old pieces of jewelry. She had this one necklace—a delicate silver chain with a missing center stone—that she could never finish because she hadn’t found the right gem. I decided to surprise her. Over the next few days, I worked on the stone in secret. It wasn’t easy. The stone was much harder than it looked, and no matter how much I chipped away, it always stayed smooth and shiny, like it was polishing itself. Weird, right? But I didn’t think too much about it at the time. When I finally finis

Hi, I’m Ellie, and last weekend I got tangled up in the weirdest mystery of my life. It all started with Mr. Whiskers—Mrs. Thornton’s grumpy, fat, gray tabby who lives two houses down. Everyone in the neighborhood knows Mr. Whiskers. He’s famous for hissing at kids and stealing hot dogs off backyard grills. But last week, Mr. Whiskers vanished. Mrs. Thornton knocked on every door on our street, asking if anyone had seen him. “He’s never wandered off like this before!” she cried. “He always comes home for dinner!” I wanted to help, mostly because I felt bad for Mrs. Thornton. So I decided to search for Mr. Whiskers. At first, I didn’t find much. A paw print here, a tuft of fur there. Then I saw something strange . In the yard next door, Tyler—the kid I barely talked to because he was so quiet—was sitting on his porch, petting Mr. Whiskers . The thing was, Mr. Whiskers didn’t look grumpy or annoyed, like he usually did around humans. He was sitting perfectly still, staring up at Tyler l