The Alien That Ate My Socks, Volume 1 (Hoolie and the Hooligans, 1) - Hardcover

Brandon Dorman is the illustrator of the New York Times bestselling Fablehaven series. He and his wife, Emily, have three children and live in Washington, where he enjoys working as a freelance illustrator. His work has appeared in children's books and on numerous covers, including the series for Pingo, The Candy Shop War, and Janitors.

Chapter 1
The Hooligan Hasher

Hi, I'm Henry. I've had fake front teeth for two years now. I was standing behind my oldest brother, Hank, when we were playing baseball in the street and WHAMMO! Bat to the face.

Man-o-man, it hurt. Hank felt real bad, but the good news is my dad's a dentist. He gave me new teeth and they feel just like the real thing: slimy and hard. That's why I'm not afraid of riding in the front of our go-cart for tomorrow's race. I figure if something gets broken, I'll just get a fake one to replace it.

We'd been working all summer on our racing machine. We call it the Hooligan Hasher. First because we hope to hash up our competition, and second because we love hash browns for breakfast.

It holds all three of us brothers and it's made from a large piece of irrigation pipe we found in a ditch. We wrapped a metal sheet into a cone and attached it to the front. It's pretty much a missile on wheels! We made it similar to a go-cart in Hank's Boy Scout book with some of our own modifications. It has a spoiler, a side-view mirror, and a windshield-with an electric wiper. Levers run along the inside to where my oldest brother, Hank, sits in the back so he can steer. Since I am the youngest and the smallest I ride in the front, leaving Hector in the middle. Everyone knows that in a race you want the most weight near your back wheels. Hank was a three-time pinewood derby champion with this method, so he knows what he's doing. Our plan has Hector and Hank pushing off and jumping in behind me, similar to a bobsled team.

Since tomorrow is the big race, we looked it over one more time. Hank was standing with his tongue out and eyebrows down, his eyes inspecting everything carefully. Then his tongue slipped back inside his mouth and said, "We need more weight. And since the weight needs to be in the back, we need to shift everything forward."

I reminded him that my legs went in the front and if he was going to shift things forward he was going to have to figure out how to get rid of my legs.

"My legs don't detach, Hank," I pointed out, but then I wondered if fake legs would be better than real ones. Gigi, our grandma, had surgery on her legs and she told us that the doctor gave her bionic knees. She doesn't use a walker anymore. I'd asked her at least a hundred times to leap over a house in a single bound. She reassures me she will, if ever an urgent need arises, but it's bad manners to be a showoff. Then there's the man who runs the Gas-N-Go, who has a fake eye. I wonder if it's bionic, because it seems like he sees everything that goes on in Skunkerton. That's the name of our town.

We could use some bionic-ness tomorrow.