Constantine, "Alien Boy"

Congratulations to University of Leicester Creative Writing MA graduate Constantine, who has published a new novel, Alien Boy! 

Constantine achieved a first in his B.A. Creative writing degree in 2017 and achieved equal success when he finished his Master's degree in 2021. He has written four episodes of the CBeebies show Pablo and has written a number of books, the most well-known being The Cats of Charnwood Forest.

About Alien Boy, by Constantine

Alien Boy is the first in several very short volumes designed for reluctant readers. The chapters are short, there is some description, plenty of dialogue and it is written from a first-person point of view. The style of writing fits the age of the character and reminds me of the "What We Did in the Holidays" reports I used to be asked to write at school in the late 80s. The story follows Alen, an 11-year-old orphan with ASD who discovers he is far more important than he could possibly believe.

You can read more about Alien Boy on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read a sample from the novel. 

From Alien Boy

After dinner I rushed to my room, closed the door, and took out my watch. I looked at it long and hard. It had come back on, and once again random numbers were showing on the screen.

I put it down and immediately the numbers stopped … you can guess what happened next can’t you? That’s right, I picked it up and the numbers started again but stopped when I put it down.

My mind went back to my talk with Gordon. The watch had flashed when I passed it to him, but was it flashing while he held it? I don’t think it did. Could the watch only work when being touched by me?

This was amazing, I strapped it to my wrist, and it came to life, numbers scrolling across the screen, always in groups of two. After a while, the watch beeped and then the numbers started again. Was there a pattern? I waited till it beeped again and this time I wrote them down. This is what it looked like:

09 06 00 26 15 21 00 23 01 14 20 00 20 15 00 11 14 15 23 00 23 08 15 00 26 15 21 00 01 18 05 27 00 20 08 05 00 17 21 05 19 20 09 15 14 00 20 15 00 01 19 11 00 09 15 00 23 08 15 00 01 13 00 09 

The 09 was flashing, so I underlined it. I thought that it must be important, but what did it mean? What did any of it mean? I looked at the numbers long and hard. And the 00’s stood out. If 0 is nothing, then 00 is also nothing. So, I wrote it again leaving a space where the 00’s were. Now it looked like this.

09 06    26 15 21      23 01 14 20    20 15    11 14 15 23    23 08 15    26 15 21    01 18 05 27    20 08 05    17 21 05 19 20 09 15 14    20 15    01 19 11    09 15    23 08 15    01 13    09

Now I was getting somewhere. The numbers were starting to look like words. Could it really be so simple?

I looked for a 01 and saw there was one near the end next to a 13. Now if 01 was "A" then 13 would be "M" which would make "AM." It seemed to work and so I tried all the other numbers. The 27 caused me some problems, because as you know there are only 26 letters; but then I figured that if 00 could be a space, 27 could be a full stop. Within minutes I had deciphered the message:

"If you want to know who you are the question to ask is 'who am I?'"

What did that mean? I thought about it, but it didn’t make sense. Then I remembered that the "I" was flashing. That was a clue. Who am I? I’m Alen Boiy. Was it the "I" in my surname? What if I took it out? I’m Alen Boy? That didn’t make much more sense. Okay what if I took the "I" and put it somewhere else? Alen I Boy? I Alen Boy? Then it hit me: you probably worked it out ages ago. The "I" went in the middle of my first name.

I whispered the answer out loud because it seemed too mad to stay in my head.

"I’m not Alen Boiy," I whispered. "I’m Alien Boy."

My watch made a beep and a new message scrolled across the screen. In a few minutes I had it deciphered.

"Well done," it said. "We will be in touch."