My Teacher Fried My Brains

One of the previous books I covered in May was the Bruce Coville classic My Teacher is an Alien. It was a book that I ended up really liking, despite feeling that it suffered from not giving us really any answers about what the aliens were and their plans. It did give an open ending, meaning that Coville was intending a sequel. Sure enough, two years later, we got that sequel. Let's see what it offers with My Teacher Fried My Brains.

COVER STORY

This cover continues the gimmick of the previous book by having our protagonists look through a window and see their teacher unmasking to reveal the alien face underneath. I like that the design looks different from just redoing the Broxholm design previously. Still green and still creepily detailed. I also like the design o the kid getting his brain fried behind the alien. I think this cover ends up being more enticing than the prior book. Another solid work from Steve Fastner.

STORY

In our last book, Susan Simmons and her sixth grade class were shocked to return from Spring Break to discover their teacher Ms. Simmons was replaced by a strange, stern man named Mr. John Smith. Susan soon discovers the truth about Mr. Smith. That he was an alien named Broxholm whose mission was to abduct five students, the best, worst and three average, to take to their home planet. Susan and her friend Peter Thompson also discover Ms. Simmons trapped in Broxholm's attic. Eventually, Susan, Peter and the other students defeat Broxholm with music. Peter sacrifices himself by entering Broxholm's spaceship and leaving with him. 

Our protagonist this time is Duncan Dougal, school bully from the last book. He's still somewhat of a bully, but he also has to deal with his older brother Patrick who enjoys bugging him as well. It's been a few months since the Broxholm incident and Peter's abduction. Even Peter's father, who we initially established didn't seem to care about his son, misses him now. It's the beginning of a new school year and Duncan is now in seventh grade and in a new school. But after he stumbles around looking for his class, he gets accosted by a stern, large man named Mr. Manuel Ketchum, the school principal. He's also referred to as "The Mancatcher" due to how beastly he is. 

Duncan arrives at home ec and meets his teacher, Ms. Betty Lou Karpou, who he's also a bit smitten at. However, she's also a bit aloof, as she burns herself on the oven. And, despite doing nothing to warrant it, Duncan gets blamed by Mancatcher. Duncan gets accosted again, but by an eighth grader named Orville Plumber, before Susan comes to his aid. Turns out that after the Broxholm incident, people aren't messing with her anymore, case in point when Orville makes his leave. Duncan arrives in math class and has to deal with another stern teacher, Mr. Black. Duncan, already annoyed by the events of the day, badmouths Mr. Black, getting him kicked out of class. 

Now even more annoyed, Duncan pulls the fire alarm to create a fake fire drill. However, when he pulls the lever, purple ink sprays on his hand, a way to catch would-be pranksters. Duncan tries to wash it off, but no luck. He runs outside and before he can get caught by Mancatcher, he dives into a nearby dumpster. He hides until all is clear, but still ends up getting garbage dumped on him. However, in the trash he finds something odd. A human hand. Or to be more precise, almost like a human hand glove. Like something Broxholm would have used to cover his alien skin when he posed as Mr. Smith. That leaves Duncan with a grim realization: there's another alien teacher.

After some waffling over if the missing glove means an alien is still around and looking for it, Duncan takes the glove and eventually gets out of the dumpster. He goes to talk to Susan, but he's too filthy from the dumpster dive for her mother to even let him in. As he heads home, a woman runs into Duncan. She introduces herself as Honey Flint, a reporter for The National Sun who wants to interview Duncan about the whole Broxholm stuff from earlier in the year. Despite worrying that maybe Honey is the alien, Duncan shows her the alien hand. After that, he washes himself with a hose to get rid of the stink and heads home. He has to take his clothes off outside due to them being soaked, giving Patrick a chance to take a nude photo of him because it hasn't been established enough that he's a really awful guy, I guess?

Duncan fixes up the glove and uses it to cover up his ink stain. He goes to school the next day and it seems to work, as Mancatcher doesn't have his proof that Duncan set off the alarm, though pieces of the hand are fraying off, making it a bit too suspicious.. So, now the question is which member of the faculty is an alien. According to Patrick, four people recently joined the school. Mancatcher, Mr. Black, Ms. Karpou, and the more suspiciously named Andromeda Jones, Duncan's science teacher. Not long into class, Duncan is sent to Mancatcher's office. Mancatcher had gotten a call from Honey Fields about the interview and thinks that Duncan is making up stories about another alien invasion. Duncan goes to show him the glove, but it's gone. All that's left is his inked up hand, landing him in trouble. But it makes Duncan more sure that our possible alien is Mancatcher.

After a week of detention, Duncan returns to Ms. Jones' class where he is forced to do an experiment about free flowing electricity. He has a weird helmet put on his head while a kid named Marcus (described pretty bluntly as "a black kid") turns it on. Duncan can feel the electricity flowing in his body as his hair stands up, but also a weird feeling in his brain. Marcus cranks the machine for a bit too long, but they established that that might have been revenge for Duncan once destroying his lunch box and just bullying him like he does everyone else. 

After school, Duncan decides that as soon as he can, he should talk to Ms. Schwartz, his teacher from elementary school who was abducted by Broxholm. But before he can do that, Susan and the other kids begin to berate him for the article in the National Sun where Duncan took all of the credit for defeating Broxholm. So now despite everything else that's befallen him, now everyone thinks that "Duncan Dougal, Boy Hero" is just a big liar. The school is now thinking of suing Duncan's family for the comment about one of the staff members being an alien, and with no glove, he can't actually do much about that either. So, now Duncan needs to get his proof as soon as possible.

Things also seem to be different for Duncan. He is actually able to pay attention in class and he's getting all of his match questions correct. It's as if the whole brain shock stuff from earlier but his brain into a hyper focus. Duncan now believes that must mean that Andromeda Jones is the alien. But more importantly, he wants another jolt of the brain fryer. He stays after school and sneaks around until he passes out in the library. When he wakes up, he sneaks into the science lab to find a snack, but finds something else in a Tupperware case. A strange glowing slug creature that attacks him. After he gets the creature off him. As Duncan sneaks into the closet to grab the brain fryer, only for the slug to follow him. Duncan tries to get it to leave him alone, but the slug just keeps saying "poot". 

Duncan puts the helmet on his head and begins to turn the crank. He cranks the machine so fast that it overloads and blows up on him. In his unconscious state, Duncan sees visions of Peter and Broxholm before finally waking up. He sees the slug make a version of his face and panics a bit. He thinks that he's gotten smarter from the brain fryer, then puts everything away, including the little poot snail. As he heads home, he gets stopped by Peter's father, Mr. Thompson. He still thinks Peter just ran away from home, but his more abrasive demeanor seems to have gone away with how he misses his son. Far different from Peter's description in the last book. 

The effects of the brain fryer are changing Duncan's standing with the other teachers. He also enjoys reading books now that he can actually read them, making him realize how much of a jerk he was to Peter. But, like all junkies, Duncan needs another hit, so he gets a third jolt from the brain fryer. However, when he gets home, his radio suddenly turns on. It seems the jolt worked too well and now he's got a sixth sense. This has his head act much like a powerful receiver, able to hear and feel the waves of all audio and video around him, turning it all into a nonsensical blur. That night, among all the weird visions, he hears and sees Peter. Duncan leaves a note for Susan, apologizing for the article and asking for her help. Later that day he snaps at Ms. Karpou. He goes to her classroom after school to apologize when suddenly Ms. Karpou uses her wooden spoon to weirdly lock him in place as she removes her mask. Yep, Ms. Betty Lou Karpou is our alien teacher.

Ms. Karpou, or Kreeblim as she is actually named, is different looking than Broxholm was. She has three eyes, a strange trunk-like nose and weird hair. She also keeps the poot slug as her pet. She places Duncan on a table and places a bowl over his head which blocks the waves and allows her to read his mind. And it's that supercharged mind that she needs. After taking Duncan to her hideout, a house similar to Broxholm's, Keeblim reveals that it was her glove that Duncan found in the trash recalling that on his first day at home ec, she burned her finger, or to be more precise, the human hand glove. As for Poot being in the lab fridge, it was all a coincidence given the home ec fridge was broken.

Kreeblim then tells Duncan that she needs his brain to serve as a communicator to her home planet. Broxholm's exodus left her stranded on Earth and now she wants to go home. And since Duncan willingly kept powering his brain up, everything fell into place. As she leaves, Poot crawls to Duncan's shoulder and seems to take a liking to him. Kreeblim returns and reveals that she isn't the same species as Broxholm, but her mission was similar to his. That the rest of the universe has been studying planet Earth and are worried what will happen once they learn how to travel through space. 

Kreeblim then places Duncan in a force field, keeping him captive. Suddenly, Duncan hears Peter's voice again and sees his face. Interestingly, Peter no longer has glasses as the aliens fixed his eyes. In fact, there's a lot to talk about. First off, Earth is in the center of the galaxy and the Interplanetary Council doesn't know what to do about that, mainly due to Earth's weird customs. The different parts of the council are debating between four methods to handle the planet: invade it, leave it alone, blow it up, or place a blockade around it. Mainly because compared to the rest of the universe, Earthlings are too weird for them, which is why the likes of Broxholm and Kreeblim were sent to Earth to study them. And that the human brain is a strange anomaly that could be useful if its full power was used. Fearing being caught, Peter then leaves. But, hey, look at that, some of my issues last book addressed. Thank you for not bringing me down Bruce.

Duncan realizes what's going on. That his new powers and intelligence are all from a fully powered brain. Now he worries what the aliens could do with that power. As Kreeblim sets up Duncan as a communicator, he gets another message from Peter telling him that the aliens are up to something and to warn the government. Susan finally arrives. She tells Duncan that he's been missing for three weeks. As Susan touches the force field, she can hear Peter, who tells her how to turn off the machine. She manages to free Duncan, but they lose communication with Peter. As they leave, they realize they need proof of another alien, so they grab Poot. 

Before they can leave, Kreeblim returns and is quite annoyed. She then reveals that her mission is benevolent. The council has chosen a five member team to report within a month's time what's to be done with Earth. A beam of blue light then arrives with Peter and Broxholm exiting it. Turns out that they too are part of this team, as are Susan, Duncan and Kreeblim. Duncan asks why he was chosen, but Kreeblim tells him that he made that decision himself when he used the brain fryer. Peter then tells Susan and Duncan that they have to go to space to talk with the council, and our book ends with the kids entering the beam and leaving Earth. 

CONCLUSION

I ended my coverage of My Teacher is an Alien feeling good about what I read, but ultimately felt like it was a book that didn't really answer anything. So, I went into My Teacher Fried My Brains hoping for a strong follow-up, and I definitely got that. It does the most important thing I was asking for from the first, and that's a general answer as to what Broxholm's mission was. That the taking of the kids was originally part of this plan to determine Earth's fate, and we get enough of an answer in this book to satisfy that. And leaves on a strong enough open ending to hook you into wanting to see what's next. A sequel that cares about the original events and builds upon that world to expand the universe in interesting new ways. See Stine, this is how a sequel should work.

What makes the book also work is the focus on Duncan Dougal. He was more of a minor character in the previous book, but now becomes the protagonist. And despite being a bully, he ends up being a likable and relatable character. He did awful things to people, but also realizes the error of his ways, even feeling remorse for how he treated Peter in the original. It's a sign of actually decent character growth and the story with him in the lead flows very well. Shame that Susan from the previous book gets lost in the shuffle until the end, but this is more Duncan's story and his part of the saga, so it makes sense that she plays less of a part here. It's all sums of a bigger part and I can appreciate that.

I also like the general mystery of the book. How we don't make it too obvious that it's Ms. Karpou as the alien. How we even add Andromeda Jones to be a red herring, since the cover makes it pretty clear that the alien is female, or at least posing as female. I do wish we built on the mystery more, but given the bigger focus on Duncan's addiction to the power of the brain fryer, it was a sacrifice that didn't hinder the book. I like the fryer itself as it works as both a solid plot device and as sort of a little parable about the dangers of addiction. And the idea of this brain wave sixth sense is a neat concept, though not used to its full extent. But what we get for the book is serviceable. I also appreciate the general twist of the story. That we learn that Kreeblix isn't evil, nor was Broxholm. That this was all part of a bigger event that puts the whole planet's fate at stake. A definite sign that Bruce Coville planned this story far better. And with two books to go, I hope we end on a strong note.

So, yeah, definite thumbs up book for me. It's what a good sequel should be. Taking what the first book established and building on it, while also giving us enough incentive to see where this story leads. So, that leaves us with a book with only a few minor things that could have been tweaked, but otherwise is a great read. Recommending this one is a total no-brainer. My Teacher Fried My Brains gets an A.