Weapons Don't Weep.

The words are scrawled across the back of Max Englehart's tanned neck in newly etched tattoo ink. For Harriet Pimpleton, something about them is like a pinprick of déjà vu; or that feeling you get when you know that you've left something off your 'to do' list but you can't quite remember what.

Infuriating.

But a little bit frightening at the same time.

The afternoon light slants through the dusty Venetian blinds in the science lab, reminding its occupants that there's summer fun to be had beyond the classroom walls. Harriet tries to focus on her Specialist Maths homework, but her traitorous eyes keep wandering back to the boy sitting in front of her.

The tattoo's inked letters are thick and pitch black, the same shade as Max's military length hair. You can tell that it's quality work. Max must have caught the train into the city to get it done. The only tattoo artist in Bogge Creek is Old Meg, and since her arthritis really got going, her work has been kind of wobbly.

As far as Harriet's concerned, Max Englehart's latest body art is as obnoxiously annoying as the rest of him. Weapons Don't Weep. Seriously? Who does the guy think he is? The leader of an outlaw bikie gang? Ridiculous.

Right now, at this very second, the bustling population of the bumbling town of Bogge Creek is approximately 220,000 if you count the sheep; and precisely 3762 if you don't. Of the non-ovine population (Harriet hesitates to claim many as human), precisely zero are outlaw bikie gang members. Certainly not Max Englehart. Max is just a privileged, middle class, wannabe bad boy with an attitude problem and an ink addiction.

"Harriet Pimpleton," Ms Black's voice is clipped and judgemental, a perfect reflection of the woman herself. "Eyes on your homework. I'm sure it's far more informative than the back of Mr Englehart's head."

"I wouldn't bet on it," Max mutters under his breath.

Harriet takes this comment as proof positive that Max is an arrogant twit. Not that she needs any additional evidence. Max has been proving his eternal twitdom since kindergarten.

"What was that Maximus?" Ms Black hisses.

"Nothing, Ms Black." Harriet can't see Max's face, but his grin ripples through his voice like chocolate topping on a sundae – warm and rich and guaranteed to give you a stomach ache. Harriet resists the overwhelming urge to throw her text book at the back of his head. The only thing stopping her is the certainty that, if she does, Ms Black will sentence her to an extended stint in detention, rather than the single week currently being served.

Right now, at this very second, the population in afternoon detention at Bogge Creek P-12 College is four. Five if you count Sissy Maguire, but a lifetime of living next door to the girl has taught Harriet that it's more practical not to. Sissy doesn't speak. Ever. Not because she can't, she simply chooses complete silence over talking. Harriet has met potatoes that are more engaging.

You might be wondering what a generally sensible and dedicated student like Harriet Pimpleton is doing in detention in the first place? It's a long story. One involving Harriet's best friend Eloise, a 'Welcome to Year 12' barbeque, a small flame ball, and Ms Black's eyebrows. Harriet, Eloise and the rest of their class escaped unscathed; Ms Black's eyebrows did not. Ms Black point blank refused to see the funny side of the situation. This is hardly surprising. Ms Black was born without any trace of a sense of humour.

To her left, Harriet's cousin Freddie is listening to the audio book version of one of the allocated novels for English Lit. Like Harriet and Eloise, Freddie is a relative stranger to detention. He's here today on account of his work spray-painting an uncommissioned mural across the whole East wall of the school gym. It's a beautiful scene of an old ghost gum leaning over the creek for which the town is named. From a distance, the mural looks like a photograph. Which is all the more impressive when you consider that Freddie is legally blind in both eyes. He can make out some things, like outlines and shadows and shapes and wot not. But he can't see much.

At least, not with his eyes.

Really, the whole thing is some kind of art miracle. An art miracle for which Freddie's reward is detention. In Harriet's eyes, this is an outcome as unjust as it is predictable. Bogge Creek P-12 College faces many issues. A school administration completely lacking in imagination is but one of them.

In truth, the more pressing problem for both the school and the town as a whole, is the imminent Alien invasion. But Harriet and her classmates aren't aware of that yet, so let's not get ahead of ourselves.

While it's clear to Harriet that Freddie is being detained for artistic brilliance; she and Eloise for accidental eyebrow arson; and Max for obnoxious ink (plus the very real crime of being inherently objectionable), what's not clear is why Sissy is here. Harriet knows that asking Sissy herself would be an exercise in futility. Sissy would only stare at Harriet with her over-sized blue eyes, blinking like a dazed bird, and say nothing. Harriet accepted long ago that attempting to communicate with Sissy Maguire is like eating carrots – you burn more energy than you gain (and not in a good way).

"Hats, do you have a ruler?" Eloise whispers from her spot to Harriet's right. Before Eloise has finished her sentence, Harriet is already handing her both the requested ruler, and the eraser which Harriet instinctively knows her friend will soon need.

Despite having been best friends almost since birth, it's fair to say that Eloise and Harriet don't have much in common. For a start, Eloise openly adores Max Englehart, something Harriet forgives her for solely because Eloise is Max's twin sister and so adoring him seems like the genetically done thing to do.

Chalk and cheese, night and day, Summer and Winter – that's Harriet and Eloise. Eloise's straight black hair and olive skin offer a dramatic counterpoint to Harriet's own bright red, fuzzy mop and freckles. Whereas Harriet tends to barrel through life like she's determined to conquer it with speed and sheer force of personality; Eloise is elegant of movement and quiet of voice, existing with such carefully executed restraint that people often forget she's there.

Despite their differences, the two girls fit together in a state of happy symbiosis that shouldn't work but always has. They do everything together, and everyone in Bogge Creek knows that Harriet Pimpleton and Eloise Englehart are a package deal.

"There's no talking in detention, Eloise." Ms Black spits words with such gusto that actual spittle often flies here, there and everywhere. The saliva collects in little white blobs at the corner of Ms Black's mouth, a constant reminder that an indiscriminate spray is never far away. There's a very good reason why no one ever wants to sit in the front row of one of Ms Black's classes.

"But Ms, I-"

Eloise's potential defence is lost to history as several unexpected things happen at once. The first unexpected thing is a series of large and deafening explosions, detonated in quick succession, which send great plumes of flame and smoke high into the air across the town. The closest of these hits the Town Hall, directly opposite the school, and erupts with such force that the windows of the school's third floor science lab implode. Glass shards fly; Eloise screams; and (in a move that all of them will later ponder should have been physically impossible) Max throws himself back over the table at which Harriet is sitting, yanks her from her lab stool and pulls her to relative safety on the linoleum floor beside him.

If she's honest, Harriet is more perturbed about finding herself thrust hard up against Max Englehart's rather ripped form, than she is about what happens next. And let me assure you, what happens next is monumentally perturbing.

The second unexpected thing is a set of identical text messages – one each for Harriet, Eloise, Freddie and Max. These all arrive less than a tenth of a second after the first explosion.  Although critical to our story, they will not be noticed until a bit later, so let's ignore them for a moment and move onto the third thing.

The third thing to happen is Ms Black. As phones are busy beeping and windows are busy shattering and Max Englehart is occupied executing superhuman feats of agility with his toned biceps and rock hard abs, Ms Black metamorphoses with glee.

You see, while Phyllis Black is arguably an average teacher, she is definitely a below average human being. Phyllis accepted her assignment to the hellhole called Earth under pressure from her fathers, who thought that an intergalactic adventure might be exactly what Phyllis needed to get over the unfortunate demise of her polyamorous, inter-species marriage. But Phyllis hates Earth; hates its single moon and insipid people; hates the way that cannibalism is frowned upon with such small-minded judgment; hates the month of July.

For Phyllis, it's an absolute relief when the bombs go off, it's 'Go' time, and she's free to shed her human-shaped disguise and reveal her double eyelids and three sets of teeth. It's with great joy that she allows her skin to take on its natural sludge-green hue, and unveils the purulent boils that identify her as being both high-born and infinitely sexually desirable. For the first time in eighteen years, Phyllis feels like herself. She's starving, and very much looking forward to doing away with both the princess and her irritating royal protectors. More than that, Phyllis is looking forward to devouring them all – live and whole.

Meanwhile, Harriet is finding it hard to concentrate on anything other than the fact that Max Englehart smells like vanilla ice cream. The kind of ice cream made with real vanilla beans, not the flavourless mush you get in a tub of no name Neapolitan. Max smells like vanilla, and he has her cradled to his body in a way that should feel comforting and reassuring but instead has Harriet thinking "you and me, sex, right here, right now". Which is incredibly disconcerting, particularly as Harriet has never really given much thought to having sex in anything other than an abstract "I guess if I want children, I'll have to do it one day" kind of way.

So it is, that when Ms Black metamorphoses into a sludge oozing, homicidal alien lizard, and attempts to eat Sissy Maguire right before Harriet's eyes, it doesn't even occur to Harriet to be frightened. She's too busy trying to work out whether it's acceptable to be ridiculously attracted to a boy and also vehemently dislike him with every fibre of your being.

With the more naturally extroverted member of the Harriet-Eloise duo temporarily incapacitated by unexpected lust, it is left up to Eloise – gentle, quiet, unassuming Eloise – to intervene. No one is more surprised than Eloise herself when she rises to the occasion with distinction. As the alien lizard formerly known as Ms Phyllis Black launches itself at Sissy Maguire with all 372 of its razor-sharp teeth bared and ready to rumble, Eloise picks up a humble HB pencil and goes to work. Sprint, sprint, fly kick, stab, stab, stab. Ms Black falls to the floor in a pool of her own pus – dead, done and dusted.

Eloise takes one glance at her own handiwork and vomits all over the floor.

Freddie, who hasn't seen much of the battle (at least not with his eyes) is the first one to rush to Eloise's side. He rubs her back and holds her long hair out of the way as she spews. Eloise feels calmer just knowing that he's there.

It's at this point that Sissy, after 18 years of almost total silence, finally deigns to speak.

"You lot are a truly sorry excuse for a Life Squad," Sissy sniffs, looking down her patrician nose at each of them in turn. Having missed being eaten alive by Ms Black by a margin of mere millimetres, Sissy is calmly wiping Alien slime from the lapel of her school blazer. Rather than seeming traumatised by her near-death experience, Sissy Maguire looks bored.  "Hopefully you'll lift your game somewhere between here and the spacecraft," she says. She flips her waterfall of silky, white blonde hair over her shoulder in a way that feels very much like an insult.

"Excuse me?" Harriet queries, having shifted far enough away from Max that her brain cells are beginning to fire on a few cylinders. "Who do you-" She pauses and then laughs. "Yeah, right. Spacecraft".

"There is nothing funny about space travel, Harriet Pimpleton," Sissy reprimands. "Nor, quite frankly, is there anything even remotely amusing about this squad's total lack of either skill or discipline. You've been activated for Universe's sake. You're meant to be among the best seven galaxies have to offer. Would it really hurt you to start acting like it?"

"Sissy," Max begins. "What the actual fuck are you on about?" The question might not be elegantly phrased, but it very much echoes what Harriet and the others are thinking.

In response, Sissy stares at Max like he's an idiot.

"Oh, for Universe's sake, Maximus. Check your bloody phone messages will you. That goes for the rest of you too," Sissy demands with a regal flick of her wrist.

Like Max next to her, Harriet reaches into her blazer pocket and pulls out her mobile phone. Sure enough, she has one recent message from an unknown number.

Agent 23, you have been activated.

Harriet attempts to scroll down for more detail but there isn't any. Her confusion written all over her face, she glances up to find Max, Eloise and Freddie wearing matching expressions of befuddlement.

They turn back to Sissy as one. For the first time, Sissy looks scared.

"Shit," she says, studying each of them in turn. Her hands start to shake. "You don't remember a thing, do you?"