by Elise Allen
He looked back up at the Gravi-Pull statue. Gabby could see from his face that it was different for him, somehow…but maybe he wasn’t sure how.
“Hop back on,” she whispered. “The Martians moved. I think we’re good to go to the next pee stain.”
Petey crawled back onto Gabby’s neck and kept guiding her along Sneakers’s trail, but every time they neared another statue, Gabby scanned the inscription on the pedestal. Every single statue turned out to be another Martian-created weapon, and the inscription described its greatest triumph.
HARMONIC CONVERGER: CREATED THE EXACT RESONANT TONE TO CRUMBLE THE PLANET ZINK.
ROASTALYZER: RAISED THE TEMPERATURE IN PHLEF FIVE DEGREES IN ONE DAY, MELTING ALL POLAR ICECAPS AND DROWNING EVERY LANDMASS.
MOON ZOOM: PROPELLED ARGRAN’S MOON INTO AN IRREVOCABLE TRAJECTORY TOWARD THE PLANET.
The list went on, and while even Gabby had to admit that every statue looked like the most…well…kragphemous movie prop she’d ever seen, none of the stories were from movies. They were real. Gabby didn’t know how many of the destroyed and devastated planets had inhabitants, or how many those inhabitants were able to evacuate and get to other planets, but no matter what, it all seemed pretty awful.
“All the tourists who come here,” Gabby whispered to Petey the next time they were far enough away from their hunters, “and everyone who checks out the planet in virtual reality, like you, do they know the Martians destroyed all those planets?”
“It’s not like the Martians did it themselves,” Petey whispered back defensively. “I mean, they make weapons. For other planets. They don’t use them. I don’t even think Mars has been to war. Ever.”
“Okay…but do the tourists know Mars is behind all these wars?”
Gabby could practically hear the eye roll in Petey’s voice. “Gabby, they’re not. Martians make cool weapons. Cool weapons don’t kill planets; species who use cool weapons kill planets.”
“With cool weapons they got from Mars,” Gabby retorted. “And it’s not like the Martians aren’t happy about it. Look at all the statues. They’re celebrating it.”
“Well, yeah!” Petey shot back. Then his voice faded, and Gabby knew he didn’t have a great answer for why. Instead he said petulantly, “Look, if no one wanted the weapons, Mars would make something else. Like…I dunno…kittens.”
Gabby scrunched her brow. “You don’t make kittens,” she said. “At least, not the way you’re thinking.”
“They do on Galgathon Five,” Petey said. “I’m just saying, whatever happened to all those planets, it’s not the Martians’ fault.”
Gabby would have answered, but the Martians sounded far enough away that she felt like she could move. She commando-crawled to a particularly large boulder, then waited for Petey to climb it and scout out the next splotch.
“Guess what?” he whispered when he hopped back down by her face.
“I’m going to wake up back in bed and this whole day will be a bad dream?”
“That’s a terrible guess,” Petey said. “If it was all a dream, you’d’ve never met me.”
“Good point. Just tell me, then—what?”
Petey grinned. “We’re here.”
“Here?”
Gabby warily peeked up from the grass. She hadn’t even realized it, but she and Petey had made it all the way across the park. They were right at its edge. The thick grass ended a few feet up ahead, then only a wide, red-pebbled walkway separated them from the first row of towers…one of which was marked with a neon-pink pee splotch.
Gabby was so excited she almost forgot to whisper. “That’s the one!”
Taking a quick look around, she saw the Martians in their pairs and trios, but at this moment none of them were coming their way.
She looked at the tower; the big pedestrian walkway in front of it was empty in all directions, and the shimmery spot that had to be its entryway, just like all the other Martian entryways she’d seen, called to her like a giant beacon.
Gabby bit her lip, nervous but excited. “I think we can make it.”
Petey grinned and hopped onto her shoulder. “Do it!”
Gabby edged to the walkway side of the large rock, using its cover as long as she had it, then sprinted for the pee-marked tower. She tried not to think about the pounding sound of her feet on the pebbles—she just ran for all she was worth, her eyes on the large, shimmery spot. It was a fifty-yard dash away…twenty-five…ten…
Suddenly, a bright red lattice lit up between her and the tower, and Petey yanked her hair so hard she reeled backward.
“OW!” she screamed.
She gasped, but the damage had been done.
“FREEZE!” cried a male voice behind them in the park. “HANDS IN THE AIR AND TURN AROUND! SLOWLY!”
Gabby froze, and she felt her blood drain down her body. She didn’t want to turn around. She wanted to disappear.
Still, she obeyed. She put up her hands and spun slowly around. The nearest Martian—the one who must have spoken to her—was just across the walkway from her. He had what looked like a small cannon on top of his head, and it was pointed right at her. Two more Martians f lanked him, one on either side.
Behind them, the entire swarm of Martians that had been hunting them now poured out of the park, all with their weapons drawn.
Gabby and Petey were cornered.
abby blinked back tears as the horde of Martians ran toward them. She wasn’t crying because she was terrified, nor because her head still throbbed from Petey yanking her hair. She was crying because she was frustrated. She knew she was the one who’d messed up.
“The red grid lights,” she said. She knew Petey could hear her; she could feel him holding on to the back of her neck. “They were lasers, right?”
“Motion-sensor high-intensity laser alarms,” Petey said. “Sorry I hurt you. I could’ve just jumped away, but I didn’t want you to get vaporized. I’d be in big trouble with my parents if you did.”
Gabby laughed despite herself. “I shouldn’t have shouted. We’d be okay if I’d kept quiet.”
The first three Martians were right in front of them now, with the rest of them just behind. Gabby knew she only had a couple of seconds.
“Run and hide, Petey,” she said urgently. “Don’t let them catch you, too. I’ll try to get out of this, I swear.”
“How?” Petey asked.
Gabby had no idea, and no time to think about it before the Martian with the cannon on his head reached her and roughly pulled her arms behind her back. She felt Petey leap off her neck and hoped he managed to get someplace far away without being seen.
“Let’s go,” said the Martian holding Gabby’s arms. “We’re taking you for recycling.”
More Martians surrounded her, pressing close so she couldn’t escape. She saw nothing but her own warped ref lection in their metallic silver, purple, black, and gold suits.
“Recycling?” she asked as they marched her forward.
“Yes,” the Martian holding her said. “We’ll kill you, but in the process we’ll break you down into all your individual cells so we can reuse them for everything from fuel, to plant food, to textiles. We try to keep our executions eco-friendly.”
“That’s weirdly almost admirable,” Gabby said.
As she kept marching forward, Gabby leaned this way and that to see beyond the immediate circle of Martians surrounding her. All she saw was another circle of Martians beyond them, and then another beyond those. There was no possible way out.
She wondered if anyone at home would know she’d been recycled, or if they’d just think she’d been kidnapped, or run away. She imagined her dad hearing the news in Miami. Would he f ly back home to comfort Mom and Carmen? Or would he blame Alice for Gabby’s disappearance? Gabby could imagine them fighting over it, and then Carmen getting caught up in some kind of angry custody battle.
Gabby also wondered about Edwina. Did she know Gabby was on Mars? This Mars? Her step lightened a bit a
s she imagined Edwina finding out and marshaling all of A.L.I.E.N. to bring back her, Petey, Sharli, and Sneakers. Gabby could even imagine the sound of Edwina’s voice ringing out as she swept in at the last second to save her before she was recycled.
Just then a voice did ring out…but it wasn’t Edwina’s. The voice was a strong soprano, booming and majestic, and it froze every Martian in their tracks. In unison, they all turned to face the park, tilted back their heads, and raised their arms up in a high V—including the Martian who’d been holding Gabby.
Suddenly, Gabby was free. No one was even looking at her.
Why? What was going on?
Gabby looked around and saw the source of the voice.
It was Petey.
He stood on the head of a burgundy-metal-suited Martian and sang out loud: “Mars, oh, Mars, we loyal are / Sing your praises near and far / Honor thee and cheer your name / As you spread your fiery f lame…”
The song went on, filled with glowing praise for Mars and its superiority in the universe, and the Martians remained completely still. If Gabby didn’t know better, she’d be positive they were actual robots, not creatures in metal suits, because it seemed impossible that anyone could hold their arms so perfectly straight in the air for so long without getting terrible cramps.
“Petey?” Gabby asked as she moved closer to him. “What’s going on?”
Petey shook his head, but he didn’t stop singing. In fact he leaned extra-hard on some of the words and stared at Gabby while he did, as if to make sure she heard them clearly.
“Let our ANTHEM loudly blare / Spread our pride through everywhere / SHOW ALLEGIANCE ABSOLUTE / HEAR THE SONG AND ALL SALUTE!”
Petey let the last note ring out. When it finished, the Martians rumbled back to life—for a second. Then Petey took a deep breath and started in again. “Mars, oh, Mars we loyal are…”
The Martians immediately snapped back into position.
Gabby grinned. She got it now. Petey was singing the Martian anthem, and Martians clearly took their anthem very seriously. As long as he was singing, none of the Martians would move. It was brilliant, except Petey’s face was turning red from endlessly belting the song. He couldn’t go on forever, and the second he stopped they were doomed all over again.
Unless…
Gabby pulled out her cell phone and called up the voice record function. The next time Petey started the anthem, she reached up and held the phone as close to him as she could. When he reached the end, she stopped recording but motioned for him to keep singing—she had some work to do. Petey understood, but his face was even redder now, and his voice was starting to strain on the higher notes. Gabby didn’t have much time before it gave out entirely. She quickly shrugged off her backpack and rummaged inside until she found her Bluetooth speaker. It was shaped like an incredibly cute, big-eyed panda bear, with rounded ears on top—the littler kids she babysat loved that. Gabby quickly synced her phone to the speaker, and when Petey finished the anthem once more, Gabby held up a hand to him—Stop. He did, and Gabby immediately played back the song from her phone. It rang out through the speaker, even louder than when Petey sang it himself.
It worked. The Martians stayed in position. They didn’t budge.
Petey hopped off the Martian’s head and slid down his back, where Gabby caught him. “Thanks,” he said breathlessly. “I don’t think I could have done another round.”
“Thank you,” Gabby said. “You have a really good voice.”
Petey rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell my mom. She wants me to join the Minisculeans of Earth Youth Group Choir. Not interested.”
“Deal. Now let’s figure out how to get into Sharli and Sneakers’s tower.”
Gabby set her phone’s playback on a continuous loop so the anthem would play over and over, then she and Petey left the Martian horde behind. They ran back to the tower that was splashed with Sneakers’s hot-pink pee. She gave the Martians one more glance, just to make sure they weren’t watching, but they all steadfastly faced the park.
“They have to face southeast during the anthem,” Petey said, guessing her question. “That’s the direction of Grarglebok from Mars; Grarglebok’s the first planet to buy any of their weapons.”
It wasn’t the most poetic reason Gabby could imagine, but at least it kept the Martians from seeing what Gabby and Petey were up to. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s see how powerful this thing is.”
She rummaged for something expendable in her knapsack. There were the metallic foot springs, the cloth napkin full of fish sticks…Then Gabby whipped out the other cloth napkin—the one that had held the Pop-Tarts. She zipped her knapsack back up, shrugged it onto her back, then tied the ends of the napkin into a knot so it had some weight. “Here we go,” she said, and lobbed the knotted napkin toward the tower.
ZAP! The lattice sprung into view like a lightning bolt, and the napkin vaporized instantly. It didn’t even leave any ash.
“Whoa,” Petey said. “That was seriously kragphemous.”
“Kragphemous…and dangerous,” Gabby said. “But there has to be a way through.”
The Martian anthem restarted, and Gabby inwardly thanked whoever created the continuous repeat option on her phone. Getting through the laser lattice was a puzzle, and she needed time to figure it out.
Slowly, she stepped closer to the building. The lasers snapped to life, and Gabby inspected them while they sizzled. She noticed the lasers came from a series of small, perfectly circular red eyes along the tower. Each eye telescoped just an inch or two out from the building when the lasers activated, and each projected a different section of the mesh. The eye responsible for the section of lasers in front of Gabby was about twenty feet up on the tower.
The mesh itself was like a chain-link fence, far too tight for Gabby to ever squeeze through. She couldn’t stick more than the tippy toe of her sneaker in without it hitting a beam and disintegrating.
Petey, however…
Gabby thought about his dexterity, how he was always scrambling up her jacket, or swinging and somersaulting off her hair. Even when Sharli had sent him spiraling around her house, he’d been unafraid.
Petey could conceivably get to the door, but Gabby couldn’t. Not unless she could disarm the lasers entirely. Or if she were a Martian and had her own suit made of mirrored metal to def lect the laser light rays.
Mirrored metal to def lect the laser light rays.
Gabby’s heart thudded. She had an idea. A good idea—one Zee would be proud of—but she couldn’t do it without putting Petey into incredible danger. Petey was just a kid and her responsibility. There was no way she could knowingly risk his life.
Except there was another kid and an alien dog, and they were her responsibility, too. And while she’d never choose any of them over the others, she also couldn’t live with herself if she left this place without trying everything she could to rescue Sharli and Sneakers.
Gabby took Petey off her shoulder and looked him in the eye. “The holes in the laser mesh,” Gabby said. “You think you could fit through them?”
Petey turned to look at the glowing red lattice. Each hole was about half his height, and while its width was thinner than Petey if he stood with his arms and legs spread wide, Gabby knew he could fit through if he got a running start and dove, with his hands over his head and his legs together.
She wasn’t interested in the physics of it though. She wanted to know how he felt about his chances.
When Petey turned back to her he was grinning.
“Easy.”
Gabby relaxed the teeniest bit, but Petey was just getting started.
“Wait’ll you see it,” he said. “This is gonna be the sweetest recue ever. I dive through the laser fence, run through the door, then I zoom around like a mini-ninja until I find Sneakers and Sharli, and then—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Gabby said. “You’re not going in by yourself.”
“Uh…yeah I am. Unless you’ve got a Shrink-O-Z
apper in that backpack.” Then his eyes lit up. “Do you?”
He looked so excited, Gabby almost wished she did. “No. But I don’t need it. I have a better idea.”
She reached deep into the pocket of her purple puffer jacket and pulled out the small rectangular lip gloss compact Madison had given her earlier that day. She knelt down and took very careful aim, then slipped it gently through a low hole in the mesh.
“What’s that?” Petey asked.
“You’ll see. First I need you to try something.”
Gabby reached down to the bottom of her knapsack, grinning as she again pushed past Zee’s springing shoe covers—Gabby couldn’t wait to thank Zee for the inspiration—and pulled out a pair of ballpoint pens, the kind with the clicker at the top to retract the tip. She twisted each pen apart, then pulled out the ink tubes. Each one had a small spring at the end, which she quickly yanked off.
“Sit, please,” she told Petey. “Legs out in front of you.”
He did as he was told. Gabby bent out the ends of the springs, then re-bent them around Petey’s sneakers. Petey brightened as he realized what Gabby was trying to do.
“Best. Sitter. Ever,” he said.
Gabby laughed. “Not sure your mom would agree. Let’s try ’em out.”
She held out a finger, and Petey grabbed it to pull himself up. Thanks to Gabby’s handiwork, the spring-tops were now securely fastened over his sneakers, while the springs themselves rested perfectly in the middle of his feet. He took a few test bounces, then within seconds he was bouncing for all he was worth, rising to eye level with Gabby.
“This is so cool!” he shouted.
“Shhh!” Gabby reminded him. It was great the Martians were fully engrossed in the anthem, but they were still nearby, and she’d rather they didn’t overhear Gabby and Petey and figure out exactly where they were. Gabby grabbed the Minisculean at the apex of his next jump, then explained what she needed him to do. “I won’t lie,” she said when she finished. “It’s very dangerous. If you don’t feel comfortable, if you have any worries at all, you don’t have to—”
“I’m not worried!” he insisted. “And I don’t care about danger. My middle name is Danger.”
