“It’s a real mystery,” I said. “Why don’t I stay home from camp and help unpack everything so we can get to the bottom of it?”
“Nice try, dear,” Mom said. “Now get in the car.”
At the Speaking Stump, Turkey Vulture was holding forth on today’s activity: fishing.
“Using baskets you weave yourselves, you will scoop fish from the stream. Then you will gut, roast, and eat your prey.”
I raised my hand.
“Uh, I don’t eat meat,” I said.
Turkey Vulture looked appalled.
“It’s a cultural thing,” I said. “My whole family is vegetarian.”
This wasn’t totally true. My mom’s family was from Karnataka, and they were all serious vegetarians. But Dad snuck hamburgers more than he’d ever admit. (It was not by chance that we wound up at an In-N-Out Burger that time we got lost.)
Turkey Vulture just sighed and put me on basket-weaving duty.
Scorpion walked by with a spear he’d made from a fallen branch. “You know what they call a vegetarian in the woods?” he said to me. “Prey.”
Gulp.
Everyone else ate themselves silly at lunch. I was so hungry that when Dad picked me up, I scarfed down a half-eaten pack of bunny crackers that had been in the seat pocket since I was in fourth grade.
Camp had exhausted me, too, and I fell asleep almost as soon as I got home. Then I had the weirdest dream. I was back at camp, and the birds were singing so loudly that I couldn’t hear what Turkey Vulture was saying. He started pouring birdseed over my head, and the birds flew down and started peck peck peck-ing at me, and . . .
I woke up.
But I still felt the pecking, like needles in my scalp. Ow!
It was Klawde! He was kneading my head with his paws.
“Mrow?” Klawde said.
His first real meow! It was so cute!
The claws digging into my forehead really hurt, though.
CHAPTER 22
I was just about to complete the mind-meld technique when the small Human awoke.
Hiss!
“Mrow?” I said, pretending to be an idiot Earth cat.
The ogre fell for my ruse. The fool!
Although I had not finished the mind-meld, I had explored enough of the boy-ogre’s brain to learn what I needed to. For one thing, I now knew that I never wanted to be inside a Human mind again. The creature’s cranium was like a dark cave with no exit! But at least I could now understand the Humans’ language and some of their ways.
The young ogre, it turned out, had a name: Raj Banerjee. The long-furred ogre was “Mom,” and the big, dull one was “Dad.” Depressingly, none of them understood anything about technology. They had never even visited another planet!
This, I now knew, was the sad truth of all Humans.
I also learned something else, something truly bizarre: The young ogre “loved” me.
This “love” was an entirely un-feline concept. Was it an emotion, like pride or aggression, or a type of illness?
I suspected the latter.
The most mystifying symptom of this affliction was that one ogre would choose to serve another ogre—or animal—that it loved. How impossibly strange these Humans were.
The boy-Human placed his bald paw on my head and scratched gently at my ears. Surprisingly, I did not mind this.
Then it struck me.
The boy-ogre had opposable thumbs! This meant that he would be able to help me build my teleporter.
And since he suffered from this love affliction, he would do my bidding without question.
Purrrr.
CHAPTER 23
Friday Evening.
It was 9:00 p.m., and Week 1 of the most miserable experience of my life was finally over. I actually limped into my room and locked the door.
Klawde was sleeping on my pillow.
“You are so lucky you’re a cat,” I said, crawling into bed and pulling the covers up to my chin. “You get to lie around the house all day while I have to go to psycho survival camp.”
Klawde leaped to the window ledge and did his furry gargoyle thing.
“I thought yesterday was the worst. We had to run up and down the mountain five times and do tree-branch pull-ups. Then there was the boulder-rolling.” I rubbed my blisters. “The Forest Olympics, Turkey Vulture called it. After that, he had us whittle spears, which was cool until Steve sat on mine and broke it. And Scorpion kept pretending that I was the deer-hide target.”
Klawde flicked his tail, hopped down from the window, and started pawing at the door.
“You can’t leave, Klawde,” I said, “because I have to tell you about today. Turkey Vulture said we couldn’t wear shoes anymore and made us put them in the Forbidden Basket. He calls walking barefoot earthing and says humans have done it since the beginning of time. ‘Earthing will put you in touch with the natural polarity of the planet and allow you to tap into the earth’s energy,’ he told us.
“That made it sound like we were getting a superpower, which would’ve been cool. But rocks are sharp, and do you have any idea how many different kinds of plants have thorns on them?”
For some reason, Klawde was now jumping at the door lock and doing that crazy, tortured yowling of his.
“That sounds like the pain I feel. I asked Turkey Vulture for some Band-Aids, but he said that cuts were a minor inconvenience on the way to getting our forest feet.”
I scratched at one of my thousand bug bites.
“The last thing he told us was how we should enjoy our weekend, ‘For after Survival Night, your lives will NEVER BE THE SAME!’ Can you believe that? Crazy, right?”
Klawde was just staring at me now, his tail swishing.
He looked about as sympathetic as my mom had been at dinner when I’d asked her if I could skip the second week of camp. She’d told me to forget it.
“Raj has tried it for a whole week, dear,” Dad pointed out.
But that didn’t matter to her. “We never give up,” Mom said. “A Banerjee ALWAYS finishes what she starts!”
“But, Mom, I’m not a she!”
“That’s not the point.”
In other words, I was going back.
I hopped off the bed and put my face close to Klawde’s.
“I just wish there was no Camp Eclipse and no Oregon and I could go home to Brooklyn!” I said. “Life is too hard here!”
And then Klawde said something.
In English.
CHAPTER 24
I was trapped! Trapped in that locked room with the boy-Human and his incessant, pathetic complaining!
I would rather have my fur plucked out hair by hair than listen to one more word. I had to say something.
“Will you stop whining and SHUT UP!”
Well, maybe that wasn’t what I should have said.
The Human’s jaw dropped open. He backed away from me.
“Klawde?” he said. “Did you just speak to me?”
There was terror in his voice. I liked that.
I considered keeping up my charade and saying “Mrow.” He’d think he was going mad—a delicious idea!—but I needed this boy-Human’s help if I ever wanted to get back home.
I had to do some fast talking.
“Raj Banerjee of Earth,” I said in my most majestic tone. “I am not of this planet. I come from a highly advanced world on the other side of the universe.”
The Human now appeared unable to speak. I was not sure if this was due to awe, fear, or basic idiocy.
“I am not, however, your average space-cat. On my planet, I led a glorious invasion—er, I mean, revolution—a glorious revolution which united all cats together in . . . in . . . in peace—yes, yes, peace!” I purred. “I ruled my planet as a kind and benevolent warlord.”
The Human just blinked at me.
“Okay . . . ,” the boy-ogre said slowly. “So my cat is an . . . alien warlord?”
“A kind alien warlord.”
“A kind alien warlord cat.”
His puny brain appeared to be processing this information. Could he possibly be gullible enough to buy it?
“That’s the coolest thing ever!” he said, leaping back to life. “I can’t believe it! I’m the luckiest kid in the WORLD!”
Then the boy-Human began blurting out annoying questions.
“How can you talk?” “How did you get here?” “Why did you leave your planet?” “Are there people where you live?” “What about dogs?” “Is there gravity?” “How many suns do you have?” “Can I see your spaceship?” “Have you ever seen a black hole?” “Why did you come to Earth?” “Have you been to Mars?”
“Enough!” I said. “My right-paw cat BETRAYED me, and I was sent to this planet in exile!”
“Oh.” The boy-Human looked at me curiously. “Hey, so what’s your alien name?”
“Alien name? My real name . . . ,” I said, “is Wyss-Kuzz!”
“Awww, that’s so cute! Your name is Whiskers!”
“No no no—not Whiskers!” These Humans with their fat, bloated tongues—they couldn’t pronounce anything correctly! “It’s Wyss-Kuzz! Wyss-KUZZ!”
The boy-ogre shrugged. “Sounds like Whiskers to me.”
I had vaporized ambassadors and kings for lesser insults, but as I needed this Human’s help to get home, I made an exception.
CHAPTER 25
Saturday.
When I woke up that morning, I was sure it had all been a dream. I immediately went to look for Klawde, but he wasn’t in the kitchen, or staring out the front window, or napping in any of his usual spots. Where was he?
I’d have looked more, but first I had to go to the bathroom. I opened the door.
“Ex-CUSE me!”
Klawde was sitting on the toilet reading the Wall Street Journal.
“Oh, sorry!” I said, and quickly shut the door.
Wow. My cat really was an alien! Who talked!! And could read! And used the toilet!
HOW COOL!!!
And not only that—he had ruled a whole planet! He was a warlord. But a kind warlord.
A Kind Alien Warlord Cat!
It was all true!
I had the best pet EVER!
And I had soooo many more questions.
“What kind of special alien powers do you have?” I whispered through the door. “Are you as powerful as Americaman?” I asked. “What is life like on your cat planet? Is there oxygen there? Trees? Mice? Houses?”
I waited for him to answer, but he hissed at me for some reason.
“How did you unite your planet?” I went on. “How big is your planet? How do cats fight there? With weapons? Do they fight in space?!”
I’d been obsessed with space ever since I went to the planetarium on a second-grade class trip.
“Is there life on lots of other planets?”
“How do you travel through space?”
“What is it like to travel through space?”
“Can I travel through space?”
I heard another hiss. And then the toilet flushing.
“I can’t wait to tell all my friends back in Brooklyn!” I said. “They won’t believe I have an alien cat!”
The door swung open to reveal Klawde standing in the doorway.
“NO!” he said, swishing his tail. “My existence on your planet must be a secret! Tell no one!”
“What?” I said, confused. “Why?”
Klawde leaped to the top of the hall bookshelf and was now at eye level with me.
“TELL . . . NO . . . ONE!” he said fiercely.
“Okay, okay,” I said, putting my hands up.
Klawde fluffed up his tail. “We are dealing with a very serious matter.”
“I won’t tell anybody—I promise.”
“I am referring to something else now.” He licked a paw and gazed straight into my eyes. “I need your help. Will you help me, Raj?”
“Of course,” I said. “I’ll do anything!”
He purred.
“I need you to help me build a teleporter,” he said. “So I can return to . . . Lyttyrboks!”
CHAPTER 26
The boy-ogre wore his most senseless expression yet.
“Litter box?” he said. “But you have the litter box we bought you right here, with the snap-on lid and everything!”
This time, it took all the strength I possessed not to fling myself at his idiotically happy face.
I brushed my whiskers with a paw and composed myself.
“Perhaps it is best for you not to attempt to pronounce the sophisticated sounds of Lytt—er, my planet,” I said.
The look on the boy-ogre’s face told me that, at last, some of the synapses in his brain were firing.
“Wait, what are you saying?” he said. “That you want to go back to your planet?”
Or maybe the synapses weren’t firing after all. “Of course I want to go back to my planet!” I cried.
Suddenly the boy-Human was no longer happy. In fact, he looked as if he’d been wounded. Could this have something to do with his strange love disease?
“You want to leave?” he said. “But you just got here!”
I had to calm the ogre down in order to secure his help. So I lied.
“It is not for myself that I must return home. Why, I would love to stay here on this . . . this . . . WONDERFUL planet.” I felt another hairball coming on. “But I have to return home so I can reconq—er, that is—rescue all the poor cats I left behind.”
“But you’re my only real friend here,” the ogre said.
Then drops of water began leaking out of the Human’s eyes and sliding down his furless face. What was wrong with this creature?
“I want to go with you,” he wailed, wiping away the eye fluid.
“Oh, how I wish you could come with me,” I said.
I was lying again, of course.
But then I thought, YES! Come with me. Imagine! Having a giant at my side to help me reconquer Lyttyrboks. I’d be INVINCIBLE! I could see the terrified look on General Ffangg’s face now!!
Purr.
For someone with such limited intelligence, the idea of space travel would be terrifying, of course. But what if I could make his own planet seem worse than terrifying? After all, our mind-meld had told me much about the boy-ogre’s prospects here—and they did not look good.
“Oh, how wonderful it would be if you could come with me! You would love my planet!” I said. “But you have your excellent survival camp to complete. And there’s this new city to get to know, and a whole new school you must attend! I’m sure you will be very popular. No doubt all the older child-Humans will be very, very welcoming.”
The little Human looked like he was about to cough up a hairball.
This was my greatest evil plan yet! If I could convince him to come along, the monstrous boy-ogre would be my one-soldier army! I would string General Ffangg up by his tail, and the Most High Throne would once again be mine!
Swish, purr, purrrrr!
CHAPTER 27
Sunday.
Disappointed was not the word.
Disappointed was when the Knicks lost a game.
Disappointed was when the ice-cream shop ran out of chocolate.
Disappointed was when I left my new stack of comics on the subway.
But this? Learning that my pet was a Kind Alien Warlord Cat, and the next day finding out that he was leaving? That was a billion times more disappointing than any disappointment ever!
And what was worse, I had to help him leave!
“Human! Pay attention!” Klawde s
aid. “Align the diode with the capacitor and then move the magnetron seven degrees left.”
“Huh?”
Klawde sighed and shook his head at me.
We were in the basement, surrounded by microwave parts, blender pieces, hair-dryer bits, and DVD-player fragments.
I’d finally learned where all our appliances were going: straight into Klawde’s otherwise unused litter box. Or—as he called it—his “work station.”
Thankfully, he’d let me move the operation from the litter box into the shop in the basement. It had a bunch of tools the previous owners had left behind, and it was the one room my parents never went into. We’d been working for hours now.
“Yes, line it up like that,” Klawde said. “No, back to the right a bit . . . use your thumbs!”
“Sorry!”
Building with Klawde was kind of fun, as long as I didn’t think about what I was making: a device that would take my pet away.
Klawde did yell a lot, though. He got especially mad when I couldn’t follow his written directions.
“Point 17K states you must make the energetic particle radiation density buffer bypass the aft tactical resonance coil,” Klawde said. “How much clearer could it be?!”
The problem was that I couldn’t understand his alien claw-writing. It just looked like scratched cardboard to me.
As I unthreaded the tiny screws from the density buffer—whatever that was—I asked Klawde if he missed his home planet.
“Of course I miss it!” Klawde said. “It is a place of marvels beyond Human comprehension, and I ruled it all with an iron paw! Cats trembled when I spoke! My minions—”
“I thought you said you were a nice warlord,” I said.
“Oh, yes,” Klawde said. “Just kidding. Have I told you about the Purring Palace?”
While I worked on the teleporter, Klawde described the wonders of his home planet.
Klawde--Evil Alien Warlord Cat #1 Page 4
