Space Invaders

by Nate Ball

  “We could scream for help,” Olivia suggested. “Maybe the soldiers will come out and rescue us.”

  “Not sure they’d hear us,” Amp said.

  “And besides,” I said, pointing up, “nobody wants to come out here with a cloud of alien ships hanging over their heads.”

  Everyone looked up at the spaceships. They had risen in unison to about one hundred feet above the lake’s surface. It was as if they were all staring at me, waiting to see my great plan take shape. I would have started sweating, but my flesh had been chilled numb.

  “C’mon, guys,” I said, throwing up my arms. “The world is counting on us.”

  “No pressure, right?” Olivia said, shooting me a look.

  “Who is the best swimmer here?” Amp asked.

  “Forget it,” Olivia said. “Water’s too cold. You’d drown.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean me,” Amp replied quietly.

  I picked up an old soda bottle that was lying on the bottom of the boat. “Does anyone have a piece of paper and a pen?” I asked. Mr. Larry fished around in his vest pockets and pulled out a crumpled Chinese food menu and a black Sharpie. “That’ll do,” I said.

  “Are you writing your last will and testament?” Amp asked. “I believe that’s what humans do in such situations.”

  “No,” I said slowly. “I’m saving us. I’m going to put a note in this bottle and throw it to the shore.”

  “Zack, even you can’t throw it that far,” Olivia cut in. “If we’re going to do it, we need a way to launch it, like we did the first time with Amp.”

  “Oh, and that worked so well,” Amp said, lip-farting. Until now, I had no idea he could even make that sound.

  “Well,” Mr. Larry said. “I have a hose and some duct tape.” He pulled both from his vest. “And it looks like someone left an old paper towel tube behind.”

  “What good does any of that do us?” I said, remembering how we needed water and a bike pump and a hundred other things we didn’t have to launch Amp the first time.

  “Think backward,” Mr. Larry said. “We can use the air in the bottle to propel the rocket. We just have to cut a piece of the paper tube off,” he said, doing it as he explained. “And then wrap the note around it.”

  It was so crazy I thought it just might work. We even found an old Ping-Pong ball and used that as a cap for the rocket by taping it on with, like, ten feet of duct tape. We connected the paper-tube rocket (with the note) to the hose, which we taped tightly to the bottle. Amp used his alien know-how to aim it toward the shore. And when it was all ready, I got the honor of stomping on the bottle since it was my idea. And I am the best stomper.

  Olivia counted down, “3, 2, 1 . . .” And the note took off up into the night sky, disappearing for a moment against the moon, and then arcing back down twenty feet from the boat with a barely audible sploosh.

  We sat in that boat for five long minutes after. The only sound came from my unhappy stomach.

  Once it became clear none of my fellow passengers had any other ideas, one popped into my head.

  “Hey, Amp, can your ship retrace its steps?” I asked.

  “Steps? It doesn’t have feet,” Amp said, pointing to his ship as if to prove his point.

  Olivia growled. “He means, does it remember where the dock is?” Olivia said. “You know, can it return to the spot it picked Zack up?”

  “Picked me up?” I croaked. “You mean punched me out.”

  Amp tapped his foot and considered the question. “Why, yes, I guess it can do that rather easily. See, my ship is equipped with global positioning technology that—”

  “I don’t care how it works,” I interrupted, “just that it does work.”

  “Of course you don’t,” Amp said with a huff. “Well, you’ve ridden on this ship enough times in one night. I guess one more ride won’t kill you.”

  “No way,” I said. “I’m not riding on that thing again. I think I’m too cold and stiff to hold on for another flight.”

  “Okay, then,” Amp said, turning to Olivia, “once I get in there, you hold on to my ship tightly.”

  “No, she is not doing that, either,” I said.

  Amp became annoyed. “Well, I’m afraid Mr. Larry is much too heavy for my ship’s damaged stabilizers to support. We’d sink like a very large stone.” Amp seemed to consider what he had said and then looked over my shoulder at Olivia’s grandfather. “No offense. I didn’t mean to call you heavy, it’s just that—”

  “No offense taken,” Olivia grandfather said.

  “We need all of us to get back,” I said. “Olivia, give me your one of your shoelaces.”

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  I watched as she unlaced one of her shoes. “A boat like this is built smooth on the bottom, right? There’s very little resistance, so it doesn’t take too much energy to move it across the water.”

  “You’re going to row this boat with a shoelace?” Amp asked, shaking his head in confusion.

  I laughed as I took Olivia’s shoelace and pushed past her. Olivia and I switched seats, and the boat rocked in the water. I started to tie the lace to the hook at front of the boat.

  “He’s going to have that spaceship tow us back,” Olivia’s grandfather said.

  “Oh, clever,” Amp said, nodding. “This could actually work.”

  “Good thinking, Zack,” Olivia said. “Miss Martin would be proud of you.”

  I rolled my eyes at the thought of our teacher at Reed Elementary School. Sometimes she seemed shocked when I could remember where my desk was. I had come a long way since Amp had arrived.

  “Zack, when you mentioned how this boat is smooth on the bottom and has little resistance to the water, you’re actually talking about drag.”

  “Oh no, it’s another—”

  Amp began speaking into his annoying wrist recorder:

  “Note to Erdian Council . . .”

  “Please, not now, Amp,” Olivia begged.

  But once Amp started, he couldn’t help himself.

  “Earth children are aware of the mechanical force of drag, they just don’t know the name of it. Of course, drag is the force generated when a solid object moves through liquid or air, as in the case of a boat or a plane. Of course, when I travel through space, my ship does not get slowed down by drag because there is no air in space. No resistance, no drag.”

  “Are you almost done?” I interrupted.

  He continued:

  “Essentially, drag acts in the opposite direction of a moving object’s motion and can be thought of as friction between the object’s surface and the fluid it’s moving through. That’s why Zack instinctively knows a boat’s bottom is smooth to reduce drag so the boat moves easier across the surface of the water. An interesting subject but, apparently, we don’t have time for more. Scout Amp, over and out.”

  I let out a big breath. “Okay, back to business. Getting to that dock is just step one, guys. The hard part of this plan is still ahead of us.”

  “Even the longest journey begins with the first step,” Olivia’s grandfather said.

  We all thought about that for moment.

  “Step one, coming up,” Amp said, and climbed into the Dingle.

  Shopping Spree

  Amp had once told me that the Erdians believed there was always a way to accomplish something, no matter how difficult it seemed at first.

  I guess I had taken that lesson to heart.

  Because as I stood in front of the angry crowd of soldiers, scientists, and mysterious government agents, I had my doubts.

  “You want us to give the aliens what?” barked a gray-haired man in a fancy general’s uniform.

  I gulped and felt myself shrink a little bit.

  We were surrounded. There was nowhere left to run or hide. The three of us were backed up to the end of the dock, right where we had climbed out of the rowboat. Amp’s ship was now parked at my feet, but he had not emerged.

  I gulped. “Ritz Crac
kers, sir,” I repeated. “We’ll need every box we can find in town.”

  “You mean the little round crackers?” said Mr. Prentiss, who had pushed his way to the front of crowd. “But why Ritz Crackers? Why not graham crackers? Or those little soup crackers? This makes no sense.”

  “I think this kid has gone crackers himself, sir,” said Sarge to the general. Sarge still looked like he wanted to throw me into the lake. I gave him a little wave. He did not return the gesture.

  “I can only tell you what I know will work,” I said.

  Mr. Prentiss smiled at me. “General, I know this boy,” he said, turning to him. “He’s clever. Has a good mind for science. And so does his friend Olivia. I think we should trust these kids. Nobody knows these aliens better than they do.”

  I stood up as tall as I could. “Yes, and that’s why we need Ritz Crackers. A whole lot of them.”

  “Let me get this straight,” the general thundered. “You want us to go on a shopping spree? For Ritz Crackers? And these invaders will leave us alone? Preposterous!”

  “That’s correct,” Olivia said, stepping up next to me. “Your men will have to go into town and buy as many as they can. Load up your trucks. The faster, the better. Superpronto.”

  “Superpronto?” the general repeated with a sour, disgusted face. “I’ll look like a fool.” He glanced up at the thousands of Erdian spacecrafts that waited over the lake.

  “Trust me,” I said. “Erdians love Ritz Crackers. It’s the perfect peace offering. I doubt they make them anywhere else in the universe.” I cleared my throat nervously. “And . . . as long as you’re getting the crackers, we should sweeten the deal with SweeTarts. Buy as many as you—”

  “WHAT?!” the general roared. “Should I start making a shopping list?” He was so angry, the crowd seemed to inch away from him.

  “Oh, and pick up sunflower seeds, too,” Olivia said. “Tons of those. Add that to the list. Amp likes to eat those for dessert.”

  “Sunflower . . . ,” the general began, but could not finish.

  I held up a finger. “Oh, make sure they’re the already-shelled kind. Amp doesn’t like cracking off those salty shells.”

  “No salty shells,” the general repeated, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  Mr. Prentiss kneeled in front of us. “Zack, Olivia,” he said soothingly, “are you saying that if we give the aliens as many Ritz Crackers, SweeTarts, and sunflower seeds as we can buy, we’ll prevent the aliens from attacking?”

  “Exactly,” I said. “At least, that’s what I think will happen.”

  “You’re not sure!” boomed the general.

  “It’s a pretty good idea,” Olivia said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “This could work.” She knelt on the dock’s rough boards and knocked on the side of Amp’s spaceship. “Get out here right now, you big chicken,” she said loudly.

  Everyone stared at the Dingle. After several moments the hatch popped open, and Amp stuck his head out. “Good evening, everyone. Oh, wait, I’m sorry. Should I be saying good morning? How embarrassing.”

  The crowd—even Mr. Prentiss—gasped and jumped back three feet. Amp squinted as several flashlights from the soldiers lit him up. He held a hand up to block the light.

  “Whoa! Easy on the eyes!” he shouted. “Listen to Zack and Olivia,” he said. “Their idea is better than any I can come up with. And, to be honest, I can’t get enough of those crackers and candies. The Kaloofa will love them.”

  “Kaloofa?” Sarge growled.

  “Am I . . . Am I just supposed to put all this on my credit c-card?” the general stammered. “I’ll have to get the proper approvals. Wake my superiors. Run this up the chain of command.”

  “There’s no time for that,” Olivia said. “It’s unclear how long they’re going to wait before they start vaporizing people.”

  “Nice,” I whispered to Olivia.

  This seemed to settle the issue.

  “We’ll put it all on mine,” Mr. Prentiss said, pulling a credit card out of his wallet. “I’ll bill you later, General. Now . . . I’ll need volunteers to take me into town with several of your large trucks.”

  “I’ll volunteer,” Sarge said. “This is just too good and too weird to miss.”

  As much of the crowd headed back down the dock to go on their junk-food shopping spree, my parents came pushing though in the other direction. They were crying. They hugged me. They hugged Olivia. They even hugged Olivia’s grandfather.

  But the moment they laid eyes on Amp watching from the hatch of his spaceship, they froze.

  “Mom and Dad, I’d like to introduce you to Amp,” I said. “He’s been living at our house for the last couple of months.”

  You should have seen their faces.

  Breakfast Meeting

  I paced around the end of the dock, surrounded by a wall of at least four hundred boxes of Ritz Crackers, SweetTarts, and sunflower seeds.

  I was nervously popping fistfuls of SweeTarts into my mouth and crunching them to dust. Of course, I was twitching with nerves and excitement, but I also was so hungry, I would have gladly eaten several of the cardboard boxes, too.

  “You sure all this food wasn’t just for you, kid?” Sarge asked me.

  I didn’t answer.

  Luckily, one of the soldiers interrupted. He produced some blankets, and I was now wrapped like an upright burrito.

  “Why aren’t they coming to get their food?” the general asked for the fourth time.

  “I don’t know,” I said, making big eyes at Amp.

  “Me? I don’t know, either,” Amp said, shrugging his tiny blue shoulders. “I can’t reach anybody with my communication system.”

  “Not too many sweets,” Mom said. “You had three cavities filled this year alone.”

  “Sweet tooth,” Mr. Prentiss said to me with a wink.

  My parents hadn’t been able to stop staring with slightly disgusted looks on their faces at Amp, like they had discovered a blue rat had been hiding in the walls of their home.

  The Erdian spaceships remained stubbornly fixed in the air above the lake, as they had all night long. The sky was now turning a dark purple, which indicated the sun would soon be joining the party.

  Without warning, Olivia suddenly hopped off one of the boxes and looked around. “I know what we should do!”

  The crowd of soldiers, scientists, secret agents, and my parents turned to Olivia.

  She sighed. “Look at all of you. This dock is more crowded than an elevator. Think about it. A crowd this size is a security risk. The Kaloofa might trust Zack and me, but she doesn’t know all of you from Adam.”

  “Wait, who’s Adam?” I whispered.

  She shook off my question. “Now, all of you, beat it. Get off this dock.”

  “Young lady,” the general started in, “I am not accustomed to being spoken to in such a—”

  “Especially you, General,” Olivia interrupted. “You’re even scaring me, and I’m from this planet.” She started shooing the crowd down the dock with her hands. “C’mon, all you, go watch from the beach. You’re giving the Erdian empress the creeps.”

  Unbelievably, the adults listened to her. In less than a minute the dock was cleared of onlookers. Just Olivia, Amp, and I remained.

  We peered up at the cloud and spaceships and, just like Olivia had predicted, the Kaloofa’s frying pan ship soon emerged and descended slowly down to the dock, the handle of her ship eventually settling at the very end.

  The whole process started again. Three guards emerged first and searched the dock with their blue beams of light. Soon they were standing at attention, but I couldn’t tell if the puny guard who watched me was the same one from earlier. Next the same powder thrower emerged and blanketed the dock with clouds of baby powder. Then the powder thrower lay down, facing up in the same stiff pose as earlier on the boat. I glanced over at Amp, and he was doing the same thing.

  Erdians were so weird.

  The Kaloof
a and her boots soon joined us. Olivia and I grabbed some samples of our peace offering and watched as the Kaloofa examined the goods we placed before her in the palms of our hands.

  She took a cracker and cautiously nibbled at it, then promptly proceeded to quickly devour a dozen of the crackers, spinning each in circles and gnawing at them like a crazed termite. Soon a pile of cracker dust surrounded her boots. The SweeTarts were next, which she fed into her mouth and crunched with shocking speed and enthusiasm.

  When Olivia and I smiled at the sight of the great Erdian empress wolfing down candy like there was no tomorrow, she stopped mid-chew and considered us. After a moment she snatched up some sunflower seeds and popped them into her mouth and smacked her lips in delight.

  “Whoa, you must have been starving, Kaloof,” Olivia said with a giggle.

  Amp flinched. “Please don’t call her Kaloof. That is terribly rude.”

  “How was that for a yummy peace offering, eh?” I asked the empress.

  Clearly, she didn’t understand us. But she looked satisfied and pleased for sure.

  And she turned and walked back up the handle of her ship. The guards and powder thrower quickly followed.

  Olivia and I looked at each other. We high-fived.

  After a few tense moments the spaceships began lining up next to the dock. Thousands of them. The crowd on the beach clapped and cheered. Amp was jumping up and down. Olivia and I hugged each other with a combination of pride and excitement.

  For the next two hours we distributed our peace offering to what must have been twenty thousand tiny spaceships. It was tiring but exhilarating, as well.

  The idea that Olivia and I had just saved the world from destruction was thrilling enough to fuel both of us for several weeks.

  We had done it.

  “We saved the world,” I kept repeating over and over.

  Hero’s Good-Bye