by Jo Franklin
Gordon was right. I was an idiot. I knew only one language.
I should have elected to study a foreign language. Our school offered German, French, and Spanish, not Alien, but the more languages you know, the easier it is to understand a non-English speaker.
I could still sign up for Italian club. But it was a bit late. I needed to get to Kepler 22b right now.
During lunch period, Mr. Pitdown printed out the portraits and created the Wall of Wonders. By the end of the day, most of the portraits had personal messages added to them. Things like BFF and sparkly stickers on the girls’ photos, Greatest pitcher and Cool shirt on the boys’.
Someone wrote Most kissable mouth under Eddie’s photo. Eddie ate too many potato chips, and he had some disgusting personal habits, but he has amazing teeth. They are perfectly straight. Other comments under Eddie’s photo:
Nice mouth. Shame about the face.
And the smell.
Ditto.
Fart Master (this was added in Eddie’s handwriting).
My photo was completely blacked out with a felt-tip marker. No one had written anything on it. I tried to clean the marker off, but Mr. Pitdown said not to bother. I suggested I take the picture home to see if Dad could clean it up. But Mr. Pitdown muttered that he hadn’t intended to open a new path to bullying. He needn’t have worried—aliens like me are used to that sort of thing—but he took the whole Wall of Wonders down and returned the pictures and comments to each person in the class. He forgot to print a fresh photo for me to take home. Either that or he decided I didn’t deserve one, as I was only an alien.
8
I Am a Long Way from Home
The persecution on Earth was getting me down. I needed to get back to Kepler 22b ASAP. But I couldn’t do it on my own.
I invited my only friends over for a secret meeting.
Eddie, Gordon, and I always hung out at my house. Gordon wouldn’t let us into his home, because he didn’t like to have his personal space invaded. Eddie’s house was so full of brothers, cousins, uncles with girlfriends, babies, and grandparents, we’d never get a minute to ourselves.
Place: Timmy’s playhouse
Address: Middle of Kendal family backyard
Advantage: No one can overhear us outdoors. My bedroom has very thin walls.
Disadvantage: Place is on the small side.
Timmy’s playhouse was supposed to be a den for a single two-year-old, not three sixth-grade boys—one with abnormally long alien legs, another with disgusting personal habits, and another with a touching phobia and a laptop.
“Is it clean?” Gordon asked, leaning down to peer through the tiny door.
The playhouse was empty except for Timmy’s red chair. I’d scrubbed off a smear of strawberry jam and a squashed graham cracker before they arrived.
“One hundred percent sterile,” I said.
Gordon zapped the playhouse inside and out with disinfectant spray and wiped down Timmy’s chair a hundred times before he sat on it. His knees came up nearly to his chin, but there was just room for his laptop as long as he undid the strap. There was no room to revive him if the strap got pulled tight and strangled him. And anyway, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation would kill Gordon for sure.
Eddie bounded across the lawn hugging a huge plastic bag.
“Got something for you.” He thrust the bag into my arms.
It was a sack of flying saucers.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Open it,” Eddie said. “Maybe if you eat enough, the fizzy stuff will produce enough gas to lift you off this planet.”
I didn’t want to admit to Eddie that I’d lied about flying saucers being my favorite candy, so I put one in my mouth. It tasted of paper. I bit down, and a saccharine fizz spread up my nose and made my eyes water.
“Epic!” I announced, hoping I sounded convincing. Eddie was only trying to help.
Eddie shoved his hand into the bag and pulled out a handful of candies. He shoved them into his mouth, chewed for a few seconds, and then coughed them onto Dad’s lawn.
“Gross!” he said. “You must be from another planet if you like them.” Eddie stuck his finger in his mouth and pried out a glob of stuck-together rice paper. He flicked it into the hedge.
A geeky voice came from the playhouse. “Hello? This meeting is officially ten minutes late.”
“Stand back, I’m coming in.” Eddie shoved his right foot through the playhouse door.
“Before you do that,” I said, “you have to swear.”
“No problem,” Eddie said. He spouted an impressive string of bad words, ending with one that sounded sort of like “Zakryxkekny!”
“Where did you get that one from?”
“Made it up,” Eddie said. “Sounds good, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t mean that kind of swearing.” I held up a dictionary. It was the most official-looking book I could find. “Stick your hand on that and read this.” I’d written a solemn oath on a card for him.
Eddie laughed. “Are you serious?”
“You have to swear, or you’re off the mission team.”
Eddie snorted, but he put his hand on the dictionary and chanted, “I, Eddie, do solemnly promise that I will not fart”—he started to crack up—“in the meeting.”
“Thanks,” I said, and put the card away. I decided to keep the dictionary with me in case Gordon used long words during the meeting.
Eddie has eaten so many potato chips over the years that he’s rather large, and I’m taller than the human inhabitants of this planet, so it took us ten minutes to squeeze ourselves into the playhouse.
I stuck my legs out the window so they didn’t touch Gordon accidentally.
Eddie sat in the doorway, his butt sticking out. Just in case. “Consider me an early-warning system,” he said. “I’ll let one off if anyone approaches.”
“No!” Gordon tried to get up, but he couldn’t move without touching us.
I tried to hit Eddie over the head with the dictionary, but it was wedged between my elbow and my right ear.
“Only joking,” Eddie said. “But get started—I can’t hold it in forever. I had beans last night.”
I would never hold another mission meeting in Timmy’s playhouse. And I’d find out what Eddie had for dinner before I invited him over.
“All good missions need a mission statement,” I said. “How about ‘I need to return to Kepler 22b’?”
“That’s not a mission statement. That’s your crazy dream,” Eddie said.
“‘To return the alien known as Daniel Kendal to Kepler 22b,’” Gordon said.
“Good one,” I said.
“Are you sure you’re an alien?” Eddie asked. “Maybe you’re adopted.”
“Of course I’m adopted. I’m an alien, aren’t I? My parents aren’t my parents. They’re human.”
“Maybe you’re an adopted human from another human family.”
Eddie was really beginning to bug me. Why couldn’t he accept me for what I was?
“I am not human. I am an alien. Jessie told me, and my parents have been trying to keep the secret from me forever. That’s why I don’t fit in here. And that’s why I need to get back to my home planet.” The smell of Eddie’s cheese-and-onion breath and his bad attitude were getting on my nerves. “How am I going to get back to Kepler 22b?”
Eddie stuck his finger in his mouth and came out with another wad of soggy flying saucer. He rolled it between his finger and thumb.
“Don’t—” Before I could finish the sentence, he’d flicked the flying saucer/spit wad at the ceiling.
He winked.
I would have poked his stupid winking eye out if I could have reached it without touching Gordon.
“You’re going to have to go into hibernation if you want to arrive on Kepler 22b alive.” Gordon looked up from his laptop, unaware that a flying saucer time bomb infected with Eddie’s germs hung two inches above his head. His eyes wandered around in their sockets be
fore fixing their gaze on me. “It’s so far away.”
I dragged my eyes away from the time bomb and tried to concentrate on what Gordon was saying.
“Hibernation? How do I do that?”
“Cryogenics. You’ll need to be frozen alive.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, but I knew Gordon was right. The journey to Kepler 22b was a long one, and I didn’t want to be an old man when I got there. I wanted to be a normal Keplerite kid. To go to a school where I fit in. I wanted to buy a Keplerite smartphone, and maybe even start dating a Keplerite girl after a few years.
“So how does this cryogenics thing work?” I said.
“We’re going to need a lot of ice.”
9
The Most Awesome Plan Ever
By the end of the meeting, I knew exactly what I needed to do to get to Kepler 22b.
MISSION STATEMENT
To return the alien known as Daniel Kendal to Kepler 22b.
PREPARATION AND TRAINING
Test cryogenic survival, a.k.a. being frozen alive.
Find country with plans to relocate to Kepler 22b.
Raise cash for airfare to foreign country.
Get fit. Astronauts have to be in peak physical condition.
Pack stuff to take to new planet:
Handheld games console and charger
Backup handheld games console and charger
All games for games console and backup games console
Three latest Simpsons Comics to read while waiting for takeoff
Things to trade with Kepler kids to make friends:
Deadly Venomous Snakes cards
Dinosaur stickers
Plastic yo-yos and harmonicas
“With stuff like that, I’m going to be really popular on Kepler 22b,” I said as I ended the meeting.
“What makes you think any kid wants a cheap yo-yo that doesn’t work? You’d be better off taking a MegaYo or a YoYammer,” Eddie said. “Anyway, what happens to a yo-yo in zero gravity?”
“It floats around like a helium balloon,” Gordon said.
“They have gravity on Kepler 22b.” I was getting fed up with Eddie spoiling my plans. “It’s a planet, isn’t it?”
“I’m out of here,” Eddie said. He wrapped his arm around his head and twisted his body in an attempt to leave the tiny playhouse headfirst.
I didn’t know if it was Eddie’s escape attempt or my shouting, but the rice-paper time bomb was on the move. A ball bearing of mush was now dangling from the ceiling on a fine wet thread, and the gap between it and the Geek’s head was closing.
I needed Gordon. If he got contaminated, he’d leave the mission. Without Gordon I’d be stuck on Earth forever. Eddie was ruining everything.
“They probably don’t have yo-yos on Kepler 22b,” I shouted at Eddie as he tried to wiggle free. “The alien kids will have their own things to trade, and my Earth collectibles will be so rare that they’ll give me loads of Keplerite stuff in exchange. My black mamba card is particularly awesome. It’s worth a Keplerite smartphone all by itself.”
Eddie grunted as he flung his body toward the grass outside. His legs flew up, his heel caught the roof of the playhouse, and with a screech of plastic the roof flew into the air, taking the wad of rice paper with it. Without the roof, the playhouse started to collapse.
Gordon screamed and hid his head in his laptop.
The walls of the playhouse skewed out of position, and for a moment Gordon and I were sitting in a diamond-shaped playhouse with no roof. The sky looked very big and blue.
The plastic lugs holding the walls together wrenched from their sockets, and the house caved in on us.
“Arghhh!” Gordon scrabbled to get a can out of his briefcase. He sprayed himself from head to toe with disinfectant. “Don’t ask me to get into an enclosed space with Eddie ever again,” he said.
“No problem. The plan is set.” I waved my notebook in the air. “Kepler 22b, here I come!”
10
The Truth About Cryogenics
Gordon said I had to be naked to be frozen alive.
I disagreed. I did not have the Kendal nudist DNA in my blood.
The mission team was crammed into the Kendal family bathroom while the rest of the Kendal family was at a barbecue next door. We had two hours to achieve absolute zero.
“Clothing will act as an insulator,” Gordon said. “Basic science.”
“Clothing is important to Keplerites like me,” I said.
“What’s the problem?” Eddie said. “Get naked!”
“No way!” I pulled up my hoodie and drew my fists into my sleeves.
“Are you serious about wanting to get back to Kepler 22b?” Eddie asked. “Because I’m a bit concerned that you’re not really taking this seriously.”
That’s the kind of friend Eddie is. Totally sarcastic.
I went back to my room and came out wearing my bathing suit.
“I don’t think I need cryogenics,” I said. Rubbing my hands over my arms didn’t make the mega goose bumps go away. I hate being cold, but Dad won’t let us put the heat on during the day. That was another reason why I knew I was an alien. The surface temperature of Kepler 22b was 72°F, much warmer than my human home on Earth. I didn’t belong here.
“How much ice do we have?” Gordon asked.
My contribution: three ice cube trays with eighteen cubes in each, for a total of fifty-four cubes.
Eddie’s contribution: eight supersize bags of ice packed in his gran’s shopping cart.
Gordon’s contribution: a thermos.
“The Cryogenics Practitioner’s Secret Ingredient,” he said, holding the thermos up. “Now is the time to tell us if you’ve changed your mind.” An evil-scientist’s grin spread across his face as he pulled on a pair of surgical gloves. He was loving this—experimenting on a real live alien. Some kids like setting fire to things, others like blowing stuff up. For Gordon, freezing me solid was the big thrill.
For me, freezing me solid was just one challenging step on the road to Kepler 22b.
“I haven’t changed my mind,” I said. “Get on with it.” My human family was next door at Jessie’s friends’ barbecue. We now had less than two hours before they came home and someone started hammering on the bathroom door.
“Then I shall proceed.” Gordon straightened his glasses and rolled up his sleeves. He shoved a thermometer under my tongue. It was lucky I didn’t bite it—my chattering teeth were totally out of control. “Ninety-eight point six degrees Fahrenheit. Still normal.”
For a human, I thought.
“Shall I put in the ice now?” Eddie said.
“Not yet,” Gordon said. “We have to get his body temperature down in stages. Otherwise the shock could kill him.”
Gordon was talking to Eddie, not me, which was very rude, but I couldn’t say anything, as I had a glass tube stuck under my tongue. If I opened my jaws, my teeth would snap on the glass and break the thermometer in two. If I swallowed glass fragments, I wouldn’t need to go into cryostasis. I’d die of internal bleeding here on Earth.
Mission failed.
Maybe it was a good thing the best-friend telepathy wasn’t working, because my brain was screaming at me not to do it.
Eddie and Gordon looked at me expectantly.
If I backed out now, the mission would be over, and I would be stuck in my unhappy life on Earth forever. I looked at the chilly bath water. Which was worse?
The moment had come.
I stepped into the bathtub.
Ice or no ice, it was freakin’ freezing. My feet instantly turned ice blue, and a rash of goose bumps charged up my body, making my few body hairs stand on end. It was probably my body’s instinctive attempt to keep me warm, but it was failing. I was sure my temperature had dropped twenty degrees instantly.
“No change yet,” Gordon said. “Time to submerge. We have to get that temperature down. Otherwise your body will melt the ice rather than ice freezing your internal
organs solid.”
I’d never taken a bath in cold water before. I wrapped my tongue around the thermometer, clenched my lips together, and sank my shivering body into the water.
I didn’t know cold water could hurt. From the waist down, my poor Keplerite body was gripped in a chilly vise.
“Lie down! Lie down!” Gordon the Geek, my second-best friend, put his hands on my shoulders and pushed me backward. The icy water lapped over my chest, ending in a stranglehold around my neck. Only my head and bent knees were out of the water. My head because I was supposed to be freezing, not drowning, and my knees because I’m too tall to lie flat in the tub.
“Freakin’ freezing,” I said. What with the thermometer and my chattering teeth, it sounded like “frnknnnrng freeezzzrng.”
“You’ve got a long way to go yet.” Gordon checked the thermometer. “Still ninety-eight point six degrees.”
“No!” I shook my head vigorously, willing the line to slip farther down the tube. Surely my body temperature had dropped enough by now.
“How long does he have to stay in there?” Eddie asked. He was playing with a piece of dental floss. He’d wrapped it around each of his teeth in turn so it looked like white string braces. Not that he needed braces, with his great teeth and “most kissable mouth.”
“Ages,” Gordon said. “There is no change in temperature yet.”
He had to be wrong. I had absolutely no feeling in my body. I was already well on the way to cryostasis.
“Maybe we should let this water out and fill up with colder water from the tap?” Eddie said.
