by Mo O'Hara
“I guess the vampire kitten slept through the zombie stare,” Pradeep said.
“No matter. What good can a kitten do in a zombie army anyway?” Sanj grabbed the kitten by the scruff of her neck, removed the oven glove and shoved her into it. Then he taped the glove tight around her so just her head was sticking out. “I’ll return you to the cats’ home later,” he snarled, dropping her on the floor next to Frankie’s tank.
“Now see here,” Mark said, standing slightly taller, even though he was still trapped in a net. “That’s no way to treat a kitten, vampire or not.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Sanj snapped. “I have an evil plan to implement.” He turned around and started typing away on a keyboard. “I’ll have to charge the Supersonic Nicifying Helpful Minion Ray to maximum if this is going to work.”
Then I noticed Sami had moved again. She was back at Frankie’s tank, slipping Toby the tortoise into the water. Darn, that tortoise was fast! He’d been standing by my sneaker only a second ago.
Sanj had his back to us and was connecting some kind of wires to the ray gun. “For maximum control, I’ll be sending the sound waves directly to the earphones on the fish,” he muttered.
“Tom, you have to move now!” Pradeep whispered. “As soon as Sanj turns on the ray gun, it’ll be too late! Frankie will do whatever Sanj wants just to be polite. And the other animals under Frankie’s power will do whatever Sanj wants too. He’s going to get his paranormal pet army!”
CHAPTER 13
TO ZAP A ZOMBIE
“There!” Sanj adjusted another dial on the ray gun. “Charged to maximum. We’re ready to begin.” He flicked the switch and the gun vibrated on the table.
Toby, still not noticed by Sanj, had sunk to the bottom of Frankie’s tank. He crawled over to the wire that ran from the ray gun to Frankie’s earphones and in one mighty chomp he broke the connection. But had he done it in time?
Sanj looked at his computer screen and then started fiddling with buttons on the keyboard. “The readings are wrong,” he muttered. “It should have worked by now.” Then he put on some ear protectors and grabbed the ray gun, pulling out the wires. He stood up. “I’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way,” he said, heading for the tank. Looking over at us he said, “At maximum setting, it’s guaranteed to affect you all as well, but it will be lovely to have you all as my helpful nicified minions. I’m sure you’ll all come in very … useful!”
By now I was completely out of the net and ready to jump on Sanj as soon as he got close enough. I could also see that Toby had chomped through the harness that held Frankie to the floor of the tank.
“How did you get…?” said Sanj in surprise, leaning over the tank and looking at Toby. Before he could finish his sentence, Frankie jumped out of the tank and fish-slapped Sanj across the face with his tail. Sanj dropped the ray gun and fell backward. I leaped forward, arms out to grab the ray gun, but somehow I slipped and ended up on the floor face-to-face with the vampire kitten, which bit me on the nose.
“Ow!” I yelled, trying to pull the kitten off my face as Sanj picked up the ray gun and Frankie flip-flopped on the floor.
Sami scooped Toby out of the tank and stood beside me mumbling, “Swishy fishy.”
“Frankie, please stop,” Sanj said quietly.
Frankie stopped flip-flopping and turned toward Sanj. It was as if he couldn’t help himself. He was too polite to disobey.
“Thank you, Frankie,” Sanj said.
“No!” I gasped.
“Some of the Supersonic Nicifying Helpful Minion Rays must have got through to him on the earphones before that stupid tortoise bit through the wire! It only takes a second to work. Now, fish, go and pop yourself into that glass of water on the desk. You’re no good to me if you’re a fish out of water.” Sanj laughed at his own joke and Frankie obeyed immediately. Then Sanj spoke again. “Frankie, could you please make all the animals pay attention so that I can tell you what I would like them to do? And, Tom, don’t even think about moving, or I’ll use the ray gun on all of you.”
Frankie glared but then nodded. Suddenly all the zombified animals were all looking over at Sanj.
“Frankie, please fight it!” I cried.
“He can’t.” Sanj laughed. “That wouldn’t be nice now, would it?”
Mark chimed in. “He is right about that, Tom.”
“It would be terribly rude. Especially as he’s a guest,” Geeky Girl agreed.
Sami mumbled, “Swishy fishy no!”
“Now, I would like all of my new-found animal army to assemble on the driveway. We are going to march into town and take over the radio station. Then we can release the Supersonic Nicifying Helpful Minion Ray onto the airwaves and every kid who hears it will become my helpful minion and do whatever I want. My first step toward world domination. Once again.”
Sanj opened all the cages and upturned the tanks. All the animals slithered, crawled or skittered toward the garage door. Sanj picked up a remote control and pressed a button. The door started to rise and the animals emerged in a neat line.
The vampire kitten next to me mewed a squeaky protest.
“There’s nothing you can do now to stop me!” roared Sanj. “So I suppose I can let you out of that booby trap. Release them,” he shouted. The blue-footed booby flew over and pulled at the fishing rod, lifting the net off Pradeep, Geeky Girl and Mark. As soon as he was free, Mark raced over and picked up the kitten, but Sanj snatched it back.
“Not so fast. You’re a scientist, Mark. I was wondering if we should do an evil experiment? You see, I’ve hypothesized that the Supersonic Nicifying Helpful Minion Ray won’t work on most animals because their instinct supersedes their will.”
Mark looked confused. “An animal acts on instinct, not out of free will,” he huffed. “A lion doesn’t hunt to be mean; it’s acting on instinct!”
“Then why does the ray work on Frankie?” I asked.
“The fish is a zombie. He doesn’t have the same instincts as a normal goldfish. He can think for himself. Too bad for him really.” Sanj smiled his smarmiest evil smile. “But this kitten is probably the only truly evil animal I’ve ever seen. I wonder if the ray would work on it?”
“But what if it hurts her?” Mark said, looking worried.
“It might make her less … bitey … or it might just pop her tiny kitten brain. Let’s see, shall we?” Sanj set the vampire kitten on his desk and aimed the sonic ray at her tiny head.
CHAPTER 14
TORTOISE AWAAAAAAAAY!
Geeky Girl covered her eyes and Mark looked too shocked to move. I looked over at Frankie and I swear he winked! Pradeep had clocked it as well. Whatever Frankie was up to, he’d better do it quick.
“Now, Frankie, now!” we both said with our looks.
Just as Sanj was about to set off the ray gun, the blue-footed booby swooped down over his head. It was carrying something.
“Toby!” Pradeep shouted as the tortoise fell from the booby’s beak and hurtled toward Sanj.
Sanj looked up and jumped out of the way of the falling tortoise just in time. Pradeep leaped forward and just managed to catch Toby before he hit the floor, knocking Sanj sideways. But this time Sanj hung onto the ray gun.
The booby made another swoop above our heads.
“What’s going on? Stop that bird now, moron fish. Or I’ll fry you for dinner!” Sanj yelled as he scrambled to get up.
“That would be terribly high in cholesterol,” Geeky Girl whispered through her hands.
Pradeep raced over to Sami with Toby under his arm like a football. I’ve honestly never seen Pradeep do anything so sporty in my whole life.
The other animals were all out of the garage now and standing on the driveway awaiting orders. All except for Frankie.
Frankie had knocked the glass of water across Sanj’s keyboard and was flip-flopping toward Sanj.
“Stop, fish! You are not being nice!” Sanj ordered, and stamped his foot.
&
nbsp; “I think Frankie might have been pulling your leg earlier,” Pradeep said.
“He doesn’t look particularly nice or polite now, does he?” Mark added. “No offense intended, little fishy.” Frankie rolled his eyes at Mark and then turned his attention back to Sanj.
“Does this mean you can let the kitten go now?” Mark asked hopefully.
“No! I’m gonna zap that kitten and that moron fish at the same time. Then they’ll both do what I say!” Sanj shouted. He aimed the ray gun toward the kitten as she frantically tried to bite her way out of the oven glove.
Then Mark did something that I never expected him to do. He jumped in front of the ray gun! “I’m coming, kitty!” he shouted as he fell. Pradeep, Sami and I covered our ears and Pradeep stamped on the “close” button of the garage-door remote, which had fallen on the floor. Sanj was wearing his ear protectors. But Geeky Girl, Mark, Frankie and the kitten were all exposed. Just as the ray gun went off Mark reached the kitten and cupped his hands over her tiny ears. Geeky Girl grimaced and then fainted on the floor. Mark winced briefly and then fainted as well. Frankie, in his final seconds before passing out, flung himself at Sanj and knocked the ray from his hand. It switched off as it skidded across the floor and knocked into my sneaker. I picked it up.
The room was deathly silent. Frankie twitched on the floor. Pradeep, Sami and I ran over to him. Sami scooped him up and put him in the tank of water but he didn’t move. He just floated on the top.
“No swishy fishy,” Sami snuffled.
“No matter—I still have my animal army outside waiting for me,” Sanj said, getting up and dusting himself off. “Now that the fish is history, the animals will need someone to give them orders.”
Suddenly Frankie’s tail swished, his gills fluttered and he opened his eyes and looked up.
“WHOMP! WHOMP! WHOMP!” There was a huge banging sound on the garage door. The sound of lots and lots of pets under Frankie’s control. Pets that all held an enormous grudge against Sanj!
“Sanj must have been wrong—Frankie must be immune to the rays after all,” Pradeep hissed to me as Sanj backed toward the laundry-room door.
Geeky Girl headed him off. “No way, dude. You’re not getting out of here that easily,” she said with a scowl.
“Glenda?” Pradeep said.
She glared at him. “What did you call me? Not even my mother calls me by that name anymore!” Her fist clenched into a ball.
“You told us! It’s a long story,” I said. “But you’re not nice anymore. I mean, not really nice.” I couldn’t seem to stop myself from digging further into the gaping hole in front of me.
Pradeep saved me. “You’re not annoyingly nice anymore,” he said, smiling. As he was speaking, Mark stood up and yawned.
“I don’t know why I’ve got a headache, morons, but I know that it’s your fault. So I’m gonna pummel you both, and maybe it’ll make me feel better.”
CHAPTER 15
HAVE YOU HUGGED YOUR VAMPIRE KITTEN TODAY?
Mark raised a fist, but seemed confused that it contained a kitten in an oven glove. “What the…?” he started to say. The kitten looked up at him and mewed, and for a second I thought I saw nice Mark flash across his face. Then he ripped the tape off the oven glove and lifted the kitten out by the scruff of its neck. The kitten looked at him sweetly and then sunk her teeth into his hand.
“Ow! Man, that is one evil cat,” Mark yelled, and smiled an Evil Scientist smile.
“Get rid of it,” said Sanj. “That ridiculous cat is just distracting you. Go on, pummel them all so we can get out of here and escape from the other pets that are being hypnotically controlled by that stupid zombie goldfish.”
“Now I remember,” Mark said, putting the kitten into his white coat pocket so that just its head peeked out. “I was gonna splat the fish but you wouldn’t let me. And now you’ve got all these zombified pets after you”—Mark glared at Sanj—“how is that my problem?”
I interrupted. “Um, guys, look up.”
As they did, the blue-footed booby swung the fishing rod over their heads and the booby-trap net fell on them! Mark and Sanj looked at each other through the netting.
“Your stupid plans always go wrong,” Mark snapped.
“You can’t even think up a stupid plan,” Sanj spat back. Then the vampire kitten jumped out of Mark’s pocket and bit Sanj right on the nose.
“Argh!” yelled Sanj.
“I told you this was one evil cat.” Mark said, grinning.
* * *
With Mark and Sanj safely booby-trapped, Frankie unzombified all the pets and we put them back in their cages and containers so we could send them back to their homes.
“What should we do with the ray gun?” Pradeep asked.
“We could use it on Mark and Sanj—maybe turn down the setting so they’re just a little bit more nice?” I suggested.
Frankie flipped up out of his tank and splashed the gun. The blue-footed booby, still with zombie eyes, waddled over and pecked at it with her beak.
“Zap zap please thank you bad,” said Sami solemnly. Frankie had unzombified her now.
“I think Sami is right. We should destroy it so it can’t be used on anyone ever again,” Pradeep said.
The blue-footed booby flew out of the open garage door with the gun clamped in her beak. She soared way up above the house and then dropped the ray gun so it came crashing down on the driveway.
SMASH! It shattered into a hundred pieces.
“All my hard work ruined,” Sanj whined.
We made Sanj pull up the the records of where he got each of the pets and sent e-mails and texts to each owner to let them know their pets were safe and sound and that they could pick them up now. We handed back gerbils, guinea pigs, hamsters, stick insects, lizards, dogs, hamsters, iguanas and budgies. The owners were all really happy to get them back, even if they were quite confused about how we had managed to find them all. They were still too polite to say anything though.
“I wonder how long it will take for the effects of the ray gun to wear off?” I said when the last kid had left.
“I’ve looked at Sanj’s calculations and at the dosage he gave them, and I think it’ll only take a couple of weeks,” Pradeep replied.
Just then a van arrived from Bird World to pick up the blue-footed booby and return him to the bird sanctuary, where he was going to be given a new dance floor to practice his tap dancing.
Eventually the only animals left were Geeky Girl’s budgie, Boris, Toby the tortoise and the vampire kitten. And Frankie of course!
CHAPTER 16
AN ENEMY IN THE HOUSE
As we stood on Pradeep’s driveway watching the Bird World van drive off, Geeky Girl came up to Pradeep and me, with Boris the budgie sitting on her left shoulder like a pirate’s parrot that someone had shot with a shrink ray.
“Um, I just want to say thanks,” she said.
Pradeep and I looked at each other. “You’re not turning nice again, are you?” I asked.
Geeky Girl punched my arm.
“Guess not,” I added, rubbing my bicep.
“I meant, you know, for saving Boris and all,” she looked down at Pradeep’s shoes. “Man, this being-nice stuff is hard, isn’t it.” She smiled and we smiled too.
“Anyway, come around the shop any time. And thanks to your cool fish too,” she said, grinning at Frankie, whom I was holding in a glass of water. “He rocks. Just keep him off the net, you know. Just in case anyone’s watching.” She gave us a knowing smile and turned to walk away.
As she was leaving I swear Boris started hovering just above her shoulder.
Pradeep and I looked at each other. “Naaaahhhh!” we both said.
Just then Mark and Sanj stepped out of the garage holding the shredded remains of the net we had trapped them in. “My kitten has really sharp teeth,” Mark said, balling his fingers into a fist. “So where were we, morons? Oh yeah, I was gonna pummel you.”
Frankie’
s eyes had just started to glow bright green when we heard Pradeep’s mom calling from the end of the drive.
“Sanjay!” she yelled. (She always called him that when he was REALLY in trouble.) “Why did the neighbors just ask me if I was opening a pet shop? What have you done to our garage? And why did I get a call from the headmaster at your school to ask if you were allowed out of your room yet? You have a lot of explaining to do, young man…” She kept going without even taking a breath.
In one move she scooped Sami onto her hip while her other hand kept up the finger-wagging. Sami waved good-bye as she was carried into the house. “Bye-bye swishy fishy!”
Then we saw my mom’s car pull into the driveway next door. Mark had a look on his face as if he knew he was going to be in for the same earful that Pradeep’s mom had just given Sanj. But instead Mom ran over and instantly squealed in that “Oh my gosh that is the cutest thing ever!” kind of way that moms do when they see someone else’s tiny baby or a cute puppy or kitten.
The vampire kitten was peeking out of Mark’s white Evil Scientist coat pocket and had put on its cutest expression for the occasion.
“Where did you come from, you little sweetie?” Mom said in a much higher-pitched voice than normal.
I shot Pradeep a look that said, “Are you sure the bird destroyed the ray gun, because Mom is acting suspiciously nice?”
“Um…” Mark got an even-more-confused-than-normal look on his face. “I don’t know. I just kinda looked down and it was there.”
“Oh, are you a lost little kitty-witty?” Mom cooed at the cat.
“Somebody must own it,” I said, and I swear the kitten glared at me.
“Actually, according to Sanj’s records, the kitten was returned to the cats’ home twenty-seven times for biting. They don’t want it back,” Pradeep said.
“Oh, you need a home then, don’t you, little kitty-witty,” Mom said, stroking the kitten behind the ears.
