Take Us to Your Sugar

by Jonathan Roth

  Lani glared at me. “Now look what you did.”

  “Beep sad!”

  Lani leaned to hug him. “There, there, Beep. Just because Bob is an insensitive monster, doesn’t mean you have to cry.”

  “Hey, what did I do?”

  Lani grabbed a box of tissues. “Here, Beep. Use these.”

  Beep gulped the blue box down. “Lani-friend nice.”

  “I’m nice too,” I said. “Remember, I’m the one who lets you call me ‘mother,’ even though I’m clearly not.”

  Beep’s eyes got teary again. “Bob-mother not Beep mother?”

  Lani kicked me. “Of course he’s your mother. Isn’t that right, Bob?”

  I gritted my teeth. “Yes, Beep. I’m your new mother. Are we all happy now?”

  Beep clapped. “Beep say yay!”

  Lani put her hand on Beep. “Nothing’s more important than family and friends, Beep.”

  “Especially on Astroween,” I added.

  “Beep wish more Beeps come for sock or sweet,” Beep said. “Bob-mother bring?”

  I wasn’t about to break it to him that even if I knew where to find his home planet, I doubted one of his siblings would make an intergalactic trip for a made-up holiday. But I felt I owed him, so I said, “I’ll tell you what, Beep. I’ll send out an invitation. Just promise me you won’t get your hopes up.”

  Beep bounced. “Hopes up! Hopes up!”

  I went to my computer and opened Spacebook, which is how we post random messages out to space. “What should we say?”

  Beep thought for a moment. “Hmm . . .”

  “Make it honest,” Lani said. “Sweet, but not too sappy. Simple, but not too—”

  “CANDY FREE COME! CANDY FREE COME!” Beep said.

  I typed that in and hit enter.

  “And now that that’s done, let’s get ready,” I said. “Because no matter what happens, one thing’s for sure: Tomorrow is going to be the best Astroween ever!”

  SPLOG ENTRY #9:

  Beep Bag

  I woke in my dorm room extremely relaxed and refreshed. I stretched my arms and knocked on the bunk above. “Beep, you awake?”

  He peeked down. “Beep wake. Bob-mother wake?”

  “You can see I’m awake, Beep. In fact, it was the best night’s sleep I’ve had in ages. Probably because I slept so bad the night before.” I floated out from the covers. “At least it’s still early. It would have been a nightmare to oversleep on Astroween.”

  “No early,” Beep said. “Past lunch.”

  “It’s not past lunch, Beep. Look.” I pointed at the starry night out the window. And then I remembered it was always like that!

  Beep held up the bedside clock. “See. Day.”

  “One thirty! Oh no! Beep, why did you let me sleep so long?!”

  “Bob-mother like sleep.”

  “Yes, but not today!”

  “Plus, Bob-mother cute when sleep.”

  “Quick, we have to get in costume!” When Beep put his “Bob” wig on, I added, “I mean, me. Help me get all these awful tentacles on.”

  It wasn’t easy. Every time I got one attached, it would stick to others. Before I knew it, all the tentacles were balled in a slithery, sticky mess.

  “This is useless!” I kicked at the tentacles, and they suctioned off my shoe. Finally, I settled for wearing one. “There. Do I look like an alien?”

  “Bob-mother always look alien.”

  That was good enough for me. I faced the door. “Then what are we waiting for?”

  “For Bob-mother brush teeth?”

  “Sheesh, Beep, who has time for that? Let’s go!”

  To my horror the Astroween activities were already in full swing at school. I pushed through the crowded hall.

  “Bob, Beep, there you are!” Lani called. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” I turned toward her voice and saw a sleek purple girl with big ears and a tail.

  “Wow, is that you?” I said. “Your costume looks so real.”

  She smiled. “Thanks. Took me about three hours to apply the paint alone.” She glanced at the one limp tentacle sticking out of my chest. “What happened to the other seven?”

  “Long story.”

  “But you were supposed to dress as an actual alien species.”

  “Hey, I tried!” I said. “So, what have I missed?”

  “The costume parade, zero-grav apple bobbing, an Earth bounce, pin the antenna on the space donkey, bag decorating . . .”

  “The candy! Have I missed any candy?!”

  She held up her bag (decorated with glitter, felt stars, glitter, googly eyes, math equations, and more glitter). “Just started. Grab a bag and join me!”

  “Will do!” I looked around. “Where are the bags, anyway? I’ll need about ten.”

  She led me toward the bag decorating station. “Uh-oh. Looks like they’re all gone. See what happens when you sleep in?!”

  “There must be something I can use.” A backpack or pillowcase would do, but those were both back in my room. I glanced around. At Beep. At the empty table. At Lani. And then back at Beep.

  “Beep, little buddy! How much can your pouch tummy hold?”

  He spread his arms. “Beep hold lot and lot more!”

  “Perfect!” I said. “Beep, will you be our Astroween candy bag?”

  “Beep bag! Beep bag!”

  “Great,” I said. “Let’s fill you up!”

  SPLOG ENTRY #10:

  Ding, Dong

  I have to say, the next hour was one of the best of my life. There we were, three friends on an October school day, going from classroom to classroom and saying, “Sock or sweet!” Teachers opened their doors and poured all sorts of yummy candies into our bags (or, in my case, into Beep). It was glorious.

  “C’mon, Beep, what are you waiting for?” I said as he stopped to look out a window. “We have two more floors to go.”

  He kept his eyes on the stars. “When more Beeps come?”

  “I told him not to get his hopes up,” I whispered to Lani.

  “I feel terrible,” she said.

  “Then eat some candy.”

  She looked in her bag, then wrinkled her nose with disgust. “I don’t even like candy.”

  I shuddered. “Do I even know you?!”

  “Well, mint gum, maybe,” she said. “I haven’t had any of that since leaving Earth. But all this—”

  Beep interrupted with a happy cry, and “Beeps come! Beeps come!”

  I turned. “What?”

  He pointed out the window at an approaching fleet of small ships. “Beeps come for Astroween! Beep go let in.” Then he took off.

  “Wait for us, Beep! You don’t know who they are!”

  But Beep was fast. By the time we caught up to him at the air lock, the first ship was already docking. It clanked into place and whooshed steam. (Space sounds are cool.)

  The air lock bell then chimed ding, dong, ding. (Okay, not all space sounds.)

  I peered out the portal. “I can’t see anyone. They’re too short.”

  “Like Beeps! Like Beeps!”

  “Maybe,” I said, “but school rules say that we’re really not supposed to let anyone in until . . .”

  Beep hit the button and the door slid open. (He’s never been one for school rules.)

  And before I could say hello, I found myself in the clutches of a long, slithering tentacle.

  SPLOG ENTRY #11:

  Sugar Blues

  The good news is, I didn’t die. You can tell I didn’t die because I’m still writing my splog. FYI, a sudden STOP in my splog = bad news.

  But even though I didn’t die, it wasn’t exactly pleasant being gripped by a long, slimy tentacle. Especially because the tentacle pulled my face close to the extremely slimy and ugly (let’s call it slugly) face of an alien.

  “M-may I help you?” I said.

  “Take. Us. To. Your. Sugar!” it demanded.

  “S-sugar?”

  Lani, off to t
he side, said, “I think it means leader. Take us to your leader.”

  “I mean sugar!” the alien said, squeezing me harder.

  “Here!” Lani said, holding out her bag. “Take all the candy you want.”

  “Oooh,” the alien said, and tossed me aside. He looked in the bag, then handed it to another one like him. For the first time, I noticed they all had only one tentacle each, coming out of their chests.

  “Hey, I’m dressed as one of you.” I turned to Lani. “See!”

  “To mimic our kind is an insult worthy of death!” the alien said.

  I yanked the tentacle off and chucked it. “Not mimicking! Not mimicking!”

  I’m still writing my splog, so you can see my plan worked.

  The alien with the candy bag said, “This is not nearly enough. We need more.”

  Lani leaned in to whisper, “Whatever we do, Bob, we better not tell them about Astroween.”

  “I’m not going to tell them about Astroween.” I turned. “Are you, Beep?”

  “Beep no tell Astroween.” He turned to one of the aliens. “You tell Astroween?”

  “Not me,” the alien said. Then: “Wait, what is Astroween?”

  The chief alien, who I’ll just call Sluglyface, said, “Do not try to deceive us. We received your invitation. CANDY FREE COME, it said.”

  “Good going, Bob,” Lani muttered.

  “Hey, you were there too!”

  Sluglyface turned to his forces. “Search the entire station. Take every morsel you find!”

  “Wait. Every morsel?” I said.

  “Looks like you’re not the only one with a sweet tooth, Bob,” Lani said.

  Sluglyface gasped. “You eat the candy?”

  “Uh, you don’t?”

  “Sugar is the fuel we use to run our fleet,” he said. “To eat such a poison is unthinkable.”

  Suddenly more and more aliens poured through the door. Soon the school was going to be swarming with them. Unless I thought of something. And fast.

  “It’s too bad there’s not an emergency intercom on the wall,” I said to Lani. “Then we could warn everyone.”

  “But there is an emergency intercom on the wall.” She pointed. “Right behind that big alien guard.”

  I shrugged. “Well, so much for that idea.”

  “Bob, don’t be so gutless! All I have to do is distract him.”

  “Wait, Lani . . . !”

  But she had already floated up to the guard. “Oops, silly me,” she said. “I seem to have lost a gumdrop.”

  “Hmm, must find it,” the guard said, and bent to look.

  “NOW, BOB! GO!”

  Before I could talk myself out of it, I shot toward the intercom and hit the red button. It crackled to life.

  “Attention, everyone!” I said. “Astro Elementary has been invaded by candy-stealing aliens! Anyone who looks like a candy-hungry alien is an invader! Hide all your candy and fight for your lives!” A tentacle then covered my mouth, and I found myself being tossed back toward Lani.

  I brushed my hands together. “Well, that was pretty amazing of me, I must say.”

  “Bob,” she said. “You dolt! Today everyone looks like a candy-hungry alien!”

  SPLOG ENTRY #12:

  We’re Goo

  Okay, so my poor choice of words may have started a mass panic. What can you do?

  As if things couldn’t get worse, some more of the aliens then pushed some kind of contraption through the door. It had a big opening at the top and a spout at the bottom.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  Sluglyface put his hand on it and grinned. “This is the Gooifier.”

  “And what does a”—gulp—“Gooifier do?”

  Sluglyface leaned so close, I could smell his slugly breath. “It gooifies.” He then took Lani’s bag of candy and tossed it inside.

  “NO!” I said, but I was too late. The Gooifier made chopping, gurgling, and popping sounds (Gooifier sounds are cool too.) And then: plop. Goo came out of the spout.

  Sluglyface held up a full jar. “Behold: perfectly pure rocket fuel.”

  Or perfectly pure candy syrup. “I don’t suppose I could, uh, taste it?” I asked.

  Sluglyface grimaced, then turned to his soldiers. “Now take the Gooifier to the dining hall. And bring the prisoners!”

  Minutes later we were roughly herded into the cafeteria. And not just us: lots of dazed-looking kids, teachers, and even Principal Quark (who looked like she had been woken from some very deep “thinking” time).

  But even worse, right in the middle of the room was every candy bag in the school. They were going to gooify it all!

  I couldn’t help but shudder as bag after bag was tossed inside and chopped, gurgled, popped, and plopped into goo. At least I still had my candy safely hidden inside Beep. When every crumb was gone, Sluglyface counted the jars. “This is not enough. We need one more to power our fleet!”

  Principal Quark stepped forward. “You’ve taken it all. Now go.”

  “There must be a bag we overlooked!” Sluglyface said.

  Next to me, Beep began to say, “Beep bag! Beep b—”

  I clamped his mouth. “Beep, shhh!”

  But it was too late: Sluglyface had heard. He approached Beep. “You dare to conceal candy from us?”

  Beep patted his tummy. “Beep bag for Bob-mother.”

  Sluglyface’s eyes gleamed. “You heard him. Throw the little alien in!”

  “Who alien?” Beep said.

  “You are all aliens,” Sluglyface said.

  “Beep no alien! You alien!”

  “Since when are we aliens?” Sluglyface said.

  “Since born.”

  “Pah, this is pointless. Throw him in now!”

  I jumped forward. “No! You can’t!”

  “And you can’t stop us!”

  That was probably true. Not by fighting, anyway. But how, then? As they took Beep away, they held us all back.

  “Bob, we have to do something!” Lani said.

  “Like?”

  She slipped away and ran.

  But can I blame her? After all, it wasn’t Lani’s fault we had gotten into this mess. (Actually, it was Mr. Da Vinci’s; if only he had fixed the sweetenizer when it first broke, then we never would have had to make up a new holiday that somehow led to this hostile invasion.)

  And yet, in a small way, it was my fault too. So before I could talk myself out of it, I pulled free and said, “Wait, no! Take me instead.”

  Sluglyface chuckled. “But you are not a candy bag.”

  “Listen, mister,” I said. “I’ve been eating nothing but sugared cereal, syrup, jelly, soda, and caramels since I was old enough to open a refrigerator. And that’s just for breakfast! The truth is, I’m probably more sugar than boy. Not that I’m proud of it, and if I somehow survive this, I vow to eat healthy from now on, but for now I—”

  “Enough already,” Sluglyface said. “Throw them both in.”

  “GAHHHHH!” I screamed as a tentacle swooped me up and held me directly over the machine.

  Which I know sounds bad, but as long as you’re still reading this, it means I . . .

  SPLOG ENTRY #13:

  Sweet Surprise

  Oops, sorry about that. Just dropped my splog-o-matic recording tablet. Right at the exciting part too.

  Anyway, as I was saying, as long as you’re still reading this, it means I didn’t get turned into goo! (Beep didn’t, either, in case you were wondering.) I mean, sure, it seemed touch and go for a minute there, but just as my head was dangling over the little choppers, I heard the cafeteria door swish open, and a voice yelled, “HERE! HERE’S ALL YOU NEED AND MORE!”

  I pulled myself up just in time to see . . . Lani! Carrying an overflowing bag! While I assumed she had run away for good, she had really broken free and found some more sweets. But where?

  To answer, Nurse Lance darted up behind her, screaming, “NOOOOOOOO! That’s the school’s entire supply!”r />
  “It’s one hundred percent sweetener,” Lani said. “Does the medicine even work?”

  “No,” he admitted. “But at least children take it.”

  He did have a point.

  Sluglyface swiped the bag away. “This will do nicely. Let those two go.”

  Beep and I broke free of the tentacles and shot away.

  “Yay Lani!” Beep said.

  After they had all the fuel they needed, the aliens began to pack up.

  “And now we will leave,” Sluglyface said, “and not return until this very day next year and on every day you call Astroween from now on in order to replenish our supplies.”

  Oh, great, just what we needed. A yearly shakedown. But just as I was about to give up hope of ever eating candy again, Mr. Da Vinci stepped forward to study the Gooifier.

  “Interesting,” he said. “Looks like you don’t need sugar at all for your fuel.”

  “We don’t?” Sluglyface said.

  Mr. Da Vinci bent down. “See this switch here? You have it set to SUGAR. But with one little flick . . . there. Now it’s set to SALT.”

  “But how will that help us?”

  “Well, for starters, the dried ocean beds of Hydrocon-Six have more salt for the taking than you could use in a million years.”

  “My sister-in-law lives on Hydrocon-Six!” Sluglyface said. “This is most welcome news.”

  Mr. Da Vinci shrugged. “I do what I can.”

  “You are a genius,” Sluglyface said. “Perhaps you would consider joining us on our journeys.”

  “What, and leave all these children I have come to know so well?” Mr. Da Vinci said. He then threw down his mop. “Finally, someone who appreciates me! Ciao, kids, ciao!”

  And so they finished packing and left, never to bother us again (???????).

  Afterward, I stood with Beep and Lani in the empty cafeteria.

  “So how did you know about the medicine?” I asked Lani.

  “Before I recycled the bottle you tossed, I read the ingredients on the side.”

  “At least it all ended happily,” I said.