He stepped closer and reached for her, but his hand passed straight through hers. They weren’t there in the same room, it was all an illusion created by the Tellys. They were billions of miles apart, on different ships, sailing through different parts of the galaxy on separate campaigns.
“Come back,” Jacob said.
“I’m sorry, Jake,” she said quietly. “I can’t.”
Jacob glared at her for a moment and said, “End call.”
Jacob was in a bad mood even before Catalina told him about his first campaign assignment. He awoke from a fitful sleep when they arrived on Planet Hermit, which was named in honor of the planet’s only resident: Roy Blankwell, one of the most popular talk show hosts in outer space. Jacob put on the suit that Catalina picked out for him, a black suit lined with small sparkling electronic lights that made him feel like a human disco ball.
“Blankwell is very influential,” Catalina said. “If you impress him we can make serious headway.”
“So what do I have to do?”
Catalina rolled her eyes. “Oh Jakey, don’t go worrying yourself. I know you’ll nail it.”
“He’s really the only person on this planet? Why is his show so popular?”
Catalina found something interesting to stare at on her Telly. “I’m sorry, what did you say? Would you hurry? It’s almost time.”
Praiseworthy had parked on a ledge near the top of a massive mountain. Jacob stepped out of the ship and stared down into the deepest canyon he had ever seen. Jagged brown peaks jutted up in the distance and colorful giant birds soared in between them. Jacob walked with Catalina toward Blankwell’s house, which was perched at the very top of a high mountain, its walls stark white and formidable.
After Blankwell buzzed them in, Catalina pushed Jacob through a giant marble entryway and into a studio that was set up as a living room, with a purple couch and a painting of a spaceship on the wall. An older man with a pleasant face was sitting behind a gleaming white desk, and he beamed when Jacob came into the room. He was wearing an impeccable purple suit that matched the couch, and it shimmered under the lights in the studio. Jacob was suddenly aware that he was being recorded and there were likely millions of Astrals tuned in at that very moment.
“Mr. Wonderbar!” Blankwell said. “Please, have a seat. I should have known you’d be late.”
“I’m late?”
“Slow brains, I see,” Blankwell chuckled. Jacob tried not to frown at the insult and wondered if Blankwell had just misfired on a joke. Blankwell looked at some note cards and gestured around to an invisible audience. “Mr. Wonderbar, why don’t you start off telling my viewing friends whether your worst quality is your horrible temper or the unfortunate sound of your voice?”
“What?!”
“Horrible temper it is. I had a feeling.”
“I don’t have a horrible—”
“Oh, so you aren’t aware you have a horrible temper?”
Jacob stared at the smiling talk show host and realized what was going on. Blankwell wanted to get a rise out of Jacob so that he would say something stupid. Jacob cleared his throat, gave a faint grin, and said, “We all have our weaknesses.”
“You just happen to have more weaknesses than most, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say—”
“Your campaign started off with what is widely agreed to be the worst speech in the history of the universe. Really dreadful stuff. How do you plan to rescue your campaign so you receive more than one vote? Sources tell me your running mate herself is on the fence about whether to vote for you.”
Jacob wondered for a fleeting moment if that was true about Catalina, but just when he realized Blankwell was lying it was too late and the host pounced. “Hesitating because it’s true? So your campaign manager really isn’t going to vote for you?”
“It’s not true, I—”
“I thought so,” Blankwell purred. “Confirmed by Candidate Wonderbar himself.”
Jacob grabbed the armrest of his chair hard enough that his knuckles were white. He told himself to calm down and look for an opening.
Blankwell looked at his cards and adopted a pained expression. “Your own best friend deserted your campaign. Had to have been a shock. Would you care to comment on reports that Sarah Daisy and Mick Cracken are in love?”
Jacob swallowed against his knotted throat, and said confidently, “What I think the voters want to hear about are the issues in this campaign. For instance, Astral time makes no sense at all. What I want to talk about is—”
“I think they are definitely in love,” Blankwell interrupted.
“—is what I can do to help out the Astral people. I think they might be surprised—”
“Completely in love.”
“—at what I can bring, because I am someone who is honest and well-intentioned—”
“Probably kissing right now.”
“—which is more than I can say about my opponent, whose only qualification is that he’s a pretend pirate who does nothing but lie, wouldn’t you agree with me, Mr. Blankwell?”
Blankwell stared at Jacob in surprise for a moment and Jacob seized on his hesitation. “How long have Astrals had democracy?” Jacob asked.
Blankwell frowned. “I ask the questions on this show, and—”
“The answer is you still don’t have it because you haven’t even voted. We’ve had it on Earth for, um…” Jacob tried to remember what Ms. Rao had said about democracy in World History. “Well, we’ve had it for a long time, and I know how it works. Astrals don’t know everything, believe it or not.”
“Let’s get back to the real issue of this campaign,” Blankwell said, regaining his footing. “You have already admitted that you are an Earther secret agent sent here to undermine—”
“That is so wrong,” Jacob said, but before he could say anything further, Catalina rushed into the studio.
“You’re in danger!” she shouted. “Valkyrians have landed outside.”
Jacob briefly wondered whether this was one of Catalina’s campaign stunts, but Blankwell jumped up in a panic before he seemed to remember he was on camera and made a show of adjusting his tie. “Ha. Guess I shouldn’t have told that joke about how many Valkyrians it takes to turn on a spaceship.” He paused as if waiting for a laugh.
Jacob stared at Blankwell in confusion. “Huh?”
“The answer is minus two, because at least two of them would blow themselves up in the process.”
“No, what’s that word? What are Valkyrians?”
Catalina said, “SEERs, Jake. SEERs with blasters.”
“They want to destroy Earth? What are they doing here?”
Catalina grabbed his hand. “We have to run.”
Jacob started running toward the door they’d come in, but Catalina grabbed him and whispered, “No. There has to be another way out.”
They heard a crash and the sound of boots echoing from the entryway. Jacob felt a shove from behind, and Blankwell went running past them, up a nearby stairwell, and down a hallway.
Jacob and Catalina looked at each other and then went running after him.
“Target spotted!” someone shouted from behind them.
Jacob glanced over his shoulder and saw a blond-haired kid in a uniform aiming a blaster at him. Jacob dove to the ground as the wall cracked behind him, leaving a smoking spot where it hit.
“I said no lethal force!” a deeper voice said.
“Oh. Sorry, Dad.”
“That’s all right, son. It’s not your fault the Earther deserves it.”
Catalina grabbed a gold vase from the wall and threw it in the direction of the soldiers, and then helped Jacob up, pulling him down a white marble hallway. “The Gravys,” she whispered. “General Gravy is the leader of the Valkyrians, and Patrick is his son. This is very bad.”
“Why are they chasing us?”
“I don’t know, but we need to hurry.”
They rounded a corner and found y
et another white marble hallway, but this time Blankwell was waiting for them. He stood with his arms crossed and a mischievous look on his face.
“Blankwell, you have to help us,” Catalina said.
He smiled cryptically. “Any last words for the viewers, Princess?”
Jacob glanced quickly at Catalina and knew that Blankwell had infuriated her with the mere inflection of his voice. At any other time Blankwell would have had to follow her orders and bow to her every whim, knowing she might be the future queen. He wouldn’t have dared make fun of her directly. But now she was just the running mate on a losing presidential campaign, and he could sneer at her and get away with it. Jacob had a feeling she’d never been treated that way in her entire life.
“I’ll remember this,” she said quietly.
Blankwell punched a button on the wall and Jacob felt the ground give way. He and Catalina were sliding through a dark tunnel, twisting and turning as they gained speed. Jacob saw light ahead, and before he could brace himself he was thrown onto the ground. Catalina fell on top of him. He strained to breathe and did a mental inventory of his limbs, and though he was definitely bruised, he was pretty sure he hadn’t broken anything.
Catalina hopped to her feet, and Jacob stood up gingerly. They were on a small ledge atop a sheer cliff, and Jacob turned to look around just as the door to the slide slammed shut. Catalina stared at her Telly, but shook her head. “Praiseworthy isn’t answering.”
“What do we do now?” he asked.
Jacob was suddenly thrown back to the ground and he felt the heat of an explosion. As the ringing of his ears died down he heard loud cheers, and he saw a group of Valkyrian soldiers readying another grenade launch on a distant cliff.
“We have to get out of here!” Jacob shouted.
He stared down into the chasm at the edge of the cliff, where some of the massive birds that he’d seen earlier were flying. They looked like falcons the size of whales and each one was a different color, bright green and red and yellow. One of the birds swooped high near him, and he stood back from the cliff as it passed them, so close he could feel the air stir around him.
Jacob had an idea. If he could just time it right, he could leap off the cliff onto one of their backs and fly to safety.
“We can do this. We can jump onto the birds,” Jacob said. “I’ll go first.”
He took a few steps back, just far enough so he could see the birds swirling around, and prepared to launch himself off the cliff.
“Jake…” Catalina sighed. “Don’t jump!” She pointed at the corner of the ledge, where he saw the top of a ladder.
“Oh.”
They scrambled over to the ladder and began climbing down, holding on as best they could. He clung tightly to the ladder whenever the Valkyrians launched grenades into the ravine. The birds squawked angrily, but they managed to dodge the blasts.
After it seemed as if they had climbed for an eternity, Catalina suddenly stopped.
“Um. Jake?”
Jacob moved his left leg so he could look down at her, and then felt a stab of panic. They had reached the end of the ladder, but they were still hundreds of feet in the air. There was nothing but clouds beneath them, and there was surely no way they could climb back up without being killed or captured by the Valkyrians.
Jacob wondered if his leaping-onto-birds idea was now a bit more viable.
He heard a buzzing sound growing closer, and a small vehicle rose up through the clouds. The smaller Gravy was riding a flying motorcycle, and he swung up alongside Jacob and Catalina. He hovered there for a moment with a dumb grin.
“Hi,” Gravy said. “Just hanging out? Ha-ha! Get it? Hanging out? Because you’re hanging on to that ladder there? Holy stars I’m funny sometimes.”
Jacob’s fingers were beginning to ache from holding on to the ladder, and he hadn’t noticed the strength of the wind, which was tugging at his suit and sending a shiver down his spine.
“Gravy, darling, cutie-pie,” Catalina said sweetly, in a voice Jacob realized had been directed at him many times. “What might I be able to offer your hilarious bad self to rescue us and let us get back to our campaign? Hmm?”
Gravy laughed, which Jacob thought sounded a bit like an old car honking. “Oh, it’s too late for that, Princess Catalina. Your brother has already given us exactly what we want.”
Catalina gasped. “He did what?!”
“This election is over. All I have to do is kidnap you and—”
Jacob clenched his jaw. “Mick Cracken sent you to kidnap us?” he said angrily.
The grin on Patrick’s face evaporated, and he pointed his blaster at Jacob. “I didn’t say that.”
“Yes, you did.”
Patrick clenched his jaw, and Jacob noted that his hand was shaking.
Jacob heard a strange noise that he thought sounded like a proper “Yee-haw” echoing around the ravine, and he saw a flash of orange out of the corner of his eye. Jacob turned and saw Praiseworthy speeding toward them. Patrick’s eyes went wide in fear and he fired some shots at Praiseworthy, but when the ship didn’t alter course Patrick tipped up his motorcycle and fled. Praiseworthy was going so fast Jacob thought he was going to crash into the mountain, but just before he reached the cliff face he came to a sudden, perfect stop.
They were saved.
Catalina danced around her ship as Praiseworthy left the Valkyrians far behind. “Thank you, Praiseworthy! Thank you, thank you! You’re the best! I knew you liked me more than Mick!”
“Oh Princess Catalina, you wouldn’t believe the adventure I had. I just knew I had one good rollicking rescue in me!”
Jacob smiled and wished he could give Praiseworthy a high five. “What happened? How did you escape the Valkyrians?”
“Well,” Praiseworthy said, quite obviously beside himself that they wanted to hear his story, “when I heard that nasty brute of a Valkyrian spaceship enter the atmosphere I just knew it couldn’t be good news. So I left right that moment, flew below the cloud line, hid behind a mountain, and shut off all communications so I couldn’t possibly be spotted. I knew you may have been unable to reach me, but I couldn’t dare take the risk of having our conversation intercepted. And after I saw that horrible gremlin of a child speed by me on his motorcycle, I just knew he would lead me to you. It was a magnificent rescue, wasn’t it?”
“It was!” Catalina said. She twirled around one more time and ran over and hugged Jacob. He hugged her back and was proud that they had escaped. Catalina was smarter and braver than he had given her credit for, and he was glad they were campaigning together.
But then he had a flash of what Sarah Daisy would have done if she had seen him hug Catalina, and a part of him wondered if this was all part of Catalina’s plan, whether she just thought he would be easily wrapped around her finger. She was a member of the same family as Mick Cracken after all.
“Your dad said that Astrals are all fun-loving people, that space is perfect and all that. So why were they trying to kill me? They want to destroy Earth! What kind of maniacs are you people?”
Catalina broke the hug and took a few steps back, looking genuinely hurt. Her mouth was a thin line and she nodded. “Jacob,” she said quietly, “SEERs are crazy. They just love blowing things up. Not all Astrals are like that.”
“Didn’t you say they’re popular?”
“Well, yes, kind of, but you know… Astrals just don’t take things so… seriously.”
She gave him a look that made him think she was talking about more than just Astrals.
“Dexter Goldstein calling!” Jacob’s Astral Telly shouted.
Jacob reached into his pocket and saw Dexter’s face. He was safe. Jacob quickly said, “Pick up,” and Dexter materialized right in front of him. He had a vague sense that Catalina let out a sniffle and brushed past him toward her stateroom, but he was too excited about seeing Dexter to worry about it.
“Dexter!” Jacob shouted. “What happened to you?”
&nbs
p; Dexter looked around and said, “Whoa! You’re aboard Praiseworthy? Hi, Praiseworthy! Hi!!”
Jacob shook his head. “That’s not how the Tellys work. Only I can hear you.”
“Oh. Weird.”
“Hey Praiseworthy,” Jacob said. “Dexter says hi.”
“Master Goldstein!” Praiseworthy shouted. “My warmest regards! I daresay you would have been quite impressed by my recent dashing rescue!”
Jacob thought back to the last time he had seen Dexter, being carried away by space monkeys, and he felt a wave of guilt that he had left his friend behind. Jacob had only sent crazy space officers to save him and had taken his election more seriously than his friend’s rescue. He looked at the ground and said, “Look. Dexter. I really, really wish I could have come back for you. I just had that deadline to declare my candidacy, and…”
Dexter stood a little straighter. “I can take care of myself,” he said, as if he were testing the words out to see how they sounded. He cocked his head a little and then nodded as if they sounded just fine.
“Well, still, I’m sorry, Dexter,” Jacob said
Dexter nodded. “I am a brave individual.”
Jacob laughed. “I can tell. How did you escape the space monkeys?”
“Escape?” Dexter looked around the room. “You can’t see them?”
Jacob shook his head. “Dexter, that’s not how these phones work. The caller goes to where the recipient of the call is, and their image—”
“Yeah, yeah. Well, they’re right here beside me and they’re my friends!”
Jacob wondered if Dexter had possibly suffered a catastrophic head injury during his ordeal. He certainly did not sound like the Dexter he knew. It occurred to him that the space monkeys could have been holding Dexter hostage and were forcing him to say he was fine and pretend he was self-sufficient under threat of further space monkey rampage.
“Wow, Dex,” he said. “That’s, um, great. But really, are you okay?”
Jacob Wonderbar for President of the Universe Page 7
