by Nate Ball
Still not taking their eyes of each other, the two huffing and puffing Erdians both raised their three-fingered hands into the air and began shaking them, like a silent cheer at a basketball game.
Olivia turned her head toward me and slowly shook her head. I think she was holding back a smirk. “Look, Zack, they’re shaking hands.”
“They sure are,” I said with a smile. “Now that’s more like it.”
The Inspection
Since the Erdians were momentarily at peace in my room, and Olivia was technically my visitor, I decided to take the lead in questioning the strange Erdian.
“Listen, Mr. Ohm, what are you doing here? Is the invasion starting or what?”
“You told them?” he barked at Amp.
I snapped my fingers to get Ohm’s attention again. “Hey, you obviously didn’t travel through those wormholes that go through space like Swiss cheese just to fight an imaginary wrestling match with my Erdian houseguest.”
Apparently, Ohm was not impressed with my knowledge of space travel, which was easy to see by the way he scrunched up his face. “Don’t they learn about science on this planet?” he asked Amp.
“They do,” Amp replied with a shrug. “Some are better at it . . . than others.” He said this while gesturing to Olivia and then to me when he said “others.”
“Oh, stuff it,” I said. “You can’t even fix your own spaceship, smarty-pants.”
“What?” Ohm exclaimed, turning again to Amp. “What’s wrong with your vehicle?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I’ve spent my time here repairing my ship,” Amp said.
“And destroying my perfectly ordinary childhood in the process,” I grumbled.
Olivia harrumphed in frustration. “Uh, could we get back to the more pressing issue of whether we’re being invaded by little green men from outer space?”
“Blue, you mean,” Amp corrected, looking down as if to double-check his color.
Ohm just waved Olivia away like a fly at a picnic. “Attention, Scout Amp!” Ohm barked. Amp snapped instantly into a tall, rigid stance, fists at his side, antennas straight up, eyes staring straight ahead.
Olivia and I looked at each other in surprise.
Ohm looked Amp up and down like he was inspecting a used car for sale. He walked slowly around him, shaking his head in disappointment. I could swear he made a “tsk-tsk” sound when he looked at Amp’s backside.
When he reached his original position in front of Amp, he nodded and Amp seemed to collapse back into his natural slump, exhausted from the effort of standing at attention.
“What happened to you?” Ohm asked.
“The atmosphere damaged my ship’s central—”
“I’m not talking about your ship; I’m talking about you. Look at you! It looks like you’ve eaten a lifetime’s supply of gribble grubs.”
Olivia and I looked at each other. “Gribble grubs? Seriously?” she said.
“It is true,” Amp said, looking down at his feet, “I have grown fond of the earthling’s food.”
“He can go through a roll of SweeTarts like a termite can go through a toothpick,” I said, trying to help, but Amp shot me his please-shut-up look.
Ohm continued. “I thought you had a copilot behind you, but it just turns out to be your rear end.”
“Oh, snap.” Olivia giggled. Now it was my turn to shoot her a look.
“Where is your fight, soldier? You’re spilling Erdian secrets to these earthling spies like a Yommer’s geyser.”
“A what?” Olivia said, starting to enjoy herself.
“Hey, we’re not spies!” I protested. “This is my room. If anything, you’re the spy!”
Olivia laughed and nodded at Ohm. “Oh, Zack got you good there, Grumpy Gills!”
Ohm didn’t miss a beat. “You’ve grown pudgy and plump around the middle, scout. Distracted. Soft. Weak. Have you forgotten your mission? Your obligation to your fellow Erdian soldiers?”
“My ship was damaged!” Amp roared. “My communication system will not work from here! What was I to do?”
That was all I could stand. I shot my hand out and grabbed Amp’s bossy boss and held him up in front of my face.
“Okay, yes, Amp’s put on a couple of ounces,” I said, “but he tried his hardest to warn everyone back on Erde not to come here.”
Ohm thought about that one. He seemed to look at me carefully for the first time. “I saw a bigger version of you earlier. Huge.”
“That was my mom. And don’t call her huge, she wouldn’t like it. She’s just an adult. Most people are adults. And if you think she’s big, you should see my dad. Heck, you should see my uncle Steve.”
“It’s true,” Olivia said, nodding. “Zack’s uncle Steve looks like a parade float.”
I stared at Ohm. “We’re too big for you Erdians. If you think you’re going to take over this planet with your little zapper guns and rotten-egg mind tricks, you’re in for a rude awakening.”
“And you haven’t even heard about cats yet.” Olivia said. “There are millions of them, and they were built for hunting and eating Erdians. Mr. Jinxy is probably just outside Zack’s door waiting for snack time.”
Hearing our words, the Erdian in my fist sagged a bit. He seemed to be thinking about what I said. He looked at me, then Olivia, then back at me. “Yes, perhaps you’re right. We have miscalculated. Amp and I must return immediately to cancel this attack.”
“Now that’s more like it,” Olivia said.
Ohm looked at the device on his wrist and pressed a few buttons. “But we are almost out of time. Our next opportunity for optimum planet alignment is tomorrow night, when your moon is at perigee. We will both leave in my ship tomorrow night.”
“Erdian Council note. It seems that the young earthlings are unaware that their only moon orbits around their planet in an irregular oval shape, including a point when the moon is closest to their planet—called perigee—and a point when it’s farthest from Earth—called apogee.”
Amp and I looked at each other, ignoring Ohm’s lesson on moon orbits.
Tomorrow would be our last day together.
Chatty Bang-Bang
Olivia left shortly after we decided on a launch the next night in my backyard.
Trouble was, tomorrow was Saturday. My mom, dad, and nosy little brother would be around all day. And I was afraid my secret would get exposed before we could send the Erdian scouts on their way.
Of course, the idea of Amp leaving tomorrow impacted me more than I might have imagined. I always knew this time would come, but the thought of never seeing Amp again after tomorrow night choked me up.
The odds of me coming to visit him on Erde were somewhere between never and not gonna happen. I thought I’d feel thrilled when he left, but I felt more like I’d been punched in the gut. I was going to miss him.
Amp and Ohm were sitting on the small table next to my bed in the glow of my alarm clock, where they had been chatting away for the last hour. They were each sitting on leftover marshmallows from Olivia’s launcher, which turned out to be the perfect size for Erdian chairs.
“Listen, you two, can you stop your gabbing? You’re keeping me awake. I feel like I have sawdust in my eyes.”
The Erdians stopped blabbing in their alien language and considered me for a moment. Ohm—at least I think it was Ohm—spoke into his wrist device.
“Note to Erdian Council. Apparently humans must stop using their thinking organ during this planet’s dark period. Further study required to determine how their brains become damaged while thinking, and what process restores them to full functionality.”
Amp cleared his throat, then added a report of his own.
“Council note. Human boy claims to have things called dreams while his brain is repairing itself. I believe these are random thoughts generated by an unoccupied mind. Curiously, subject reports he often dreams of eating a salami sandwich full of worms while wearing only his underwear in fron
t of his classmates.”
I rubbed my temples. I was being annoyed in stereo.
“What is an underwear?” Ohm asked quietly.
I grunted in the darkness. “Do you mind, Amp? That dream was private. It was supposed to be between you and me.”
“No, you said I had to promise to never tell another living human being,” he said, and pointed to Ohm. “Does he look human to you?”
“I seriously can’t wait till you guys are no longer on my planet,” I said. I folded my pillow around my head so as to block out their squeaky voices and pulled my knees up to my chin to avoid the water spot Olivia had made earlier to break up the Erdian fight.
Thankfully, I fell asleep shortly after telling the aliens to pipe down.
I dreamed of a wormy salami sandwich again, which I was eating in my boxers while standing in front of my stunned classmates. I wish I knew what this dream meant. I don’t even like salami. Or worms. Or boxers.
In the morning, the Erdians were nowhere to be seen. I showered and made my way downstairs. My stomach was already setting off four-alarm hunger pangs. I could hear my family talking quietly at the breakfast table.
It got quiet when I walked in. Mom, Dad, and Taylor watched me come in and flop down in my usual seat. They met me with blank stares. Nobody moved.
“What?” I said.
They all exchanged silent looks.
My mom cleared her throat. “Darling, it looks like you wet the bed. Taylor showed me the spot.”
“That’s from a glass of water,” I said. “You didn’t see anything weird in there, did you?”
“How much weirder does it get?” Taylor asked.
“You shouldn’t drink such a big glass before you go to bed,” Dad said, with a sad smile.
“No, you guys don’t get it. Olivia did that.”
Mom looked over at Dad, concern washing over her face.
“You have to stop blaming Olivia for everything,” Mom said sternly. “Did Olivia make you drink that water before going to bed?”
I held my head in my hands. “No. You guys don’t get it.”
“Perhaps all those marshmallows made him thirsty,” Taylor said, making a face at me.
At that moment, Mom slid a small plate of mini carrots, a scrambled egg white, and half a piece of dry wheat toast over in front me. “Let’s start the day off eating right,” she said with a look of pity. “Aunt Joni suggested this for your breakfast.”
“Zack’s on a special diet?” Taylor asked, delighted at my misery. “Is it because he’s getting chunky? Or because he’s wetting the bed now?”
At that very moment, I wanted to tell them everything.
I really did.
I wanted to run upstairs, find those chatty aliens, and drop them into the pitcher of orange juice at the center of the kitchen table. I was so tired of keeping secrets. Of getting blamed for everything, when I was just trying to save the world. It was just too much for one kid to take!
I took a deep breath. One more day. I just had to get through one more day.
Then it’d all be over.
I would tell them all about it once it was over. But not now—we were so close! I couldn’t blow Amp’s cover now. Everything would be ruined. The Erdians would be carted off to some government research facility and be dissected like frogs. My house would probably become a museum.
I would have to find some way to push through the unfairness of it all.
I looked at each member of my family and started eating my carrots in crunchy silence.
They went back to eating.
While I secretly fed my egg whites to Smokey under the table, it occurred to me that our faithful dog was the one member of my family who seemed to offer any help to a kid under a lot of stress.
Healthful to a Fault
“Candy like SweeTarts is okay once in a while, for a special treat,” my aunt Joni told me patiently. “But the natural sugars found in bananas, apples, and oranges are a more healthful option.”
“Is healthful even a word?” I muttered.
Aunt Joni and I were in my living room. She had brought a variety of colorful posters showing different food groups and whatnot, which were perched on four folding tripods she must have used at her job. She was a nurse and dietician who worked at the local hospital. My mom had asked her to come over and set me straight on the basics of healthy eating.
This was no way to spend a perfectly good Saturday afternoon.
Learning about protein and the three different kinds of fat was shockingly boring. It was worse than school, and I thought nothing could be duller than school.
Here it was my last day ever with Amp, and I was stuck fidgeting on our rarely used fancy couch. I didn’t want to be rude to my aunt, but I was having trouble paying attention. I desperately needed a plan for launching Ohm’s spaceship, so the invasion of my planet could finally be canceled—but here I sat!
There was so much to say to Amp. So many things I needed to know about what was out there. If nothing else, at least we could have finished watching The Mummy. He loved that movie.
About an hour into Aunt Joni’s lecture, I started drooling from boredom. My left leg fell asleep twice. My stomach growled like a wounded animal.
“Now here are some examples of healthful foods a young baseball player should know about.”
If she said the word healthful one more time, I thought I might start weeping.
That’s when I realized I wasn’t alone on the couch.
Movement to my right caught my eye. I looked down to see Amp and Ohm reclining comfortably, just inches from me, listening intently to my aunt drone on.
“How long have you been here?” I blurted out.
My aunt Joni looked surprised by my outburst. “Only two hours, sweetie. I should be done in about forty minutes.”
I was still not used to the fact that Erdians could make themselves invisible. They did this with one of their Jedi mind tricks. Amp had explained once that he wasn’t actually invisible; instead he just made the person instantly forget that they were seeing him at the same time they were seeing him.
See, it’s hard to think about invisibility, let alone explain it!
“Is everything all right?” Aunt Joni asked, tapping her little pointer thing on her poster to redirect my attention.
“Be quiet,” Amp said inside my head. I tried to shake off his brain ball, which now echoed in my head. “We’re actually enjoying this presentation. This is truly fascinating.”
“Could you please shut up?” I whispered, pressing my palms on my ears.
“I beg your pardon,” my aunt said, lowering her pointer.
“No, not you,” I said to her.
“We need to talk to you, human,” Ohm said too loudly inside my head. “We have a problem with the launch.”
“Could you please zip it for a minute,” I growled. “My brain is going to explode.”
“I can speak slower if you want,” my aunt said, confused.
Without any warning, our cat, Mr. Jinxy, suddenly leaped onto the coffee table in front of me. He seemed to appear out of nowhere. His eyes were focused like laser beams on the two delicious aliens sitting next to me. I watched in horror as he lowered his head and crouched into an attack position.
Erdian invisibility tricks don’t work on cats.
Both Erdians shot off down the couch. Mr. Jinxy catapulted out of his crouching-tiger position and gave chase.
All this happened so fast that I didn’t have time to think. I went after the Erdians, thinking I could reach them faster than Mr. Jinxy if I took a better angle.
Unfortunately, the Erdians tried to use my aunt’s tripods to cover their retreat, which didn’t work on the darting Mr. Jinxy, but worked pretty well on me.
I heard my aunt scream as I scampered under her food displays on all fours, sending the tripods crashing and her posters falling in every possible direction. I can’t be sure, but I think she whacked me on the back with her pointer, trying to
get me back on the couch.
Luckily, I managed to block Mr. Jinxy with my shoulder and grab up an Erdian in each hand, a split second before Mr. Jinxy would have swatted them into the carpet with his paw. He meowed in frustration, showing me his tiny, sharp fangs.
With my back turned, I stuffed the Erdians into my sweatshirt pockets, knowing that they may have forgotten to make themselves invisible to my aunt during all the excitement.
The chase could not have taken more the three seconds, but the living room was now a disaster. My aunt stared at me like I was a gorilla in a tuxedo. I smiled crookedly. Teary-eyed, she walked past me without saying another word, obviously eager to tell my mom that I was the rudest boy ever to walk this planet.
“Darn, I wanted to hear the rest of that,” Amp said inside my head, “but I suppose we have more pressing matters.”
“What now?” I sighed.
“Ohm’s spaceship was damaged like mine,” Amp said. “We need a new initial launch system, and we need it fast.”
“Of course we do,” I groaned.
Beard Boy
I was grounded.
Mom said I could not leave my room until I had grown a beard.
I think she was kidding.
But once she had seen Aunt Joni crying, somebody had to pay.
“This is Zack One, over,” I said into my walkie-talkie. “I repeat: this is Zack One. Come in, Twinkle Fairy Pants. Over.”
“Twinkle Fairy Pants?” Amp squawked. “What on Erde is that?”
I dropped the walkie-talkie into my lap. “It’s Olivia’s new call sign. I know it’s stupid, but she won’t answer to anything else. I think she just likes to make me say it. Trust me, I feel like an idiot.”
“Clever girl,” Amp said to Ohm with a chuckle.
Ohm seemed to not get any of it. “Perhaps we could use this crude communication device to contact Erde—”
“No,” I said, cutting him off. “We already tried that, to disastrous results.”
I was sitting in my closet, both Erdian spaceships parked in front of me. The Erdians were between the ships, each sitting on a marshmallow. Amp had started nibbling on his seat every minute or so, and now a chunk of his marshmallow was missing.
