“Yeah, but did you have to make cheese with it? Couldn’t you have picked something more sturdy, like breadsticks or shnorb sprouts?”
“Could have used those suggestions about an hour ago, Spotcho. I guess we’ll just have to be extra careful.”
It looks like we’re as ready as we’re going to be, so Spotch gets into position behind Lightyear.
“Remember, you have to make sure he’s looking at my dad when he starts eating,” I remind him.
“Got it,” Spotch replies, and places his hands on either side of Lightyear’s head.
“Hey, Dad!” I yell so he can hear me through the closed door. “Can you come in here for a minute?”
And now I hear music playing. It’s a little muffled, but I’m pretty sure it sounds like…
“Oh, I see you’re in your disco outfit again.”
“Yes sir!” Dad’s forehead is dripping with sweat. “Thought I’d get a little more practice in before I hit the floor for real tomorrow. I wouldn’t want to embarrass you out there.”
I know he wouldn’t want to, but I really don’t see any way around it. But that’s tomorrow’s problem. Right now I’ve got to keep him occupied long enough for Lightyear to scarf down that food pile.
“Actually, Dad, I changed my mind and was wondering if maybe you could teach me a move I could use tomorrow?” Did I really just say that?
“Sure! I knew once you saw a little more of what I can do, you wouldn’t be able to resist. Let’s see now, how about we bust a sweet John Travolta move?”
Wow. He’s really going to town. I want to laugh. Or maybe cry. Or gouge my eyes out with a fork. But Lightyear isn’t done eating yet, so I do my best to act impressed. Like Mom and Dad do when Bula brings home her latest work of art from preschool. We need Dad to stay in the room for a while yet.
During one of his more flamboyant finger points, Dad spots Lightyear. “Whoa. Is that cheese that he’s wolfing down? Whatever he comes up with, you better get rid of it pronto, Tonto. We don’t want the smell of ralphed-up cheese covering up the glorious scent of my sweaty disco boots, now do we? HAR!”
Uh-oh!
“Okay, Dad. I think I’ve got it.”
“Already? Well, aren’t you the fast learner. A chip off the old boogying block! Maybe we should try a few more—”
“No, really, I’m good.” I grab Dad’s disco finger and lead him toward the door. “I’ll practice some more by myself. Thanks for the help!”
No sooner do I manage to get him out the door than Lightyear starts to work his magic.
Sometimes I wish his magic was guessing which card I pulled out of the deck. This is gross.
“Yuck. Are you sure he can do this?”
“Seriously? He made a Grimnee copy out of rock when we were back on that planetoid two months ago. This should be a breeze.”
Another few seconds and he’s finished. Spotch and I stand Cheese Dad up to get a good look.
“I have to admit, that’s a pretty amazing likeness. I bet he’s not as funny as your real dad, though.”
“And I bet he’s funnier. C’mon, let’s cover him up and get him down to the lab. It’s almost eight o’clock, and Rand-El and Brian should be meeting us there with the Shrink Ray in a few minutes.”
“Watcha got there, son?”
“It’s just the cheese that Lightyear spit out. We’re going to toss it into the trash compactor on level three.”
“Good thinking. And I’ll tell you what—I don’t want to see what’s under that sheet, but I’ll bet it isn’t pretty.”
You said it, not me.
“Ugh. Those security bots don’t have odor sensors, do they? That definitely doesn’t smell like your dad.”
“You haven’t been around him after an hour of ‘boogying down’ in the living room. But no, the sensors are visual only. And Zot’s here to make sure we’ve got that covered.”
“Whatever.”
“She’s going to use her mom’s makeup kit to get Cheese Dad’s face to look a little less… cheesy.”
“Whatever.”
Zot digs into her case and gets to work on the Dad duplicate. She’s got lipstick and eyebrow pencils and hair dye and lots of other junk in there. Boy, I’m glad I’m not a girl.
“By the way, Rand-El, where the heck is the Shrink Ray?”
“You mean the Growth Ray.”
I’m thinking maybe I could be the kid who shoves Rand-El out of an air lock into space. That could be my one big thing.
“Relax, Kelvin. It should be here in a few minutes.”
Brian seems pretty confident. If he wasn’t, his brain would be the size of a grape right now.
“Here you go, go, go. One Growth Shrink Ray, at your service. Just make sure I get it back by next weekend. We’re going to a shindig, and my wife needs to use it to fit, fit, fit into her party dress. Oh, hey there, Professor Klosmo. How’s it going?”
“How the heck did you guys manage that?”
“We just asked if your dad could borrow it. Growth wasn’t too keen on the idea, so Brian started to stress out, went all small-brain on me, and started talking about how much he likes pickles again. And, wouldn’t you know it, ever since Growth shrank his head, he likes pickles, too. Brian offered him one and voilà! We’ve got a Growth Ray… er… Shrink Ray.”
“Hey, look. There’s a note attached to it.”
“I don’t know about you guys, but I can’t hang around here for twelve hours! My curfew is nine o’clock!”
“I guess we’ll just have to come back tomorrow night, after the dance. Let’s hide everything inside the lab until then.”
I pull out the copy of my dad’s key card that Lightyear made from Rand-El’s retainer two months ago and slide it into the door lock. The door slides open and we can see the Zorb containment vault and the security bots on the far side of the lab. We hide Cheese Dad and the Shrink Ray behind a supply cabinet near the door, connect the ray’s cord to a nearby power source, and head back out into the corridor.
I look over at Zot before she leaves. “Thanks a lot for your help, Zot.”
“Whatever.”
We all head back to our LIV spaces. We have a big day tomorrow, what with the dance and saving the universe again and everything. And when I get back to my room and hop into my zero-gravity pod for the night, there’s one thought that I can’t get out of my head—Cheese Dad and Shrink Ray would be a great name for a buddy cartoon.
“Hey, where is Mippitt, anyway?”
“Oh, he’s not programmed to dance, so he’s waiting for us in the bus. He downloaded the operating manual into his system last night, so he should be good to go.”
“I still don’t see why we have to wait until after the dance. Why don’t we just sneak over there now and skip the stupid thing altogether?”
“Because, Rand-El, my parents are chaperones. Don’t you think they’d notice if I wasn’t there?”
And I wouldn’t get the chance to dance with Luna, but I keep that reason to myself.
“But I signed them up for the cleanup committee, too. So if we wait until after the dance, they’ll be stuck here for a while, and we’ll have the lab to ourselves.”
“Uh… in a little bit. We just got here.”
“We can dig it! We’ll catch you groovy kids on the flip side. I’ve gotta chap and your mom’s gotta rone. Klosmos out!”
What… was… that? My reputation is already taking on massive amounts of water, and now they go ahead and fire a massive nuclear homing torpedo of death at it? My only hope is that everybody is into their own thing, so nobody notices them.
What?! Please, please, please tell me that most of the kids don’t know who they are.
I need to find a new school in another galaxy.
Although, I didn’t anticipate how slow we’d be moving. I must have chosen two elderly pinions to pilot the transports. The one behind me has had his left-turn blinker on the entire trip!
I hope to catch Melvin, or whatev
er his name is, at school, before he returns home to the Science Hub. That way I’ll only have to deal with a few teachers rather than a space station loaded with security. And robots. And weird rays. Then, once I exchange the boy for the Zorb, taking the space station will be a cake walk. Or is it a walk in the park? Or a cake in the park? Ah, who cares.
There’s the school now! A little enhancement of my video screen, and we shall see what’s what.
Excellent! The little troglodytes should still be here. This is a sure sign that my luck is finally changing. Now to locate this getdown.
And there they are!
There she is. Luna. Should I go talk to her? Of course I should. That is my plan, after all. All right, here I go. No. Wait. What am I thinking? I can’t just go over and talk to her. What am I, insane? No, an insane person wouldn’t be able to think this clearly. Or maybe an insane person would think they’re thinking clearly when they’re really not. Maybe I should just keep standing by the punch bowl and hope she comes over here. No, don’t be stupid. Why would she come over here? Why? To get some punch, probably. Or to see me. I mean, she did ask me if I was coming to the dance, right? Wait, where am I? What time is it? Why are my ears sweating? Am I wearing pants?
“You all right, Kelv? You don’t look so good.”
“What? Yeah. Huh?”
“Man, you better sit down. I’ll grab you some punch.”
All right, Kelvin. Calm down. I take a couple deep breaths and my mind starts to clear up. I grab Rand-El by the elbow. Safety in numbers and all.
“I’m okay. C’mon, Rand-El. Let’s go see if Luna and her friends want to dance.”
“Dance? I’d rather dunk my head in the punch bowl.”
“Well, just come along with me, then. I can’t go over there by myself.”
Rand-El lets out a ridiculously overblown sigh, drops his head, and shuffles along as I drag him toward the girls. “You owe me,” he says.
All right, Kelvin. Pull it together. Think of something cool to say. You don’t want to make a fool of yourself.
“Hi. Are you dancing?”
Ugh.
“Excuse me, what?”
“No, of course you’re not. I meant, uh, would you like to dance?”
“Not really. I think dancing’s kind of stupid.”
“I know, right?!”
“I mean, look at this hair. Would you want to jump around and get it all sweaty and messy?”
“Of course not!”
Well, I wasn’t expecting this. I don’t really have a backup plan for this situation. I barely had a regular plan. I decide to go straight to the big guns.
“I found this on our field trip. What do you think?”
“I think it’s a rock.”
“Well… you can have it if you want.”
“Gee, really? I can have a rock? From Larva Boy? How lucky am I?”
“Not very, if you ask me.”
“Hey, you’re pretty funny. And kinda cute, too.”
Oh, man. I’ve got to get out of here.
“C’mon, Rand-El. Let’s go.”
“You go on, Kelvin. I’m going to hang out here for a while.”
Seriously? I put the stone back in my pack and walk away. King Kong on the Empire State Building wasn’t shot down as hard as I just was.
I see Zot standing by herself near the punch bowl, so I head on over to a friendly face. Well, what used to be a friendly face.
“Hey, Zot.”
“Kelvin? What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be out there dancing with Luna?”
“It turns out she doesn’t like to dance. It also turns out she doesn’t like me.”
“You don’t say.”
“I do say. I don’t get it, either. I mean, she specifically asked me if I was coming to the dance.”
“She specifically asked everybody. She’s in charge of refreshments and needed to know how many cookies to order.”
“Well, how was I supposed to know that? Now I really feel like an idiot. I mean, she was hardly even paying attention when I was talking to her.”
“I could have told you that, Kelvin. Luna is all about Luna.”
“I don’t know about that.” I glance over toward Luna’s gang.
“She seems to be having a pretty good time with Rand-El,” I say.
“Yeah,” says Zot. “Probably because he has six eyes to stare at her with.”
We both chuckle at that one. Zot seems to be breaking out of her mood a bit.
“So, how come you’re not out there dancing?” I ask her.
“Nobody I want to dance with has asked me yet.”
“Wait a minute. You’re just standing around waiting for the right guy to ask you to dance? The Zot Totzie I know would just grab him and haul him out there.”
“You know what? You’re right!”
“Let’s see some of those moves I taught you.”
“Like that flip onto my head?”
“Yeah. Sorry about that.”
“That’s all right. I deserved it. Look, Zot. I’m really sorry. I had no idea you—”
“Kelvin?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up and dance.”
I’m with Zot, Grimnee, and Brian at the refreshment table. I guess Luna can’t count, because they’re out of cookies already. And the punch is almost gone, too, because Zot is guzzling it. I guess you work up quite a thirst dancing like she does.
“Hey,” she tells me between gulps, “you weren’t bad out there. I guess I’m a pretty good teacher.”
“Yeah, you and Telly Torkintottintin.”
“Who?” Zot looks confused.
“The kid I got to know on the field trip. He showed me a few things, too. And none of his were head-cracking moves.”
Uh-oh. Speaking of head cracking…
“Relax. I’m not here to cause any trouble.”
“Really? What else do you know how to do?”
“Well, I… um… I guess I was sort of wondering if… you know… maybe Grimnee wouldn’t mind dancing with me too much.”
Well, what do you know. This has been a pretty crazy afternoon, but I can’t imagine anything topping that.
What the…?! That’s Bula’s plushy, Fluffles! And he’s… talking?!
“That’s him! That’s the same voice I heard back when we were trapped in that giant robot! That’s the guy who was trying to take the Zorb off that planetoid!”
Okay. Dorn asking Grimnee to dance seems pretty normal now.
“But we sent him drifting aimlessly through space. How did he end up back here?”
“Behold the awesome might of Erik Failenheimer!”
“Failenheimer? I’m pretty sure that was the name of the janitor who was on the shuttle from Earth with us. What the heck is going on?”
“Listen very carefully, do exactly as I say, and no one will be hurt. At least not until I gain the universe-shattering power I so richly deserve. Then all bets are off!”
“Universe-shattering power? Kelvin, he must be after the Zorb again!”
“When I arrive in fifteen minutes, you will hand Melvin Klosmo over to me immediately. Until then, feel free to sit there and contemplate living out the remainder of your days under the iron-fisted rule of the almighty Erik Failenheimer! BWAHAHAHA!!!”
“Melvin Klosmo? He must mean me. He must be planning on using me to get the Zorb somehow. Quick, Brian, gather everybody together!”
“Okay. Scratch Brian. Quick, Zot, gather everybody together. We’ve got fifteen minutes to get over to the space station and shrink that Zorb!”
Only fifteen minutes. Mippitt better be able to fly that shuttle like a rocket. The gang’s all together, so we bolt for the door.
“All right, Spotch. It’s me he wants, so I’ll try to stall him. You sneak out of here with Rand-El and Brian and get to the bus. You guys have to shrink the Zorb before it’s too late.”
They make their way to the door on the other side of the gymnasium. Bula’s bunny d
oesn’t seem to care. He’s focused on me. And it’s pretty creepy. But I need to distract him as long as I can to give Spotch and the guys a chance to do their stuff.
“I thought you said you’d be here in fifteen minutes.”
There. That’s a good start.
“I lied. I’m a bad guy. It’s what we do.”
Well, that’s all I’ve got. I hope those seven seconds gave Spotch and the guys the time they needed.
“I AM NOT A JANITOR! I am a brilliant scientist who has been forced unjustly to live in your horrible, joke-telling shadow for my entire professional career!”
“Well, I remember them giving you a bucket and mop when we first got here. What’s your area of scientific expertise, anyway? Toilet cleanliness? HAR!”
Now that’s how you stall.
“Laugh while you can, you insufferable simpleton, but my moment is at hand. Zarfloots, Brunswick! I didn’t bring you along for your witty repartee! Grab the Klosmos!”
“What in the name of frozen molasses is going on here, Brunswick?! Why are they plodding around like newborn elephants? Where are their catlike reflexes? Where is their cheetah-like speed?!”
“…”
“I forgot for a moment that I’m trying to communicate with a fence post. Let’s try this again. WHY. SO. SLOW?”
“Hard to move. Feel heavy.”
“Feel heavy?! What, did you swallow a bag of anvils on the way over here? No, I think the problem is that you’re just a bunch of lazy-wait a minute! It’s the gravity! The artificial gravity on this floating space school is much stronger than you’re used to back on your planet. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that!”
Crash Landing Page 6
