by Mark Crilley
“That's right!” Spuckler snapped his fingers. “We still got a chance at it!”
“The rusty what?”
“It's an award they give out,” Mr. Beeba explained, “to the last person to cross the finish line. A sort of consolation prize.”
The cheering outside was getting even louder, almost frantic.
“C'mon, everybody!” Spuckler hollered as he threw open the door. “We gotta push this sucker 'cross the finish line!”
Spuckler leaped out of the ship, followed by Gax, Poog, and Mr. Beeba.
I was still pretty angry. Very angry, actually. But I couldn't just stand there alone while everyone else left the ship. So I got out.
And we all started pushing.
were completely flat. But with everyone pushing—and I mean everyone, even Poog—the ship began to roll forward, one squeaky inch at a time.
The crowd was going wild. They actually seemed more excited about us winning the Rusty Sprocket than about Streed winning the Centauri Cup.
“Dzu! Dzu! Dzu! Dzu! Dzu!”
They shouted just one word over and over again. I figure it meant go or fight or something like that. Whatever it meant, it did the job: My arms and legs were charged up with so much energy, it felt like electricity flowing through me. I heaved myself up against the back of the ship and pushed with every last bit of strength I had left. The wheels screeched. The crowdsroared. Sweat covered everything: my face, my back, my belly. The cheers were deafening. I gritted my teeth and pushed even harder.
Finally the crowd exploded in celebration: Our ship's nose had inched across the finish line. The Rusty Sprocket was ours.
Alien spectators leaped out of the stands and flooded around us. They took photos. They asked for autographs. They offered handshakes—or tentacle-shakes, in some cases—and thumped us hard on our backs.
Okay, so we came in last. It sure felt like we won.
Everything that happened after that is a bit of a blur. A really nice blur. There was punch to drink and tables piled high with food (no horb-noks, thank goodness) and nice soft chairs to lean back in. People and aliens and all sorts of creatures in between kept coming up to congratulate us and view the Rusty Sprocket trophy, which was actually pretty cool: a wide black base with two rust-colored cogs hovering above it with their teeth interlocked, spinning slowly in midair.
The low point for me was when Bluggamin Streed, Ozlips still on his shoulder, came over to congratulate us. I wanted to punch both of them right in the nose. But Spuckler was chatting almost like they were old friends.
“Ya got me there, Bluggy,” he said. “I shoulda known you'd try'n' pull somethin' like that.”
Ozlips gave me a wink. I turned away.
Streed placed the Centauri Cup on a table and used it as a prop for his elbow. The big golden trophy was shaped like a rocket ship and sparkled like nothing I'd ever seen.
“I keep telling you, Boach. You'll never win a race until you get rid of two things: your stinky old grull, and your outdated ‘no cheating' code of ethics.”
“Cheatin's for sissies, Bluggy,” Spuckler said. “And winnin' ain't everything.”
“It's the only thing,” said Streed.
“'Kiko here's got a better one: It ain't whether you win or lose &” He paused and turned to me. “How's the rest of that go?”
“Forget it, Spuckler,” I said, still facing away from all three of them. “They wouldn't understand.”
“Yeah, I reckon you're right about that, 'Kiko.”
“So long, Spuck,” said Streed as he and Ozlips disappeared into the crowds. “See you at the next one.”
“Sassy little punk,” said Spuckler. He swigged down the last of a cup of punch. “Kinda like me, come to think of it.”
Now it was time for repairs. Spuckler went off and came back with a brand-new Twerbo-Fladiator and a fresh supply of coolant to go with it. He sang one last song as he and Gax set to work. This one had the exact same melody as the other two but was somehow even more irritating. It was all about something called grixel oil.
“Oh, grixel oil, grixel oil,
It saves ya time and it saves ya toil,
I loves it more than I loves my goyyyyyyyyyyl &”
You get the idea.
By the time he was finished, I was beginning to worry about how long I'd been away from Earth . It was already quarter after six: I was now officially late for dinner.
to get back to Earth. Spuckler offered to take the controls, but I told him to sit down. I wasn't going to pass up my last chance to fly Boach's Bullet. I'd kind of grown attached to the old thing.
I steered us past galaxy after galaxy, under large spinning planets and over oceans of asteroids, until finally we arrived in the Milky Way, hung a left at Jupiter, and zoomed straight over to the third planet from the sun.
I pulled Boach's Bullet up to a spot near the moon, unbuckled my safety belts, and stepped over to the Trans-Moovulator. Mr. Beeba helped me put my coat back on.
“I thought you didn't like being Trans-Moovulated, Akiko,” he said.
“I don't,” I said. “But I can't have anyone see me stepping out of this spaceship in the middle of Middleton Park. I've got enough problems at school without kids thinking I've been abducted by aliens.”
“But you have been abducted by aliens.”
I grinned. “Really goofy ones too.”
Spuckler shook my hand. “Boach's Bullet ain't never had a better pilot than you, 'Kiko. The Jaws of McVluddapuck in 7.2 seconds? Even I'm not crazy enough to try that.”
“WHAT WILL YOU TELL YOUR PARENTS, MA'AM,” asked Gax, “WHEN THEY ASK WHY YOU WERE LATE FOR DINNER?”
“I'll just say I accidentally locked myself in the girls' bathroom at the library,” I said. “I did that once before. They might buy it.”
Poog floated forward and smiled. I gave him a big hug.
“Thanks for getting us through the Labyrinth of Lulla-ma-Waygo, Poog,” I said. “If only you had arms and legs, I'll bet you'd be able to fly this ship better than anybody.” I paused and added: “Forget I said that. You'd look really weird with arms and legs.”
I zipped up my coat, stepped onto the scuff-marked gray square, and turned to Mr. Beeba.
“If you push the wrong button and beam me to Neptune I'm going to kill you.”
“Trans-Moovulate, Akiko. Trans-Moovulate.”
I smiled.
“Don't mind if I do.”
“Guess where I went yesterday.”
It was Sunday afternoon. Melissa and I were hanging around in my bedroom, looking at magazines.
“I don't know,” I said. “Where?” “The new mall in Fowlerville.”The way Melissa said it, you'd think she'd spent the day in heaven. “You have got to get your parents to take you there, Akiko. It's the best. There's every kind of store you can imagine, and there's this play area with, like, a mini–roller coaster. Right there in the mall. And the food court &”
She went on like that for probably twenty minutes. I tried to look interested, I really did. But I was remembering my own adventure from the day before. I was lucky. I'd forgotten that my parents had had this thing to go to on Saturday afternoon. A string quartet in Leamington, followed by a buffet dinner or something. They got home about eight o'clock. Ten minutes after I'd dashed back to the apartment, let myself in, and scarfed down the lasagna— cold—that my mom had left for me in the refrigerator.
“So what did you do yesterday?”
Melissa was staring at me. I'd almost missed the question.
“Me?”
“Yes, you.” She rolled her eyes. “Yesterday, after I left you in the park. What did you do?”
Oh, not much. Just got Trans-Moovulated, that's all.
“Built a snowman,” I said.
My mind kept drifting back to the Alpha Centauri 5000 and everything that came with it: the horrible smell of grull, the tooth-rattling rumble of the engine, Spuckler's awful songs. The funny thing was, I knew I would miss it al
l someday. Heck, I was starting to miss it already.
Melissa tossed her magazine aside and grabbed another. “You spent the whole afternoon building a snowman.”
“Sure.”
“One snowman?”
“Uh-huh.”
Clouds moved out of the sun's way and the whole room lit up. I rolled over onto my stomach so my back could get warm.
Melissa shook her head.
“Akiko,” she said.
“What?”
“You have got to get out of Middleton.”
Monsters. They're not just under the bed anymore. Dare to meet them head-on in the new series from the creator of Akiko.
Available everywhere
May 2004
Here's a preview.…
SKEETER GIG. BACK LATE, DON'T WAIT UP. DINNER'S IN THE FUDGE. LOVE, MOM & DAD
Billy Clikk read the Post-it again.
“Fridge. She meant fridge.” Crumpling up the yellow square, Billy chucked it at the garbage can and watched it fly in and then bounce out onto the kitchen floor. It was the third time this week he'd come home from school to find his parents gone, leaving him to heat leftovers in the microwave, do his homework, and put himself to bed. At this point they could just leave a note reading THE USUAL and he'd know exactly what it meant.
There was an upside, though: Billy was now free to kick back and watch his favorite TV show, Truly Twisted. He dashed into the living room, leaped over the couch, grabbed the remote, and switched on the TV.
Truly Twisted was the one program his parents said he must never, never watch. These guys took extreme sports to a whole new level: they once snuck into a church, climbed up the steeple, and bungee-jumped right into the middle of some guy's wedding. It was pretty awesome.
When Billy got to the channel where Truly Twisted was supposed to be airing, though, there was nothing more extreme than some lame college tennis championship. “Oh, come on!” Billy cried. They'd bumped the best show on cable for a couple of scrawny guys knocking a ball back and forth.
Billy shut off the TV and slouched back into the kitchen. He yanked open the “fudge,” pulled out a brown paper bag, and peeked inside. Cold chicken curry: carryout from the Delhi Deli, an Indian restaurant down the street. Billy used to like their chicken curry. Back before he'd eaten it once or twice a week, every week, for about three years.
Billy pursed his lips, made a farting sound, and tossed the bag back in the refrigerator. He slammed the door a lot harder than he really needed to and stared at the floor. There, next to his foot, sat the crumpled-up Post-it note.
“Are pest problems getting you down?” he said, suddenly doing a superdeep TV-commercial voice. “Then you should pick up that phone and call Jim and Linda Clikk, founders of BUGZ-B-GON, the best extermination service in all of Piffling, Indiana.” He leaned down and picked up the wadded note, and as he straightened up, he added a tone of mystery to his voice. The TV commercial had turned into a piece of investigative journalism. “What makes the Clikks so busy? What drives them to spend their every waking hour on extermination jobs—‘skeeter gigs,' as they call them? Is it really necessary for them to devote so much of their time and energy to saving total strangers from termites and hornets' nests? Is it just for the money, or is killing bugs some kind of a weird power trip?”
Billy took aim with the Post-it and had another shot at the garbage can. This time the note went in and stayed in.
That's more like it.
Billy changed his posture and pivoted on one foot, transforming himself once again into a reporter.
“And what of Jim and Linda's son, Billy? How does he feel about all this?” Billy went on, clutching an imaginary microphone as he strode from the kitchen back to the living room. “Well, let's ask him. Billy, how do you feel about all this?”
“You want the truth?” said Billy, switching to his own voice. “I think it stinks. I think it's a lousy way to treat a devoted son who is so bright, well behaved, and good-looking.”
Billy drew his eyebrows into an expression of great sympathy: he was the reporter again. “Tell me, Billy, do you think it bothers your parents that you have to spend so many evenings at home by yourself ? Do you think they feel the least bit guilty that you have to eat takeout night after night rather than home-cooked meals? Indeed, do you suppose—as your parents dash madly from one skeeter gig to another—that they even think of you at all ?”
Billy stopped, stood between the couch and the coffee table, and let out a long sigh. He dropped the imaginary microphone and the phony voice along with it.
“I don't know.” Billy flopped onto the couch. “Probably not.”
It hadn't been so bad the previous year, when Billy's best friend, Nathan Burns, was still living in Piffling. Nathan was the only kid at Piffling Elementary who was as obsessed with extreme sports as Billy was. They used to spend practically every weekend together, mountain-biking the cliffs that led down to the Piffling River, skateboarding across every handrail in town (they both had the scrapes, bruises, and occasional fractures to prove it), and even street luging on their homemade luges, which was apparently outlawed by some city ordinance or another. The only thing Billy and Nathan hadn't tried was sneaking a ride on the brand-new Harley-Davidson Nathan's father had stashed away in the garage.
They would have tried it eventually, for sure. But then Nathan's family moved to Los Angeles for his father's work. There were other kids at Piffling Elementary who were into extreme sports a little. They just weren't willing to risk life and limb the way Nathan was. Billy soon realized that finding a new best friend was going to take a while. In the meantime, it was looking like it would be THE USUAL for many months to come.
Piker, Billy's Scottish terrier, lifted her head from the recliner on the other side of the room, snorted, and went back to sleep.
BACK LATE, DON'T WAIT UP.
Billy had never been able to figure out why so much of his parents' work was done at night. Exterminators didn't normally work at night, did they? Were they trying to catch the bugs snoozing? Kids at school thought he was lucky. “If my parents left me alone at night like that,” Nelson Skubblemeyer had said just the other day, “I'd be partyin' like nobody's business. I'd be, like, ‘Yo, party tonight at my place.…'” (Nelson always said the word party as if it rhymed with sauté: in spite of his name, he'd somehow convinced himself he was the coolest kid in the sixth grade.)
Billy had never thrown a party while his parents were out on a skeeter gig. He wouldn't have been able to get away with it even if he'd tried. There was someone keeping an eye on him.
DRRIIIIIIINGG
Leo Krebs, thought Billy. Right on schedule. Billy normally didn't let the phone ring more than twice before answering. But when he was pretty sure it was Leo, the high school sophomore down the street who “looked after” him whenever his parents were gone at night, he had a policy of screening calls.
DRRIIIIIIINGG
Billy leaned back into the couch and did his best Leo impersonation: “Dude. Pick up. I know you're there.” Doing a good Leo meant breathing a lot of air into your voice and ending every sentence as if it were a question. Like Keanu Reeves, only more so.
DRRIIIIIIINGG
Billy's voice had begun to change the previous summer, greatly increasing the range of impersonations he could do (which had been pretty impressive to begin with). “Duu-ude. You're wastin' my time here.”
DRRIIIIIIINGG
One more ring and the answering machine would kick in.
DRRIIIIIIINGG
There was a plick, then a jrrrr, then: “Your pest problems are at an end…,” Jim Clikk's voice said. Billy jumped in and recited the words right along with the answering machine, creating the effect of two Jim Clikks speaking simultaneously. “… because you're seconds away from making an appointment with the extermination experts at BUGZ-B-GON. Just leave your name and number after the tone and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.”
DWEEEEEP
“Dude.” It was Leo, all right. “Pick up. I know you're there.”
Billy grabbed the remote off the coffee table and clicked the television on. When dealing with one of Leo's check-in calls, it was essential to have every bit of audiovisual distraction available.
“Duu-ude. You're wastin' my time here.”
Billy reached over, grabbed the cordless phone from one of the side tables, and pressed Talk.
“Leonard,” he said, knowing how much Leo disliked being called by his full name. Well, at least he hoped Leo disliked it. Billy didn't exactly hate Leo, but he wasn't too crazy about him either. Part of it was Leo's I'm older than you and don't forget it attitude. Most of it, though, was Billy resenting the whole idea of being babysat at all. He was old enough to take care of himself.
“Dude,” said Leo in return. He never called Billy anything other than dude. Leo probably called little old ladies dude. “Look, your folks told me they wouldn't be back until, like, midnight or whatever…”
Billy was remoting his way through a bunch of cartoon shows. He paused on an old low-budget monster movie.
“& so I can either come over there and babysit you for a couple hours—which neither of us wants—or just check in again at ten and make sure you're still alive. Not that I want you to be.”
“C'mon, Leonard. You don't want anything bad to happen to me. You'd be out twenty bucks a week.”
Normally Billy would have come up with a better verbal jab than the twenty bucks line, but he was devoting most of his attention to the image on the television screen: an enormous creature with lobster claws going to great lengths to stomp his way into a cheap imitation of Disneyland. There didn't seem to be any special reason why. Maybe he'd run out of office buildings and power stations to wreck.
“All right, dude. Ten o'clock it is. Pick up the phone next time, will ya?”
“Okay, Leonard. And hey: tell your skater buddies to learn some new moves. My gramma can do better kickflips than that.”
