The Galactic B.U.R.P.

by Wendy Mass

  The cat? I clear my throat. “Um… taking a nap? Or… washing his paws? He does that a lot.”

  The scientist sighs. “Sebastian, I know how much you like cats. But we need to test the potion. Once all the ISF agents on Friskopolus have been turned into wild dogs, they will finally leave us alone. We will be able to rule the universe without them constantly ruining our plans.”

  I hear Pockets shouting in my ear, but I can’t make sense of what he is saying, because I’m trying to make sense of what she’s saying. First off, she thinks I’m someone named Sebastian; second… they want to turn ISF agents into dogs? We were definitely wrong to assume this Sebastian person just wanted the plant for his collection of rare or extinct things.

  On the other end of the earpiece, Pockets is still freaking out. Dad cuts in and says, “Pockets and I are on the way. Distract them until we arrive.”

  Great. How am I supposed to do that?

  Turns out I don’t have to do anything, because just then the real Sebastian walks into the room. He looks almost exactly like me. Or I look almost exactly like HIM. His head is a little bigger, and his arms are hairier and his nose is kind of off center, but other than that, we could be twins. He is holding the little black cat under one arm.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” Sebastian says to the scientist. “I was certain I had set my alarm clock, but it never went off. Did I miss anything? Do you have the plant?” He waits for the woman to answer, and when she only stares back, Sebastian finally notices everyone else has gone silent, too. “What’s going on?” he asks.

  The head scientist points a shaky finger at me. Sebastian follows the finger, and his eyebrows shoot up. “Who are you?” he asks, stepping forward. Before I can react, he pulls off my sunglasses and pushes my hood back to fully reveal my face. My hair springs up. Sebastian gasps and drops the black cat.

  “You… you look just like me!” he says.

  Actually, I’m at least an inch taller, but I think it’s best not to mention this.

  He reaches his hand toward my face, and for a second I think he’s going to hit me! But instead he just pinches my cheek to make sure I’m real. “You may have my face,” he says, “but you cannot possibly be the equal of Sebastian the Great, the universe’s most feared criminal mastermind, not to mention the founder and leader of B.U.R.P. So who are you?”

  Sebastian the Great? That’s the best nickname he could come up with?

  Wait! Did he just say he’s the leader of B.U.R.P.? But he’s just a kid!

  He is waiting for an answer, so I say, “Um, big criminal mastermind here, too. You know, trying to rule the universe and all.”

  Sebastian walks around me in a full circle, glaring. I cringe as he steps right on my sunglasses, snapping them in half. “There is only room for one of us,” he says, hands on his hips. “What is the name of your organization?”

  “Um, it’s F.A.R.T.,” I blurt out, then instantly wish I could take it back. It was all I could think of!

  The boy frowns. “What does it stand for?”

  “That is top secret information,” I tell him in my best evil-mastermind voice. Clearly, I have no idea what it might stand for.

  He nods in grudging approval. “Only a few know what B.U.R.P. stands for, and they are sworn to secrecy. Now, I demand you tell me what you are doing on my spaceship. It certainly looks like you are pretending to be me!”

  Pockets whispers in my ear, “Stay calm. We’re almost there.”

  I begin to explain that this is all a misunderstanding, when the door bursts open. Relief floods through me. Pockets and Dad have arrived!

  Only it isn’t Pockets and Dad. It’s another scientist in a white lab coat—a man this time, with white hair and a cane made of gleaming black wood. He is followed by the agent who brought me to the ship. I shrink back a little, but the agent walks right past me.

  “The canisantha is missing!” the new scientist tells Sebastian. “The plant was there this morning. Our team confirmed it with long-range photography. See?” He holds up a photograph that shows the plant I took. I don’t dare glance down at my pouch.

  “Are you certain you looked in the right spot?” Sebastian asks.

  “Yes,” he replies. “Absolutely.”

  “The dogs must have gotten to it,” Sebastian says. “You promised me that the plant was secure up there.”

  “It was,” the scientist insists. “The slope is too steep for the dogs to climb. That’s why it had remained safe all these years. Plus, the plant was pulled up by the roots. So whatever—or whoever—took it must have known the roots were important.”

  “But no one left the ship,” Sebastian says.

  The agent steps forward. “Well, no one but you, sir,” he says, almost apologetically. “You know, earlier. When you were wearing those odd clothes.”

  “You are mistaken,” Sebastian says. “I’ve been taking a nap!”

  The agent looks torn between wanting to argue and not wanting to accuse his boss of lying. He looks down at his feet. I slowly try to back up into the crowd. This would be a good time to disappear.

  But it’s too late. The agent looks up and spots me. He takes in my outfit and realizes I’m the one he saw, not Sebastian. He looks back and forth between the two of us, then cries out, “What? Who? Huh?” In an awkward attempt to reach for me, he crashes into a vat of bright pink liquid that the crowd was blocking before. The head scientist grabs it before it topples.

  “Almost there,” Pockets whispers in my ear.

  Sure, I’ve heard that before.

  The agent turns to Sebastian. “Is this some kind of trick? Is this a brother of yours?”

  The B.U.R.P. leader shakes his head. “I assure you, I have never seen this boy before in my life.”

  The agent thrusts his finger in my face. “You were standing right by those plants! You took it and tricked me! Where is it?”

  Before I can even think, the white-haired scientist begins waving his cane in a wide circle right in front of me. To my horror, my secret pouch with the missing plant is suddenly no longer so secret. They know how to dissolve Camo-It-Now! I quickly pull the cloak around me, but it’s too late. I know they’ve seen it.

  “Get out of there now!” Pockets shouts in my ear. I know he can’t see me, since my glasses are broken on the floor, but what he can hear in the earpiece obviously has him worried. I wish we’d gotten to the martial arts part of our training, because bouncing a ball and skipping rope isn’t going to help me right now. Before I can make a move, the agent grabs me by both arms.

  Sebastian reaches into my pocket and pulls out the bag. His eyes light up. “We’ve got it!” he shouts. He hands it to the woman, who pulls the plant out of the bag and drops it into the vat. The plant sizzles, then sinks to the bottom. The mixture begins to darken. The other scientist scoops up the small black cat, who meows in protest.

  “Is there no other way to test if the potion will work on talking cats?” Sebastian asks.

  The head scientist shakes her head. “We need to test it on a regular cat first. Then we will know the proper amount to feed our real target. Don’t worry. It will be very painless, and it will last forever.” She dips a pair of tongs into the vat and pulls off a piece of the plant no bigger than a pea. She reaches toward the cat’s mouth.

  “Not so fast,” a familiar voice shouts.

  It’s Pockets! Dad is right behind him. Finally!

  “Hey, I know you!” Sebastian shouts back. “You’re that giant cat from the castle at Tri-Dark! But… you’re talking! How is that…?”

  Pockets whips out his ISF badge. “You are under arrest for stealing the last canisantha plant and planning evil deeds.”

  At the sound of Pockets’s voice, the little black cat’s ears perk up. He tries to wriggle out of the scientist’s arms, but for an old guy, the man is very strong.

  The woman is now only a few inches from the little cat’s mouth. Without taking time to think, I reach into my pocket and grab the f
orce field pen. I aim it so that an invisible wall shoots up between the cat and the woman. She bumps right into it and snarls.

  Sebastian calmly walks toward the wall and taps on it with his ring. The wall disappears. “Did you really think you could use one of your ISF gadgets on my ship and succeed?”

  I swallow hard.

  Sebastian plucks the pea-size ball from the woman’s hand and walks right up to Pockets. “We were going to test this on a wild cat first, but you would make a much better test subject.”

  I expect Pockets to go screaming from the room, but he holds his ground.

  “Or…” Sebastian continues, “what if you come work for us instead? We could use a giant cat like you around.”

  Pockets shakes his head. “Trust me—I don’t make a very good pet.”

  I don’t want Pockets to stay here, of course, but I don’t want him to eat that plant, either. “You make a great pet,” I argue. “Penny’s only talking now because of you.”

  Sebastian doesn’t take his eyes off Pockets. “What’s it going to be?” he asks. “Life as a highly respected member of B.U.R.P. or a lifetime as a dog, your natural-born enemy?”

  “I’ll take the dog,” Pockets says calmly. Then he plucks the ball from Sebastian’s hand and brings his paw up to his own mouth! My jaw falls open!

  The scientist was right—the change DOES happen fast! One second I’m looking at a giant white cat, and then his head changes and his tail spreads out and he’s a green dragon! Then a second later he’s a squirrel! Then a turtle. Then he turns into a dog that looks a lot like little Luna from back home. And finally, with a loud howl, he becomes one of the wild dogs from the planet below. My heart sinks when I look at him, but the B.U.R.P. people are cheering and high-fiving.

  Their celebration is short-lived. The door swooshes open, and a swarm of agents wearing ISF badges burst into the room and spread out. None, I notice, are cats. The B.U.R.P. members begin to shout and run. The ISF agents arrest everyone they can catch. The dog who was once Pockets hops from foot to foot and barks like the regular dog he is. My heart aches for him, and for us.

  Then I notice that the old-man scientist is about to grab the vat of liquid on the lab table. Dad and I look at each other and, with a nod, hurry over to the table. Dad gets there first and sweeps the vat off the table. “NO!” both scientists cry as it crashes to the ground. Once the liquid spills out, the plant dissolves until nothing is left.

  “Come, Archie,” Dad says, yanking me toward the door. “We’ve got to try to catch Sebastian. He ran out!”

  “But we can’t leave Pockets! We have to do something!”

  “Pockets has it under control,” Dad says, pulling me down the hall. “You need to trust him.”

  I hesitate for a second, listening to the barking and shouting in the room we just left. Poor Pockets! It doesn’t seem as though he’s in control at all. What are we going to tell Penny when Pockets doesn’t come home with us? He’s become a part of our family.

  The only thing that makes me feel better is that the ISF is here now, so they will make sure Pockets is taken care of. He won’t be left in B.U.R.P.’s hands.

  We make it out of the room and into the empty hallway. One glance out the window tells us we’re too late to capture Sebastian. Looming in front of us is an oddly shaped space shuttle. Sebastian is sitting at the helm, steering away from the mother ship.

  “That’s his suite of rooms!” I exclaim, recognizing the bed and the huge desk and the collection of rare objects. “It must detach from the ship!”

  “Come,” Dad says, grabbing my hand. “Maybe we can catch him in the taxi.”

  We run to the docking bay where Dad parked. I look into the empty backseat as I climb in, my eyes filling with the tears I managed to hold in until now. Then I blink. It looked like something on the seat had shimmered for a second. I hear a little buzz, like a fly, and blink again.

  “Took you guys long enough,” Pockets says, suddenly appearing in the seat, looking every inch his old self: white fur, gray pockets, fluffy ears, big belly.

  I jump so high I hit my head on the roof of the car! “What? How? Huh?” I realize Sebastian said almost the exact same thing when he first saw me, but I don’t care. I scramble over the seat and squeeze Pockets into a big hug.

  “Okay, okay,” he says, pushing me away, “that’s enough.”

  “But how did you do it?” I ask, wiping my tears away. “The scientist said the change would last forever.”

  “And maybe it would have,” Pockets says, “if I had actually eaten the plant.” He grins and opens his paw to reveal the tiny ball.

  My eyes widen. “But… but I saw you turn into a dog! And some other crazy creatures before that!”

  He shakes his head. “Remember how I used my Atomic Assembler device to temporarily turn you and your father into aliens on our last mission? Well, what you saw in the lab was me using the Atomic Assembler to temporarily turn myself into a dog. After you two left the room, I turned myself into a fly and zoomed out of there! By the time the scientists realize they’ve been tricked, they’ll have been arrested by the ISF. Then they’ll have bigger problems than worrying where the dog went.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you, Archie,” Dad says. “But we didn’t know who may have been listening, so Pockets made me promise to keep his plan a secret until we were all safely back in the taxi.”

  “I’m just glad you’re you!” I hug Pockets one more time and then climb into my own seat. “Now let’s go get Sebastian!”

  But to my surprise, Pockets says, “Not today. I was tracking his ship while I waited for you. Once it left the orbit of planet Canis, it disappeared from my radar. B.U.R.P. has a lot of technology that we don’t. We’ll find him someday, but for now, capturing the mother ship was a huge turning point in our efforts to bring down B.U.R.P. and keep the universe safe. Let’s head home to celebrate.”

  “Say no more,” Dad says, revving the engine. I strap in and get my map ready. The sun is setting as we soar over the gold-and-green mountaintops.

  “It’s too bad we don’t know what Sebastian’s plotting next,” Dad says as the planet disappears out our back window.

  “Wait! That reminds me!” I reach into my front pocket and pull out the crumpled piece of paper I’d taken from Sebastian’s desk before I even knew who he was. It has the words LONG-RANGE PLANS TO RULE THE UNIVERSE printed at the top. I hand the paper to Pockets and say, “Looks like you’re not the only one with surprises in his pockets. I have a feeling this will keep the ISF busy for a long time.”

  Pockets reads the list and beams at me. “You’ve definitely earned yourself that raise,” he says. He reaches over the seat to pat me on the head with his heavy paw.

  “Wait a second,” Dad says. “Archie’s getting paid?”

  Pockets and I laugh. “You’re still coming to my baseball game, right?” I ask Pockets.

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” he says.

  “Hey, Pockets,” Dad says. “Now that you’ve been a dog, it’s not so bad, right? I think we’re going to get one as a pet.”

  In response, Pockets turns himself back into a fly and burrows into the corner of the seat.

  This time Dad and I laugh at Pockets. “I was only kidding,” Dad says.

  I turn to look at my map. I have to prepare to guide us back through the Asteroid Belt. Sure, Sebastian’s still out there, but tonight my whole family will be together. I can’t think of a better reason to celebrate than that.

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  Three Science Facts to Impress Your Friends and Teachers

  1. Greenhouses are glass building
s used by botanists (scientists who study plants), professional gardeners, and backyard gardeners who may enjoy growing rare and exotic plants and flowers.

  Sunlight passes through the glass walls of a greenhouse and is absorbed by the plants. The plants then give off their own heat, but that heat is unable to pass through the glass. This creates a warm environment and an even temperature in the greenhouse, allowing the plants to thrive. Greenhouses also protect plants from harsh elements like wind, rain, ice, and snow, and keep bugs and other animals away.

  2. An animal or plant is considered extinct when the last of the species is no longer alive. Extinction happens for different reasons. Sometimes a particular animal is hunted too much, or a crop is overharvested. Sometimes forests are cut down, leaving animals without a home, or plants without the right environment to grow. Sometimes a new species is introduced into a habitat (a place where an animal or plant naturally lives or grows) and the existing animals can’t compete. Pollution in the air or water can also contribute to the extinction of a species. Thousands of animals and plants are on the endangered species list. This means there are so few of them left that it is illegal to harm them.

  A mass extinction happens when a large number of species become extinct at the same time. An asteroid caused the most recent mass-extinction event almost sixty-six million years ago. Three-quarters of all animal species, including all non-flying dinosaurs, became extinct.

  3. An asteroid is a rock containing different types of metal. It orbits the sun, just as the planets do. But it is much, much smaller than a planet. In our solar system, the asteroid belt orbits the sun between Mars and Jupiter. Scientists think it contains more than a million asteroids, ranging in size from a small pebble to a large country!

  In the early days of our solar system, the planets were formed by gravity pulling dust and rocks together. Once Jupiter was formed, its strong gravity prevented a lot of those rocks from forming other planets; instead, the rocks were left to float around the sun. NASA currently has a spacecraft called DAWN exploring the largest asteroids in the Asteroid Belt in the hope of learning about life in the early formation of the solar system.