Alien Superstar

by Henry Winkler

  I felt nothing. Opening only three of my eyes, I took a peek down at my body. There I was, my regular self, suction cups and all. What was I doing wrong?

  Grandma Wrinkle had said that I had to focus. I just didn’t know what to focus on. I zeroed in on the silver button on the dashboard. I was going to need all six eyes for this. I focused on it so hard that the button started to blur in front of me. But that’s the only thing that happened.

  I thought that maybe a memory would help me focus my energy. I visualized my best friend, Citizen Three Lips, remembering us counting star clusters in the dim light of our two moons. Back home, that was one of our favorite things to do. As I relived the memory, I could feel my life energy accelerate, and I waited for the Zane Tracy transformation to take place. Nothing happened. The only thing I felt was sadness that I might never see Citizen Three Lips again.

  This was not working. I opened my eyes and, in frustration, tore the amulet off the chain and tossed it across the cabin. It landed on the pile of papers that Luis and I had just signed—my contract, a passport into my new life. A life that wasn’t going to happen unless I figured this out.

  8

  The harsh yellow sun streaming through my spaceship windshield woke me up with a start. Dawn on my planet comes in pink and soft, and waking up is a slow, gentle process. I hadn’t expected my first morning on Earth to begin with such a jolt.

  I must have fallen asleep sometime in the middle of the night, my energy zapped from the effort of attempted biological alteration. The process of becoming Zane Tracy had never fully worked. Once or twice, I noticed that I only had five fingers on each hand, and they were shorter and noticeably human. But the transformation never made it all the way down to my suction cups or all the way up to my face. Finally, I must have fallen asleep from the sheer exhaustion of trying to focus my mind. My best hope was that sleep had revived my energy and this morning’s effort would result in a complete transformation so that I’d be ready for my photo ID picture.

  I reached for the chain around my neck and held the titanium amulet in the palm of my hand. Closing my eyes, I focused all of my energy on the words I repeated silently to myself.

  “I am Zane. Be Zane now.”

  I heard the rumble of an engine outside my window. Looking out, I saw a truck drive by with two round brushes sweeping the pavement and sucking in any litter left behind on the ground. I had to work extra hard not to allow the noise to break my concentration.

  “I am Zane. Be Zane now.”

  I reached deep inside and went to a quiet place in my mind, blocking everything else out. I visualized myself turning into a human. I saw human hair, human arms and legs, and blinking blue eyes. With every cell in my body, I concentrated on being an earthling. Nothing else existed for me.

  Suddenly, I felt a swirl of electrical current under my skin, mild at first, and then growing stronger until I felt something sprout from the top of my head. I reached up with my free hand and couldn’t believe what I was touching. Human hair. It was so soft and thick. My sensory enhancer, having no idea what was happening, reached up and touched it too. It must have really liked what it felt because it buried itself in my newly grown hair, playing with it like it was a furry puppy.

  “That’s enough,” I said, pulling it away from my hair. “You’re disturbing my concentration.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to regain my focus.

  “I am Zane. Be Zane now.”

  My mind locked in on those words, repeating them over and over. Then the electricity in my body started to buzz and I felt a tightness all over, as if I were being encased by a flexible membrane. That could only be one thing. Human skin. I felt it creeping down my entire body, surrounding my sensory enhancer and pressing it flat against my back.

  In movies, I had seen people being transformed into zombies or vampires or aliens, but now I was being transformed into a human being. And it was real. I was thrilled and terrified at the same time.

  I moved my new fingers and they worked pretty well. As I watched my suction cups being covered with skin, I could feel them deflate and heard each one make a popping sound as if it were exhaling. Within seconds, the suction cups on my feet disappeared and were replaced by human toes. No offense to any of you humans out there, but those crooked little toes with sharp nails on the ends are not going to win any prizes for beauty. I wiggled my ugly new toes. They seemed to work, at least.

  “Buddy! You in there?” Luis said, rapping on the hatch door. “I’ve been waiting here for ten minutes.”

  “Just give me one second,” I called.

  “Okay, but you better shake a leg. You’ve been in there so long they’re going to start charging you rent.”

  I reached for the door handle to climb out, but stopped suddenly when I realized that I was stark naked. I was pretty sure I shouldn’t go outside totally undressed. On my planet, if you are found naked outside your home space, the Squadron picks you up and throws you into a behavior readjustment program. I didn’t know how humans on Earth felt about being naked in public, but I didn’t want to take a chance.

  I opened the compartment labeled EARTH COSTUME and pulled out a pair of jeans, a white tee shirt, and sneakers that Grandma Wrinkle had made for me. She modeled my costume on exactly what Zane Tracy wore in his movies, except in the movies, his tee shirt was covered with green zombie vomit. I stepped into the jeans, pulled the tee shirt over my newly hairy head, and laced up my red sneakers.

  When I opened the door, Luis looked astonished.

  “Who are you? I thought Buddy was in there.”

  “Luis, it’s me. Buddy. In the flesh.”

  “Whoa . . . So that’s the real you? Dude, you should never wear a costume again. You look like a movie star.”

  “That was the plan,” I said.

  “Come on, let’s get going. You got a career to kick-start.”

  Luis turned toward the path that led from the back lot to the soundstages. I climbed down the spaceship ladder to follow him, but as soon as my feet touched the ground, I toppled over and fell right on my face. I was going to have to learn to walk on these human feet. They had a lot of moving parts and no suction to hold me in place.

  Luis turned around and looked surprised to see me on the ground.

  “What are you doing down there?”

  “I was having trouble walking.”

  “Dude, put one foot in front of the other. It’s not that hard.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  Luis extended his hand and pulled me to my feet. It took a minute to get my balance, and then I tried putting one foot in front of the other. By the time we got to the security office, I had really gotten the hang of it.

  The photographer had about ten earrings in one ear, and even one in her nose. That must have hurt.

  “Hi,” she said. “Come in. Stand right over there on the X.” She held the camera to her face. “And no smiling.”

  “I wasn’t going to.”

  “And no talking either.”

  Without another word, she snapped my picture. The flash from the camera blinded me just like the sun. It was so bright, it penetrated my exterior Zane Tracy eyes and made my actual six eyes underneath blink all at once.

  Luis and I waited while she printed the picture and laminated it onto an identification card. She attached the card to a lanyard and put it around my neck.

  “Wear this at all times when you’re on the lot,” she said. When she noticed the amulet that was also hanging around my neck, she let out an admiring whistle.

  “I’m a jewelry geek, but I’ve never seen anything like that,” she said. “Where’d you get it?”

  “You go to the Milky Way and turn left,” I said.

  “Oh, the Milky Way—is that the jewelry store on Hollywood Boulevard? It’s around the corner from that?”

  “It depends how you define corner,” I said.

  Luis and I hurried across the lot and arrived at the door of Stage 42 at exactly nine o
’clock.

  “Okay,” he said. “You’re on your own.”

  “You’re going? Just like that?”

  “I’m not a star like you, dude. I have a job. That Frankenstein suit is calling. I’ll come back for the taping later.”

  And then he was gone. I pulled open the heavy stage door and walked in, following the yellow tape like I had the day before. In front of me were two long tables that formed an L. They were piled high with all kinds of Earth food. A lot of people were clustered around, filling paper plates with cheese and fruit and cereal and yogurt and lots of round cake-like things with holes in their middles.

  “Hey, new kid,” a big, soft-looking woman standing behind the table called out. “Welcome to Mary’s Kitchen. I see you’re looking hard at those doughnuts. Can I get you one?”

  “That’d be nice,” I said to Mary. “But I’d like one without a hole. I’m really hungry.”

  Mary let out a robust laugh. “You and me, honey, we’re going to get along just fine.”

  I was eager to try out my new mouth and see what it felt like with food inside. I took a bite of the doughnut and, wow, the flavor exploded on my tongue. It was a good thing my sensory enhancer was safely tucked away under my human skin, because if it had gotten a whiff of this doughnut thing, it would have shot into space and circled the globe three times.

  “Five-minute warning,” a man called out. “Cast members, gather at the table to read the script changes from last night.”

  Cast member . . . That was me! I stuffed the rest of the doughnut in my mouth and chewed as fast as I could. I saw Cassidy walk over to a square table near the set and sit down in a canvas chair that had her name on the back. Next to her was an empty chair, so I walked up and sat down in it.

  “Hi,” I said. “It’s me.”

  “Hello me, but I don’t know you.”

  “Yes you do. I’m Buddy Burger. Remember, I auditioned with you yesterday.”

  “You’re the guy in the cool alien suit? In case nobody’s told you, your human face is pretty cool too.”

  “Yeah, well that human face is sitting in my chair,” a voice from behind me said.

  The voice speaking was not friendly at all. It was so cold it practically had icicles dripping off it. I turned around to see who was speaking. Standing nearby was a tall boy a little older than me, with slicked-back hair and teeth so white they could glow in the dark. He was wearing large earphones around his neck. I wondered if he had ears on his neck.

  “Tyler,” Cassidy said to him. “There are ten chairs here. Just pick any one.”

  “This one has my name on it,” Tyler said. “See, ‘Tyler Stone.’ That’s my chair, and don’t you forget it.”

  “Oh, I won’t forget,” I said. “I have an excellent memory.”

  “Who is this bozo?” Tyler asked Cassidy. Bozo. Hmmm . . . I didn’t know that word, so my brain ran it through my Earth dictionary. The first thing that came up was that Bozo was a prince of the royal house of Serbia. I turned to Tyler and smiled.

  “Thank you for the compliment,” I said, “but I’m not from Serbia. And it might be hard to believe, but I’m not a prince either.”

  “Why don’t you just take your wise-guy self out of my chair,” Tyler said.

  I slid out of his chair and started to sit in the one next to him, but he put his hand out to stop me.

  “That one’s taken too. Page Robinson, the entertainment reporter from the Teens Today blog, is going to sit there. She’s shadowing me today for the lead story she’s doing on heartthrobs. I am one, you know.”

  “Tyler likes to keep us updated on how wildly popular he is,” Cassidy said. “He reminds us every hour on the hour.”

  “I can’t help it if I drive my fans wild,” he said. “It’s a gift. You either have it or you don’t.” Then he slapped me on the back so hard I thought I heard my sensory enhancer whimper. “Too bad you don’t have it, Buddy. And you never will.”

  A tall blond woman approached us, wearing heels so high that they clickety-clacked on the stage floor when she walked.

  “Page,” Tyler said, flashing his glowing teeth. “I’m saving a chair just for you.”

  Page said hi to Cassidy, then looked at me and smiled.

  “Are you new to the cast of Oddball Academy?” she asked.

  “Yes, I’m playing an alien.”

  “Well, you don’t look like an alien to me,” she said. “Unless you come from the planet of handsome. Maybe I can interview you sometime.”

  Before I could even answer, Tyler spoke up.

  “Will you excuse us for a minute, Page,” he said. Then he put his arm around me like we were long-lost brothers, his hand squeezing my shoulder a little too hard, and walked me away from the table.

  “Here’s the deal, Buddy Burger,” he snarled. “There is one male star on this show, and that’s me. You’re only here for a week, so just say your lines and don’t bump into the furniture, and we’ll get along fine. And keep your mouth shut. Is that clear?”

  I wasn’t sure how I was going to say my lines while keeping my mouth shut, but there was no time to think about that because the next thing I heard was “Everyone take your seats and open your scripts to page one.”

  It was showtime.

  9

  Duane Mitchell sat down at the head of the table. Along the center of the table were cups of pencils and yellow highlighters, and a script in front of each chair. Duane had a blue binder in his hands and a no-nonsense look on his face.

  “All right, friends, we have no time to dawdle,” he began. “We tape tonight, so let’s read through the changes and get this show on its feet.”

  Wanting to following directions exactly, I stood up.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he said to me.

  “Getting myself on my feet,” I said proudly.

  “Are we going to have to put up with those lame jokes all day?” Tyler groaned.

  “Buddy is new to the business, so maybe he doesn’t know that when you put a show on its feet it means that you rehearse it walking around,” Duane said.

  I sat down as fast as my human butt could hit the chair. I had so much to learn.

  “Everyone welcome our guest star, Buddy Burger, who’s playing the new student at Oddball Academy,” Duane said. “Buddy, you’ll be playing an alien from the planet Zork.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” I said, “but I know all the planets in our galaxy, and there isn’t one called Zork. Even including stars and galaxies, there’s Andromeda, Epsilon, Pegasi B, and, of course, PSR 1257. But no Zork.”

  “Duane, could you tell him to put a sock in it,” Tyler said, shooting a withering look at me.

  I couldn’t believe I had made a second mistake so quickly. I had only been in show business for thirty seconds, and I was starting to worry they might be my last.

  “I think it’s fantastic that Buddy knows all that stuff,” Cassidy said. “You’re just jealous, Tyler.”

  “People, focus.” Duane clapped his hands to get our attention. “We have a show to do. Buddy, here’s a quick recap. The Oddball Academy is a comedy about a bunch of kids with unusual powers or gifts who attend a weird boarding school.”

  “I’m the only non-oddball,” Tyler said. “I also have the most lines.”

  “In the show, Tyler’s parents enrolled him in the Oddball Academy and left the country,” Duane explained. “So now he’s stuck going to school with all these kids he has nothing in common with.”

  “I play Ulysses Park,” an Asian kid with big blue glasses said, “which also happens to be my real name. My parents are Korean and named me Ulysses because my mom loves Greek mythology. My character is a guy whose power is that he can imitate any historical figure. Check out my George Washington: ‘I’m leading the troops across the Delaware River, but, oh no, the wind just blew my wig off. Soldier, dive in and capture that wig before it gets eaten by a beaver!’”

  Everyone laughed, except Tyler, who just sighed.


  “Nice to meet you, Ulysses,” I said.

  “I play Martha Middleton,” a round-faced, curly-haired girl at the table said. “In real life, my real name is actually Martha Cornfoot, but the producers didn’t think Cornfoot had enough zing.”

  “Zing is always important,” I said, choosing my words carefully so I didn’t make a fool of myself a third time.

  “My character is totally obsessed with musicals and she sings most of her lines,” Martha said.

  “Martha’s voice is so big you can hear it in Nebraska,” Cassidy added.

  My brain processed the stored map of the United States, and quickly computed that it is 1,552.2 miles from Los Angeles to Omaha, Nebraska. She certainly must have a big voice.

  “WELCOME TO THE SHOW,” Martha sang in a booming voice so loud that it made my ears vibrate even under my human skin. “WE’RE ALL GLAD YOU’RE HERE.”

  “And then there’s me,” Cassidy said. “I play a girl with extrasensory perception. My character is so clairvoyant that she can sense the future and see the past. She can even talk to dead people.”

  “Wow, what do they have to say?” I asked.

  “What do you think they say, doof?” Tyler said. “I’m dead.”

  That Tyler had quite an attitude. He was the only person I’d met on Earth so far who didn’t want to be my friend.

  Duane had us open our scripts and read our lines out loud. I wanted to be really good, so I held the script up to my forehead and let all the words seep into my brain until I knew everyone’s lines by heart. That took about ten seconds. I made a note to myself that my brain seems to run a little slower on Earth. Maybe it’s the gravitational pull. Grandma Wrinkle would have known. I made another note to ask her.

  Oh wait. I can’t ask her. I don’t even know if I’ll ever see her again.

  There were lots of people sitting in a row behind us, taking notes as we read through the script.

  “Who are all those other people?” I asked Cassidy when the reading was over.