Alien Superstar

by Henry Winkler

  INT. DORMITORY ODDBALL ACADEMY – DAY

  Tyler is lying on his bunk bed, watching TV. Buddy the alien enters.

  TYLER

  Hey, space creep, you’re supposed to knock when you come in someone’s room.

  BUDDY THE ALIEN

  Even if it’s my own room?

  TYLER

  This is my room.

  BUDDY THE ALIEN

  Correction. Was your room. Now it’s our room. Or as I like to call it, my biosphere.

  TYLER

  Tell me you’re not actually going to be my roommate.

  BUDDY THE ALIEN

  I brought my personal robot. His name is ZR 733. He’s very nice, except he snores. He’ll stop if you just put your finger up his nose.

  TYLER

  Up his nose? No, this is NOT happening. I’m going to talk to Principal Broadbottom.

  BUDDY THE ALIEN

  Great, I’ll come with you. I’d like to get to know Principal Broadbottom better.

  Tyler and I rehearsed the scene. I was able to get through it, even though my tongue was feeling heavy and my lips thick. The one thing I couldn’t do was pronounce Principal Broadbottom’s name. No matter how hard I tried, it kept coming out Principal Dogbottom or Principal Waddlebottom. The crew thought that was funny. Duane didn’t.

  “Concentrate, Buddy,” he snapped. “We aren’t rehearsing just for fun. This is a movie studio, not a kindergarten.”

  I finally got it right, and Duane moved on to the next scene, which didn’t involve me. Cassidy was standing on the sideline, motioning for me to come with her.

  “It’s amazing,” she said, taking my hand and pulling me back to the classroom. “Every vial has changed color. I looked in the manual and it tells you what nutrient each color stands for. Buddy, you’re going to be eating real space food soon.”

  At the table, we got out a notebook and started to compare each color to what was in the manual.

  “A greenish color indicates copper,” Cassidy read from the book.

  I wrote down copper in the notebook.

  “Yellow indicates potassium,” Cassidy read.

  One of the vials was definitely bright yellow.

  “The presence of vitamin K will be indicated by a purple color.”

  As Cassidy read off the colors we had, I took notes until we had a complete list of all the ingredients. I won’t bore you with the whole list, but it included niacin and folate; vitamins A, B6, C, and K; and calcium, magnesium, and a whole lot of other hard-to-pronounce minerals.

  “This is great,” Cassidy said. “Now we know exactly what you need to eat. All we have to do is find an Earth food that matches this list.”

  “How do we do that?” I asked.

  “Well, there’s this handy-dandy thing called the internet,” Cassidy said. “You ever heard of that in outer space?”

  “Yes,” I said. “We learned about it in ancient history class.”

  “You’re such a show-off,” Cassidy said with a smile. “Wait here while I go do some research on my laptop.”

  While I sat at the classroom table, Martha, Tyler, and Ulysses came to see what was going on.

  “What’s all this garbage?” Tyler asked, looking at the vials of colored solution.

  “Cassidy and I were doing a science experiment,” I said. “Analyzing the nutritional content of food.”

  “Boring!” he said. “Why don’t you just open your mouth and eat like normal people do? Oh, I forgot. You don’t have teeth.”

  “I love science,” Ulysses said. “Let’s try your experiment on other foods.”

  “Count me out,” Tyler said. “If you need me, I’ll be in my dressing room trying out new hair gel.”

  Tyler sauntered off. Martha was munching on a snack she called Pop Rocks, which as far as I could see were bright red little candy kernels that sizzled when you put them in your mouth.

  “Now, there’s a science experiment waiting to happen,” Ulysses said.

  He grabbed a few of the Pop Rocks from Martha’s bag and tossed them into one of the vials. Immediately, the water turned hot pink and started to sizzle. A plume of steam rose from the vial, emitting a strong, sweet odor.

  “Mmmm,” Martha said. “Watermelon.”

  I felt my sensory enhancer sit up and take notice of the fruity fragrance. Its trunk circled the air, snorting with pleasure. Martha burst out laughing.

  “I don’t know how you rigged that thing up, Buddy,” she said, “but it’s the funniest costume I’ve ever seen.”

  “You can tell us, dude,” Ulysses said. “Is it battery operated or what?”

  My brain was too tired to come up with a story, so I heard myself saying, “It’s an alien secret. This is my sensory enhancer, and if I told you all about it, the Squadron would come from my planet and arrest me.”

  “And then little green men would kidnap us in their spaceship and take us to your planet,” Ulysses said, with a grin.

  He and Martha were still laughing when Cassidy came running up.

  “Hey, Cass,” Ulysses said. “Join the fun. Buddy was just telling us that he really is an alien.”

  Cassidy laughed right along with them.

  “That Buddy,” she said. “He’s always joking. Now, can you guys leave us alone for a second? I have something important to tell him.”

  “Sure,” Ulysses laughed. “Just watch out for the little green men.”

  Ulysses and Martha left. Cassidy grabbed me by the shoulders, a big smile spreading across her face.

  “I found it,” she said. “I found the food you need.”

  “What is it?”

  “Are you sitting down?”

  “Why? Do I look like I’m sitting down?”

  “It’s avocado,” she said. I stared at her blankly. “It’s a fruit,” she added.

  I had never heard of it. In movies, I’d seen humans eating all kinds of fruit—apples, bananas, oranges, grapes, pineapples, berries, and watermelon. But never an avocado.

  I put the word “avocado” through my Earth dictionary and came up with this definition: a pear-shaped fruit with rough bumpy skin, smooth edible flesh, and a large stone in the middle.

  That certainly didn’t sound delicious. But I was desperate, willing to try anything. We had the red carpet event coming up in less than six hours, and I was feeling so weak I couldn’t imagine attending.

  “Where can we get these leathery avocado fruits?” I asked.

  “I looked for Mary to see if she had any, but I couldn’t find her. Jules said she had to go pick up her kid at school.”

  “So, what do we do now?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry. I have it all worked out,” Cassidy said. “I’m going to take you to the one place we’ll be sure to find avocados. We’re going to see the true America.”

  “We’re going to the Mississippi River?”

  “No, silly,” she laughed.

  “The Rocky Mountains?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then where?’”

  “Buddy, my alien friend, we’re going to the supermarket.”

  22

  We told Delores that we were going to spend our lunch hour with Luis. She wasn’t happy about that.

  “You should be studying your lines,” she told Cassidy. “Stars aren’t born, you know. They’re made, with plenty of—”

  “Hard work and dedication,” Cassidy said in unison with her mother. I could tell she had heard that speech plenty of times.

  “Don’t be gone long,” Delores warned, “because as soon as Duane dismisses you, we’re going to hot roller your hair for tonight. And squeeze you into that little black dress. You too, Buddy.”

  “Thank you, but I don’t look good in dresses.”

  “You know what I mean, smarty-pants. We’ve got to prep you too. Tonight is the night that Buddy Burger tells the world ‘HERE I AM!’ Are you ready?”

  I couldn’t have been less ready.

  Cassidy had already called Luis an
d asked him if he could take us out on his lunch hour. She wouldn’t tell him where, but she promised it would be fun.

  “Hey, I love a mystery,” he said. “And I love fun. And I love you guys. So consider that a yes.”

  Luis drove his old convertible right up to the stage door and we climbed in. As usual, he had his Frankenstein suit on, except for the head, which was strapped into the back seat.

  “I got forty-seven minutes before I have to be back at work,” he said. “Where are we going?”

  “To the supermarket,” Cassidy said.

  Luis stopped the car.

  “I thought you said this was going to be fun,” he complained. “No offense, kids, but cruising down the tuna fish aisle is not my idea of a hot time.”

  “No tuna, I promise,” Cassidy said. “We’re in the market for avocados.”

  “Oh, now there’s something I know all about,” Luis said. “My grandmother goes through crates of them every week to make her world-famous guacamole. People line up around the block at her restaurant.”

  “What’s guacamole?” I asked. I remembered Luis mentioning it once, but I had never bothered to run it through my Earth dictionary.

  “You must be from outer space, dude, if you don’t know what guacamole is. It’s only the best food on the planet. It’s a game changer for your tongue.”

  “But we need avocados, not guacamole,” I said.

  “Guacamole is mashed avocado,” Luis said. “Add lime juice, some salt, maybe tomatoes or garlic, plus a heaping tablespoon of Grandma Lupe’s love, and you have a snack fit for a king.”

  I felt a sharp pain in my left leg, like a really bad cramp. Even my leg muscles were demanding food. I let out a little moan. I didn’t intend to, but it just fell out of my mouth.

  “How fast can you get us to the market?” Cassidy asked.

  “Man, you guys aren’t messing around,” Luis said as he pulled out of the main gate and waved to Scotty the guard. “I’m on it. When your taste buds call, Luis answers.”

  We drove down Ventura Boulevard, passing rows of sushi restaurants that looked like little wooden Japanese houses.

  “I love sushi,” Cassidy said. “Do you, Luis?”

  “I could eat it all day long. How about you, Buddy? A slab of raw tuna, or maybe a giant clam? I like it when it’s still pulsating. Puts hair on your chest.”

  I was already feeling queasy, and the idea of eating a raw fish or, worse, an uncooked mollusk, made my stomach do a flip-flop. I put my head between my knobby knees and kept it there until we pulled into the parking lot of Valu-Rite Super Market.

  “I’ll get us a cart,” Cassidy said, climbing out of the back seat. While she was wheeling the cart over to us, I was immediately spotted by a little boy riding in the baby seat of his mother’s cart.

  “Look, a space man,” he yelled, pointing at me with his chubby finger. “And a monster,” he screamed again when he saw Luis behind me. “Mommy, can we buy them?”

  His mother didn’t look surprised to see us. She just smiled and took a sip of her iced coffee.

  “You guys must be on break from Universal Studios,” she said. “And you’re Cassidy from Oddball Academy. My daughters love the show. Could you take a picture with us? They’ll be so excited.”

  “The spaceman too,” the little boy screamed.

  She handed Luis the phone and I climbed out of the car for the picture. I hung on to the side of her cart to stabilize myself. I had the horrible feeling that the Earth was rotating but I wasn’t rotating with it. When I let go of the cart, I practically crumbled into a heap.

  “I need to ride in the cart,” I said weakly.

  “Dude, that is too weird,” Luis said. “You never know when there’s going to be a photographer around to snap your picture.”

  Once we got inside the market, at least ten people pointed and said, “Look, there’s that cute alien everyone’s talking about.”

  All I could do was smile weakly and spin an eyeball or two at them.

  Cassidy pushed me to the fruit-and-vegetable department and stopped in front of the avocado display. She picked up several avocados and squeezed them.

  “You’re hurting them,” I said.

  “Fruits and vegetables don’t have feelings.”

  “How do you know? Why do you think lemons are so sour? They must have had terrible childhoods.”

  “Well, even if they did it doesn’t matter now, because the only way I can tell if these avocados are ripe is to squeeze them. They’re supposed to be soft. These ones are hard as bricks.”

  We asked the produce man if they had any ripe avocados, but he said they were out. All we could do was wait a few days for these ones to ripen.

  “I don’t have a few days,” I told him.

  “Why, you got a hot dinner date on the moon?” he asked. “Watch out, because I hear that place has no atmosphere.”

  There were two reasons I didn’t laugh at his joke. One was because it wasn’t funny. And two was because I thought I was literally dying. My vision was getting fuzzy and my sensory enhancer hadn’t moved for hours.

  Even though they weren’t ripe, Cassidy insisted that we load our cart with every single avocado on the table. There must have been two hundred of them, wedged around me until all you could see was my head sticking out. When we got to the counter, the checkout woman raised an eyebrow.

  “Let’s see,” she said. “You have seventy-five pounds of avocados, and one alien.” Then, with a twinkle in her eye, she picked up her microphone and said, “Joe, I need a price check on aliens.”

  I thought if one more person made a joke, I might literally pass away right there in the market. Cassidy must have seen the desperation on my face, because she got all businesslike with the checkout woman.

  “If you don’t mind, we’re really in a big hurry,” Cassidy said.

  “You’re just like my husband,” the woman said. “He doesn’t appreciate my sense of humor either.”

  She rang up all the avocados and Luis put them in bags. It was such a relief to finally escape the supermarket . . . and all the jokers inside.

  Luis drove us back to Stage 42 and helped Cassidy carry the bags of avocados to my dressing room.

  “You better not eat those things until they’re ripe,” he warned, “or you’ll have a major tummy ache. And stay away from the pits and the skin. They can be poisonous.”

  I nodded, but inside, I knew I was going to have to risk it.

  “Am I invited to your red carpet event tonight?” Luis asked. “I hear it’s going to be fantastic.”

  “Of course you can come,” Cassidy said. “In fact, why don’t you meet us here at six o’clock. You can ride in our limo.”

  “You don’t have to ask me twice.” Luis grinned. “This will be my first time in a limo. Luis Rivera, livin’ his best life.”

  Then he flashed me a thumbs-up and left.

  “I can’t go tonight,” I told Cassidy. “I can barely breathe, even though I have three lungs.”

  “I’m going to go find Mary,” she said. “She must be back by now. Maybe she has something with avocado in it, to tide you over until these things ripen.”

  The minute she was gone, I dove for the avocados in the grocery bags. I squeezed every one of them, trying to find one that was even a little ripe. They were hard as nails. I tried to use my razor-sharp fingernails to puncture the skin, but they were no match for the leathery avocado. In desperation, I took a bite of one anyway, but having no teeth put me at a distinct disadvantage. I couldn’t pry off any flesh. All I was able to get were little bits of the bitter black rind. Then I remembered Luis’s warning, that eating avocado skin could be poisonous. I spit it out the second it hit my tongues.

  (In case I hadn’t mentioned this before, I have two tongues, an upper one and a lower one.)

  When Cassidy came back, she had Mary with her.

  “Good news,” she said. “Look what Mary has dug up.”

  Mary held out a little
plastic cup with a couple spoonfuls of a mushy green substance.

  “Guacamole,” she said. “It’s all that’s left from our taco lunch today, but Cassidy said any amount would do.”

  I snatched the cup from her hand, stuck out my tongue, being careful to use only my upper tongue so as not to freak Mary out, and licked the cup clean.

  “That’s right,” Mary said. “Everyone says my guacamole is good to the last drop.”

  “Do you have any more?” I asked. “I’m desperate.”

  “The crew cleaned me out at lunch,” she said. “But I’ll tell you who probably does. Your pal Luis. I hear his grandmother’s restaurant has the best guacamole in Los Angeles. I’ve never been there myself, but a lot of the crew go there after a show.”

  “Good idea. We’ll try that,” Cassidy said as Mary left.

  “We should have thought of asking Luis’s grandmother back at the market,” I said to Cassidy. “What was wrong with us?”

  “We didn’t think it through,” Cassidy answered. “Maybe because you’re fainting all over the place and I’m in a total panic trying to save an alien life-form? That can interfere with your thought process, for sure.”

  “Well, can you call Luis right away?” I asked. “See if he can get some of his grandmother’s guacamole over here.”

  “He’s going to be so mad,” Cassidy said. “He gave up his whole lunch and now we’re asking him another favor.”

  “It’s a matter of life and death,” I said weakly.

  “Did Mary’s guacamole help?” Cassidy asked.

  “I don’t know, maybe a little. I can see okay out of eyeballs one and six, which were blurry a few minutes ago. But, Cassidy, I can feel my time running out.”

  Cassidy picked up her phone, and I heard her say, “Hello, Luis. Cass here. Don’t hang up. You’re not going to believe this, but I have just a teeny-tiny favor to ask.”

  Then her voice became too far away for me to make out the words. Suddenly, I felt a swirl of electrical current under my skin, like the feeling that comes over me during biological alteration. I reached up and thought I felt a human eyeball on the back of my head. What was it doing there? Then I became aware of a patch of long human hair growing on my nose. I staggered to the mirror, gazed at my face, and let out a terrified shriek.