Klawde--Evil Alien Warlord Cat--Enemies #2

by Johnny Marciano

  “Where’s your lunch?” he said.

  I held up a carrot stick.

  “Are you a rabbit?” he said.

  Like I’d never heard that one before. “I’m a vegetarian,” I said.

  “I’m a Max,” he said, eyeing me a little suspiciously. “I’ve never seen you before. Did you go to Upper Elba Elementary?”

  “No, I just moved here over the summer,” I said. Then I added, “From Brooklyn.”

  “Really? The Big Apple?” he asked. “The City That Never Sleeps?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. No one really calls it those things, though.”

  “That is so cool!” he said.

  And immediately, everyone at the table looked friendlier—even the hamburger kid. They all started talking at once.

  “Brooklyn! Is that where the Brooklyn Bridge is?” “And Coney Island?” “I’ve always wanted to go to New York City.” “I heard there’s more rats than people.” “Do you have grass there?” “What’s Times Square like?” “Have you ever been mugged?” “Is it dangerous?” “Are there famous people everywhere?” “Do you know any famous people?”

  No one had ever been this interested in me before—let alone six people at once.

  Max repeated the last question. “Yeah, do you know any famous people?”

  I thought for a minute. “I know a famous writer,” I said.

  The burger kid—whose real name was Brody—laughed. “There’s no such thing.”

  “Zoe Addams,” I said, shrugging.

  Everyone stopped eating and stared at me.

  “She’s, uh, the lady who wrote Americaman,” I said.

  “We know who Zoe Addams is,” Max said, and even Brody was nodding excitedly.

  Everyone at the table opened their backpack and took out an Americaman book. Together they had the whole ten-book series, two times over.

  “How do you know her?” Brody asked skeptically.

  I had to think about how to answer for a second. “Um, her son, Cameron—he’s my best friend,” I said. “I practically used to live at their house in Brooklyn.”

  Okay, this was not totally true—Cam wasn’t my best friend, at least not anymore. But it was too complicated to explain right now, and it wasn’t like I’d ever get called on it. Cam lived three thousand miles away.

  “In the back of Americaman #7 there’s an interview with Zoe Addams that says she uses people she knows as characters in her books,” Max said. “Are you in any of her books?”

  “Yeah,” Brody said, a little threateningly. “Are you?”

  As a matter of fact, I was. And that was 100 percent true.

  “You know the one where Americaman’s sidekick, Starsey Stripes, saves a kid from being crushed by the evil self-driving Overlift car? That kid,” I said with a shrug, “is me.”

  Brody scowled. “That was in #6,” he said, reaching across the table to grab it from Max. He flipped to the right page and pointed to the panel where the kid thanks Starsey Stripes for saving his life. “You mean to tell me that this is you?”

  I nodded.

  “It does look like him,” one of the girls at the table said.

  “Whoa!” Max said, clapping his hands. “Brooklyn is the COOLEST!”

  And all at once, the table exploded. Everyone wanted to talk to me. One kid even wanted me to sign his comic!

  Maybe middle school wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Good morning, Earth cats,” I said in my most majestic voice. “Welcome to Wyss-Kuzz’s Warrior Academy! Here you will learn the ancient philosophies of battle, the science of weapons engineering, the art of deceit, and—best of all—the greatest system of martial arts in the known universe: Mew-Jytzu.”

  My students blinked at me, their faces as blank as blackest space.

  I approached the ginger she-cat. “I will begin with you,” I said, and unsheathed my claws.

  A mind-meld would allow me to quickly understand her thoughts.

  “Consider this an aptitude test.”

  But I had barely touched my claws to her forehead before I was bombarded with images of food cans, feathery toys, and pillowy cat beds. I pulled back instantly. Her mind was a garbage dump of inanity!

  I glanced over at the Flabby Tabby, who was licking his own—“STOP THAT, you vile Earth cat!”

  I would not be peering into the dark recesses of his brain.

  It appeared that I would have to take things more slowly than anticipated. To this end, I decided to begin with lessons that any feline should grasp by the time they grow their second whiskers—general relativity, electromagnetism, and biochemistry. I expected no comprehension problems here.

  I sketched out some of the most basic equations in the universe, but when I turned back to my pupils, I saw that Flabby Tabby was asleep, and Ginger was staring at me, her head cocked to the side. It appeared to me that she had never even seen elementary calculus before. What had her mother taught her when she was nursing?

  “Mrow?”

  “No talking!” I said. “Pay attention.”

  I brought out a large piece of cardboard. The humans utilized this material to make boxes—one of their more advanced products—but I now used it to scratch out the glorious alphabet of Lyttyrboks. Or, at least, the principal 1,392 characters that all kittens must master while still in the litter.

  When I had finished, I let Ginger try her paw at writing an essay. She scratched and kneaded at the cardboard expertly. She was a genius! I had never seen a cat compose with such speed. Brown shreds went flying up into the air.

  We would now be able to communicate. As my new second-in-command, she would help me recruit other Earth cats!

  When she was finished, I inspected what she had scratched out.

  It was utter gibberish!

  “Mrow?” Ginger said.

  Flabby Tabby opened one eye. “Mrow?” he echoed.

  I paced the room, swishing my tail. These cats were imbeciles!

  It was time for a new evil plan.

  Luckily, I had an inkling of what that would be.

  CHAPTER 9

  Even though I was still really hungry, I left the cafeteria happy. There was only one last class to get through.

  I found my way to the mysterious Lab RBX, where Cedar and Steve had saved me a seat. I was just about to sit down at the worktable when I felt a slap on my back.

  “Hey, losers!”

  It was Scorpion, the mean kid from Camp Eclipse. He looked like he was going to slap me again—maybe this time on my head—but then our teacher walked in.

  Was that our teacher? She had tattoos up and down both arms, a bunch of hoops in her ears, and long black hair dyed red at the ends.

  “Everybody take a seat,” she said, looking directly at Scorpion and Newt, who stuck her tongue out at me.

  Then something crazy happened. There was an extra chair at our table, and all of a sudden there were two kids trying to sit in it.

  So they could be next to me.

  “Hey, can I have this chair?” Max asked.

  “Outta the way, dude,” Brody said. “I sit next to Brooklyn.”

  I didn’t know what to say! But the teacher did.

  “This is not a social event, Bookworms,” she said firmly. “You two go sit at that empty table. Now that we’re all settled, my name is Miss Natasha, and this is Robotics 101.”

  Robotics? I loved robotics! This was the best day of school ever!

  Miss Natasha crossed her arms and gazed at us all. “What do alfalfa farming, dentistry, and online shopping orders have in common?” she asked.

  Cedar raised her hand. “Um, robots?”

  “Exactly!” Miss Natasha said. “A farmer can use a robot to harvest crops. A robot recently gave a patient two new teeth. And a robot fet
ches online orders from warehouse shelves.” She raised an eyebrow at us. “Pretty cool, huh?”

  It wasn’t just cool. Robotics was the coolest thing ever! Miss Natasha didn’t need to sell me on it. I’d been doing robotics after school since I was eight. In fact, it’s where I met Cameron. We were robot buddies.

  Back before we were enemies, that is.

  Max raised his hand. “Are robots going to do everything that we used to do?”

  “Some people are worried that robots will take over the world,” she said.

  “That’d be so cool!” Scorpion said.

  “What’s true is that robots—be they vacuum cleaners or spaceships—are only a tool,” Miss Natasha said. “They are as good or bad as the humans who make them.” She smiled. “Needless to say, we will spend our time making good robots. In fact, that’s our project for this section—to make robots that will help our school. The team that makes the bot that best fits our goals will have the opportunity to demonstrate it to the community at the Wormy Apple Harvest Festival next month.”

  “The what?” I whispered to Cedar, who was nearly bouncing up and down with excitement.

  “The Harvest Festival! It’s like this awesome county fair, but at our school,” Cedar said.

  Steve didn’t look so excited. He looked actually worried. “Could robots really take over the world?” he asked.

  Cedar patted his huge shoulder. “If they do, it’ll be long after we’re dead,” she told him.

  Oddly, that seemed to make Steve feel better.

  “Each worktable will be a team, and each team will build their creations from components they can find back here,” Miss Natasha said. She slid open a folding divider in the back of the lab to reveal a storeroom of robot parts.

  “Ooooh!” the class all went.

  “As a team, you must decide on a basic robot body—stationary, rolling, or hover drone. From there, you may add on any number of attachment parts—arms with pincers, lights, sound players, and so forth. But it’s up to you what good deed your robot will do. Will it sharpen pencils? Will it clean blackboards? Will it be a companion for a shy child? Points will be awarded for ideas and execution. Use of recycled parts found outside of the lab are worth extra credit. So, start brainstorming. Dream big, Bookworms!”

  Cedar grinned at me. “This is going to be awesome.”

  For once, I agreed.

  CHAPTER 10

  It was late in the Earth day—long after I had sent Flabby Tabby and Ginger back to their own fortresses—when the boy-Human returned and found me in the belowground bunker.

  “Did you learn how to eat today?” I asked.

  He failed to grasp my biting wit. All he wanted to talk about was how he had made friends.

  Friends? What did that word even mean?

  But he did bring news of some interest to me. He was taking a class in robotics. No doubt whatever machine he built would be extremely primitive, but it did mean that his school might not be a complete waste of time.

  Not that what the boy-Human studied mattered to me. I did not need his skills. I needed something else entirely.

  Kittens.

  The Human continued his blathering, but I could no longer even pretend to listen.

  “Where might one acquire a kitten?” I interrupted. “Perhaps even an entire litter of them?”

  “Kittens? Oh, that’s easy,” the boy-Human said. “There are kittens up for adoption all the time!”

  “Ah, yes, adoption!” I said. “How does one do this ‘adoption’?”

  “I’ll show you.” The Human opened his “laptop,” the flat box he used to access cyberspace via a cumbersome system of finger-pecking. As if it couldn’t be done more simply using brain waves!

  After an interminable number of seconds, he found something called PetSeeker. On the screen I saw pictures of hundreds of kittens.

  What sort of a world was this? Were all of these kittens ripped from their mothers and littermates and destined to live with these awful Humans?

  On the other paw, this was a prospective legion of suckling soldiers at my clawtips!

  “It must be extremely expensive to ‘adopt’ one of these kittens,” I said.

  “Not really,” the boy-ogre said. “Most people give kittens away for free.”

  For free? This was appalling! Humans, I knew, were paid by the hour—and yet a cat’s entire lifetime of service was deemed worthless?

  “Aw, look at these three,” the boy-Human said, pointing at the screen. “They live right down our street.”

  My whiskers twitched in excitement as we watched a video of two playful gray boy-cats. Then—out of nowhere—a ferocious she-calico leaped into the screen and began positively pummeling them.

  “Why are you asking, Klawde?” the boy-Human said. “Are you lonely?”

  I considered scratching him for such an absurd suggestion. “What you call ‘loneliness’ the cats of Lyttyrboks call the highest, purest state of being,” I said.

  I pushed the ogre aside and peered more closely at the screen. This was it: the true beginning of my elite fighting force.

  Purrrrrrrrrr.

  CHAPTER 11

  My mom, wearing her lab coat as an apron, was sautéing onions when I came bursting in the kitchen door.

  “You’ll never believe it,” I told her. “School wasn’t terrible at all!”

  “That’s wonderful, dear,” she said, stirring the pot. “I hope your teachers gave you lots of homework.”

  I assured her that they had, and then I told her all about robotics class and the kids I’d met, and when I had run out of things to say, she told me that she had some news, too.

  “We got the grant I applied for, which funds an additional position at the lab,” she said. “The new person starts in two weeks!”

  Now why would I care about that?

  “By the way, Raj,” she said, “have you heard from your old friend Cameron yet?”

  Cameron! Why did he keep coming up? And what did she mean by yet?

  I told Mom I had definitely not heard from Cam and went upstairs to my room, where Klawde was napping on my beanbag. I sat down next to him and sighed.

  “Please, do not tell me what is bothering you,” he said.

  “It’s just that it’s weird,” I said. “Getting away from Cameron was the one good thing about leaving Brooklyn, but it’s like there’s no way to escape him.”

  “Fascinating,” Klawde said, closing his eyes.

  I told him about how Cam and I had been best friends from the moment we met in the Bots-4-Tots program at Brooklyn Robot Factory. We loved all the same things: everything bagels, basketball, board games, and superhero comics. Especially superhero comics. Stuff like Batman, X-Men, and Americaman, which back then was a web comic nobody had even heard about. But we didn’t care—Cam’s mom drew it! Every year, we’d dress up like Americaman and Starsey Stripes and go to Comic-Con with Mrs. Addams.

  “Klawde, are you still alive?” I said, poking him.

  “Unfortunately,” he mumbled.

  Things changed when the first Americaman book got published, and the comic suddenly got huge. It was awesome!

  The only downside was that Cameron’s head started getting kind of huge, too. Since Americaman’s sidekick, Starsey Stripes, was based on him, Cameron would get interviewed alongside his mom for podcasts and articles, and he was all over YouTube. Nobody thought he was dorky anymore (even though he still wore a cape to recess sometimes) and everyone wanted to be his friend. And pretty soon he was acting like he was too good for everybody at school.

  Including me.

  I tried to ignore it. Comic-Con was coming up again, and I couldn’t wait to go with my best friend and his megastar mom. I’d been working on my costume for weeks. But when I brought it to school to show Cam, he looked at me like I was
crazy.

  “I’m not taking you, Raj,” he’d said. “I’m taking Bronco Jones.”

  It was the worst news I’d ever heard. Bronco Jones thought he was the coolest kid in Brooklyn—which he kind of was—but he hadn’t even known Cam existed six months earlier.

  “I mean, sorry or whatever,” Cam had said. “But the Bronc is my best friend.”

  Since when?

  And to make things even worse, Cam told everyone that I’d cried when he said I couldn’t go.

  I didn’t tell him that I knew he’d talked behind my back. What was the point? He was a jerk, and I didn’t want to be friends with a jerk. It didn’t matter how famous his mom was.

  So it was pretty ironic that I was popular at my new school because of Cam.

  Actually, it didn’t feel ironic—it just felt wrong.

  “Try accidentally blowing up a planet or two before telling me what ‘feels wrong,’” Klawde said.

  I stared at him. He had to be making some of this stuff up, right?

  “Anyway,” he said, “the Humans at your pitiful school like you. Isn’t that what you wished for?” He flexed a claw. “If only you could understand that fear is superior to affection.”

  I realized that Klawde had a good point. I shouldn’t let Cam ruin how great my first day of school was. I could hardly wait for tomorrow!

  CHAPTER 12

  The boy-Human practically skipped out of bed in the morning. (This was unusual. He normally seemed incapable of facing the universe.) He ate his breakfast quickly—feeding me half his fried egg and a pat of butter, as I had trained him—and hurried out the door to his school.

  The mature ogres also left for their daytime activities, though with somewhat less enthusiasm. As soon as they were gone, I slipped out the front door and made haste to the address listed on PetSeeker.

  I found the kittens in a small outbuilding behind the main fortress, napping beneath a collection of instruments which, I assumed, were designed for various acts of violence.