Though I would rather rip out my own tongue than place it against my enemy’s fur, to fail to do so would bring eternal shame.
So I did it.
I licked Ffangg’s forehead.
“Oh, that’s nice! Don’t forget behind the ears, Klawdie,” Ffangg said.
When it was finally over, I hacked up seven hairballs.
“I almost feel sorry for him,” Ffangg said, turning to the kittens. “You could hardly guess it, but Wyss-Kuzz was great once. Once, but no more!”
“Don’t listen to him, cadets! I slipped—it proves nothing!” I said. “Let us return to the bunker.”
The gray boys turned to their sister. She looked to me, then to Ffangg, and then she went over and rubbed against him.
Betrayed—again!
“Do not feel bad, old friend,” Ffangg purred. “You always believe yourself to be a victim of treason, but someday you will realize that it is merely the way of the cat to follow the strong and despise the weak.”
My rage burned like a thousand supernovas, as did my shame. I would have my revenge—on ALL of them.
CHAPTER 33
Dinner was dismal. Between my fight with Cam and the big robot demo coming up, I was in no mood to talk. Luckily, my parents spent the entire meal arguing over who had forgotten to plug in Mom’s new electric car, so I didn’t have to.
When Klawde finally came home, well after dark, I went downstairs and told him about what had happened with Cam. The amazing thing was that Klawde was actually listening this time. Not only that, he was totally sympathetic.
“The foes of the past should not be allowed to ruin the present! Something must be done to enemies such as this! Their insults cannot be allowed to stand without retribution!”
“Max and Brody both like Cam better than me now,” I said. “I think even Steve might.”
“The ungrateful mob! They are never loyal! Lowly peons always follow those perceived to be more powerful! They are deserters! Turncoats! Treacherous fools!”
I had never seen Klawde like this! Spitting and hissing and seething with fury.
Well, I actually had seen Klawde like this. A lot. Just never on my behalf. It made me feel good that he cared so much.
“The penalties must be severe! Mortifying and unmerciful!” Klawde went on. “String all the traitors up by their claws, I say!”
Claws?
“You mean fingernails,” I said.
“What?” Klawde said.
“The traitors and peons and all that—they don’t have claws,” I said.
Then he looked at me like I was the stupidest creature in the universe. “Of course they have claws!” he said.
“Wait—who are you talking about?” I said.
“The kittens, you furless idiot! And Ffangg!”
Sigh. “So you don’t actually care about my problems,” I said.
He again gave me the look. “What kind of question is that?” he said. “Of course I don’t.”
CHAPTER 34
Honestly! Didn’t the ogre know me by now?
Why would I care about his “friendships”? I was talking about my army! Who had deserted me and chosen to follow my greatest enemy—the one who had ruined me on Lyttyrboks! And now he was doing it all over again on Earth!
He must be stopped!
“Hey,” the boy-Human said, looking around the bunker. “Where are the kittens, anyway?”
HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
“Ouch!” the ogre said, grabbing at his leg. His hideous bare skin now bore four perfectly parallel scratch lines. But even the sight of them couldn’t bring me pleasure.
(Well, fleeting pleasure.)
“What’s wrong with you, Klawde? What did you do that for?”
So I told the boy-ogre everything. Even about . . . the grooming.
Hack! Hack! Reliving the experience brought up another hairball.
“I’m sorry Ffangg stole your friends,” Raj said.
“They are not my friends! They are my soldiers!” I spat at him. “But I will make them pay! All of them! Ffangg and those three little turncoats! I will make them wish they’d never been born to the flea-ridden she-cat who bore them!”
“Why don’t you win the kittens back to your side?” the boy-Human said, still rubbing his wounded leg. “Just make Ffangg look worse than he made you look, and the kittens will leave him as quickly as they left you.”
Win them back rather than destroy them? By the eighty-seven moons, I did believe the Human was on to something. Usually he was so disappointing. But the more I thought about it, the better it sounded.
As the saying goes, Out of the mouths of complete idiots . . .
CHAPTER 35
As Cedar, Steve, and I—and the Aqua-Bot!—came walking and rolling up to school the next morning, all the kids stopped to look.
“Cool!”
“No way!”
“Who built that?”
I was feeling better than I had in a while.
Until, that is, I heard a low whirring sound—and a gasp from Steve. I turned around and saw Cameron and Scorpion and Newt’s drone, lights flashing, swooping and diving over the parking lot. All the kids who’d been admiring the Aqua-Bot immediately ran over to get a closer look at the drone.
In robotics, it was the exact same thing—the whole class oohing and aahing from the moment Miss Natasha picked Cam’s team to go first. When they fired up their robot, the drone buzzed about the room as Cam described what it did.
“This is Dr. Drone,” he said. “A flying first-aid kit. It has Band-Aids, an EpiPen, and an inhaler for kids with asthma.”
“Wow, that is cool,” Steve said admiringly.
“And in case of an emergency . . .”
Cam turned on the siren, which sounded like an ambulance. The other kids all cheered and clapped—they freaking loved it. Newt and Scorpion high-fived each other while Cam just stood there, looking super smug, like he already knew he was the winner.
Miss Natasha, though, wasn’t quite as impressed. “It’s a very nice concept,” she said. “However, it’s not that practical in our school.”
Cam looked surprised, and Scorpion looked shocked. “But it FLIES!” he said.
Miss Natasha pointed out that kids with asthma already carried inhalers, while those with allergies kept EpiPens in their backpacks. And did Band-Aids really need to arrive through the air? A student could walk to the school nurse quicker than they could summon a drone. “And besides,” Miss Natasha said, “what part of your project uses recycled parts?”
“But it FLIES!” Scorpion said again.
Cameron, meanwhile, just silently seethed.
Next we watched demonstrations by a robot that dusted shelves and another that brushed teeth—neither of which worked very well. They were followed by a robot that short-circuited before we even found out what the heck its purpose was.
Finally, it was our turn.
I took a deep breath as Cedar worked the controller and made our robot come to life. “Meet the Aqua-Bot!” I said, just like we had scripted.
“Water for sale! Only a nickel!” it chirped. “Get it FLAT . . . or get it FIZZY!”
“Check it out!” Steve said. He pressed each of the fizzy buttons, and the Aqua-Bot made louder and louder fart sounds.
Everyone laughed. Even Scorpion found it funny.
Only Cam sat stone-faced.
“It’s cheaper than vending machines,” Cedar said, “and it doesn’t waste plastic. It’ll pour water into your own reusable container—or right into your mouth.”
Steve crouched down in front of the Aqua-Bot. A stream of water shot right down his throat.
He drank for a minute and then sat up grinning. “Delicious!” he said.
“All proceeds will be sent to Water for Folks,�
� I said, “an international organization that works to get fresh, clean water to those who need it.”
The other students politely clapped, and everyone looked to see what Miss Natasha would say. She hadn’t been particularly pleased with anyone’s project.
But now she smiled.
She said that she was super impressed by our creative reuse of old parts. But even more, she liked how the Aqua-Bot served a true need, both in terms of health and the environment. The fact that we were raising money for a worthy cause made it even more fantastic.
“I would like the Aqua-Bot to represent our robotics class at this year’s Wormy Apple Harvest Festival next weekend,” she said. “But as a final demonstration, you’ll showcase the Aqua-Bot alongside all the other exhibitors at the school assembly on Monday.”
We won! We actually won! It was amazing. The icing on the cake was Cam’s face. My former friend looked like he was on the verge of short-circuiting.
CHAPTER 36
All day, I stewed in the bilious juices of my fury. I must have my revenge! But how? By what means?
As my massive feline brain analyzed all the possible stratagems, the boy-Human arrived home. I hissed at him to leave me alone, as I needed privacy for my scheming. His pestering, however, was relentless.
“But, Klawde, don’t you understand? Our robot won! On Monday I get to show it off to the whole school!” He was practically jumping up and down with excitement. It was most unseemly.
“And I care why?”
The ogre emitted a groan. “I’ve been working on the Aqua-Bot for weeks and you still don’t even know what it does! You have to come see it!”
To finally put the matter to rest—and get him to leave me alone—I agreed to look at his school project. I could only imagine how pathetic and worthless it would be.
I yawned as the boy fiddled with a primitive controller for the robot, which I had seen in the garage but assumed to be a pile of what the ogres called “recycling.”
“Hurry it up, Human,” I said. “I have work to do. Revenge doesn’t plan itself.”
The young ogre smiled and said, “Here we go, Klawde!”
“Water for sale! Only a nickel!”
The robot spoke! It moved! And with a sound like the gaseous blast of a Hexian space troll, it emitted a stream of that most horrible Earth substance—WATER!
My back arched in self-protection, and the fur along my spine stood on end. This robot was the most nefarious weapon I had ever laid eyes upon! This was what he had been making in school? My respect for Raj increased exponentially.
I also couldn’t believe my luck. For days I had been seeking the instrument of my revenge, and lo and behold, here it was in my own fortress.
Immediately, I asked the ogre many questions about this “Aqua-Bot.” Somehow he failed to see it as a weapon—he envisioned his creation as something “helpful to humanity.” Like Humanity needed to be helped! Ha! Imprisoned and enslaved, yes. Helped? Definitely not.
After the boy-ogre had gone to sleep and the parent-ogres had fallen into their nocturnal trance of the screen, I reentered the garage to give the fiendish device a more thorough inspection. The design was simplistic—after all, it was Human—but it presented many possibilities for improvement.
I napped only seventeen times that next day, so consumed was I in scheming and planning. And on the following night, I executed my changes to the evil Aqua-Bot.
I redirected the liquid-spraying guns to a more effective angle: straight ahead, the better to aim at one’s foes. To increase the power and range of each stream, I increased the gas compression charges to their maximum force.
When I was finished, I gazed upon it in awe and admiration.
It was BRILLIANT!
CHAPTER 37
“I still think fire is a weird decoration for a water robot,” Cedar said.
I ignored her as I added the last bit of orange to the flames I was painting on the side of the Aqua-Bot.
“Yeah, water totally puts out fire, Raj,” Steve said. “But then again, fire can boil water and turn it to steam! So it’s like . . . what’s the word? Oh, yeah. Confusing.”
“No, it’s not confusing,” Cedar said, “it’s just weird.”
“Weird? Are you guys kidding me? I think it’s AWESOME!”
It was my dad, coming into the garage even though I’d begged him not to.
“Wicked awesome.” He stood there grinning at us.
“Did you need something, Dad?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah! I came to tell you that the pizza’s here!”
“Thanks, Dr. B.,” Cedar said.
“PIZZZZZZZA!” Steve yelled like it was some kind of war cry as he sprinted out of the room.
Dad stayed behind with me, gazing at the Aqua-Bot. “Super, super awesome! I can’t believe you designed this! You’re so cool, I need to put on a jacket!” He pretended to shiver as he clapped me on the back.
“Um, yeah, right,” I muttered.
Dad said he was going to go eat some pizza, and I told him I needed a few more minutes to finish the flames. Which I didn’t—I just wanted to stand back and admire them.
They did look awesome. Everyone was going to love the Aqua-Bot at the school assembly tomorrow.
But something made me do a double take. Was the angle of the water pistols correct? Did the hose setup look, I don’t know, a little different? The assembly was first thing tomorrow, and I didn’t want anything to be off.
“Raj!” Cedar yelled from the kitchen. “Steve’s plowing through the pepperoni slices like the Tasmanian Devil, and I can only guard the veggie pizza for so long!”
“All right, all right, I’m coming!” I hollered back.
I was being crazy. How could anything be wrong with the Aqua-Bot? We’d worked so hard on the thing. It was perfect.
CHAPTER 38
As soon as the Humans retired for the evening, I seized the controller and activated the Aqua-Bot. Quickly silencing its vocal component, I directed the evil robot out the side entrance of the garage. Then I climbed atop the mechanical monster and pointed it in the direction of my enemy. Passing the house of the Flabby Tabby, I saw the face of his girl-Human in the window. Her mouth fell open in awe.
That’s right! Your disgusting slob of a cat can’t do this!
If only this robot weren’t so slow.
When finally I arrived at Ffangg’s citadel, I put the next phase of my scheme into action.
“Ffangg!” I called out. “I have come to bury this pointless feud of ours! Let us agree to live out our exiles in peace. To forget what has transpired in the past. To—”
I had to stop there. I couldn’t continue such lies without coughing up another hairball.
Ffangg appeared in an upper window, suspicion in his eyes. The kittens peeked over his shoulder. “So, the mighty warlord has finally come to his senses, eh? Then why is it that my whiskers detect the quickened pulse of a LIAR?”
“Come see for yourself my sincerity!” I said.
And to my surprise, the treasonous general leaped out the window and landed nimbly on the lawn. The gray kittens followed him, tumbling and sliding down the porch roof. The calico, however, hung back. Her instincts were most keen!
“What is this pitiful plastic contraption?” Ffangg said, his suspicion now replaced by mocking good cheer. “Have you become so feeble and Earthlike that you require a machine to move you from place to place?”
The sound of his purr might have enraged me, but I purred back, knowing I had the upper paw.
“Pitiful?” I said. “Oh, I think you might change your opinion on that.”
“I highly doubt it. Everything I see on this planet is pitiful,” Ffangg said. “Most especially you.”
“What was that you once said to me, Ffangg?” I asked. “Something about how it is better to
be quick with the claw than fast with the tongue?”
Before he could answer, I pressed a button and the water pistols fired!
Ffangg was instantly soaked to the skin!
The yowl of his humiliation echoed through the night, and the traitor retreated up a tree, drenched and panting. I could see his heart beating through his fur. His eyes were wide with terror!
Purrrr!
“No witty ripostes now, eh, General?” I called. “Shame, thy name is Ffangg!”
The boy-kittens looked to their sister, hoping she could help them decipher this sudden turn of fortune. Ffangg, sensing how precarious his power base had become, moved to descend the tree. A flurry of laser-like liquid blasts unleashed in his direction, however, sent him scurrying right back up.
When he was soaked and shivering to my satisfaction, I turned the robot back toward my fortress.
“Commandos!” I called. “It is time to leave!”
Ffangg could do nothing but watch as the calico followed my orders, leaping atop the Aqua-Bot and yowling for her brethren to follow. My young protégé was becoming quite the leader in her own right.
Her spirit would need crushing soon. But that was for another day—tonight I would celebrate my triumph!
CHAPTER 39
On Monday morning, the whole school gathered in the gym, and Principal Brownepoint motioned for us all to be quiet. “It’s time for our sneak preview of the Wormy Apple Harvest Fest,” he said, “which is when we get to show the entire Elba community our Fightin’ Bookworm pride!”
First the Street Performer Intensive showed off their juggling skills (pretty cool). Then the Tuba Club played a Sousa march (pretty uncool), and the fencing team demonstrated various sword-fighting techniques (less cool than it sounds). After the choir sang a Beatles medley, it was finally time for robotics.
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