Class Pet Catastrophe

by Bruce Coville

  “And was it so important for you to take the creature immediately? Was there some emergency that made it impossible to wait for a day or so?”

  I hung my head. “No, sir. I have made another error.”

  When the Fatherly One was done expressing his feelings about my decision to take the Veeblax to school—a process that took nearly a quarter of an hour—I left his office. To my surprise, I found Wakkam Akkim waiting for me.

  “Do not be downhearted, Pleskit,” she said gently, resting the clawlike fingers of her right hand on my shoulder. “Errors are the source of wisdom.”

  “If that’s so, I should be a genius!” I replied.

  The wakkam shook her head, which caused her feathery brows to wave. “Alas, no. There are thousands of mistakes still to be made!”

  This did not make me feel 100 percent better.

  The wakkam went in to speak to the Fatherly One. I trudged to the kitchen.

  McNally, Barvgis, and Ms. Buttsman were there already, sitting at the table and talking in low tones.

  “Another bad one, eh, Pleskit?” said Barvgis. I recognized his tone of voice; it was one he generally saved for the funerals of important galactic leaders.

  “I have erred in judgment yet again,” I said.

  “You’re not the only one who thinks so,” said Barvgis.

  The words stung. My reaction must have shown on my face, because Barvgis, who is usually quite kindly, said quickly, “I didn’t mean that as a condemnation, Pleskit. Just a statement of fact. We have been listening to the Earthly radio talk shows. You and the Veeblax are the primary topic of conversation.” He put up a hand to indicate he needed a second, belched heartily, then continued. “I am amazed at the number of people willing to call in and give an opinion regarding something of which they have no actual knowledge. It seems there are now thousands of Earthlings who consider themselves experts on what happened today.”

  “Yeah,” said McNally, carefully pushing aside the cup of coffee Shhh-foop had given him. “And I’ve noticed something else, too.”

  “Which is?” asked Ms. Buttsman.

  “Generally speaking, the lower the IQ, the stronger the opinion.”

  “This appears to be true,” said Barvgis. “I have also noticed that the strongest opinions of all seem to be held by radio talk show hosts. Are they humans, or is there another species on the planet that I was not aware of?”

  “You know,” said Ms. Buttsman smugly, “the reason I was assigned to the embassy was to help avoid situations such as this. If anyone had bothered to ask, I would have advised against taking the Veeblax to school, which would have saved us from having to endure all this terrible publicity.”

  “Thank you for that insight, Ms. Buttsman,” said McNally coolly.

  I tried to eat something, but my kirgiltum was in no mood for food. Finally I excused myself and trudged back to my room.

  I requested permission from the Fatherly One to stay home from school the next day. Though I have had to leave early several times, this was the first time I just stayed home since I’d arrived here. But I did not think I could trust myself. I feared if anyone said something about the Veeblax, I might do something to further endanger the mission.

  Late in the afternoon the comm-device I’d set up with Tim announced an incoming call.

  “Call accepted,” I said.

  Tim’s face appeared on the screen. He looked horrible. “Pleskit,” he said urgently. “I have to tell you what happened after school today!”

  “Is it bad?” I asked, feeling the coldness of pizumpta again.

  “Bad?” cried Tim. “It’s a disaster!”

  CHAPTER 8 [TIM]

  “FRY THE VEEBLAX”

  When I got to school the morning after the Veeblax incident, swarms of people were blocking the sidewalk. Most of them were carrying protest signs. It reminded me of the way things were when Pleskit first arrived. Only this time the signs were about what had happened on the playground the day before.

  As with past demonstrations, there were two main groups.

  One group called itself Must End Alien Terror, or MEAT for short.

  “MEAT-heads” is more like it, was my first thought.

  Most of the MEAT signs were about the Veeblax, and said things like IMPOUND THE VEEBLAX! and DON’T EXPOSE CHILDREN TO ALIEN MONSTERS! The silliest one said JUSTICE FOR MISTY! The cruelest one said FRY THE VEEBLAX NOW!

  The other group of protesters was from the animal rights group called HEAT (Humans for Ethical Animal Treatment). These people were demonstrating on behalf of the Veeblax, which they referred to not as a pet but as Pleskit’s “animal companion.” There weren’t nearly as many of them, but they were really, really loud.

  “Free the Veeblax!” they chanted, which was sort of odd, since it wasn’t locked up anywhere.

  “Fry the Veeblax!” responded the MEAT group furiously.

  Next thing you knew, MEAT and HEAT were charging at each other. It looked like a huge fight was about to break out, but several cops stepped between them and started dragging people apart. Even so, I saw two or three signs get broken over people’s heads.

  I wondered if I could find some other species to be a part of.

  Misty herself wasn’t in school that day.

  Neither was Pleskit. I noticed his desk looked kind of messed up, and wondered if someone had been digging through it for some investigation or something.

  Then, as if things weren’t bad enough already, Larrabe walked into the classroom, took one look at Harold’s cage, and shouted, “Someone stole my woodchuck!”

  Of course we all hurried over to the cage, as if by looking at it we could somehow make Harold reappear.

  “I don’t think anyone really stole him, Larrabe,” said Ms. Weintraub.

  “Yeah, I hear the market for woodchuck pelts is really down this year,” snickered Jordan, which caused Brad Kent to snort in amusement.

  Ms. Weintraub shot them a nasty look, then turned back to Larrabe. “It’s more likely he escaped somehow,” she said soothingly. “Are you sure you closed the top tightly before you went home last night?”

  “Positive,” said Larrabe, though he didn’t look all that positive, if you ask me.

  “Well, don’t worry,” said Ms. Weintraub. “I’m sure we’ll find him. He’s almost certainly still in the school.”

  Then she had us all make posters to hang up in the halls, alerting everyone to the fact that we had a missing woodchuck.

  We had been working on the posters for about ten minutes when Mr. Grand came in to talk to us. “The governor has assigned a special task force to investigate our school,” he said bitterly. “I just want to emphasize here and now that we have zero tolerance for harassment of students. Zero!”

  He slammed his hand on the desk as he repeated the word, and I got the feeling he almost believed that if he said it loud enough, he could make the whole problem go away.

  I thought about raising my hand to ask how come Jordan had been allowed to harass me for the last two years, but decided against it.

  Mr. Grand glared around at us. I had a sense he wanted to blame the mess on everyone and everything, and most especially the Veeblax. He made some hints that he wanted to have the poor little guy impounded for the sake of the school, because “we need to show that such things will not be tolerated,” and so on, and so on.

  Personally, I wondered how come boneheadedness is considered acceptable in a school, but it was another question I decided not to ask.

  It was a long, confusing day, and it only got worse at the end. I had started for home when I realized that I had forgotten my backpack—something I do about three times a week.

  I went back to school and headed for our classroom. I was about to go in when I heard Mr. Grand’s voice. I stopped to listen. Yeah, I know—it’s a bad habit. But if adults didn’t keep so much stuff secret from us kids, I would never have developed it to begin with.

  “I know you don’t like this, Char
lotte,” he said. “But the superintendent is adamant. He claims there have been too many incidents and it would be better for the class to start fresh.”

  I felt a wave of coldness shiver through me. Start fresh? What was he talking about?

  “Andrew, you can’t transfer me,” said Ms. Weintraub. Her voice was calm but firm. “I haven’t done anything wrong. And it would be terrible for the class.”

  “I don’t have any control over the matter, Charlotte. I’m sorry.”

  He actually did sound sorry, which pretty much surprised me. But he couldn’t have been as sorry as I was. Ms. Weintraub is a great teacher. And what she had said was true: none of the wild and crazy things that had happened since Pleskit had gotten here was her fault.

  Actually, some of them were my fault, a fact that gave me an extreme wave of guilt. But a lot of them were also simply because Pleskit had been in the room—not that he had done anything wrong, but because powerful forces were trying to cause the Fatherly One’s peaceful trade mission to fail.

  “I’m going to fight this, Andrew,” said Ms. Weintraub. Her voice had changed from firm to fierce. “I’m going to fight it every step of the way. I’ll be talking to the union tonight. I’ll be talking to the papers. This is my class, and I will not let go of them without a fight.”

  I felt my heart swell. She was the greatest teacher ever. They couldn’t transfer her. They just couldn’t!

  CHAPTER 9 [PLESKIT]

  DESPERATE DECISION

  After Tim called on Thursday night to tell me that Ms. Weintraub’s job was in danger, I couldn’t bring myself to go to school again on Friday. I just sat home for a second day and watched as the headlines continued to spin out of control.

  The news kept playing an interview with Misty where she talked about how terrified she had been when the Veeblax had latched on to her, and how she felt her “personal space had been violated.”

  “I’ve had calls from fifteen heads of state from around the world,” said the Fatherly One wearily that afternoon. “Including the president of our host country. They all seem to be much more concerned with what people are saying on the news than with what really happened.”

  Things were even worse on Saturday.

  When we sat down for breakfast on Sunday morning, Barvgis said, “I have noticed that journalism on Earth seems to resemble an adult version of a game the young people play on my planet.”

  “What game is that, Barv?” asked McNally.

  “It’s called Woogdorf K-splah. It’s quite a bit of fun, actually. You choose someone to be It. Then everybody else runs and jumps on top of that person. After a little while they all get off and run and jump onto someone else. It doesn’t make much sense, but everyone gets to make a lot of noise and use up a lot of energy. As I said, it reminds me of your electronic journalism.

  “The big question with Woogdorf K-splah,” he continued, shoveling a scoop of febril gnurxis into his mouth, “is whether the being who is It can survive until everyone decides to get off and go chase someone else.”

  I like Barvgis. But if everyone on his planet is built the way he is, survival sounded pretty iffy to me.

  As if things weren’t bad enough without all the huffing and puffing from the news media, Beezle Whompis called me to his desk later that morning and said, “I thought you ought to know that some members of the Trading Federation are taking the uproar about the Veeblax as a sign that your Fatherly One has lost control of the mission and is letting his family affairs affect his work.”

  “That’s not fair!” I said indignantly.

  Beezle Whompis laughed, a sound that Tim describes as a radio tuned to the wrong channel. “Fairness has nothing to do with it, Pleskit. You must remember that it is almost certain that your Fatherly One’s enemies are feeding exaggerated reports of the situation to the Trading Council.” He paused, then added, “I will say that some of these Traders are walking the fine line between tricky and sneaky.”

  This was bad news. The Trader’s Council is the ruling body of the Trading Federation, and has absolute power.

  “Will the council believe these rascals?” I asked nervously.

  Beezle Whompis flickered out of sight, then reappeared, which is his version of what Earthlings call a shrug. “Belief depends on predisposition.”

  I looked at him blankly. “I don’t have the slightest idea what you mean.”

  “What you already believe affects how you receive new information. Therefore, the council members who are on your Fatherly One’s side will tend to discount the false reports. But the ones who have already decided against him will tend to take the reports seriously.”

  I asked Wakkam Akkim about that later in the day.

  “It’s accurate as far as it goes,” she said, stroking her beaky nose. “But there is more to it than that, Pleskit. Group opinion influences the way people receive information. So does the amount of information. A lie repeated ten times will often have more power than a truth you hear only once.”

  “That’s terrible!” I cried.

  “It simply means that you must speak the truth as often as you can,” said the wakkam calmly. Then she taught me a breathing exercise to help me clear my mind.

  “Clear thought is a useful survival tool,” she said.

  I did feel calm and more clear—until the Fatherly One called me into his office Sunday afternoon for yet another conference.

  To my surprise, he climbed out of his command pod and stood directly in front of me.

  His eyes were sad, which filled me with terror. Putting his hands on my shoulders, he said, “Pleskit, I have received a call from some officials of our host country’s government. They want to take the Veeblax so their scientists can test it to make sure Misty isn’t going to catch anything from it.”

  “They can’t do that!” I cried. “The Veeblax did not bite her. It did not harm her at all. It just clung to her and scared her a little.”

  “We must accommodate them in some way, Pleskit,” said the Fatherly One gently. “The entire mission may depend on it. I have, however, proposed an alternative. We will turn the Veeblax over to a team from the Interplanetary Animal Control Office. They can have someone here by tomorrow morning.”

  “What difference does that make?” I cried. “Either way they’re going to take my pet!”

  The Fatherly One looked down. “I thought you might prefer to have the Veeblax go with someone who could do what needs to be done more gently.”

  His words chilled me, for I knew what they meant.

  “Nothing needs to be done!” I cried. “This ‘emergency’ is political, not medical.”

  “That may be so, but it’s still an emergency caused by your actions!” said the Fatherly One sharply. His voice pained, he said, “Pleskit, the Trading Council has asked—which is their way of demanding—that I do something to quiet this situation. The Animal Control Team will arrive in the morning. I’m sorry, but we must allow them to take the Veeblax.”

  I broke from his grasp and ran from the room. In my own room I snatched up the Veeblax and held it close. It began to tremble, as if picking up on my fear.

  I summoned the air mattress and sat on the edge of it. Then I used Wakkam Akkim’s breathing technique to avoid slipping into kleptra. I had to stay calm, stay strong, if not for my sake then for the Veeblax.

  I looked down at the little creature. If the Animal Control officers took it, I knew I would never see it again. Remorse gripped me. The poor thing was in this trouble because I had made the unwise decision to take it to school. It had not hurt Misty in any way. They were only going to take it because of all the fuss in the news.

  The Veeblax, still picking up on my distress, eeped piteously, and shifted so that it looked younger, with large eyes and rounded features.

  This was the shape it took when it was afraid and wanted to be protected, and it pierced my smorgle.

  I came to a decision. The Veeblax depended on me. Its life was in my hands.

 
; The Animal Control Team was not going to get it, no matter what.

  I had been in tough situations before. I had survived Geembol Seven.

  I could survive this world, too.

  The Veeblax and I were leaving.

  CHAPTER 10 [PLESKIT]

  FLIGHT

  It is not easy to slip out of the embassy, but not impossible, either. After all, the security devices are designed to keep intruders out, not to keep the staff and residents prisoner.

  Also, because it is assumed that I am safe within my own walls, McNally is officially off duty when I am at home. He has his own living quarters within the embassy, but unless we have events scheduled for the weekend, he is free to come and go as he pleases, and that evening he had chosen to go visit one of his lady friends.

  The Fatherly One was tied up with the calls and messages that continued to flood his office. The other adults in the embassy, though friendly, do not pay much attention to me unless I request it. So, to use the Earthling term, the coast was clear.

  My plan was to head for Tim’s apartment, with the hope that he could advise me where to travel after that. Unfortunately, I could not call him first on the comm-device to discuss this, since that would leave an electronic trail that would make it too easy for people to follow me.

  I decided against taking the Veeblax’s carrying case, which was too bulky and awkward for me to travel with easily. My pet could walk—preferably in the shape of an Earthling animal, since Tim had already taught it to imitate a cat. If the Veeblax got tired, I would carry it.

  I packed a small case for myself, putting in a few pieces of Earth-style clothing and a great deal of Veeblax chow. I hesitated, then threw in a stone from Hevi-Hevi that l had brought with me when we moved here. It was just a plain stone, but it was a piece of home, and I wanted it with me.

  I chose my traveling clothes carefully—a dark outfit with a hood to hide my sphen-gnut-ksher. I attached a pull cord to the carrying case, then switched on the case’s antigravity device, so that it floated on its own an inch or two above the floor.