How to Properly Dispose of Planet Earth

by Paul Noth

  A loud banging sounded up ahead.

  It came from within the shop room. Something violent clanged against the inside of its big steel door, like a trapped animal fighting to get out.

  Limping past, I looked in through the narrow window of safety glass at the infuriated face of the blond FBI woman who had carried Kayla away.

  She hammered her fist against the locked door.

  Seeing me, she started yelling swear words.

  I turned and kept on limping down the hallway.

  Around the next right, I saw Dimitrius sprawled out on the ground clutching his stomach. He had had the wind knocked out of him.

  I scanned the floor for the backpack. When I didn’t see it, I followed his gaze farther down the corridor.

  Twenty yards off, I spotted Kayla, her hands still cuffed behind her back. She staggered along like a drunk in a movie.

  Rushing toward her, I saw that she carried her backpack in her mouth by its top strap.

  “Kayla,” I said, running, breathless. “Kayla, wait!”

  She turned toward me, revealing a nasty scrape across her forehead. She had a dizzy, dopey, extremely un-Kayla-like look in her eyes.

  “What happened?” I said.

  “Ah habba fa ma heb,” she said.

  I took the backpack out of her mouth.

  “I had to fall on my head,” she said.

  She looked near fainting.

  “Come here,” I said, guiding her toward an empty classroom. “We need to get out of the hallway.”

  I glanced back at Dimitrius. He lay watching us from the floor with his cell phone in his hand.

  I shut the door behind us.

  “Tell me this is all part of your plan,” I said.

  “I don’t remember,” she said, wincing. “I’m so dizzy I think I might throw up.”

  “Great,” I said, unzipping her backpack. “Well, plan or not, we’ve got to do this right now.”

  I took out Squeep!

  “Hey there, buddy,” I said. “It’s time to boogie.”

  “No, not here!” yelled Kayla. “You have to be in your music class, or else nothing will line up right.”

  “What does that mean, ‘line up right’?”

  “You have to be in the place where …” Kayla trailed off.

  A look of pure terror came over her face.

  “Oh no!” she said, pointing. “That’s not Squeep!”

  “What?” I said. “Of course it is.”

  I looked down at the lizard, who kept flicking his tongue out around his upper mouth, searching for the missing mustache.

  “That’s Pete!” said Kayla. She looked ready to burst into tears. “Oh no! No! NO!”

  “Then where’s Squeep!?” I said.

  “I think Alice has him,” said Kayla. “No, Hap! We can’t let her get back inside the Doorganizer! That’s the one thing we can’t let happen.”

  “She won’t get back in,” I said. “She doesn’t know how it works. You have to put Squeep!’s tail into his mouth, and she’ll never figure that—”

  As I spoke, Kayla leaped toward me as though to block the words before they came out of my mouth.

  But she was too late. She turned and stared into the empty classroom.

  I followed her eyes up to the PA system on the wall.

  “Alice can’t hear us through that thing, can she?” I said.

  It clicked and erupted with blaring, mocking sound:

  “ ‘Alice can’t hear us through that thing, can she?’ Wah-ha-ha-ha!” laughed the amplified voice of Alice. “HA-AHAHA! ‘Alice can’t hear us through that thing, can she?’ … Oh, thank you so much, Hap! You’re right, I never would have figured it out on my own. I’ve got your little friend Squeep! right here, and he wasn’t being any help at all, were you, Squeep!?”

  My mind flashed back to Dimitrius lying in the hallway with his phone in his hand. He must have been telling her which room we entered.

  “Ha-ha, were you, Squeep!? Were you, Squeep!? HA-HA-HA!”

  Alice fell into hysterics, her laughter zigzagging across the line between joy and madness.

  CHAPTER 22

  WHEN SISTERS FIGHT

  “No, Alice!” I yelled. “You don’t understand! You have to believe us. We’re—”

  Kayla nudged me with the elbow of one of her handcuffed arms.

  “Come on,” she whispered. “It’s time to go.”

  I was struck by how back-to-normal Kayla suddenly looked. No longer dizzy or panicked, she seemed, if anything, relieved.

  I stared at her as we jogged back into the hallway.

  “I can’t answer that yet,” said Kayla.

  “Did you mean for that to just happen?” I yelled, then realized she was back to evading my questions before I even asked them.

  I recalled her words about Alice from earlier: When she’s like this, the only way to tell her the truth is to lie to her, and the only way to lie to her is to tell her the truth.

  Now Kayla took a running leap into the air. Swinging her chained wrists under her feet like a jump rope, she landed with her hands cuffed in front of her instead of behind.

  “Give me Pete and my backpack,” she said.

  I passed her the lizard and bag.

  Kayla put the one inside the other, then handed me back the nacho chip I had given her that morning—as though this were a perfectly logical transaction.

  “Now hurry to your music class,” she said. “Don’t ask any more questions or we’ll run out of time.”

  As she said the word “time,” I heard a distant fuhp!

  Something whished by between Kayla and me. It impaled itself into the wall next to the extinguisher.

  I stared in disbelief at … an arrow.

  Like an archer’s arrow. Like a time-flies-like-an arrow.

  Kayla walked toward it.

  “Did that just fly out of my mind?” I said.

  “No, not your mind,” said Kayla as she pulled the red metal fire extinguisher off of the wall. “Beth’s.”

  But I had already spotted her, coming around the corner out of the gym.

  Atop the largest horse I had ever seen in my life sat an ancient Mongolian warrior. He pulled another arrow from a quiver on his back.

  “That’s Genghis Khan,” I said. “Is Beth Genghis Khan?”

  Fuhp! The arrow flew from the bow straight at me.

  Kayla swung the fire extinguisher outward by its black hose.

  Swat-clang!

  “Yes,” said Kayla, knocking it away. “Now run to your music class before she kills us.”

  As I backed away down the hall, Genghis Khan fired three more.

  Fuhp! Fuhp! Fuhp!

  Kayla fell forward, swinging the red tank out in front of her. As it ricocheted between the first two arrows, deflecting them, Kayla landed on her knees with her arms high above her head. The third arrow sparked fire as it broke the chain between her handcuffs.

  Genghis Khan scowled.

  Kayla rushed toward him, spinning the fire extinguisher.

  Spurring his horse to charge, he fired arrow after arrow after arrow.

  Fuhp! Fuhp! Fuhp! Fuhp! Fuhp! Fuhp!

  I turned and ran away as fast as I could, feeling that faint queasiness I always got in the pit of my stomach when my sisters were fighting.

  As I rushed down the corridor toward my music class, the hallway clock read 11:03.

  Why would Kayla want Alice to get back into the Doorganizer?

  If she thought Alice could stop the black hole, she was sadly mistaken.

  What could Alice do against those giant crystal monsters? What could Kayla do for that matter? Squeep! hadn’t been able to stop them. That’s why he kept asking me for help.

  Me!

  I was the one they were hunting. So only I had even a chance of stopping them.

  But how could I get back inside without Squeep!?

  I looked down at the nacho in my hand.

  Oh, how I hated riddles!

>   What did the nacho mean?

  CHAPTER 23

  MUSIC CLASS

  Tardiness to Mr. Stanley’s music class was never an issue.

  Nobody even noticed me as I walked in.

  As usual, Stan the Man sat at the teacher’s desk rocking out to his headphones—probably something he had recorded himself the night before on his keyboard and bass guitar.

  Meanwhile, the students wandered around experiencing what he called “free-form learning” with the musical instruments. Though at least half the kids usually just sat and talked.

  Today, entering that loud chaotic room felt like returning to the scene of the crime. There they all were, everyone who had first fallen into the Doorganizer: Nev Everly, Dana Mosley, Jake Harrison, Doug Melman, Davina Tyler, Stan the Man … Everyone exactly where they were when it had happened. Or, rather, when it would happen, any minute now.

  I looked up at the clock, which had somehow jumped past 11:05.

  I felt the angularity of the nacho in my fingers.

  I needed to act. But I couldn’t even think.

  I realized that for a while now, I’d been silently praying.

  All the prayers I knew were in Romanian, since my mom was the religious one in our family. I didn’t get what half the words meant, but I went on saying them. I had a feeling they might help.

  As I approached Nev, she tapped the empty desk beside her.

  I sat down.

  “Are you busted?” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “They called you down to the office,” she said. “So did you get busted for something?”

  “No.”

  “Are you okay, Happy?” she said. “You look a little wiped.”

  I nodded.

  “Hey, can I tell you something?” she said. “I don’t want to be rude or forward or anything, but there’s an opinion I need to share. Or else it’s gonna drive me crazy.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “That,” she said, pointing at my face, “would be the exact right length for your beard. Except a few of the hairs seem to grow faster than the other ones. If you just trimmed those, it would look amazing.”

  Rolling my eyes slightly, I looked away from her.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’m being rude, huh?”

  “No, it’s fine,” I said. “You’re actually the first person to ever like my beard at all. So I guess that’s something that had to happen at least once before the world could end.”

  She laughed, and the weirdness of her laugh made me smile despite myself.

  I got an idea.

  “Nev,” I said. “You’re good at riddles. You figured out the Easter Island thing right away.”

  “Well, that was easy,” she said.

  “Can you help me solve another one?” I said.

  “Okay,” she said, smiling, “but on one condition.”

  “What?”

  She reached into her handbag and took out a small pair of scissors.

  “If you let me trim your beard in, like, one or two places,” she said.

  “Fine,” I said. “Can you trim and think at the same time?”

  “Of course,” she said, leaning in close.

  She started snipping at my face with the scissors.

  “Okay,” I said. “Here’s the clue. This nacho chip. It means something. Like it represents something else in the world besides a nacho. The same way the egg and quarter did.”

  Nev paused in her snipping to look down at the nacho for a moment.

  “Well, that one’s even easier,” she said, going back to snipping.

  “What?” I said. “What does it mean?”

  “That’s me,” she said, snipping. “That nacho means me.”

  “You?” I said. “How does it mean you?”

  “Look,” she said.

  Taking the chip from my hand, she turned it counterclockwise, so the broken end was on the bottom. Suddenly, I saw what she meant.

  It was shaped like Nevada.

  “Nevada …” She pointed from the chip to herself. “Nevada. See?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Going back to work with the scissors, she said, “So whatever little scavenger hunt you’re on, if that chip is the question, then I’m the answer.”

  Nevada, I thought. The poker chip had had the words “Las Vegas.” Las Vegas, Nevada. Had Squeep! meant the Doorganizer was in the state of Nevada?

  No, he must have meant …

  Nev leaned back to survey her work.

  “Fantastico,” she said. “This looks so good, Happy, you’re not even going to believe it.”

  She reached into her purse and pulled out a makeup compact in the shape of a seashell. She held the mirror up to my face.

  “See?” she said. “Check yourself out.”

  My mouth fell open.

  “Huh,” she said. “I didn’t think it was that shocking.”

  “Where did you get that compact?” I said.

  “At the thrift store,” she said. “Pretty cool, huh? I think it’s real silver. The flaw is that someone replaced the original mirror with one that’s too thick. So it doesn’t close all the way.”

  She shut the compact, but the glass stopped it from fastening.

  “The old mirror’s still behind this one,” I said, taking it from her hand.

  “Huh?” she said. “Then why would they put a new one in?”

  “To keep it open,” I said. “And to protect you from looking inside.”

  “What?”

  “Nev, something really weird’s about to happen,” I said. “I have to break this mirror.”

  “Yeah, right,” she said.

  “Then I’m going to vanish,” I said.

  “You’re going to vanish,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Like disappear before your eyes.”

  “No,” she said. “You can’t disappear now. I just got you looking halfway decent.”

  “When it happens, don’t start screaming,” I said. “You can’t freak out too badly.”

  “I’m freaking out a little already,” she said.

  “Good,” I said. “Better you freak out now. Because after it happens, you have to do something very important.”

  “What?” she said.

  “Close the compact, and don’t look inside,” I said. “Do NOT look inside. Just close it. Will you be able to do that?”

  “Of course,” she said. “But you’re messing with me, right?”

  “Okay,” I said. “I think you’re going to do it. Good. Now I gotta go. Please don’t tell anyone about this.”

  Lifting the compact high, I slammed its mirror down on the desk as hard as I could.

  A thick crack! Nev jumped a little, her eyes wide with fear.

  A couple kids not busy playing instruments looked back at us.

  I didn’t want to vanish with them watching, so I waited one last moment for their eyes to drift away.

  I lifted the compact from the desk. At the same time, Nev clamped her hand down over mine.

  “This is happening, isn’t it?” she said. “You’re really about to go somewhere.”

  “Yeah, right now,” I said.

  “For how long?” she said. “An hour? A day? A week?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “But not forever, right?” she said. “You’re going to come back?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  She pressed down on my hand harder.

  “Tell me you’re going to come back,” she said. “Or I won’t let you go.”

  “I’m going to come back,” I said.

  “Okay,” she said, lifting her hand from mine. “Now you better really vanish. Or I’m going to feel so stupid.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, tipping the compact up toward my eyes.

  I felt that old, unnerving seamlessness as I slipped back inside.

  I stood exactly where Squeep! had brought me earlier, in the same flashing darkness, at the same spot on
the junk pile.

  The only difference was that this time I knew what to do.

  Glancing back at where I had come in from, I watched the shell-shaped portal to the music room close like an eye and disappear.

  Thanks, Nev, I thought.

  Walking toward the gigantic crystal monster, I held my hands high in the air.

  I started shouting the words before the long beam of its spotlight eye reached me.

  “I surrender!” I yelled over and over again. “I’m Happy Conklin, and I surrender!”

  PART 3

  CAPTIVITY

  CHAPTER 24

  THE OUROBOROS

  I kept my eyes on the creature’s arms, those enormous crystal shards with spiked tips that I knew could puncture the Doorganizer and obliterate the Earth.

  “I surrender!” I kept yelling.

  The owl-head beamed its bright light down upon me.

  “Take me,” I said, wincing. “I’ll go! But leave Earth alone!”

  Other spotlights glided closer, revealing themselves to be projected from flying creatures—two more cyclops owls, like the “head” of the crystal giant.

  As they flew, their beams rolled toward me across the junk-strewn floor. The closer one illuminated another person in the Doorganizer, only about ten yards away: my sister Alice.

  She hid behind a pile of stuff, staring at me in terror and holding Squeep!, who must have brought her here.

  The big creature either hadn’t noticed her or didn’t care she was there.

  I brought a finger to my lips to say keep quiet.

  She nodded.

  Squeep! stared at me from her hands.

  What happens now? I thought.

  Squeep! held up a green kazoo.

  What’s that supposed to mean?

  A loud shunk! overhead interrupted my thoughts.

  Looking up, I saw that the two flying creatures had removed a transparent cylinder from the giant’s chest.

  They swooped this cylinder down upon me, trapping me inside and then scooping me up like a bug in a jar.

  I tumbled to the bottom of the container, my face smooshing against the thick glass. Alice stared up at me.