Pew!
The food-cube that was meant for me goes rocketing up into the air.
I find Mikaela’s eyes.
But what do you say to the person who just saved you from a potentially fatal robot fart?
I don’t think they make a greeting card for that.
Not to mention the fact that there’s a whole bunch of other stuff I need to say to Mikaela. Like sorry for being a huge stubborn jerk for the past few days, and also thanks for giving me the data-eater even though I didn’t want it, since the thing was kinda sorta the reason why I finally found Klaus.
“Um,” I say. “Tha—”
I don’t even get the whole word out.
A faint whistling from above interrupts me.
Mikaela realizes what it is before I do, and suddenly she’s charging forward again.
She yanks me out of the way just before the food-cube that Klaus sent soaring into the sky comes shrieking back down—and lands in the exact spot where I was standing.
It makes a little crater in the earth.
Turning back to Mikaela, I try again.
“Tha—”
“No time!” she shouts, pointing at Klaus, who’s already climbing back to his feet, and then grabbing hold of my arm and yanking me once more—this time across the field toward those old rusty bleachers, which I now see the rest of the EngiNerds have upended and barricaded themselves behind.
63.
KLAUS IS HUNGRY.
And angry.
He’s capital-h Hangry.
“Where is THE beeeef ?” he demands.
Then—
Pew! Pew! Pew!
—he fires a few food-cubes our way.
Plink!
Plonk!
Plunk!
Those are the sounds the cubes make as they ricochet off the bleachers, each shot sending a spray of dark red rust up into the air.
All of us—every last EngiNerd, plus Mikaela—are huddled behind the seats, crouched low with our limbs contorted to make sure we’re not the least bit exposed.
My mind is reeling.
It was hard enough to come up with one decent plan for fooling and defeating the bot, and I did that in the peace and quiet of my own home. Here, now, with the Hangry, double-crossed butt-blaster at my back, I can’t think of anything to do besides panic and hide.
“KEN!”
It’s Dan, army crawling over to me.
And I don’t know what it is—maybe the cure for a strained friendship is to risk being farted into oblivion together—but after only a couple seconds of our looking into each other’s eyes, all the aggravation and anger and hurt that’s been building up between us for the past week begins to melt away faster than a pint of ice cream on a record-breakingly hot day.
And then the apologies start pouring out.
“Listen,” he says. “I—”
“Wait,” I stop him. “I want to say—”
“No,” he interrupts. “I want to say that I shouldn’t have—”
“I shouldn’t have—” I cut him off.
“But I—”
“But I—”
“If I hadn’t—”
“You only—”
“HEY!”
It’s Edsley, whose lying just a short ways from us.
“Maybe you two can kiss and make up later?” he says. “Now might not be the best time.”
P-P-Pew!
Plink-plonk-plunk!
Dan and I don’t argue.
Edsley crawls the rest of the way over to us, dragging my backpack along beside him. He shoves it toward me, and out spill all of the bottles and boxes and jars and cans we stuffed in there earlier.
“The way I see it,” Edsley says, “the only way out of this mess is to use our numbers to our advantage.” He jerks his thumb in the direction of the bot. “There’s only one of him, but there’s . . .” Edsley bends around and starts to count. “ . . . one, two, three, four—” He stops. “A ton of us! There’s a whole butt-ton of us!”
Dan and I exchange a look.
Then turn back to Edsley.
“Mike,” I say, “that might just be the smartest thing you’ve ever said.”
64.
DAN, EDSLEY, AND I DISTRIBUTE the goods, then tell everyone the plan. Which, technically speaking, isn’t really a plan. It’s more of a mission statement: Douse the bot—but don’t get hit by one of his farts.
We make sure everyone understands and is as ready as you could ever be to enter into a ludicrously high-stakes food fight with a farting robot.
It’s Mikaela who suggests, “On three?”
There are nods and thumbs-up all around.
Dan does the honors.
“One—” he begins.
And that’s when Edsley, clutching the squeeze bottle of chocolate syrup, springs to his feet, darts around the overturned bleachers, and, screeching like a deranged seagull, charges toward the bot.
“MIKE!” I call after him.
Because I assume he’s just being his usual, brilliant-yet-somehow-unbelievably-idiotic self, and that he’s somehow failed to grasp the concept of on three. But then I realize I’m wrong. That Edsley has jumped the gun on purpose. That he’s leading the charge, putting himself in the greatest danger so that the rest of us will have a better shot at accomplishing our goal.
Watching him sprint across the field toward Klaus, I feel all sorts of things I’ve never before felt for Edsley, and that I honestly never could’ve imagined myself feeling for him ever : admiration, appreciation, amazement at something besides his seemingly limitless capacity for grossness.
And when Edsley, still a handful of feet from the bot, shouts, “HOW ABOUT A LITTLE EYE CANDY, SIR FARTS-A-LOT?” which, of course, doesn’t really make any sense—well, not even that can detract from the awesomeness of the moment.
Hoisting the bottle of chocolate syrup over his shoulder like a battle-ax, Edsley gives the thing a fierce squeeze, squirting the dark, goopy liquid right into the robot’s eyes, coating them both and basically blinding the guy.
Dan shouts, “THREE!”
And then all the rest of us are on our feet, darting around the bleachers and charging onto the field—a whole pack of us moving together as one.
65.
CHAOS.
Bedlam.
Mayhem.
Pandemonium.
These words can be found grouped together in my Things & Stuff pocket thesaurus, but none of them quite capture the extent of the disorder and confusion that ensue once we all get out onto Feldman’s Field.
Within seconds, I’ve got apple sauce in my eye and ginger ale up my nose.
Somehow, my hat ends up on Jerry’s head.
And my glasses—don’t ask me how—find their way into my shoe.
There’s a lot of shouting.
And even more pew-pew-pew-ing.
I look around, a bottle of water clenched in one hand, searching for Klaus.
But all I can see are ducking and diving EngiNerds and flying juice boxes and jars of strawberry jam.
Pew-SQUELCH!
Suddenly my leg is soaked, and my bottle of water has been reduced to a mangled piece of plastic. On the ground nearby are a pile of chicken tenders and a hunk of barbecue sauce-slathered roast beef.
I toss aside what’s left of the bottle and look in the direction of that last pew.
A glob of ketchup splats across my forehead—and then a brown-black blur zips through my vision.
I wipe off the ketchup and then hurry in the direction the speeding food-cube came from.
Zigzagging around a few of the guys, I finally find the bot.
He’s still got chocolate syrup smeared all over his face.
But besides that, he’s perfectly clean.
Somehow, he’s managed to dodge every single one of our projectiles.
Not a single drop of liquid has gotten anywhere close to his food-cube-filled belly.
The ground is litter
ed with empty bottles of water, squashed juice boxes, crushed cans of ginger ale, splashes of milk, splatters of ketchup and mustard and apple sauce and jam.
It looks like we’re all out of ammunition. . . .
And Klaus is as Hangry as ever, seething and shouting—and, of course, firing off food-cubes left and right.
“NO one CROSSES Klaus,” he says.
Pew-pew!
Simon dives out of the way in the nick of time.
“Where is THE beeeef ?”
Pew!
Amir leaps into the air, the food-cube sailing between his hastily spread legs.
“Where is THE tooo-NA?”
P-P-Pew! P-P-P-P-Pew!
Rob and Chris and Max and Alan duck and dodge and cower and crouch.
“Where is THE—”
The bot stops the instant he spots her: Mikaela.
She’s not hiding, or standing around helplessly. She’s striding right toward Klaus, as self-assured as ever, a small remote control with a single, round red button in her hand.
She plants her feet about a yard away from the bot, just out of clawing distance.
Then she holds up the remote.
Klaus stares down at the gadget, chocolate syrup dripping from his flashing red eyes.
“Is that FOR tel-e-VIS-ion?” he asks.
“I’m afraid not,” Mikaela says. “This is something called an emergency immobilizer.” She tosses the remote into the air and catches it in her opposite hand. “One push of this little red button here, and your circuits fry. Your resistors and transistors and capacitators and inductors get hopelessly overloaded and you, my metal friend, go up in smoke.”
Klaus’s eyes stop flashing and burn a bright, alarmed red.
“Per-HAPS you should NOT press the LITT-le red BUTT-on theeere.”
Mikaela gives the bot a grin.
Then she presses the button.
But nothing happens.
She presses it again.
Nada.
She jams her thumb down on the thing.
But it’s no use.
“HA-HA-HA-haaaa,” Klaus says. “Now I SHALL em-er-GEN-ceee imm-O-bull-IZE youuu.”
The bot lunges forward and swipes a claw at Mikaela.
She leaps back just in time.
“Do something!”
It’s Edsley, hissing in my ear and tugging on my arm like he wants to tear the thing out of its socket.
Panicking, I scan the ground around me, hoping to find at least a sip’s worth of water left in one of the bottles.
I don’t.
All I see is my wizard’s staff, lying a few feet away.
Edsley tugs on my arm again—
And of all things, Kitty pops into my mind.
“Mikaela!” I shout a split second after the pooch appears in my head.
She takes another couple quick steps back from Klaus, then glances over at me, at the same time shouting, “This better be good!”
I aim my eyes at her remote control, then swing them up toward the sky, and then, finally, aim them over at my wizard’s staff.
And either Mikaela’s just as brilliant as Dan promised me she was, or she’s got a lovably dumb, endlessly gullible dog of her own at home, because she gets it right away, she knows that I’m suggesting we go for the Ol’ Make Him Look.
And she doesn’t waste any time doing so.
She takes one last step back and then chucks her remote control straight up into the air.
I hesitate just long enough to make sure Klaus falls for it, tipping his head back and watching the gadget spin higher and higher into the sky.
Then I snatch up the wizard’s staff and run at him.
He looks back down as soon as he hears my footsteps.
But by then it’s too late.
I’m already yanking the staff back over my shoulder, then swinging, and—
CLA-yA-yA-yA-yA-yANG!
The force of the blow rides up my wrists and through my arms, making my elbows shudder.
Klaus lurches, staggers, and spins in a teetering circle.
I watch him, hoping that he’ll hurry up and topple over—and that this time, he’ll stay down.
John Henry Knox does me one better:
“GET HIM!” he cries.
The rest of the EngiNerds all rush the bot, and the first few to make it over dive on top of him, knocking him down and pinning his limbs to the ground.
Klaus struggles against them, almost immediately slipping an arm and then a leg free from their grasp.
“QUICK!” shouts Edsley. “EVERYBODY SPIT ON HIM!”
It’s as stupid an idea as it was when Mike suggested it yesterday. But in the heat of the moment, I can’t think of anything better, so I purse my lips along with Mike and get ready to spray the bot with some saliva.
“WAIT!” Mikaela stops us.
She points a finger at the pile of squirming bodies and turns to the EngiNerds who aren’t busy wrestling the bot.
“Get your tools!” she cries.
The guys don’t hesitate.
Max hurries over with a little utility knife.
Amir produces a set of Allen wrenches.
Alan’s got a screwdriver.
Simon has a pair of pliers.
And Mikaela?
She doesn’t have a tool, and not another one of her fancy gadgets either. But she’s got something else—something even more important. She’s got that intangible thing that’s needed to get the guys working together. The thing that, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t manage to summon all week. The glue that makes us more than the sum of our parts, that helps turn us into a team.
Not just a bunch of nerds, but the EngiNerds.
And if Mikaela isn’t an EngiNerd—well, then I don’t know who is.
Thanks to her spot-on instructions, Max, Amir, Alan, and Simon get the robot dismantled in no time. Klaus is no longer a single entity capable of walking, talking, clawing, accusing, and farting speeding food-cubes. He’s a pile of parts: a head, a torso, two arms, and two legs. Last of all, just in case, Amir detaches the robot’s feet and sets them in the grass beside the rest of him.
After that, we all just stand there.
Panting.
Catching our breath.
Wiping the gobs of mustard and blobs of strawberry jam off our shins and sleeves.
Finally, I’m able to ask the question that I’d been about to ask before Klaus showed up.
“What are you all doing here?”
It’s John Henry Knox who answers.
“We did it,” he tells me.
“Did what?” I say.
He turns to Mikaela.
She glances at the watch on her wrist.
Then she points up at the sky.
66.
I LOOK UP.
And there, dominating the sky, is a cloud.
Or not a cloud.
The cloud.
It’s just like the one I saw the other night on my way home from Jerry’s, and just like the one that appeared above my house the day my microwave went berserk, and just like the one that came to the rescue a week ago behind the Shop & Save.
Except now, it doesn’t look so much like a shopping mall–size anvil made of cotton balls. It looks to me a lot more like a UFO covered in clouds.
And somehow, as big as the thing is, it’s getting even bigger.
Or, I realize, it’s just dropping down out of the sky.
Clouds don’t usually do that, I know.
But this one does.
It sinks lower and lower, almost as if it’s being piloted and coming in for a landing on Feldman’s Field.
Watching it, my brain begins to throb, like someone’s trying to cram way too much into it.
“Guys?” I say. “Is that . . .”
I can’t get myself to finish.
But that doesn’t matter.
Only a moment later, the cloud settles onto the field. Its fluffy white puffs and lumps continue to
billow and curl. And then a portion of the cloud, a chunk right in the center, begins to swirl a little more than any of the other parts. The white wisps thin out and turn grayish, and are then blown away to reveal a flat patch of something charcoal-colored. It looks metallic, and it’s slightly curved, sort of like a car door.
I think this—and then the dark patch slides aside.
It opens.
Because it is a door.
And standing there in the doorway is a figure, lit from behind by a strong, bright light.
67.
YES.
That’s the answer to the question you’re no doubt wondering.
The figure standing in the doorway is, indeed, an extraterrestrial. An alien. A being from another planet.
A ramp emerges from a slot beneath the open doorway, then reaches for the ground like a long metallic tongue.
The alien makes his way down the ramp, revealing himself a little more with every step.
He’s got two arms.
Two legs.
And a fairly human-like face.
His eyes look a bit too big.
His nose seems a tad too narrow.
And his skin has an odd, green-blue tinge to it.
But besides that, you might mistake him for a regular twelve-year-old kid.
He’s even got the clothes to fit the part: a T-shirt with a cartoon skateboarder on it, a pair of baggy shorts, and some sneakers.
When he gets to the bottom of the ramp, the alien stops.
He takes a deep breath.
And then steps out onto the field.
He studies us for a moment before he speaks.
“Sorry about the blackout.” His voice sounds pretty normal, though there’s a high-pitched edge to it—a squeaky thread running through each word. “And the satellite.” He looks right at me. “And your microwave.” Turning back to everyone else, he smiles and says, “I trust the snow day made up for it?”
No one answers.
Because just now, I don’t think any of us are capable of speech.
I’m pretty sure most of the guys have forgotten how to breathe.
After a moment, the alien moves on.
“Well, then,” he says. “Surely you are all wondering what it is I am doing here.”
Mikaela manages a single, small nod.
“I am here—”
Suddenly, the alien shuts his eyes.
Revenge of the EngiNerds Page 9
