Alien in My Pocket #3 (2 page)

03

Let's Talk

A
s Amp studied the walkie-talkie on my desk, Olivia and I discussed ways to get back at Taylor.

Olivia lives with her grandfather in the house next to ours. He has a line he always says: “Turnabout is fair play.” I always just thought he was weird, but for the first time, I understood what he meant. If Taylor was going to listen in on our conversations, we were going to make sure he heard what we wanted him to hear.

“We could have walkie-talkie conversations that convince Taylor that an evil spirit named Amp has taken over your body,” Olivia suggested. “You could pretend to have a split personality.”

“Or that I have an evil, secret twin brother who lives under my bed,” I said. “So at breakfast he won't know if he's sitting across from me or my evil twin.”

“What would your twin's name be?” Olivia asked. “Amp simply won't do.”

“How about Herm?” I suggested.

“Herm is so good,” she agreed. “Perfect.”

We were both watching Amp check out my walkie-talkie. He often studied human technology with great interest; it seemed to amuse him half the time and puzzle him the other half.

He stroked his chin and walked around the thing like it was the most fascinating thing ever made on this planet.

“Maybe my twin's name could be Cooper,” I said.

“That's a terrible name. Everyone would call him Pooper,” she told me.

“Ah, man, I always liked that name.”

“Wait, wait. Maybe we could say Amp is your secret pet tarantula!” Olivia said, clapping with excitement. “Taylor hates spiders.”

“They make him turn as white as cream cheese,” I agreed.

“Maybe it's one of those goliath bird-eater tarantulas from South America.”

“That I ordered off the internet with six months of my allowance money!”

“Yeah! Oh, he'll look it up on the internet and freak out completely. That tarantula is seriously the size of your catcher's mitt.”

“That'll serve him right,” I said, nodding slowly as the plan took shape in my head. “And my tarantula will go missing. I won't be able to find him.”

Olivia laughed. “You could say on the walkie-talkie that you think it may have escaped into Taylor's room, but you're afraid to tell him or your parents. Wait till he hears that. Don't you wish you could see his face?”

We high-fived. It was a great plan.

But, as always happened in our meetings, we had not moved the ball forward one inch in terms of helping Amp repair his space-and-time-skipping ship.

I noticed Amp suddenly turn his back to us and speak in a quiet voice into the contraption he wore on his wrist.

“Note to Erdian Council: Humans utilize simple two-way radio
transceivers they call walkie-talkies.
They appear to utilize a range of between four and five hundred megahertz on what they call the ultrahigh frequency spectrum, or UHF for short.”

“Amp, you're being rude,” I said. “We can totally hear you.” Taking verbal notes for his alien bosses on that thing was just one of his many annoying habits.

Amp continued:

“Primitive but effective construction. Limited range and poor battery life. But efficient. One of the earthlings' better devices—”

“I'm going to give you to my brother if you don't stop that creepy mumbling,” I growled at him.

Amp turned back to face us, paused, and cleared his throat. “I have an idea that I'd like to share,” he announced.

“No, we like the missing giant tarantula idea,” Olivia said.

“It's pretty solid,” I agreed. “You're not gonna top that one, blue man.”

“This isn't about your childish plan for tricking Taylor,” he said, shaking his head at us.

“Oh,” Olivia and I said at the same time.

“Jinx,” she said, and punched me in the arm a lot harder than you would think a girl could punch your arm.

“
Ow!
” I said, moving away from Olivia. I rubbed my arm. “What idea are you talking about then, Amp?”

“I am talking about forgetting about fixing my ship.”

“What?”
Olivia and I both said in unison.

Before I could move farther away, she punched me again in the same spot she had just seconds ago. “Jinx again!” she screamed.

“Stop it, Olivia!” I shouted, jumping up. “Never mess with a catcher's throwing arm. This is my ticket to the big leagues.”

“Sorry,” Olivia said with a giggle. She turned to the alien invader. “Ampy, what do you mean about not fixing your ship? Are you giving up?”

“You're not quitting!” I yelped. “If you don't call off the attack, your people are going to show up here and my life will never return to normal. You can't throw in the towel now!”

“I don't even have a towel,” he said, looking around. He considered both of us like we had lost our minds. “I am talking about building a special kind of radio. A quantum radio—think of it as a supersized walkie-talkie—so that I can radio Erde from here and call off the invasion.”

We were all quiet for a moment.

“Why didn't you think of this before?” I asked.

“My radio was damaged in the crash, but I may be able to use your walkie-talkie to work around it.”

“Hey, we can still do the tarantula thing, right?” Olivia asked.

Amp sighed and shrugged his tiny shoulders. “I don't see why not.”

Olivia held up her hand for another high five, but I wasn't able to move my arm yet.

04

Pet Trap

O
livia ate dinner at my house that night.

She was doing that more and more often lately. Partly because her grandpa returned late when he went fishing, but really because my mom loved having Olivia over.

Olivia was the daughter she never had.

“Do you need more milk, sweetie?” Mom cooed in a soft, caring voice she never used on me.

“Oh, no thanks, Mrs. McGee, I've barely started drinking the one you already poured,” Olivia answered.

“Call me Christine, dear,” Mom gushed.

“Oh, okay . . . Christine,” Olivia replied, obviously feeling uncomfortable.

“I could use some more milk, Christine,” I said hopefully.

“It's in the fridge, dear,” Mom answered, not looking up from the roll she was buttering.

We never had rolls with dinner unless Olivia was eating over.

“What do you guys do in there all day?” Taylor asked. He looked up from the steak he was trying to cut with an electric knife he had recently built.

It also seemed like we never had steak for dinner unless Olivia was eating over.

“We do homework,” I said, shuffling to the fridge for more milk.

“Are you guys boyfriend and girlfriend?” Taylor asked.

“Taylor!” Mom cried.

“Enough of that,” Dad said, looking sharply at Taylor, a piece of juicy steak hanging from his fork.

Olivia broke the awkward silence with a big laugh. I knew it was not her real laugh, but it fooled all of them. “Of course not, silly,” she said. “We talk about homework, baseball, and the Young Volunteers.”

“I want to be in the Young Volunteers, too,” Taylor said.

“No, you don't,” Olivia said. “Trust me.”

“You have to be in the third grade at least,” I said. “And I'm only doing it because Principal Luntz is making me. Which is probably illegal when you think about it.”

“Yeah,” Olivia agreed, pointing at me with her fork. “You're right, Zackaroni. I bet that club breaks forty different child labor laws.”

“It's not illegal,” Dad said, swirling his mashed potatoes with his fork.

“Why did the principal make you join the Young Volunteers again?” Taylor asked, looking around suspiciously.

“It involved a large slingshot and water balloons filled with spoiled milk,” Olivia bragged, popping a piece of roll in her mouth.

“That unfortunate incident caused me a lot of trouble,” Dad said, raising his eyebrows at Olivia.

“We had no idea Principal Luntz would be in the parking lot,” I cut in.

“We actually knocked his glasses off,” Olivia said happily.

“And broke them,” Mom added quietly.

“Wow,” Taylor said. “Why hasn't anybody told me this story before?”

“It's not the kind of thing we like to brag about,” Dad said.

“He was more mad that the milk smelled terrible than that his glasses were broken,” Olivia added.

I so wished we could stop talking about this.

Luntz had wanted to suspend us, but instead, after a long, long, long meeting with my parents and Olivia's grandfather, he decided to make us join his Young Volunteers club. My dad called it a plea bargain we couldn't refuse, whatever that meant.

So now every month or so, Olivia and I have to “help” at community events. Sometimes it eats up an entire Saturday, which is pure torture. And Luntz has a mandatory attendance policy, no excuses allowed. You could be puking up a lung and he'd still make you count change at the library bake sale. It was a lot like serving a long prison sentence on your weekends.

“Luckily, we have only three weeks left,” I said, feeling like I could see the light at the end of a very long and very dark tunnel.

“You shouldn't think of it that way,” Mom said. “It is a volunteer club, after all. You are helping out your community.”

“I agree with you, Christine,” Olivia said. “But the problem is, there's nothing voluntary about it. We have to go. We're like Luntz's private army of do-gooders.”

“Well, it sounds like fun to me,” Taylor harrumphed.

“Just get in big trouble and you're in,” Olivia advised. She looked around the table. “I'm just kidding, guys.”

I kept my eyes on the prize. Olivia and I had to work this Saturday at the big half marathon they held every year in our town. Then we were pretty much done. I could leave Principal Luntz and his lame Young Volunteers club in my rearview mirror. I could almost taste sweet freedom already.

Little did I know that development would run into a major snag.

05

Spaced-out Radio

A
fter dinner, Olivia and I went to hang out in her garage. Her grandfather kept a cool old car in there, plus a dusty old couch, some other random furniture, and about thirty fishing poles hanging from the rafters. It was a nice place to get away from the prying eyes of my brother.

“This plan may not work,” Amp admitted as he examined Olivia's grandfather's tools. He found a screwdriver that was twice as tall as he was. He dragged it over to the walkie-talkie. He wanted to take off the back cover, but the screwdriver was too big for him to handle. I had to pluck it away before he hurt himself. I opened the back of the walkie-talkie while he walked in circles around it.

“I don't see how a walkie-talkie that can only work to the end of the street can call all the way back to Erde,” Olivia said.

“Yeah, Amp, this seems like one of your dumber ideas,” I said.

“I beg your pardon,” Amp said, putting his hands on his hips and glaring at me. “I do not have ‘dumb ideas,' young earthling.”

“Oh, so now I'm ‘young earthling'?” I said, looking at Olivia and rolling my eyes. “Get a load of Mr. Bossy Blue Pants over here.”

“Yes, as I was saying, it may not work,” Amp sighed. “But it is worth a try. I think I can connect this device to the damaged quantum radio on the
Dingle
.”

“On the what?” I croaked.

“What's a dingle?” Olivia asked.

Amp stared at us, his mouth hanging open. “I never told you?”

“Told us what?” Olivia said. “About your dingle?”

He stood up as tall as he could and lifted his chin high in the air. “The
Dingle
, may I inform you, is my spaceship,” he said.

Olivia and I both cracked up.

“That is the worst name ever for a spaceship,” Olivia said.

“Was the
Fart Rocket
already taken?” I laughed.

“How about the
Nerdy Erde Express
?” Olivia said, cracking us up even more.

“Go ahead and laugh it up,” Amp said, clearly offended. “I'm stranded on this primitive planet and may not be able to prevent it from being invaded, but please, have a good laugh at my expense.”

“Don't be so dang sensitive,” I said. “But seriously, a walkie-talkie? There's got to be a better way.”

“Yeah, how about smoke signals?” Olivia said.

“Or one of those carrier pigeons with a note tied around its leg,” I said.

“Why don't we tie a note to a rock and throw it real hard?”

“You two are ridiculous,” Amp fumed. “Always thinking small. Never considering the brains, wisdom, and creativity of my civilization.”

I groaned. “Get off your high horse, short man. Our civilization would never name a spaceship the
Dingle
.”

“Or visit another planet in a junky ship that can't make the return trip.”

Amp waved at us in irritation and stared at the exposed guts of the walkie-talkie.

Amp seemed to get lost in examining the tiny parts of the device for a second time. After a few minutes, he looked up at us. “Where did you two get these walkie-talkies?”

“They're actually not ours,” Olivia said.

“We get them for the Young Volunteers,” I said. “For when we're working at events.”

“They give us the walkie-talkies so they can tell us where to go and where we're needed,” Olivia said. “It's a lot like jail, but they give you a radio.”

“You both have a curious view of community service for your fellow humans.”

I ignored his observation. “We have to return them when our prison sentence is up.”

“But they let you keep them between events?” Amp asked.

“Yep,” Olivia and I said at the same time.

Learning from experience, I leaped out of the way before Olivia could give me another charley horse. “Jinx!” she cried, but her knuckles missed their target.

I stuck my tongue out and danced a little. “Strike one, slowpoke.”

“Please, you two, you're acting like children!”

“Last time I checked,” Olivia said, “we
were
children.” Then she started dancing and sticking her tongue out at me.

“Stop doing that!” Amp said. “You are making it hard to concentrate. I need to borrow one of these,” Amp continued, putting the cover back on the walkie-talkie. He left it to me to put the screws in. “If my calculations are correct, I can connect it to the quantum radio on my ship and bypass the parts that aren't working. When is your next community activity?”

“Three days,” Olivia said. “We're working at a half marathon race downtown.”

“I'm in charge of all the portable toilets,” I admitted.

“How exciting,” Amp said flatly. “I should know before then if it's working or not. I'll return your walkie-talkie at the event.”

“Okay, just don't start quite yet,” I said. “Olivia and I need to have a chat tonight about a spider.”

“Okay,” he said in a strange, faraway voice. “I'll start first thing tomorrow morning, while you two are in school.”

I should have known then that Amp had no intention of keeping his word. How do you know when a blue alien is lying to you? His lips are moving.