Alien in My Pocket #4 (2 page)

Late Again

T
he most annoying thing about living with an alien is the impact it has on your sleep.

Since Amp's crippled spaceship dented my bedroom wall, getting a good night's sleep had become about as likely as catching a one-eyed unicorn that burps rainbows and farts lightning.

On the planet Erde, there's no such thing as sleep. Amp doesn't understand why I need it. He ignores my complaints about being woken up all the time. It's like living with a misfiring cuckoo clock.

But thanks to the mind-bending pain pills, I actually had a full night's rest. Even a four-inch-tall alien on my chest couldn't wake me before I was ready.

“It's about time,” Amp said in his strange, high-pitched voice.

“Thanks for your concern about my arm,” I said with a sigh.

“Yes, I see you have a boo-boo.”

“A boo-boo? I almost died!”

“That device on your arm doesn't indicate a severe injury,” he said, stroking his chin.

“Oh, thanks a lot, Doctor Amp,” I said. “I have a rash I'd like you to take a look at when you're done.”

“Whoa! Grumpy . . .”

“You're to blame for all this, you know.”

“Me? What did I do?”

“You made me late for school.”

“How exactly did I do that?”

“Let's start with the fact that your people are about to invade Earth. That doesn't help.” I ran my fingers through my hair with the hand from my good arm. “Plus, somebody stole the brake cables on my bike. That's why I crashed.”

I waited for sympathy, but Amp was silent. “What's wrong?” I asked. “You look gassy. Please don't fart right now. I'm not sure I can run away.”

“You rode your bike?” he said in a faraway voice. “You never ride your bike on school days.”

“I know, but I missed the bus. Remember? I was helping you fix a switch on your lame rocketship.”

“But I thought your father was going to drive you!”

“He already drove me twice this week. He said my lateness was a character flaw.”

“You can't argue with that,” Amp said quietly.

“Whatever. He had a big presentation and couldn't drive me, and Mom had already left for work.”

Amp was now pacing in front of the alarm clock. I could see it was 11:30 a.m. Wow, that really was a good night's sleep!

“I should have told you.”

“Told me what?”

“I borrowed those brake wires when you were at school on Monday.”

“Why on Earth would you do that!?!” I shouted.

“As you know, my landing system didn't function when I arrived here, so I was trying to fix the braking flaps on my . . .” His voice trailed off when he saw the look on my face. He backed farther away from me. “Easy now, Zack.” He looked nervous. “Remember, you have a boo-boo.”

“I should have known it was you,” I said between gritted teeth.

With a groan, I started to get up, but pain shot through my shoulder. He instantly disappeared from sight, using one of his alien mind-control abilities.

“Your Jedi tricks don't work on me anymore, Amp,” I said. It was true; I had been teaching myself how to to deflect his invisible brain signals. At that instant, I saw him scamper across my bookshelf. “I SEE YOU!”

He sort of blinked on and off in my vision as I concentrated on blocking his mind trick. He dove off the bookshelf and ran across the carpet and into the closet.

“You better hide, you little blue headache.”

Honestly, my arm hurt too much to actually chase him. It hurt just to swing my legs off my bed. I stared at the wall, my anger at Amp boiling.

Just then, there was a knock on my door

“Zack, it's time for your pill, and you have a visitor,” Mom sang through the door.

I knew who the visitor was before the door opened.

“Come on in, Olivia,” I groaned.

Olivia + Mike + Amp

I
washed down my pain pill as Olivia swept into my room like she owned the place. That's how she is.

She had a stack of worksheets from school in one hand, a roll of SweeTarts for Amp in the other, and one of those clear plastic pet balls under her arm.

Inside the plastic ball was her new hamster, which she had named Mike, which must be the most inappropriate name for a hamster ever.

I had suggested a whole list of great names.

“How about Ace?” I had pleaded. “Or Skittles? Or PopTart? Or Yoda? Or Brownie? Buttercup? Fuzzface? Nibbles? Shaggy? Tinkerbell? Sparky? Monkey Butt? You can even name it Bubba. It's so cute I could puke!”

Olivia was having none of it. “No way,” she'd said. “He's Mike.”

She placed Mike in his ball onto the carpet. Mike instantly started rolling around, exploring my messy room. Olivia toed my open door shut so Mike wouldn't wind up bouncing down the stairs by accident.

She tossed the short stack of fluttering worksheets onto my desk. “Those are from the lovely Miss Martin,” she said. She looked around and didn't see Amp, so she tossed the roll of SweeTarts on top of the worksheets.

“All those worksheets are from one day?” I croaked.

“Yesterday and today,” she said matter-of-factly. “Today is Friday, Zackaroni. You missed Thursday altogether. You're piling up the makeup tests like crazy.”

I groaned. “I almost died. You'd think Miss Martin would cut me some slack and let me miss a few tests. And what are you doing here? It's not even noon. Why aren't you in school?”

“I convinced Miss Martin I needed to come see you and bring you your work. Cheer you up. I told her you needed a lot of cheering up.”

“You're shameless,” I said, shaking my head. “Anything to get out of school, right?”

She didn't answer. She sat roughly on the corner of my bed and stared at me.

“Don't shake the bed,” I said, closing my eyes. “It hurts.” I could feel her staring at my sling. “How's Mike doing?” I asked, just to say something.

She sighed. “He poops a lot.”

“You must be so proud.”

“So why did you ride into the bike racks? That was really stupid.”

Olivia can be direct that way.

I opened one eye. “Amp stole my brake cables. No brakes.”

“But that doesn't explain why you were going so fast.”

“There was a flock of crows,” I said quietly. “I rode through them.”

“What is it with you and crows?” she whispered.

“They looked sinister,” I said, using one of our vocabulary words. Olivia didn't notice.

“Did you know a group of crows is called a murder?” she told me.

“Seriously?” I shouted, wincing at the pain that shot up my arm.

“You rode through a murder.”

Olivia knew more worthless information than anybody. If she said a bunch of crows was a called a murder, she was right.

“So why didn't you drag your feet on the ground?” she asked, changing the subject like a dancing prizefighter. “You could have slowed your bike down by dragging your feet on the ground.”

“I don't know,” I said, throwing my good arm up. “I didn't exactly have a lot of time to think.”

“Olivia is right,” Amp spoke up from somewhere near my desk.

“He dares to show his face?” I said.

“Council Note—”

Even without looking, I knew he had turned his back and was now speaking into the device he wore on his wrist.

“Please, not now, Amp,” I pleaded. “You know those recorded reports for your bosses on planet Erde make me crazy.”

He shushed me and continued.

“Council Note: Earthlings do not seem familiar with drag. Any pressure distributed over a body in motion exerts a force on that moving body, the sum of which, of course, reduces overall velocity, or speed, in a given direction. Friction, or resistance, as from dragging your shoes on the ground while you're riding your bike, dramatically increases drag, reducing the overall speed of the body in motion.”

“You may as well be speaking Erdian,” I said. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Seems pretty clear to me,” Olivia said.

Amp was standing on my desk and, now that his report was concluded, began opening the SweeTarts wrapper. “The friction between your shoes and the ground would have absorbed a great deal of the kinetic energy.”

“SAYS THE GUY WHO STOLE THE BRAKES!” I shouted.

“There were a few things you could have done,” Olivia said. “But you've never been very clear-thinking in emergencies.”

“I agree with Olivia,” Amp said, flicking SweeTarts into his mouth.

Here I was, wondering if I'd ever play another baseball game in my life, and they were busy criticizing me.

Sorry, but death by bike rack does not foster a lot creative ideas.

My eyes felt moist. I blinked away the start of some tears. I didn't want to cry in front of Olivia.

Instead, I cleared my throat and calmly said, “I think I need to rest.”