Alien in My Pocket (2 page)

03

Dumber and Dumbest

A
mp sat on the alarm clock I kept next to my bed. My mom was waiting downstairs to drive me to school. The time on the clock told me I had missed the bus fifteen minutes ago and would probably be late for school.

“Listen, Amp, I have a D in science right now,” I said with as much patience as I could muster. “Miss Martin told us—”

“What's the D stand for?” he interrupted.

“It stands for . . . ,” I began, trying to remember what the D stood for. “I can't remember! The D stands for disaster, okay? Or dummy! Or dimwit! It doesn't matter what it stand for. It's bad!”

“If it stands for bad, it should be a B, not a D,” he said.

“No, a B is good,” I said.

“Good should be a G then, right?”

“Gosh dang it, Amp!” I howled. “You can't change the grading system that's been around since my parents were kids. You're missing the main point.”

“Hey, I have a great idea for a science experiment.”

“Oh, yeah. What?”

“I'd need some special equipment, of course, and I'd need to sequence a sample of your DNA, but growing a third arm would be really interesting, and easier than you think.”

I stared at him. He was either clueless or intentionally trying to make me angry. I could never tell which. “I can't grow another arm!” I shouted. “None of my shirts would fit.”

“But you'd be a heck of a juggler,” he said softly.

“I can put you in a hamster cage, you know,” I said.

“Okay,” he said, holding up both hands in surrender. “I'm just asking that you think about it.”

I grabbed my head and squeezed it, which, surprisingly, helped me remember something. I jumped up and pulled my science textbook out of my backpack and flipped through the pages. There were twenty or so suggestions for classroom experiments in the glossary in the back. One caught my eye. It showed a potato with a bunch of wires stuck in it and a small lightbulb that was lit up next to it. It was labeled
POTATO BATTERY
. All I'd need was a potato, some wires, and a lightbulb. How hard could that be?

“Easy,” I announced. “I'm going to make a battery out of a potato.”

I dropped the book on my bed and pointed to the two photos.

Amp leaped onto the bed and stepped onto the open page. He read in silence. Studied the photos for a minute, stroking his tiny blue chin the whole time.

“Seems kind of dull,” he said.

“No, it seems easy. A simple potato battery is perfect.”

“Whoa, someone didn't brush his teeth this morning,” Amp said, waving his hand in front of his face.

“Funny,” I said. “That's what I'm making.”

“Fine, but I should warn you that—”

Just then my door popped open and my mom stuck her head in.

I whipped my head in Amp's direction.

But Amp was gone. I looked around, but, thankfully, he had vanished. Mom hadn't noticed. He really was the fastest thing I had ever seen—or not seen.

“Who on earth are you talking to up here?”

“I'm . . . I'm practicing my science fair presentation,” I said weakly.

“You're still doing your homework, Zack?” She sighed. “C'mon, I need to get to work. Better fix that hair first, honey.” She headed back down the hallway.

“One second, Mom,” I called after her.

“Between her popping in all the time and your brother snooping around, I'm getting nervous about being discovered.”

I froze. “What? Taylor's been in here? Looking around? Has he seen you?”

“No, because I usually make myself invisible. Would you like me to tell you how?”

“No, I don't care how. We just can't get caught. If someone sees you they'll take you away, Amp. Then you'll never get home.”

Amp looked concerned. “One of these days our luck will run out, Zack. I think your brother is suspicious. We need to get my spaceship repaired!”

“We will, Amp. As soon as I get through this science fair. I can only handle one disaster at a time.”

04

Potato Power

“I
'm going to make a battery out of a potato,” I said quietly to Miss Martin.

I was standing next to her desk. The classroom was silent. They were all staring at me. I was like a car wreck on the interstate. You might have wanted to look away, but you just couldn't.

Miss Martin looked up from the science fair binder spread out in front of her. She was writing down each student's science project idea next to their name. “And do you have the registration form signed by your parents?”

My stomach dropped like a broken elevator. “Uh, I forgot about the form,” I said as quietly as I could.

Miss Martin stared at me with disappointment. I squirmed.

“Zack, you need to bring that form tomorrow.”

“Consider it done,” I said and smiled.

“So does your science fair project test a hypothesis?” I looked at her blankly. “What do you hope to prove with your experiment?” she asked patiently, waiting to write down my response in her notebook.

I gulped. “I just hope to prove that I can do it,” I said.

“Do what?” she asked.

“Do the project, of course,” I said with a shrug.

“That doesn't sound like a hypothesis,” she said.

“Oh, the
high
-pothesis,” I said as if I'd misheard her the first time. I proceeded to nod my head for twenty seconds, trying to think of something to say. “I am going to prove that yams work better than potatoes. You know, when it comes to using vegetables for batteries.”

Miss Martin stared at me dead-on for a full ten seconds. “Yams vs. potatoes,” she said coldly. “Okay, please return to your desk and see to it that you bring me that signed form tomorrow, Zackary Frederick McGee.”

“That should not be a problem,” I said.

I returned to my desk, sank into my seat, and opened my science workbook to our assignment. “I hate science crossword puzzles,” I said louder than I should have.

“You don't hate crossword puzzles,” a familiar voice said. “You dislike them.”

Olivia.

Olivia was my best friend and next-door neighbor. We spend a lot of time together. She's also the only other person on this planet who knows about Amp.

“What's your project?” she whispered.

“I'm doing a potato battery. Potatoes can generate, you know, electricity.”

“Really?” she whispered. “Sounds pretty boring.”

“Ugh,” I groaned, letting my head drop to my desk.

“What's with your hair today?” she asked. “It looks like you're wearing a crown back here.” She started mashing down my hair.

I jerked away. “Why is everybody so obsessed with my hair?”

“Touchy,” she whispered in my ear.

“I should have just worn a hat,” I grumbled.

“Are you done building your experiment?” she asked, poking my shoulder.

I sank a little in my chair. “I haven't started yet.”

“You better get on it, rooster head.”

“I know, I know,” I mumbled as my eyes started to close.

“What's wrong with you?” she asked with real concern in her voice. “Did you eat breakfast? It's the most important meal of the day, you know.”

But I didn't answer. I had fallen asleep. A sweet, deep, and extra-sudden sleep. I dreamed of dancing yams and potatoes. Soon, they began to fight with tiny toothpick swords. The battlefield became a huge potato salad of fallen spuds. It was the kind of dream that makes you hungry for a picnic.

I slept in my chair for a good ten minutes and nobody noticed. When the bell for recess finally rang, I jumped three feet in the air and everybody laughed.

I was becoming the class goofball, and my bad hair wasn't the only reason.

And now I was counting on a yam and a potato to save my bacon.

Seemed unlikely.

05

Spy Games

W
hen I got home that afternoon, I just wanted to take a nap. I zombie-walked through the kitchen, stumbled up the stairs, and did a soaring swan dive onto my bed.

“OUCH!” my bed said.

I sat up and froze. “Amp?”

“You almost killed me!” my bed said again.

I gasped. “Amp? Are you hurt?” I cried. I leaped off my bed and started gently shaking my blankets. “Amp?” I called desperately. “Did I flatten you, buddy? You've got to be more careful. . . .”

“Who's Amp?” my bed asked.

“What the—,” I yelped. I dropped to my knees and looked under my bed. I came face-to-face with my little brother, Taylor. “WHY, YOU LITTLE SPY!”

“Mom, help!” he screeched as I yanked him out from under the bed by his leg. “Zack is going to kill me!”

I sat on his chest and grabbed him roughly by the collar of his T-shirt. “You're not allowed to be in here!”

“Who's Amp?” he asked in a bratty voice.

“None of your business,” I said.

“Does he own that spaceship in your closet?”

“Spaceship?”

“I'm gonna tell Mom and Dad. You've got a UFO.”

It took me a moment. My brain spun. Then it hit me: Taylor had found Amp's spaceship under the blanket in my closet. “It's not what you think it is.”

“Is it Amp's?”

“You know what it is?” I growled.

“What?” he said, staring up at me with a dumb smirk.

“None of your business.” I pulled him up, opened my door, pushed him into the hallway, and slammed the door. “STAY OUTTA MY ROOM!”

“I'm telling Mom,” he shouted from the other side of the door. I could hear him run off.

“That was close,” Amp said. He appeared standing on my desk, looking worried. “He almost saw me.”

“We have to hide your spaceship better. Right now,” I stammered. “Can you make it disappear? I need some serious Erdian hocus-pocus, like pronto.”

“I'm an alien, not a magician, Zack! I can't make inanimate things disappear.”

I ran into my closet, lifted up his spaceship, carried it to my hamper, and dumped it in.

Then I crawled around on my floor, snatched up some dirty clothes, and threw them into the hamper, covering up the spaceship.

“Oh, that's nice,” he growled at me. “An advanced space- and time-bending spacecraft covered with your stinky socks and underpants.”

I heard them coming.

I raced to my closet and searched my shelves frantically. Then I saw something that was perfect.

By the time Taylor arrived, pulling Mom by the hand through my room, I was pretending to relax on my bed.

“He's got it hidden under this blanket,” I heard Taylor say from inside my closet. There was a moment of silence. “Huh? That wasn't here before!” he said, confused. “He must have moved it, Mom, I swear.”

“That's just Zack's old hamster cage,” Mom said sternly. “Enough with this nonsense—and stay out of your brother's room.”

I watched cheerfully as Mom marched my little brother past my bed and out the door. She was holding him by the earlobe in a pinch that looked like it must have hurt.

“Have a nice day,” I said gleefully, jumping up and gently closing my door.

“I need to fix my ship and leave this place as soon as I can,” Amp said from behind me. “If word gets out you're hiding an alien in your room, I'll never escape. They'll take my ship apart. Maybe me, too. They'll do tests on me. I may not look it, but really I'm very delicate.”

“I promise, Amp, you'll get my full attention after Wednesday's science fair.”