Blast Off! (2 page)

03

Hey, You!

W
hat had I done?

For a moment, I stared into the blackness below my window, searching for any sign of the tiny visitor. I wanted to call out his name, but I had forgotten what it was!

I leaned out my window and whispered in desperation, “Hello? Can you hear me, Tramp? Or was it Stamp? Lamp? Cramp? Oh, what the heck is your name?”

No answer.

I started to panic and shouted in frustration, “Little blue dude, where'd you go?”

I'd let an alien escape from my room! Mankind would want to ground me for eternity!

I couldn't even remember the planet he said he was from. Was it Fergie? Murky? I should have paid attention. Why couldn't I ever pay attention?!?

I bolted to my door and, taking a deep breath, opened it slowly and quietly. I so didn't want to wake my family. Once there was enough space to squeeze through, I took off down the dark hallway, not aware that one of my brother's robots had parked itself just outside my room.

I tripped over it, of course, and went sprawling onto the carpet, flipping the robot onto its back like a helpless tortoise. Its motor sprang to life, its wheels started spinning crazily, and its headlights lit up the carpet at a crazy angle.

I held my breath for a moment—and amazingly, no one woke up.

I picked the robot up and used its headlights to make my way downstairs. I saw the light was on in my parents' office as I headed toward the back door. I tried to be careful to make sure they hadn't seen me, but while looking back over my shoulder I ran into the entryway table, knocking a bowl full of keys and change on the floor!

My future as a burglar did not seem bright.

With no time to spare I crept out the front door and closed it quietly behind me.

I burst through the gate to the side of our house and sprinted into the backyard. The light from the robot had gone dead by then—which is probably why I didn't see our barbecue.

We have one of those old-fashioned barbecues, the charcoal kind, which is a good thing because if we had the gas kind, I would have blown myself up when I crashed into it.

Instead, I flipped over the top and hit the ground like an eighty-pound bag of onions.

The round, black barbecue, which looked a bit like a spaceship itself, toppled over, spitting out chalky charcoal dust all over me.

It took a split second for me to understand what happened next. But apparently the barbecue rolled into our birdbath, which is wobbly and unsteady even under normal conditions.

And the birdbath, which was filled with dirty bird water, wobbled briefly before losing its battle with gravity. It fell with a thud and cracked in half. A second later, a wave of feather-filled, freezing-cold birdbath water washed over me.

The water mixed with the charcoal leftovers and created a gooey, sticky paste. I was covered in it. As I tried to get up, I slipped and slid over our patio like a first-time ice skater.

As if to add to my misery, Olivia's bedroom light snapped on then. “You have got to be kidding me,” I growled.

As her curtain pulled back, I stumbled behind our doghouse. Thank goodness Smokey now slept in the garage. He was a barker.

I did not have time to explain to Olivia why I was covered in gray paste and making enough noise to wake up half the neighborhood.

I had to find Shemp—or whatever his dang name was—before he got away!

Wiping barbecue dust out of my ears, I thought I heard something.

I froze and listened until I heard it again, and then I strained and listened even harder to figure out where the sound was coming from.

But instead of the alien, I heard Olivia's window slide open. “Zack, are you out there?”

I didn't answer. I listened so hard for the sound I'd heard I thought my ears would fall off my head.

“Help!” I heard.

The sound was so high, it was easy to think it was just my imagination.

It wasn't.

I crawled on my hands and knees around the back of the doghouse and came face-to-face with Mr. Jinxy, our fat cat.

He had the blue guy pinned to the wall of the doghouse with a paw. He was playing with him, like some kind of blue mouse.

“Go find a real mouse, Mr. Jinxy,” I said, gently pushing him away from Amp.

I snatched up the tiny man. “Sorry about that,” I said quietly. “You okay?”

“What was that thing?” he squeaked from my hand.

“It's a cat,” I said. “Cats are animals. People have them because . . . Well, people like to have cats because . . . Actually I don't like cats, and I have no idea why we even have one.”

The blue guy stared at me for a long time. “Oh, well, that clears things up.”

I tiptoed in my squishy socks to our back door in relief.

“I knew it was you!” I heard Olivia call out from her open window. I'd completely forgotten about her. “What are you up to, Zack McGee?”

By this point, I was too exhausted for questions. I pretended not to hear and closed the door behind me. I knew I'd have a lot of explaining to do at the bus stop in the morning.

04

Busted!

I
held what may have been the most amazing scientific discovery in the history of discovering stuff.

I was also soaked and covered in cold barbecue goo.

I tiptoed past my parents' office to the laundry room. I pulled off my soaked, lumpy socks and gray, goo-covered pants. Not an easy thing to do while holding a tiny blue creature. I dropped my clothes into the laundry basket and covered the mess with a clean towel.

He seemed to be looking at me in utter amazement, too.

“Haven't you ever seen someone get undressed?” I whispered before noticing he didn't wear socks, pants, or any clothes whatsoever. He only had a belt full of little compartments like a handyman's and a kind of backpack thing. “Just curious, are you a boy or girl?” I thought to ask.

“I don't understand,” he said after a moment.

“Are you a boy whatever you are or a girl one?”

“I do not know what you're talking about, earthling,” he said.

“Call me Zack,” I said in a friendly voice.

“I still do not know what you're talking about, Zack,” he said.

“What's your name again? I forgot.”

He looked at me for a full ten seconds before answering. “It's Amp.”

“Uh . . . Amp, where are your clothes?”

“Clothes? We Erdians are an advanced civilization and we can regulate our body temperature without clothes, thank you,” he said. “Tell me this: Why do you wear clothes, but your Mr. Jinxy does not?”

“What? Cats don't wear clothes,” I exclaimed. “That's ridiculous.”

“Interesting,” he said, and then he whispered into his wristband:

“Council Note: Human creatures are warm-blooded. They have a constant body temperature—but they insist on wearing clothes. Investigate further.”

“What was that?”

“What?”

“That thing you just did.”

“Notes for the Erde Council.”

“The Erde Council?”

“Erde is what we call my planet,” he said, shaking his head in frustration. “I already told you that. The Council is our supreme leaders. You are not a good listener, Zack McGee.”

“That's what my teacher says,” I said with a smile. He didn't smile back. He looked rather annoyed. “I'm not going to eat you, you know,” I explained.

“Thanks for that,” he said, throwing his arms up in frustration.

I shrugged. “You're kinda moody, you know that?”

“You're kinda moody, you know that?” he said back, imitating me.

“Be quiet now,” I whispered.

“You be quiet now!” he squeaked angrily as I stepped out into the kitchen and skittered toward the stairs in my bare feet.

Light suddenly filled the hallway and I froze. “What's going on, Zack?” It was my dad. He was standing in the doorway to his office.

I slowly dropped the hand holding the Erdian guy to my side, like I was sneaking a cookie. “Nothing. Why?”

“Why?” he asked, puzzled. “Well, because it's two hours past your bedtime and you're running around the house in your underwear.”

I looked down, trying to come up with a reason for not wearing pants. “My pajamas are around here somewhere,” I said lamely, looking around.

“I heard a loud thump earlier and a big bang just a minute ago. What's going on?”

I could feel Amp squirming, but I didn't dare reveal my hidden hand.

I gulped. “Uh . . . My pants were muddy, so I left them in the laundry room for Mom.”

“How'd your pants get muddy?”

“Good question,” I said, trying to think of some good excuses for my weird behavior. I came up with nothing.

“Go to bed, Zack,” he moaned. “You've got school tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I peeped, then shot up the stairs, zipped down the hallway, and closed my door quietly behind me.

It had flashed through my mind that I should tell my dad, but I just couldn't share my secret, not just yet. This was
my
discovery. Everybody in my house was a science big shot. Maybe now
I
would be the big shot, too. Images of me and my alien on the covers of magazines flashed through my mind: “Science Whiz Kid Captures Blue Alien!”

“I can't breathe!” the creature wheezed from between my fingers.

“Oh, sorry,” I said. “Must be all the excitement.”

He gulped for air. “That earthling was even bigger than you!” he said with tiny, wide eyes. “My size charts are all wrong.”

“That's my dad,” I explained. “I'm just a kid. I'm pretty small, actually, but I'll grow bigger.”

“Blast!” he said, pounding his little fist into the palm of his other hand. “Our calculations were way off. This is a disaster!”

“What's a disaster?”

“You're much too big for what we were planning,” he said, distracted.

“Don't worry, little man, I'll take care of you.”

“You don't understand!” he shouted, grabbing his forehead with both hands.

I laughed at his high voice, which sounded extra funny when he was mad.

“Why are you laughing? This is an intergalactic snafu of epic proportions!”

“I'm not even sure what that means,” I said.

“I need to get back to Erde and call off the attack,” he said, looking over at his now-quiet spaceship.

“You can't leave!” I cried. “You just got here! I've got to show you off. Maybe enter you in the science fair. We can be on magazine covers.”

“No, you want me to leave, trust me,” he said. “And you can't tell anybody about me.”

“Oh, come on, you don't strike me as the shy type. We could be on TV!”

“If your leaders learn of me, I'll never get home in time,” he squeaked.

“Relax, I'll take care of you. I'll be your agent. Cool?”

“What's an agent?” he said, suddenly concerned.

“You know,” I said, trying to figure out what I was talking about. “For movies, TV shows, comic books. Hey, can you sing?”

“I don't know what you're talking about, Zack!”

“We'll be famous.”

“We don't have time to be famous. You have to help me repair that,” he said, pointing at his spaceship.

“Me?” I said. “I've never fixed a thing in my life! And besides, my wall didn't hit you, you hit my wall!”

“What do you know about repairing an initial launch system?” he asked.

“Not a single thing. Breaking things is more my specialty.”

“Not anymore,” he said with a nod. “If we don't fix my ship, the entire Erdian army is going to invade Earth.”

I knew he was right. I had to help. If one of him could cause this much trouble, a whole army of Amps would probably get me grounded for life.