Dinosaur Boy Saves Mars (12 page)

When I woke up sometime later in the middle of the night, I had to remind myself where I was.

Mars. Where they want me to be the chancellor of the vote to kick the Plutonians out of the Intergalactic Soccer Federation.

That sentence definitely wouldn't have made any sense to me last week.

I looked over to the other side of the guest bed, expecting to see Elliot passed out and snoring. But instead, there was just a crumpled blanket and a dent in the pillow where his head had been.

Elliot was gone.

I didn't have to go far to find him. Elliot was in the living room. Alone. Doing soccer drills with a single-minded determination that could only mean he was upset about something.

“Elliot?” I asked.

“Busy!” he called, running in place and tapping first one foot, then the other on top of a stationary soccer ball.

“Doing what?”

“Practicing!”

“It's the middle of the night,” I pointed out. “Why are you practicing now?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because that triceratops scientist guy was right!”

“Huh?”

Elliot paused to wipe a streak of sweat off his forehead.

“I am a basic, run-of-the-mill, thoroughly uninteresting human,” he said and then abruptly turned his back, dribbling the ball toward the couch and away from me.

“That's ridiculous!” I said.

“Is it?” Elliot asked over one shoulder. “I'm not a hybrid, like you and Sylvie and your grandfather. I'm not blue like Venetio. I'm just an Earthling. There's nothing special about me.”

“Sure there is!” I said.

“Oh yeah? Name one thing!”

“Basketball!” I exclaimed. Which may have been sort of a weird thing to say when he was playing around with a soccer ball, but it was true. Basketball was Elliot's thing. He'd been wearing his University of Oregon Ducks jersey for the past three days. Not that either of us had brought a change of clothes with us to Mars, but still…

“Ha!” he scoffed over his shoulder.

“I'm serious!” I said, leaning against one side of the couch. “You're the best basketball player I know! You're going to be the star of that traveling team this summer. Everybody says so.”

He stopped, letting the soccer ball roll away from him. When he finally spoke, his voice was so quiet I could barely hear him. “I didn't make it.”

“Didn't make what?” I asked.

“The team. The traveling team. I tried out, but I didn't make it. They said no.”

“Oh.”

“Turns out, there's more to basketball than just being tall.”

“Oh,” I said again.

I didn't know what else to say. No wonder Elliot had been quiet lately. Ever since his growth spurt, basketball had been the only thing that made him feel normal. What would he do without that?

We stood in silence for a good minute or two. Finally, Elliot asked, “What am I doing here, Sawyer?”

I spread my hands.

“What are any of us doing here, Elliot? It's Mars! It would be weird if we didn't feel out of place.”

“But everybody else seems to have a reason for being here. Sylvie came to find her dad. Your grandfather is helping her. And he needed to bring you along to get us into the lab. And look at you! You've been here like five minutes and you're already famous. They want you to be chancellor! While I'm still just… What did Ms. Helen call me? ‘A faceless member of Sylvie's entourage.' Or maybe your entourage now, I don't know. I think I'm always going to be that. Faceless. Un-special.”

“Of course you're not,” I told him.

He shrugged and then looked down at the soccer ball.

“Maybe I just need a new thing. Venetio says I'd make a good soccer goalie. Maybe if I practice enough—”

“Elliot, that's not going to—”

“What do you know?” he demanded, starting to get angry now. “You don't get it! You're one of them now. You're famous!”

“I'm not—” I began. But then I remembered the magazine articles, and I stopped.

“What are you guys doing out here?”

Sylvie walked through the doorway, wearing pink plaid pajamas and a frown.

Elliot threw his hands up into the air.

“Oh perfect,” he said to the ceiling. “Another one.”

“Another one what?” Sylvie asked, crossing her arms defensively and leaning against an armchair.

“Another ‘special' person,” Elliot sneered. “I'm surrounded by extra-special people.”

Sylvie raised an eyebrow at me. I shrugged, not really sure how to explain.

She pointed a finger at Elliot.

“You don't know everything about me, Elliot,” she said warningly. “Don't pretend that you do!”

“And whose fault is that?” Elliot demanded, staring her down. “You don't tell anybody anything. I'm more mad at you than at anybody else.”

“At me?” Sylvie put her hands on her hips. “Why me?”

“Because! This whole thing with the Plutonians is your fault!”

“
My
fault?” Sylvie repeated, looking questioningly at me.

“Yes!” Elliot yelled. “Yours and every other stupid Martian on this planet!”

“What?” Sylvie exclaimed.

“Why do you hate the Plutonians so much?” he asked. “There's nothing wrong with them. Why go to all this trouble to keep them out of the ISF?”

“Because of the BURPSers, you idiot!” Sylvie spat at him. “They're dangerous! You heard what Dr. Marsh said they were planning to do—”

“The BURPSers didn't exist until the Martians got everyone to officially declare that Pluto isn't a planet anymore. Why'd you have to do that? Why couldn't you have just left them alone?”

Sylvie opened her mouth to reply and then closed it again.

“There isn't even a good reason for it, is there?” Elliot asked. “It was just mean. And the whole summit thing? The Friendship and Goodwill Game? It's bologna. It's just a show they're putting on to make people think the vote is fair. But it isn't. Everybody knows how it's going to go. The Martian Council has already decided.”

“So what?” Sylvie hissed. “Even if that's true, what should we do? Let the BURPSers take over Mars? Let them gene all of the Martians?”

“Maybe we should!” Elliot spat back at her. “Maybe the Martians should find out what it feels like to be one of us un-special ones for a change!”

“You can't possibly mean—” Sylvie started, but I cut her off.

“I have a plan,” I said. I did. Sort of. A strange, half-baked inkling of a plan, which Elliot's words had just added some fuel to. “I think there's a way we can save the Martians
and
the Plutonians. If we—”

“Just like we saved all of those bullies at our school from the Jupiterians?” Elliot scoffed. “Great. You guys go knock yourselves out. But I, for one, am totally sick of saving the bad guy. So you're just going to have to do this one without me.”

He spun around on his heel and marched into our room, leaving Sylvie and me alone in the living room.

Sylvie's lower lip was quivering.

“Are you OK?” I asked hesitantly. “He shouldn't have said those things. Not after everything that happened with your dad—”

“I'm fine.” Sylvie sniffed, and wiped her nose with the sleeve of her pajamas. She marched off toward her bedroom, pausing only to step over Venetio, who was asleep in his pile of blankets in front of her door.

• • •

I found my grandfather in the kitchen. Eating the remains of the giant salad Mrs. Juarez had made me for dinner.

Without a word, he passed me a fork. We chewed in silence for a couple of minutes.

“Can I ask you something?” I said finally.

“Shoot,” he said, spearing a piece of cucumber.

“The Star Wars plan,” I said and then hesitated about how to phrase the question. “Did you bring me on this trip just to use me?” I asked finally.

“Use you?” he asked, his mouth full.

“Yeah. You know, because of my dinosaur parts. Was I just an excuse to get us into the lab?”

My grandfather swallowed.

“Sawyer, I brought you on this trip because you are a brave, resourceful, and smart kid. I knew finding Sylvie's dad was going to be tough. And when I thought about who could help me do it, you immediately came to mind. I didn't think up the Star Wars thing until after we got here.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling a bit foolish.

“Why would you ask me that?”

I shrugged. “I don't know. Elliot was saying something to me about everybody having a purpose here. And I guess I don't really understand yours. Why do you care so much about finding Sylvie's dad?”

My grandfather rubbed the back of his neck like it was sore or something.

“Well, partly because she's your friend and she was worried about him. And partly because…well, because of Gloria,” he stammered, turning a bit red.

They had been holding hands! I knew it!

“Oh. So you and Sylvie's mom…” I didn't know quite what to say to that.

“We didn't want to tell you and Sylvie until we were sure it was serious.”

“Is it serious?” I asked hesitantly. “I mean, do you, like, love her and stuff?”

“I do,” my grandfather said. And his eyes went all soft, sort of gooey. I had never seen him look like that before. “She was worried about her ex-husband. I thought if I could find him, I could put her mind at ease. I thought it would be something I could do for her. Before…”

He trailed off, then paused to stretch the back of his neck.

“Enough about me,” he said finally. “What about you? Have you given any more thought to the chancellor thing?”

“I know you don't want me to do it,” I said quickly.

He grimaced, still rubbing his neck.

“I know you keep saying this isn't our problem, that we shouldn't get involved,” I added. “But I've been thinking… Maybe it should be our problem.”

He groaned.

“No, seriously,” I went on. “I mean, what will happen to the Plutonians if they're never anybody's problem? And what about the Martians who are going to get gened? Maybe I'm the only one impartial enough to—”

My grandfather groaned again, and I was beginning to think it didn't have anything to do with what I was saying.

“Are you OK?” I asked, standing up in alarm.

“I'm fine,” my grandfather said, but I could tell he wasn't. He was breathing hard and when he stood up, he had to hold on to the edge of the table. “I just—”

He groaned again and leaned forward over the table.

“My jacket,” he said, his voice tight. “Help me get it off!”

I rushed around behind him and helped him ease one arm, and then the other, out of his sleeves. But it wasn't until I peeled the jacket off his back that I saw why he was in so much pain.

There were holes in the back of the white, button-down shirt he was wearing underneath. Two long rows of them. And each hole had a tiny, stegosaurus plate peeking through it.

The jacket fell from my hands and made a leather puddle on the kitchen floor.

“But—the cure! You took the cure!” I stammered.

My grandfather sighed in relief and sank back down into his chair, only to jump up again a second later, grabbing his backside.

His tail, I realized. His tail is growing back too!

“The cure stopped working a couple of weeks ago,” he explained, bracing his elbows on the table and lowering himself gently so that only one side of his bottom rested on the very edge of the chair. “At least I suspected that's what was happening. I had the symptoms: pain, hunger. But my blood tests were inconclusive. I wasn't one hundred percent sure what was happening until a couple of days ago. When everything started to grow back.”

“So the cure doesn't work?” I asked, thinking of the blue vial sitting on top of my bookcase at home. It had been my choice not to take it. I had chosen to stay part dinosaur. But I had always sort of liked the idea that it was there. Just in case. But now…

“Evidently not.” My grandfather sighed, still shifting around the chair, trying to find a comfortable position.

“So if the BURPSers gene all of the Martians, like Dr. Marsh said they were going to, he won't be able to turn them back? The cure won't work?”

“No, it won't,” my grandfather said, wincing as he accidentally shifted his weight onto his tail stub. “This is what comes of fooling around with things you don't fully understand. I warned Otto this would happen. I tried to tell him what was happening with me—”

“You did! You did start to tell him! Right before I—” I remembered suddenly, then I felt my heart sink. “Right before I triggered the alarm. It's my fault. I didn't let you finish.”

My grandfather risked his precarious balance to put a hand on my arm.

“He wouldn't have believed me anyway,” he told me. “You heard him. He's too far gone. Too obsessed with his own genius to admit failure or even a fault. It wouldn't have mattered if I had told him everything.”

“What about the Martian police?” I persisted. “You told Ms. Helen and Chancellor Fontana where the lab is, right? Couldn't they—”

“I spoke to Ms. Helen when we returned to the apartment, and again just a few moments ago. The Martian police found the lab, but the scientists and Sylvie's father had already sealed themselves inside. Ms. Helen thinks it'll be at least twenty-four hours before the Martians can blast their way in. By then—”

“The summit will be over,” I finished heavily.

My grandfather nodded.

“Which says to me that Dr. Marsh has already done his part and is just biding his time. Whatever he and the BURPSers are planning, I'll bet it happens soon. We have to think of a way to keep the Martians from kicking the Plutonians out of the ISF tomorrow.”

I stared down at the table. Somebody had to do something. But did it really have to be me?

“Hey,” I said, thinking of something else. “When you said you wanted to do something for Sylvie's mom ‘before.' Did you mean before all of your dinosaur parts came back?” I asked.

My grandfather sighed heavily.

“I've been down this road before, Sawyer. With your grandmother.”

“My grandmother?” I repeated. I tried to think if he had ever mentioned her before. My mother only brought her up occasionally. And never in a particularly nice way.

“Yes. She was a paleontologist, of all things, so she understood more than most what was happening to me. She was supportive at first. But eventually, she decided she didn't want to be married to a part-dinosaur. What if Gloria—”

“What if Gloria what?”

Mrs. Juarez was standing in the doorway. From there, she had a perfect view of my grandfather's back. And his two rows of budding plates.

My grandfather's head snapped up at the sound of her voice. I could see the muscles in his arms tighten, like he was thinking about jumping up or turning around or doing something to hide what was happening to him. But instead, he stayed perfectly still and stared blankly at the tabletop.

“Oh,” Mrs. Juarez said quietly. “Oh my…”

“I'd better get some sleep,” I said, getting up from my chair as quickly as I could and leaving the two of them alone in the kitchen.