“You hear me, Purplebutt?” asked Jordan, reaching out to give Pleskit a little shove. “I asked you a question.”
I looked around for McNally. He was still tangled up with the reporter.
“Don’t touch me,” said Pleskit.
Jordan gave him another shove.
“I’m serious!” said Pleskit. “Don’t touch me!”
The knob on his head was really fizzing now. I was relieved to see McNally running in our direction. The cameraman was right behind him. Before they could reach us, Jordan gave Pleskit another shove.
The knob on Pleskit’s head made a sizzling sound. A bolt of purple energy came blasting out.
Jordan let out a squawk and fell over backward.
Pleskit groaned and fell to his knees.
Jordan lay on the ground without moving.
CHAPTER 10 [PLESKIT]
DISGRACE
I did not mean to blast Jordan like that. But as we say on Hevi-Hevi, “Sometimes the body has a mind of its own.”
It did not help that my actual mind was not working all that well at the time. The stress of our move to Earth, the disaster of my first day at school, my fear of screwing up—all these things had weakened my resolve. So when Jordan became more and more threatening, I lost control of the sphen-gnut-ksher. It moved into protective mode and sent out an energy surge.
Even so, I did not expect it to be such a problem. I mean, I had not injured him or anything. But as soon as I heard people start to scream, I knew I had been wrong about that. I was in trouble again.
These people must not understand kling-kphut very well, I thought. Then my knees bent and I fell to the ground.
As I dropped into Recovery Mode, I heard Ms. Weintraub scream, “Pleskit, what have you done?” This made me sad. I liked Ms. Weintraub and did not want her to think badly of me.
Roaring for everyone to stand aside, McNally elbowed his way through the crowd. He knelt beside me, but I could tell he was confused. Should he tend to me or—since I was clearly still alive—go see to Jordan? But Ms. Weintraub was already with Jordan. So my bodyguard knelt beside me and said softly, “You all right, kid?”
“I will recover.” I shook my head slightly. “A blast such as that pulls a great deal of energy out of me. As soon as my sphen-gnut-ksher gathers more, I will be fine.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered. He was looking around protectively. “Look, I can understand why you might want to blast that Jordan twerp. But you’d better tell me quick how bad it is. What did you do to him?”
“I put him in kling-kphut,” I said.
Looking beyond McNally, I saw we were surrounded by kids. But instead of crowding in, they were standing several feet back. They looked excited—and frightened.
Mr. Grand pushed his way through the group, roaring, “Get back! Get back from here, all of you!” He stopped in front of me. Staring down, he screamed, “Look, Pleskit, I don’t care what planet you’re from, you can’t bring a weapon to school!”
I felt my clinkus shrivel up. No one had ever spoken to me like this before. Ever. Not even on Geembol Seven.
I put my hand to my head, clutching my sphen-gnut-ksher protectively. “This isn’t a weapon,” I said. “We don’t believe in weapons. It’s part of my body!”
I was shaking, and my nose was shedding copious tears.
“Look!” cried one of the kids. “He’s got purple snot!”
“It’s not snot!” I replied. “It’s tears. I weep for your people.”
Suddenly I heard a familiar voice. It was Kitty James, the television woman I had been talking with earlier. She no longer sounded friendly. Her voice harsh, she asked, “What do you have to say for yourself now, Pleskit Meenom?”
I looked up.
She was holding a microphone toward me.
Trang, the man with the camera, was standing behind her.
McNally leaped to his feet. “Get that camera away from here!” They began to wrestle.
Terror and embarrassment flooded through me. Despite my solemn vow that this time, for once, I would not mess things up, disgrace again seemed waiting to devour me. All I could think was: My father will be furious.
“He’s not breathing!” shouted one of the people who was kneeling over Jordan. “He’s not breathing!”
“Of course he’s not breathing,” I said, disgusted at their stupidity. “I put him into kling-kphut!”
McNally pulled away from the cameraman. Kneeling beside me again, he fixed his eyes on mine. His voice intense, almost pleading, he whispered, “Pleskit, tell me straight out. Is that kid going to die?”
The question was so absurd that I began to laugh.
McNally drew back, looking shocked and horrified.
That stopped my laughter cold. “Of course he’s not going to die,” I said. “In fact, when he wakes up—which will be in about ten minutes—he’s going to feel quite a bit better than I do right now.”
Kitty James didn’t show that part on television.
She just showed me laughing when McNally asked if Jordan was going to die.
CHAPTER 11 [TIM]
BEGGING
After Pleskit zapped Jordan, they closed school for the day. This was complicated, since most of our parents work, and the school had to call and make sure we all had places to go.
Personally, I thought they should just have kept us there. Jordan was up and walking, so it was clear he was all right. So why make such a big deal out of it? Sometimes I think people only get upset because you tell them they’re supposed to. It’s like my cousin Jared, who’s learning to walk. When he falls down, he doesn’t cry—unless his mother happens to notice him and goes running over yelping, “Jared! Are you all right, sweetie?” Then he busts into tears and cries like crazy.
But no one asked my opinion, so we got sent home. Linnsy and I walked together. The fact that she was willing to be seen with me shows she was pretty upset. “Do you think it’s safe to be around that kid?” she asked me three times.
“Of course it’s safe, Linnsy. He’s more afraid of us than we are of him!”
But I wasn’t sure she believed me.
We stopped at the top of the bridge, which gave us a really good view of the embassy rising from its hill in Thorncraft Park. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
“Maybe Pleskit will have a birthday party, and we’ll all get invited,” I said hopefully.
“What makes you think he was born?” asked Linnsy.
I was impressed. That was a very good question.
* * *
When I got home, Mom was there, watching TV. The news was playing the footage of Pleskit zapping Jordan. I would have thought it was a coincidence, me walking in at that very moment, but as it turned out they were playing that scene every five minutes. I bet anyone who spent an hour watching TV that afternoon could have closed their eyes and run the footage in their head, they would have seen it so many times.
Then they showed Pleskit laughing when McNally asked if Jordan was going to die.
It made him look horrible, like a monster.
“That’s a lie!” I cried, the first time I saw it.
“The film doesn’t lie, Tim,” said my mother wearily.
“Well, it’s not telling the whole truth. I was there. I saw it. The reason Pleskit laughed was that the very idea that he had killed Jordan was stupid. He hadn’t even hurt him, for pity’s sake. He just put him to sleep for a while because he thought Jordan was attacking him. Which he was. They don’t show him talking about that. So they’re lying!”
My mother started to say something, but the next thing they showed was an interview with Senator Hargis, and we both wanted to hear it.
It was disgusting.
“I repeatedly warned the president that this kind of thing could happen,” said Senator Hargis. “No good can come of letting these so-called extraterrestrials take root on American soil! What more evidence do we need that these aliens are hostile, that they
should not be allowed to walk among us? What kind of fools are we, to let them into our world without a whimper of protest? The time has come to send them back to where they came from!”
“He makes me sick,” I said.
“I don’t like him much, either,” said my mother. “But I’m beginning to wonder if he might have a point.”
“Mom!”
“Listen, Tim—I’m not sure what’s going to happen. But if they let that boy back into school, I want you to stay away from him. I’m just not convinced it’s safe to be around him.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. My own mother was turning into an anti-alien bigot.
The time had come for the Ultra Beg, which is a tactic I only take out under extreme circumstances. Throwing myself on the floor, I grabbed her feet and began to plead.
“Please, Mom, oh please please please please please. You don’t know how much this means to me. It’s the most important thing in my entire life I have been waiting forever to meet an alien I want this more than anything else in the entire world and if you don’t let me be friends with him I’ll probably die and even if I don’t it will ruin my life and I’ll never be the same again and probably grow up to be some warped psychotic or even a criminal mastermind or something and it will be all your fault because you thwarted my deepest desire and I want this more than anything else I’ve ever wanted ever ever ever so PLEASE don’t tell me I can’t be friends with him!”
For a while I thought I had her. The Ultra Beg always gets her laughing (you have to hear it yourself to get the full effect, since I do really good pleading sounds). But despite the fact that she got laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe, when she finally calmed down and wiped the tears out of her eyes, she said, “Oh, Tim. I know how much you want to be friends with Pleskit. But I don’t want to get a message from school some afternoon telling me that my son has just been fried. No. Stay away from him.”
I felt totally betrayed. I figure if you get someone to laugh like that, they really owe you a favor. Besides, Mom was just plain wrong on this one. Then, to make things worse, she hit me with the one thing I can’t answer and can’t joke about.
“Listen, Tim. You’re my only guy now that your father’s gone. I can’t stand the thought of losing you, too.”
We were at the edge of a major fight. It was sidetracked by Linnsy, who had come down to fill us in on the latest news. (Linnsy’s mom is like gossip central; if there’s any dirt to be had, she’s got it.)
“Not only is Jordan fine,” said Linnsy, “he’s bragging about being the first victim of alien aggression. His father has announced he’s going to file a lawsuit against the aliens, and against the government for letting them settle here.”
“They got the ingredients for Jordan and his father from the same pot of puke,” I said, sticking my fingers down my throat and making gagging noises.
“Tim!” said my mother.
“Well, it’s true. You’ve got to let me try to be friends with Pleskit, Mom. Don’t you see what’s at stake? The aliens can take us to the stars. They can save us from ourselves!”
“Or they can just fly away and leave us to rot in our own pollution, and blow ourselves up,” said Linnsy.
I looked at her gratefully.
“Sorry, Tim. I still want you to stay away from him.”
I had never disobeyed my mother before—at least, not in anything big. But we had to prove to the aliens that we were worthy of their friendship. I had to prove it, since I was sure I was the only one who could really understand Pleskit.
I was going to make friends with him even if it killed me.
Which, as it turned out, it nearly did.
CHAPTER 12 [PLESKIT]
GLOOM AND DOOM
For the second day in a row I got to go home early. The difference was, this time everyone else went home, too.
McNally barely spoke as the limousine drove us back to the embassy. At first I thought he was mad at me. But just before we got there, he muttered, “Sorry, Pleskit. This wouldn’t have happened if I had been watching more closely.”
The idea of having someone to blame was very tempting. But I sent him the smell of sorrow and said aloud, “It is not your fault.”
“It happened while I was your bodyguard,” said McNally gruffly. “That makes it my fault.”
* * *
The news had reached the embassy ahead of us, of course. Mikta-makta-mookta met us at the entrance. Her beady eyes, usually so bright, were dulled by concern.
“Things are not good,” she said.
“Does the Fatherly One want to see me?”
“He will, when things settle down a little. Right now he is talking to the president of our host country. The secretary general of the United Nations is waiting on another line. And he has to contact Perffl Giffikt at Galactic Headquarters.”
I groaned. Perffl Giffikt, the Fatherly One’s boss, is not very tolerant of mistakes—especially ones made by me.
“Come,” said Mikta-makta-mookta, taking my hand. “Let’s go to the room where food is made.”
The rest of the staff was there already. You could feel the gloom in the air. Even Shhh-foop was unhappy. Her tentacles were drooping, and she barely cared when McNally choked on his coffee and then set the cup aside.
“Your Fatherly One should have listened to the advice he was given,” grumbled Barvgis. He was eating fresh squirmers, which he always did when he was upset.
“What advice?” I asked.
Barvgis bit the head off a squirmer and sighed. “The High Council did not want you to come on this mission. But Meenom refused to consider leaving you behind. ‘If I go, I take my boy with me,’ he said, over and over again.”
This gave me very confused feelings in my plinktum. I was surprised, and happy, to learn that the Fatherly One had insisted on bringing me. But it also made me feel worse than ever that I had let him down.
“What can I do?” I groaned.
“Nothing, probably,” said Barvgis gloomily. He picked up a whole handful of squirmers and stuffed them in his mouth, ignoring their tiny screams. “Looks like we’re about to get recalled from another planet,” he said, tucking in one of the squirmers that was trying to crawl out. “Maybe I should start packing.”
If I hadn’t already known how bad things were, that would have convinced me. It was almost a relief when the Bloop-Bloop sounded, summoning me to the Fatherly One’s office.
* * *
The Fatherly One was pacing back and forth in front of the command pod. As soon as he saw me, he waved his hands, cracking his knuckles in a symphony of distress. His sphen-gnut-ksher was emitting the odors of despair.
After a moment he stopped. Changing to Earthling talk, he said, “I apologize for breaking my own rule about not using our native language. But today’s events have driven me to vexation!” Then he farted angrily. That made me nervous; it was unusual for him to swear like that.
“Do you have any idea how difficult you have made things for me—for us—for the mission?” he asked.
“Is it really bad?” I replied, my voice meek.
“Is a plonkus fat? I have been working since we first made contact with the Earthlings to convince them that we are not dangerous. It has taken you less than two days to create an image that undercuts everything I have done—an image being broadcast repeatedly all over the planet.”
“But I did not hurt the boy!” I said desperately. “I only put him in kling-kphut!”
“What really happened does not matter!” said the Fatherly One. “This is politics. What matters is what people think happened. Have you seen the news coverage?”
He burped a command and the large screen lit up. The face of Kitty James, the woman who had interviewed me, appeared. She looked very serious. At first I thought the Fatherly One had contacted her on his communicator. Then I realized that he was showing me her broadcast.
Speaking in tones of deep concern, she said, “After the alien blasted young Jordan Lynch, h
e showed a depraved indifference to the effects of his action.”
The screen cut to a picture of me lying on the ground, with McNally leaning over me. “Pleskit,” he whispered, “tell me straight out. Is that kid going to die?”
The me on the screen began to laugh. McNally drew back, looking shocked and horrified.
I waited for the screen to show what I had said next—that Jordan wasn’t going to die, and in fact he would feel better than I did when he woke up. To my horror, the segment ended with me laughing at McNally’s question.
“That’s not fair!” I cried. “It doesn’t show everything that happened!”
“Fair is not the issue,” said the Fatherly One. “When you are on display, as we are, you have to be twice as good as everyone else.” He sat down on one of the lumps in the floor and put his head between his hands. “Perhaps I asked too much of you, putting you out in public like that.”
“No, Fatherly One,” I said, sinking down beside him. “It is I who have failed you. I feel great sorrow.”
He put his arm around me, which he does not do very often.
“Is it true that we may get recalled?” I asked.
He emitted the smell of uncertainty. “That possibility exists. Perffl Giffikt is not happy.”
“Perffl Giffikt is never happy,” I pointed out.
The Fatherly One smiled just a little bit at that, then said, “Well, he is very not happy right now.”
I wanted to ask what it would mean if we were to be called back, but I was afraid to. I thought the answer might be too upsetting to bear. Then I remembered something else that was bothering me. “There is one thing I do not understand,” I said. “If Earthlings value truth so much—”
My question was interrupted by the voice of Mikta-makta-mookta coming through the speaker. “I have managed to contact Senator Hargis. Do you want to speak to him now?”
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