Triple Trouble

by Elise Allen

  She led Edwina and Gabby down a long hall, ignoring the shouts of “Hey! I thought I was next!” and “Come on, when’s it my turn?” from angry customers. The hallway was covered in olive vine wallpaper, and the hostess soon stopped, looked both ways, then stood on tiptoe and placed her hand f lat on a bunch of olives.

  An otherwise invisible panel slid open to reveal a well-lit staircase.

  “Thank you,” Edwina said.

  She led the way, and Gabby followed. The panel slid closed the second they crossed the threshold. All the noise from the restaurant disappeared, but Gabby didn’t hear anything from the P.T.A. meeting. The stairway was clearly soundproofed—a precaution, Gabby figured, against anyone hearing something they shouldn’t.

  When Edwina opened the door at the bottom of the stairs, Gabby saw almost the exact scene she’d witnessed on the Martian’s screen. There was the same conference table with the red button, and the same array of unique and varied aliens. This time, however, there were some differences. For starters, she hadn’t noticed before that the entire table was covered with bowls of breadsticks. More importantly, no one was shouting, not even Blinzarra and the squidlike Esquagonian at the head of the table. The two of them sat back to back, arms and tentacles crossed, while the furry orange woman with the duck beak, googly eyes, and bunny ears—the Universal Head of Cosmotic Affairs who most decidedly did not look like a sports team mascot—crouched between them and spoke in soft, reasonable tones. Everyone else in the room was fixated on something else Gabby hadn’t seen earlier: the large screen at the end of the room. Gabby was sure this was where the P.T.A. meeting had seen Sharli and Sneakers with the Martian disguised as an Esquagonian. Now it showed a countdown in large red numbers:

  00:01:45 and counting.

  One minute and forty-five seconds until Blinzarra launched the ultimate weapon that would plunge the Universe into war.

  “I apologize for the interruption”—Edwina’s voice was loud and crisp, and everyone in the room turned to face her—“but I’m here with Gabby Duran, A.L.I.E.N. Associate 4118-25125A. She was an eyewitness to the kidnapping and can confirm that it was not the—”

  It all happened in the blink of an eye. Gabby saw a man step toward them. He was tall and bloated, with what looked like one strand of greasy gray hair wrapped around and around his head to make it seem like he wasn’t bald. He pulled a wide-mouthed hair dryer from the small of his back and pointed it at her and Edwina, but in the second it took her to realize it wasn’t a hair dryer, but a weapon, he had already fired twice.

  The shots made no sound, but Gabby’s whole body gave a single jolt like she’d received an electric shock. Next to her, Edwina jolted, too.

  Then she stopped making sound as well.

  Her lips continued to move for a moment, but when she realized nothing was coming out she first grabbed her throat, then glared balefully at the bloated man.

  “My apologies for my employee,” the man said, addressing the group. “She’s acting above her pay grade and doesn’t know what she’s talking about. We all know who kidnapped your child, Blinzarra. And while, Ralph, I understand you say the order didn’t officially come from Esquagon”—the man gave an exaggerated shrug and a small chuckle, just to make clear he didn’t believe that for a second—“official or not, we all know who did it. Now look, I want peace as much as anybody else, but Miravlad has to have the right to defend themselves. Same as Esquagon.”

  Several things clicked in for Gabby as the man spoke. First, the Esquagonian ambassador was named Ralph, which was totally unexpected. Second and arguably more importantly, the bloated man had to be Eugene, Edwina’s superior. Third, Eugene was lying, which led Gabby to her fourth conclusion: their theory had been correct, and the Chief Executive Overseer of A.L.I.E.N. was secretly in cahoots with Mars, working against every other planet in the universe for his own gain.

  The P.T.A. needed to know. Gabby looked at the countdown. She had exactly one minute to tell them.

  “He’s lying!” Gabby shouted, but the words didn’t come out. Eugene’s weapon had stolen her voice. Just like Edwina, she was totally mute. She tried again, waving her arms and screaming as loud as she could, but absolutely nothing came out.

  Eugene turned to address someone behind Gabby. “Guards.”

  A hand grasped Gabby’s right arm, but she kept trying desperately to talk to the P.T.A. members, even though she knew she couldn’t make a sound.

  Eugene, meanwhile, looked at Blinzarra, his face filled with sympathy. “I apologize for the interruption,” he said, “but even more for leaving your child so vulnerable. The Unsittables program was Edwina’s idea, and obviously her character judgment is lacking. Gabby Duran is clearly not qualified to watch anyone’s children, never mind those of an important intergalactic diplomat such as yourself. She’s a terrible babysitter.”

  Gabby saw red. Literally. She had never been so angry in her life.

  She was a great babysitter. If she knew one thing in her life, she knew that. And this man—this lying, selfish, corrupt, swirly-strand-hair man—was going to tell Sharli’s mom that she wasn’t?

  No way.

  Gabby didn’t care that she was in a room with the most powerful beings in the universe. She didn’t care about protocol, or being polite, or following the rules. She didn’t care that Eugene had stolen her voice. She was going to find a way to let this P.T.A. meeting know the truth about everything.

  And she had exactly thirty seconds to do it.

  The guard dragged Gabby farther back toward the door.

  She couldn’t tell the P.T.A. members what she’d seen, but maybe she could show them.

  In a single motion, Gabby ripped her arm out of the guard’s grip, swung her knapsack around, and opened the front pouch. She pulled out the pink acne-wipe patch she’d stashed there and slapped it on the back of her neck.

  Gabby felt nauseous and dizzy as her head stretched long and her body mushed down. Her eyes enlarged to platters. Her legs grew and split into four, eight, sixteen, more than twenty long tentacles that writhed and undulated and squirmed.

  Everyone in the room gasped. Everyone except Edwina, who simply smiled.

  Gabby was an Esquagonian now, just like the Martian had been.

  And in this body, she had a voice. She could feel it.

  Gabby stretched out her long, sucking, popping tentacles and climbed right on top of the conference table. Her writhing limbs knocked breadstick bowls into P.T.A. members’ laps, but she didn’t care. She just needed to be heard.

  “Blinzarra! Ralph!”

  Gabby’s voice grumbled and rasped. She looked at the countdown clock.

  Fifteen seconds.

  “Esquagon was framed by the Martians. They want the war so they can sell more weapons, and they offered Eugene a cut so he’d help,” Gabby said. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Eugene try to raise his weapon again, but three different aliens jumped to their feet and held him back. “Look at me. I’m not lying. You see how they did it. Now stop that launch sequence.”

  Blinzarra looked stunned, like she wasn’t sure she could believe her eyes.

  Gabby didn’t have time for that.

  Eight seconds left. With everyone’s eyes on her, she reached up a tentacle and ripped the pink circular patch off the back of her neck. Instantly, she was back in her own body, which felt oddly small and insubstantial. She dropped to her knees, right there on the table in front of Blinzarra…and right into the one remaining basket of breadsticks. Marinara dipping sauce soaked through Gabby’s jeans, but they’d been through worse today.

  Gabby stared into Blinzarra’s eyes. Blinzarra wasn’t a client now. She wasn’t an important alien ambassador. She was just wrong, and Gabby had to make her see what was right.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but now that she was back in her own body, her voice was gone. She kicked herself for forgetting and was about to put the patch back on when she jolted back with another electric shock.

/>   Gabby looked over her shoulder and saw Ganatel, the fuzzy orange Universal Head of Cosmotic Affairs, had moved next to Eugene and taken his hair-dryer blaster. It was still pointed at Gabby, and Ganatel nodded at her to continue. Gabby returned the nod, then turned back to Blinzarra.

  “I spent all day with your daughter today,” she said, her voice back strong as ever. “Sharli’s amazing. Don’t be a dupe and make her live through a Universal War. Don’t let Eugene and the Martians use you and Ralph to make themselves richer. Don’t do it.”

  Blinzarra’s face hardened. She looked like she was mad at Gabby, but Gabby didn’t care. As long as Blinzarra did the right thing.

  And she had two seconds left to do it.

  linzarra tapped a spot just above her left ear.

  “We’ve been deceived,” she said. “Stop the launch sequence.”

  The countdown clock froze with one second left.

  Everyone in the room released their collective breath.

  Ganatel fixed her googly eyes on Eugene. “You and I need to talk.”

  “About what?” Eugene asked. He tried to look calm, but rivers of sweat poured down his puffy cheeks. “You’re going to believe a child and a washed-up old agent over A.L.I.E.N.’s Chief Executive Overseer?”

  “Seeing as you purposely gagged these women to keep vital information from us, yes, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. The Martian who was being debriefed will remain in custody while we look into these allegations. And as for you…” She turned to two muscular women with purple skin. “Take him into custody.”

  “What?! No!” Eugene cried out as the two women took him by the elbows and led him toward the door. “This is absurd! I’m innocent! Let me go!”

  “Oh, by the way, Eugene,” Ganatel called out to him, “I’m the exact same age as Edwina, so please be careful how you use the words ‘old’ and ‘washed-up.’”

  Eugene turned bright red. “You…what? I mean…What I meant was…”

  But he was already out the door. Ganatel turned to Gabby and smiled. “Thank you, Gabby. It looks like you just saved the entire universe from a terrible mistake.”

  Gabby felt warm all over, but it could have been the marinara sauce still seeping into her jeans. Or maybe it was the thrill of being strong enough to step up and do whatever it took to be heard.

  She felt brazen. She liked it.

  “You’re welcome,” she said. Then she plopped down cross-legged on the table, freeing the breadstick bowl from under her knee. She picked up one that wasn’t overly smushed, dunked it in the remains of the marinara sauce, then took a big bite as she turned to Blinzarra and Ralph, who were having trouble meeting each other’s eyes. “Soooo, Blinzarra? Ralph? Think maybe you can just share Blartnok 939 so the whole universe can sleep at night and not worry about a giant war destroying everything?”

  Ralph looked up at the ceiling. He tented several pairs of his tentacles, popping their suction cups together and apart. Blinzarra looked down and tapped her foot on the f loor. Gabby pointed the breadstick at her.

  “Blinzarra…Sharli can share,” Gabby said. “She had to learn that from you. I know you can do it, too.”

  Blinzarra shot Gabby an amused look. “Yes,” she said. “I can share. All of Miravlad can.” She held her hand out to Ralph. “Ralph, shall we agree the planet should be split equally between Miravlad and Esquagon?”

  Ralph met her eyes and beamed. “Yes. Yes, we shall.”

  He took her hand in four of his tentacles and they shook. The room erupted in cheers, and Ganatel reached into a briefcase to pull out the actual planetary treaty that would settle their peace for good. The two leaders signed, then everyone cheered again.

  “Breadsticks for everyone!” Ganatel cried. “Let the hostess know. And tell her to crank up the cloning machine—we’re having never-ending pasta bowls, too!”

  More cheers, and a purple-skinned man nodded and slipped out the door.

  Then a loud foot-stamp echoed through the room.

  It was Edwina. Her lips were pursed and her brow furrowed. She was not happy.

  “Ah, of course,” Ganatel said. “My apologies.”

  She picked up Eugene’s hair-dryer gun and pointed it at Edwina, who reared back with the electric shock. She quickly righted herself and smoothed out her dark suit. “Certainly took you long enough,” she said.

  “My apologies,” Ganatel said. “Would it make you feel better if I said it seems likely you have a promotion in your future? I have a feeling we’ll need a new Chief Executive Overseer at A.L.I.E.N.”

  “You will,” Gabby said. “Everything I said is true. Sneakers and Sharli and Petey will back me up. I can tell you the whole story.”

  “You can tell all of us,” Ganatel said, “as we feast!”

  As if on cue, the door opened and several Pasta Garden servers came in to wipe down the conference table and set up a huge array of pasta dishes and breadsticks. None of them batted an eye at the wild assortment of creatures in the room, which was pretty amazing to Gabby. She had no idea Pasta Garden jobs required such specific training and security clearance. She’d give them much more respect from now on.

  As the setup went on, Gabby slid off the conference table and walked up to Edwina.

  “I know the fate of the whole Unsittables program was riding on how I did today…” she began.

  “Indeed,” said Edwina. “And you succeeded in getting two of your charges kidnapped, then bringing another with you to Mars—”

  “Not that Mars,” Gabby interjected.

  “Where you nearly got all four of you killed, then revealed the existence of alien life on Earth on live TV.”

  “True,” Gabby said. “But I also saved the entire universe, sooo…”

  The corner of Edwina’s mouth curled up the littlest bit. “I’m sure it will all work out.”

  “Especially since you’re gonna be the new head of A.L.I.E.N., right?”

  Gabby chucked Edwina companionably on the arm. Edwina raised an eyebrow and looked down at her.

  “We’ll just stop the conversation while we’re ahead,” Gabby said. “Breadstick?”

  The table was now fully laden with mass quantities of breadsticks and pasta, and before long everyone in the room was seated and tucking in. Gabby sat between Blinzarra and Ralph and held court, gripping everyone’s attention with her vivid stories about her trip to Mars and all her other babysitting adventures. She played the room with as much virtuosity as she played her French horn, milking every laugh, gasp, and stunned silence.

  Everyone was enjoying themselves so much, they barely noticed when the door opened. Then the hostess from upstairs cleared her throat. “Excuse me,” she said, leaning in, “but someone told me these three were interested in plindilini?”

  Gabby turned and saw Sharli was in the hostess’s arms. Sneakers walked by their side, with Petey standing on his head. Gabby jumped to her feet so quickly, she knocked her chair backward.

  “Petey! Sharli! Sneakers!”

  She ran for the kids, but Petey’s father beat her to it. He hopped onto the table, sprinted across, leaped onto Gabby’s shoulder, then slid down her arm and somersaulted to a landing on Sneakers’s head, where he hugged his son.

  “Petey! I missed you, buddy.”

  “Sharli-bear!” Blinzarra cried, and Gabby held back so the woman could make her way around the table and take her daughter into her arms.

  Gabby knelt down and hugged Sneakers, being careful not to jostle Petey and his dad.

  “You’re a good dog, Sneakers,” she told him. “The best.”

  When their parents had finished hugging them tight, Gabby hugged Sharli and gave Petey a high five. “You three are the most amazing kids I’ve ever babysat,” she declared. “And I sit for a lot of kids.”

  “Didja tell them?” Petey asked. “Didja tell ’em the best part?”

  “That you took the acne-wipe patch and turned yourself into an Esquagonian?”

  “No.”
>
  “That you programmed the transport pod to get us back to Earth?”

  “Nah. That’s cool, but come on!”

  “That you dove through lasers so we could get to Sharli and Sneakers?”

  “No! That Blinzarra used the S-word! And I heard it!”

  Petey danced on the conference table while his dad looked on, amused. Blinzarra blushed.

  “You must all be hungry after your adventure,” Blinzarra said, changing the subject. “Want breadsticks and pasta?”

  “Yeah!” cried Petey, and Sharli echoed him with a “YAH!” Sneakers barked.

  Everyone went back to the table and listened to the whole story again, but from Petey’s perspective, with Gabby throwing in commentary and reenacting the best bits with him. She was so involved in the storytelling, she didn’t even notice when Edwina and Ganatel pushed back from the table and retreated to a far corner to speak privately.

  “Your protégée did well,” Ganatel said.

  “She saved the universe,” Edwina replied.

  “We still have to do it, though. Her story is what’s going to bring down the Martian Empire. She’ll have enemies.”

  Edwina nodded. “I know.”

  “I wouldn’t if there were a better way,” Ganatel said. “We’ll all be forever grateful to her, but it’s for her own good.”

  “There’s just so much to alter,” Edwina said. “She’ll change.”

  Ganatel shrugged. “Sometimes change is good.”

  Edwina thought about that as she watched Gabby capture the attention of the entire room, jumping up to act out the most dramatic moments of her adventures in front of the most powerful creatures in the universe. There was a time when she would have shied away from that; now she was in her element. “You’re right,” she said. “Sometimes change is good.”

  “Of course, it won’t be just her. Her mother and sister will certainly need attention, and probably her two best friends. Everyone else will accept the easy explanation: mother got a job out of town, family had to leave right away. We’ve both seen it work a million times.”