“I tell you, I miss each and every one of the eighty-seven moons of Lyttyrboks,” Klawde said. “I even miss the toxic yellow atmosphere of Number Seventy-Four.”
“And I miss all of Brooklyn,” I said. “Even the toxic green water of the Gowanus Canal.”
“Human,” Klawde said with a sigh, “we are both in exile.”
CHAPTER 28
The Humans have a primitive information-sharing system they call “the internet,” which we used to find parts I needed for the teleporter. To purchase them, the boy-ogre entered a series of numbers into a touch screen and said, “It’s a good thing Dad never checks his credit card statements.”
I did not know what that meant.
Once the Human finished placing the order, I went to the front portal.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I am going to receive the parts.” How dumb was he?
“But they won’t be here for two days,” the boy-Human said.
“Two days!” I said. “What kind of instant ordering takes two days?”
The aggravation of this primitive world!
“What do you need a vacuum chamber for, anyway?” the boy-Human asked. “Or a photonic logic gate?”
The young ogre’s endless questions bored me, so I took a nap. Despite the delays, we were making progress on the device. I calculated that within four days’ time, I would be able to return home.
General Ffangg will rue the day he crossed whiskers with me! I could almost taste my REVENGE!!
CHAPTER 29
Monday.
Even by Monday standards, this was a terrible Monday.
I couldn’t believe I had to leave my talking alien cat to go suffer another week of Camp Eclipse. The week that would end with Survival Night! Honestly, rocketing into space with Klawde sounded way less terrifying.
“But it’s a game,” Mom said at breakfast. “You love games.”
“Board games, Mom,” I said. “Not try-not-to-die games.”
I told her that I refused to go back for another week.
And then we got in the car.
As the Prius silently glided into the Mount Eclipse parking lot, my heart sank. I left my cell phone and shoes in the Forbidden Basket and made the dreaded walk to the Speaking Stump.
“We begin this week with the Pack Challenges,” Turkey Vulture announced excitedly. “They will help prepare you for surviving the apocalypse. For surviving . . . SURVIVAL NIGHT!”
Turkey Vulture looked straight at me.
“Survival Night is more than a game,” he went on. “Paintball is a game. Dungeons and Dragons is a game. Survival Night is REAL. For twenty-four hours, you will be living in a postapocalyptic world.”
Then Turkey Vulture’s voice got very soft. “The year is 2047, and global warming has caused the seas to rise one hundred feet. The world economy has been destroyed. No technology exists! The internet is DEAD!”
I gasped.
“What few humans remain have taken to higher ground, and only those who can adapt will survive. The question you must ask yourself is . . . will you be one of them?”
“YES!” Scorpion yelled, and he and the rest of the Cold Bloods cheered. So did Cedar.
“Why are you clapping?” I whispered. “This sounds terrible!”
“It’s going to be amazing!” Cedar said. “This is why we wanted to come to the camp, Rat!”
“What we?” I said. “My mom forced me to come.”
Turkey Vulture explained that today’s challenge was a race to build a shelter on the top of Mount Eclipse.
“Okay, guys,” Cedar said, turning to me and Steve. “There aren’t many trees at the top of the mountain, so we should collect our branches and leaves here at the base. Let’s fan out and meet at the top. Now go, go, go!”
As I gathered sticks on my own, Newt broke off from the Cold Bloods and came over to me.
“I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I was the new kid last year, so I know what it’s like,” she whispered. “The main path to the summit takes forever. But there’s a shortcut.” She looked around to see if anyone was listening. “Go across the sword fern meadow and head through the pines. You’ll get there way ahead of everyone else!” Then she sprinted off to join the other Cold Bloods.
The sword fern meadow? That was where we foraged for snails. I actually knew where that was!
I started running with my armful of sticks and leaves. I sprinted through the meadow and up into the woods. This was way faster.
And then I got to the chain-link fence.
A sign read:
PATH TO SUMMIT CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE
That slimy, rotten Newt! She tricked me!
CHAPTER 30
The boy-Human’s inability to focus was needlessly delaying the work he and his thumbs needed to do. He could not stop bellyaching about the military camp he attended.
It seemed that one of his enemies had tricked him into following the wrong course in a war-training exercise, causing Raj’s battalion to lose.
“You must declaw this Newt and chop off her tail!” I said.
“But she’s a kid. She doesn’t have claws or a tail.”
I sighed. Did this Human have no imagination? “Then rip all the fur off her head,” I said. “Now take the alphaphotonic coil and connect it to the barytrine barrier.”
“What?” the boy-Human said.
“Stick those two things together, you fool!”
“Darn it! Now the remote is broken, too!” I heard the father-Human say upstairs. “And what happened to all the batteries?” Next came the sound of kitchen drawers slamming.
I feared the father-Human had begun to get suspicious.
“I just don’t know what to do,” the boy-ogre said. “I let my team down, and without them, I’m all alone in that crazy place. Why did Newt trick me like that?”
I looked firmly at the boy-ogre. “We have a saying on my planet: All is fair in war!”
“Oh, we have that saying, too,” he said. “Except it’s all is fair in love and war.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I muttered.
“Klawde, you were the greatest leader your planet ever had. Don’t you have any advice for me?”
I sighed. I could see the boy-ogre would be incapable of helping me unless I helped him first. Perhaps I could turn him into an adequate soldier yet.
“We have another saying on my planet,” I said. “He who climbs the highest tree has not the sharpest claws, but the strongest heart!”
The boy-Human nodded, in awe of this ancient feline wisdom.
Or not. It was impossible to tell what these Humans were thinking with their expressionless faces!
CHAPTER 31
Tuesday.
“I heard you got lost yesterday,” Scorpion said. “Did you have to call a cab to get to the summit?”
He and the other Cold Bloods burst out laughing.
“It was that jerk’s fault and you know it,” Cedar said, pointing at Newt, who grinned proudly. “If it wasn’t for that trick, we would’ve built a great shelter.”
“Yeah, but you built a brush pile!” Snake said. “Good luck sleeping there on Survival Night!”
The flapping and hissing began as Turkey Vulture mounted the Speaking Stump. He picked right back up where he’d left off the day before.
“Imagine, my young survivalists, the seas rising up the slopes of this ancient volcano. Tsunamis wiping away all that you have ever known!” Turkey Vulture said. “Where will you go when the great waters rise?”
“Swimming?” Steve said.
“No,” Turkey Vulture said, rolling his eyes. “You will take to the trees!”
We all looked up.
“The trees will be your safe haven,” Turkey Vulture said. “Not only from the seas,
but from the predators. Such as hungry packs of rival humans.”
Steve raised his hand. “You mean . . . cannibals?”
Turkey Vulture nodded. “It is a little-known fact that cannibalism was widespread among many premodern societies.” He gave us a toothy grin. “It is a practice that will surely return in the postmodern world!”
I was starting to wonder if Turkey Vulture liked violence and destruction.
I was also beginning to wonder the same thing about Klawde. If all he really wanted was to bring peace to his home planet, why did he keep talking about making the traitors pay and launching a new reign of terror?
Was it possible that Klawde was not a Kind Alien Warlord Cat? That maybe—just maybe—he was an Evil Alien Warlord Cat?
Even if he was, though, he was still MY Evil Alien Warlord Cat, and I didn’t want him to leave Earth. And if he did, I wanted to go with him.
But I couldn’t think about Klawde right now. We were about to have our next challenge.
“If you want to survive,” our counselor yelled, “start climbing!”
CHAPTER 32
“Here, kitty kitty kitty!”
The father-ogre was trying to lure me onto his lap with some of the dried food pellets.
I approached him boldly.
“OWW!” he said, putting the finger I’d just bitten into his mouth. “Naughty kitty!”
I began to purr. It had been far too long since I injured something.
DING-DONG!
“Now who could that be?” the father-ogre said.
He opened the front portal to reveal another hideous Human, this one dressed all in brown. Was it for some kind of military camouflage?
He handed the father-ogre an electronic device. “Sign here for delivery, sir.”
“What is all this?” the father-Human said, looking at the boxes while he squiggled a stick at the device. “Maybe a new toaster!”
He did not open any of the boxes, however, because he was “going to be late for work,” a concept unfamiliar to felines. As soon as he left, I tore into them. Within the packages I found diodes, capacitors, a potentiometer, and more: all the final parts I needed to complete my teleporter.
I also now had the critical parts for my other project—a transuniversal communicator.
Although I did not have the boy-Human to assist me, I completed the assembly of this all-important device with ease, pausing for only three brisk naps.
Oh, how I could hardly wait to call home and hear the sweet feline language of Lyttyrboks again!
Once the communicator was functional, I dialed the one servant who had remained loyal to the end: Lieutenant Flooffee-Fyr.
When his face appeared on the screen, his surprise and joy were clear.
CHAPTER 33
Tuesday, Continued.
Turkey Vulture had said that whoever climbed the highest would win the challenge for their team. So the trick wasn’t just picking the tallest tree, but the one that was the most climbable. From what I could tell, Cedar, Scorpion, and Newt had picked the best trees, and they were already on their way up.
As for me, I was still on the ground trying to choose. I didn’t want to be the one who lost the challenge for our team—again. But for once, there was hope.
I’d always been good at climbing, even if it was never exactly in nature. Back home, my local playground had a rock-climbing wall that I loved, and I’d been the best climber in my after-school program at Brooklyn Boulders.
The tree I really wanted to climb looked as tall as the Empire State Building, but I couldn’t reach even its lowest branches. Then I had an idea.
“Hey, Steve!” I hollered.
Steve was the only other kid still on the ground, having twice fallen out of an oak.
“Can you give me a leg up?”
“No prob,” Steve said, and he bent down so I could use his back as a springboard. It worked perfectly.
“Thanks!” I called down from the branches. “Now what about you?”
“I’m about to try to—”
“HE’S ABOUT TO GET SWEPT AWAY BY THE GREATEST TSUNAMI IN RECORDED HISTORY!” hollered Turkey Vulture.
“Climb, Rat! Climb!” shouted Steve, dodging our counselor, who was now pretending to be a giant tidal wave.
I began to clamber up, plotting the best route as I went. But how high would I need to go to beat the others?
Scorpion I’d get past, no problem. He was already stuck, and shouting out his frustration as branch after branch snapped under his weight. Cedar seemed like she was stuck, too. Newt, however, was already halfway to the sky. The little liar was scaling her pine tree like a ladder.
My hands were sticky with sap, and twigs kept poking me in the eyes. This was way harder than scaling a wall studded with fake plastic rocks. But I kept going.
I passed Scorpion and Cedar and was now almost as high as Newt, who had gotten caught in a tangle of vines. Maybe I could win!
And that’s when I looked down. Which was a major mistake.
I was way higher than the Mt. Everest wall at Brooklyn Boulders. And there was no padded mat at the bottom! What was I thinking?
I froze in terror.
Turkey Vulture yelled, “Rat stopped! The Cold Bloods win!”
“No, wait!” Cedar cried from somewhere below. “He isn’t done yet! Come on, Rat!”
I wanted to climb higher so badly, but I couldn’t move.
Then the words of Klawde came ringing into my ears:
He who climbs the highest tree has not the sharpest claws, but the strongest heart.
I felt myself moving again. My hands reached up and my feet found higher branches, and pretty soon I had run out of tree. I was swaying in the crown of my tree, able to see the tops of all the other ones below me. I was the highest!
“He won!” Cedar shouted. “Rat won!”
I did win! It felt amazing! Like I was a hero!
There was only one problem: How the heck was I going to get back down?
CHAPTER 34
“OH GREAT LORD AND MASTER,” Flooffee-Fyr mewed. “HOW THRILLED I AM TO SEE THAT YOU ARE WELL! THANK THE EIGHTY-SEVEN MOONS!”
“You have no idea the indignities I have suffered,” I told my loyal servant. “But they will be nothing compared to what my enemies will suffer! Tell me, Flooffee, are the felines of Lyttyrboks clamoring for my return?”
“Well . . . ,” Flooffee-Fyr said slowly. “They have stopped burning you in effigy.”
“Do they yet cower under the tyranny of General Ffangg? Are they desperate to return to the days of my iron-pawed rule?”
“Ummmm . . . ,” Flooffee-Fyr said. He scratched at his ear with a hind paw. “Most cats actually seem pretty, uh, happy these days? General Ffangg made furcare a universal right, and everyone is super-excited about the unlimited free trips to the exuviating parlor.”
“He’s trying to buy them off! It’s an insult! The good felines of Lyttyrboks must see through his sneaky ways!”
“Well . . . ,” Flooffee-Fyr said. “He’s also granted free lifetime claw trimming. And he planted a billion new trees to replace the ones you burned in the last war.”
“So, in other words, the time is RIPE for my return!”
“To be honest, sir, I think—”
“Silence!” I cried. Flooffee-Fyr had never understood politics, and I didn’t have time to explain it to him.
What I needed was help testing the teleporter, which I had completed that morning after receiving the final components from the delivery ogre. As for an object to send across the universe, I had chosen what appeared to be a combat training ball that I found under a glass jar in the humans’ main parlor. It was white with red stitching and had the name of some Human—a Derek Jeter—scribbled on it. Probably the father-ogre had stolen it from this Derek Jeter.
I placed the ball in the teleporter under the beam of protophotonic gamma flash. With a press of the button, there was a burst of green light.
And Derek Jeter’s ball was gone.
Moments later, I watched it enter Lyttyrboks’s atmosphere in another burst of green light. It hovered in the air for a moment, and then it dropped down on top of Flooffee-Fyr’s head.
“Ow!” Flooffee cried.
I pinned my ears in disgust at his whimpering.
“Show it to me,” I commanded.
“Right here,” he said, lowering his head. “See the lump?”
“No, you fool,” I said. “The ball!”
“Oh,” Flooffee-Fyr said, and held it up. The ball was in perfect condition.
Success!
Still, Flooffee-Fyr insisted that we test the teleporter on something living before I risked my precious life in it.
“I have some expendable Humans handy,” I said.
“No,” Flooffee-Fyr said, still rubbing behind his ear. “We need something closer to your size and genetic makeup. Are there any Earth cats you could use?”
Hmmm . . .
CHAPTER 35
Tuesday Afternoon.
“Klawde! Klawde! Where are you?”
I couldn’t wait to tell him how I’d won a challenge thanks to his advice! I finally found him in the garage, but I hadn’t even gotten to the good part when he cut me off.
“Silence! Enough about your pointless life!” Klawde said. “Er, I mean your very IMPORTANT problems—because I have exciting news! The teleporter works and is ready to be tested on a living being.”
I was about to ask what we would test it on when I heard, “Hello? Is anybody in there?”
It was Lindy, the one-grade-younger girl who lived across the street.
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