PENGUIN WORKSHOP
An Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
Text copyright © 2021 by John Bemelmans Marciano and Emily Chenoweth.
Illustrations copyright © 2021 by Robb Mommaerts. All rights reserved. Published by Penguin Workshop, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. PENGUIN and PENGUIN WORKSHOP are trademarks of Penguin Books Ltd, and the W colophon is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
Visit us online at www.penguinrandomhouse.com.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021007979
Ebook ISBN 9780593096253
Adapted for ebook by Michelle Quintero
pid_prh_5.7.1_c0_r0
To Mom, for the endless support.
It means everything—JM
To my dad, forever and always the best of ogres—EC
For Mr. Dale DeVillers.
My eighth-grade teacher, and editor of my very first book—RM
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction
Chapter 0
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Epilogue
About the Authors
RAJ
My name is Raj. I’m a regular kid from Brooklyn who moved across the country to Elba, Oregon. I hated it when I was forced to come here, but now I kind of like it. I have a mom, a dad, and a very special cat—Klawde!
KLAWDE
My name is not Klawde. It is Lord High Emperor Wyss-Kuzz, the Magnificent. I was exiled across the universe to this backward planet of furless ogres known as Earth. I hated it when I was forced to come here, and now I hate it even more.
CHAPTER 0
I lay in a patch of sunlight, feeling more admiration for myself than I would have ever thought possible.
Mere days ago, deep in the Infinitude, I had defeated General Ffangg, outwitting him and the two other treacherous warlords who had tried to destroy me. And now I, Wyss-Kuzz the Incomparable, was THE EMPEROR OF THE UNIVERSE.
Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Congratulatory messages had come pouring in from all corners of the cosmos. Already this morning, I had enjoyed a tuneful ode to my greatness sung by the talented kangaroo-birds of Nesperess and learned that the Plirgrak silverfish had renamed their capital Wyss-Kuzzland.
My communicator vibrated, signaling the arrival of yet another video tribute. Though my throat ached from all the purring, I clicked on the message, and a vicious little spotted face filled my communicator screen.
Well, well, well, if it wasn’t the Calico Queen, the wretched Earth kitten who had, with the help of her two idiot brothers, ripped the Lyttyrboksian throne from my claws.
“Meow meow,” she said. “Meow, meow, meow!”
Oh delight! The little traitor was singing my praises. Not that I could understand what she was saying. Like every other Earth cat, she could only speak that one word of feline gibberish.
“Meow!” she continued. “MEOWMEOWMEOW!”
Hmmm. It did not actually sound like she was complimenting me.
“MEOW! Hiss!”
When she spat at the camera and hung up, I realized that the so-called Kitten Queen had been mocking me.
I was amused by her taunts, however. Though once I would have done anything to rule Lyttyrboks again, now it was beneath me. After all, I ruled the entire universe!
I would need to teach this kitten a lesson, of course. Such rude meowing could not go unpunished. But first: a nap.
The moment I closed my eyes, though, the ogres on the floor above me began shouting to one another.
Should the Lord of All Living Matter really have to put up with the interruptions of these pitifully lower life forms?
CHAPTER 1
“Raj!” Mom called. “Come pick up your dirty socks off the living room floor! And we have to leave in five minutes to see the school play.”
“Whoo-ee! Rutherford!” Dad yelled from the shower. “Can’t wait!”
I couldn’t understand why he was so excited to see a musical about a totally obscure US president performed by a bunch of eighth-graders who couldn’t sing. Then again, Dad got excited about a lot of weird things.
I went and grabbed my socks and took them downstairs to the laundry.
“How dare you disturb the All-Powerful Master of the Cosmos, peon.” The voice was coming from inside Klawde’s litter box.
“You know, I don’t really like being called a peon.”
“Would you prefer to be called a lowly plebe, lowly plebe?”
I sighed as I tossed the socks into the laundry basket. I wasn’t sure what “peon” or “plebe” meant, but I knew that Klawde was being a jerk. Besides insulting me even more than usual lately, he was always going on about how important he was now that he’d been crowned the Emperor of the Universe. It was almost enough to make me wish he hadn’t decided to use my basement as his “Cosmic Command Center.”
Klawde had already made a lot of improvements to what was supposed to be his litter box, but when I peeked inside I saw so many buttons and screens it looked like a miniature NASA mission control. There was one really big red button that I—
“DON’T TOUCH THAT!” Klawde said, swatting my hand away.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “What does it do?”
“That button lowers the protective force field around this godforsaken galaxy, so that I may then press this button”—he pointed to a green one—“which will whisk me off your miserable planet whenever I wish. You see, my Cosmic Command Center is now also a teleporter!”
Klawde started purring so loudly it almost sounded like he was choking.
Right after he became emperor, Klawde ha
d designated the Milky Way an Intergalactic Wilderness Preserve, which I found kind of insulting. It was like he thought humans were just a bunch of wildebeests or something. Still, I was glad he did it, because it meant that none of his enemies could break through the Milky Way’s force field to get to him.
“Raj!” Mom called down. “Let’s go! We don’t want to be late for the play.”
“Rutherford!” Dad shouted.
“Begone, vile ogre,” Klawde said. “And remember to bow down as you leave the imperial presence!”
CHAPTER 2
After the Humans left, I completed the nap the boy-ogre had so rudely interrupted, then turned my attention to a project of vital intergalactic importance.
Gloating.
Nothing pleases a warrior’s soul like watching his enemies suffer. And suffering was exactly what my former colleagues in the Allied Warlords of Evil, Sabotage, Oppression, and More Evil (AWESOME) were doing.
After their attempt on my life, General Ffangg, Colonel Akorn, and Generalissima Zok had been sent to the prison planet of Ham-Sturr, the most secure location in the universe. Covered in sawdust and completely enclosed in a solid case of titanium plastic, it was impossible to escape from. Imposing hamster guards were armed to the teeth, and considerable teeth they had.
Even better, every centimeter of the planet was under constant surveillance by microdrones, which allowed me to spy upon my nemeses from the comfort of my command center. I donned the VQ virtual reality helmet to settle in for the evening’s entertainment, and there they were—my three most loathsome enemies—all rolling around in the plastic torment spheres of Ham-Sturr!
CRASH!
Zok smashed her ball into Ffangg’s.
“You thickheaded abomination!” Ffangg shouted. “Hit me one more time and I will slice off your fins and eat them for breakfast!”
Zok narrowed her eyes and smiled. “Zok dare you to try, kitty.”
“Oh, how I hate to see my old friends argue!” I announced. “Almost as much as I hate to see them in torture spheres.”
“Klawde!” Ffangg hissed, as the fur stood up along his scrawny spine.
Akorn looked wildly around, trying to see where my voice was coming from.
“If kitty hate it so much,” Zok said, “why not kitty let us go free?”
“He’s being sarcastic, you tiny-legged fool!” Ffangg said, bashing his ball into Zok’s.
“Zok know that!” Zok said, bumping Ffangg so hard she knocked him off his feet. “Zok have excellent sense of humor!”
“We will not stand for this abuse, vile feline!” Akorn squealed. “These spheres are cruel and—OOF!”
Zok had smashed into Akorn’s ball. “Wheee, fun!” she said. “Zok love these things!”
“This is NOT—oof—fun!” Akorn cried out, getting smashed again. “This is—ouch!—humiliating.”
Zok snickered. “Akorn just not like because Akorn has tiny ball.”
“My ball is not tiny!” cried the squirrel colonel. “It is sized exactly correctly.”
Ah, this was delightful. “I checked in to heap humiliation upon you three,” I said. “But you are doing such a good job of humiliating each other, I have nothing to add.”
“We will get you!” Ffangg vowed.
“All you will get,” I said, “is exercise!”
CHAPTER 3
Rutherford got a standing ovation. I stood up with everyone else and clapped, even though I’d mostly slept through it.
“I loved the number about the Bland-Allison Act,” Mom said as we filed out of the Elba Middle School theater.
“Yeah, rap battles about the gold standard are always great,” I said, rolling my eyes.
As Dad waited in line for a drinking fountain that barely worked, he started rapping lines from the musical.
“ ‘Listen up, y’all, gonna tell you ’bout the days / And deeds and doin’s of Rutherford B. Hayes. / He was our president, the commander in chief, / With crooks and liars, he had major beef.’ Come on, Raj, sing the chorus with me!”
I was trying to run away when I bumped right into one of the other dads.
“Hey, slow down there, Raj!”
It was Scorpion’s dad, who was as nice as his son was horrible.
“Hi—and, uh, sorry,” I said.
“No problem! I’m glad I ran into you. Or you ran into me, actually!” he said. “I think you’ll be interested in an after-school club I’m starting.” He held out a flyer.
Hearing the word club, my mom’s ears perked up.
“This looks like a fine enrichment activity,” Mom said, reading over my shoulder.
“I want to be more involved with my son’s education,” Mr. Scorpion said. “I think he might need it.”
Newspaper club sounded like it could be kind of fun. An after-school activity with Scorpion, though? No way.
“I’m sure Raj has great ideas for news stories,” Mom said, nudging me. “Right?”
“Um . . .” It was definitely time to get out of there, but as I turned to my dad, he was still rapping. Even worse, Scorpion and Newt were egging him on.
“Are you a professional rapper, Dr. Krish?” Newt said.
My nearest escape was the boys’ bathroom. And considering how gross it was in there, that was saying something.
CHAPTER 4
Leaving my enemies to their miserable fate, I turned my attention to my imperial duties. After thinking long and hard about how to make the cosmos a better place to live, I had drafted several new universal laws.
• Imperial Edict #1: Every galaxy must make a congratulatory offering of their finest foodstuffs to their emperor.
• Imperial Edict #2: Cardboard boxes may no longer be recycled. They must instead be offered, free of charge, to the nearest feline.
• Imperial Edict #3: Sweaters are banned! Anyone found in possession of a knitted product intended to cover the body shall be banished to Ham-Sturr for a period of five hundred years.
• Imperial Edict #4: Every sunrise, all citizens of the cosmos must swear an oath to their All-Powerful Lord and Master: “I pledge allegiance to the emperor, and to the four paws on which he stands. One universe, under Klawde, so invincible, with victory and glory for him. Only him.”
• Imperial Edict #5: All calico-coated rulers of feline planets must shave the imperial initials into her fur.
I felt certain that all my quintillion subjects would gladly follow these directives—except one particular subject, of course—and I called my minion to confirm this fact.
“Wow, that’s a really swell list, your Imperial Amazingness,” Flooffee-Fyr said. “I particularly like number two.”
“Yes, I am proud of that one.”
“But number five, whoa!” His eyes went wide. “The Kitten Queen’s gonna throw a hissy fit over that one.”
“She is, isn’t she?” I said proudly. “There is one problem, though. How do I communicate these brilliant decrees to the rest of the cosmos?”
“Aren’t you supposed to have your prime minister handle that?” Flooffee asked.
“My what?”
“Your prime minister—Barx,” my minion said. “The Good Animals Group voted him to be your right-paw dog! They’re the ones in charge of the Cosmic Council now. Weren’t you listening at your coronation?”
The fur along my spine rose up. “Of course I was not listening to those boring speeches! Barx? My prime minister? This is an outrage! He will refuse to enforce my laws. You know how much he likes sweaters.”
“Well, I suppose you could use GlittR to share your proclamations.”
“GlittR?” I said. “What in the eighty-seven moons is that?”
“Only the most widely used communications platform in the entire universe!” my lackey said. “It’s what they call social media. We don’t
have it on Lyttyrboks because, well, cats don’t like each other.”
“So why would I care about this social media?”
“Oh, there is nothing better for getting your message out,” he said. “The imperial GlittR account has eight hundred sixty-nine quadrillion followers. And you don’t have to just gleet edicts. You can gleet whatever you want. Your every random thought—your merest annoyance—can instantly be broadcast across the universe. What you write doesn’t even have to be true!”
“Flooffee, this is excellent,” I said. “Log in to the imperial GlittR account and issue my edicts immediately. However, there is a new number one.”
“And what’s that, O Chief of All Chiefs?”
“All gleets from the emperor are universal law.”
The cosmos had no idea what it was in for!
CHAPTER 5
“So after you left, I kept talking to that nice man,” Mom said to me as we drove home. “And I think his idea of starting a student newspaper is a very good one.”
“Uh, sure,” I said. I tried to find my earbuds so I could stick them in before she started going on and on about—
“Newspapers are a crucial part of living in a democracy, Raj. They keep us informed, and they shine a light on problems in our world. And yet all over the country they’re closing because the internet is destroying print media.”
I couldn’t see how a middle-school paper was going to help that problem, but I didn’t want to get into it with her, either. “Well, I hope Mr. Scorpion’s club is great,” I said.
“It’s not his club. It’s our club.”
“Huh?”
“I volunteered to be the second parent coordinator!” Mom said.
“So you’re going to do the club without me?”
She shook her head. “No, Raj. You’re doing it, too.”
“I think it’s a great idea,” Dad said. “Reporters are like heroes. Think of Woodward and Bernstein. Or Clark Kent and Lois Lane.”
Revenge of the Kitten Queen Page 1