“Are you and this Cedar not his subjects?”
“We’re students, Klawde. Not subjects.”
“Did you not tell me that he is in charge? That he is both feared and loathed?”
“Well, sure. But so is every principal,” I said. “And that doesn’t mean he can just do whatever he wants. He has rules to follow, too.”
“How tedious,” Klawde said. “And familiar.”
“He’s supposed to deal with budgets and committees, and make sure students and teachers have what they need to succeed and stuff.”
“It sounds like he’s an emperor,” Klawde said. “Or at least what that infernal mutt thinks an emperor should be. Not that he’ll be bothering me anymore.”
“Wait—why not?” I asked.
“Oh, he is . . .” Klawde paused. “On vacation. Yes. He is on vacation. With some very special friends.”
Klawde looked so pleased with himself that I really should’ve known something was wrong.
CHAPTER 32
I was enjoying another blissfully Barx-free day when I was rudely interrupted by the canine holo-communicator. It was Muffee, the second-most annoying mutt in the cosmos.
“I thought I told you not to call me,” I said.
The spaniel ignored this, asking me if I had heard from Barx.
“No, I have not,” I said as innocently as possible. “Why, has he gotten himself lost?”
“With Prime Minister Barx’s sense of smell, he could never get lost. But he has gone missing,” Muffee responded. “His fellow space ranger dogs are circling the Tasdemerian Quadrant of the universe searching for him, but they can’t pick up the scent.”
“That’s odd,” I said. “Barx is extremely smelly.”
“Don’t worry, Emperor, we’ll find him,” she said.
Naturally, I was not worried. After failing to breach the force field around the Milky Way, Ffangg and the kitten had likely taken Barx to a hidden stronghold on one of Lytterboks’s outer moons. I wouldn’t be telling Muffee that, however.
“In better news, our peacekeeping forces have succeeded in rescuing all the hedgehogs from Asimo V,” Muffee said. “Our mice troops are heroes!”
“Oh, yippee and hurrah,” I said.
I hung up on her and immediately called Flooffee. I needed him to set up blocking software so that no canine could ever call me again. Also, it had been more than two sunrises since he had given me a status update on Lyttyrboks, so he was due for a berating.
“Oh, heeeeey, Your Supreme Imperialness,” Flooffee-Fyr said. “Long time no speak, huh?”
I instantly noticed something was wrong. For one thing, Flooffee would not look me in the eyes. For another, he wasn’t in the Skratshink Palace. Instead, he was seated in front of a window overlooking what appeared to be a lush, forested landscape.
“What is going on, minion?” I demanded. “Where are you?”
“Uh, the exuviating parlor?”
“There is only one place in the feline solar system that leafy.” I squinted at the screen. “You’re on the eighty-seventh moon, aren’t you?”
“Oh, no, it’s just one of those cool green-screen backgrounds,” he said quickly. “I am definitely not in the Calico Queen’s secret lair on the eighty-seventh moon.”
From the background came a loud hiss.
“I told you not to tell him where we are, you fool,” Ffangg said. “It is called ‘a secret lair’ for a reason!”
“Ffangg!” I thundered. “Have you kidnapped my minion as well as the dog?”
“They sure did!” Flooffee said. “They kidnapped the heck out of me. And I put up a real fight. My claws are sooo sore.”
“Be quiet, you fluffy dolt,” Ffangg said to Flooffee, pushing his way onto the screen. “We did not kidnap your lackey. Flooffee-Fyr willingly betrayed you, and for the most paltry of bribes. A snack!”
“Oh, it wasn’t just a snack, O Former Boss,” Flooffee said. “The commissary here at the Titanium Fortress is the best in the universe, and they gave me the full meal plan. They have sprikkelbrats every day.”
My claws flexed in rage. The eighty-seventh moon was my secret lair. I had built the Titanium Fortress when I was Supreme Leader. That was my meal plan!
“Look,” Flooffee went on, “I know it’s a bummer for you, but I have to say, when the Calico Queen shows up and asks you to do something, it’s kind of hard to say no.” He got close to the camera and whispered. “She’s really scary.”
A proud meow sounded from somewhere off-screen.
“You double-crossing dunce!” I raged. “When I get my hands on you, I will do something so evil that I have not even thought of it yet!”
Flooffee looked stricken. “But I thought you’d be proud of me, Supremest. You know what the ancients say: A cat who does not turn on their master is no cat at all!”
This was absolutely true, so I ignored it. “What do they even need you for?”
“Oh, that’s the best part! I’m working on this super-neat top secret project for how to get past the force field and abduct you,” he said. “I had this great idea to—”
Flooffee was interrupted by meowing and hissing. Ffangg swatted the back of his head, and the transmission went dead.
CHAPTER 33
Scorpion’s dad had told us to print out multiple copies of our work so we could share it with the other members of newspaper club. I wanted to read Imogen and Isla’s horoscope column, but Steve wouldn’t stop waving his new comic in my face.
“Take a look, Raj! What do you think?” he asked excitedly.
I looked, and it was pretty darn good. It was also really familiar.
“See there’s this policeman,” Steve said, pointing, “and he has a dog, and one day they get into this terrible accident—”
“Um, Steve?”
“Wait, you’re gonna love this. The doctors realize that the only way they can save them both is if they sew the dog’s head onto the cop’s body!”
“Yeah, I do love it,” I said. “And so do, like, two hundred million other kids. That’s Dog Man.”
“Oh, right,” Steve said, hitting himself in the head.
Even though it was made of pictures and plagiarized, Steve’s comic made a better newspaper article than Scorpion’s attempt at a cafeteria report.
I was bummed, since the topic had been my idea, but Cedar was utterly disgusted.
“This so-called article doesn’t even have sentences!” she said, slapping the page in annoyance. “It’s just a list of the top ten grossest lunches. And there are eleven of them. That kid needs math tutoring, among other things.”
“Maybe he’s working so hard being our editor that he doesn’t have time to write,” Steve said.
“As if,” Cedar said. “The only thing Scorpion works hard at is being a jerk.”
Mom clapped her hands to start the meeting. She told us that the paper was going to be sent to the printer in exactly one week, so we needed to start finalizing our work.
Steve groaned.
Next, Mom started going through the articles, and we all got to say what we thought about them. Everyone liked Sarah’s profile of the track coach, but Mom had some questions about the horoscopes.
“What does it mean that Jupiter is going to be in Libra’s communication corner?” she asked. “Can we fact-check that?”
Mom really could take the fun out of anything. I was psyched when she got to our article, though, because I was pretty sure the whole club would be on board with what Cedar and I had written. But I was wrong.
“Uh, I don’t know about this,” Scorpion’s dad said when he finished reading it. “We don’t want to embarrass anyone. Maybe Principal Brownepoint renovated the bathroom with his own money.”
“No way!” Cedar said. “I asked him that, and he told me it came out of the school’s budget.”
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No matter what we said, Scorpion’s dad kept shaking his head. So I turned to the other parent coordinator.
“Mom?” I said. “What do you think of the article?”
She put a hand on my shoulder and gave me and Cedar a long look.
“I think it is an excellent article,” she said. “Why should the principal have a spa in his office when there are camel crickets living in the student bathrooms? You two have done exactly what journalists are supposed to do.”
“Yeah!” Scorpion said. “Forget that guy! He’s always sending me to detention.” Then he turned to me and Cedar and held his hand up—for us to high-five.
It was totally weird and awkward, but I slapped his hand, and so did Cedar.
“I’m the editor,” Scorpion said. “And I say let’s run that sucker on the front page!”
CHAPTER 34
Had my traitorous minion truly come up with a plan to abduct me? Barx had promised that the canine force field was impenetrable! Of course, he had also just been kidnapped by two kittens pretending to deliver takeout.
As if I did not already have enough things to annoy me, without Flooffee’s coding skills I had no way of avoiding the calls of the Leader of the Pack.
“We have still not located the prime minister, even though we have added the mice troops to the search party,” Muffee said. “Are you sure you have no idea where Barx might be?”
“None,” I lied. “Now stop bothering me.” I hung up the communicator.
Of course, I now knew exactly where Barx was, but telling Muffee and her mouth-watering mini-troops would not serve my purposes at all. What would serve me was some food, so I ascended the stairs to the kitchen.
The father-ogre was home, intently watching his sporting-ball entertainments with the volume turned up to maximum. Without concern that he would notice, I opened the food-cooling device and peered inside. There were many more jars than usual. There was also a strange smell—one that was vaguely familiar.
Where had I caught whiff of a stench like that?
Was it the smell of ogre socks? The foul breath of Zok?
No!
My fur stood on end. It smelled just like a Valumpian slime assassin! And there was one right there, in a jar!
So this was Flooffee’s plan! How had I not thought of it before? Valumpians were from an alternate dimension and were able to enter and exit our reality from any point in space and time. I myself had hired one during the War of Capybara-12—with Flooffee secretly brokering the deal. Of course he would turn to them again. What other creature could get through the force field?
The Valumpian appeared to be resting, so I slowly retreated backward. I did not take my eyes off it, which was how I smacked right into the father-ogre’s hideous legs.
“Hey, buddy,” he said. “Something spook you?” The ogre frowned. “Why’s the fridge open? You didn’t do that, did you?”
I crouched in the corner, hissing, but the slime assassin in the refrigerator remained motionless.
As if nothing were wrong, the father-ogre walked over to the cooling device and took out the jar containing the assassin. Then he began to unscrew the lid.
“Don’t open it!” I cried.
The father-ogre turned to me. “Klawde? Did you just—” Then he shook his head and laughed. “Oh, that must have been the TV,” he said. “For a minute I thought that was you talking.”
Then he did it—he took the lid off the jar. I fled behind the trash receptacle, expecting the assassin to spring out at any moment.
“Whoa, buddy, I’ve never seen your eyes get that wide before,” the bald one said. “I can see that you are very curious about my cool scoby hotel.”
His what?
“Scoby stands for Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast,” he said. “These little friends work together to turn regular old tea into delicious kombucha. A scoby might look disgusting, but it’s a wonderful thing.” He grinned. “And when you’re not using it to brew, you can keep it in the fridge in a jar.”
Could it be? Was this thing not an assassin after all, but a legion of single-cell organisms used to make a vile ogre beverage?
It seemed unwise to take any chances, however. From now on, I would not be opening any ogre food-storage devices.
CHAPTER 35
“Now you’re sure you’re okay being home alone so late into the night?” Mom asked.
My parents were headed off to pick up Ajji at the airport, but Mom was acting like they were going across the universe.
“I’m twelve,” I said. “I can take care of myself.”
“Just remember to lock all the doors. And here’s Lindy’s mom’s number in case of an emergency. And poison control is—”
“Mom!” I said.
“I don’t know why she got such a late flight,” Dad said. “And why is she flying into SeaTac? That’s three hours away.”
“Three hours and twenty-three minutes,” Mom said, checking her phone. “Her original flight was canceled, and this was the only one that would get her here in time to speak at her conference tomorrow.”
I finally got my parents out of the house and went down to the basement, where I found Klawde in his Cosmic Command Center litter box. I was psyched. It was the weekend, my parents were gone, and we could do whatever we wanted.
Unfortunately, Klawde’s good mood was also gone. Even the news that Ajji was coming didn’t cheer him up. He just ignored me. Finally, I goaded him into hanging out with me.
“Hey, Klawde,” I said, holding up the VQ headset. “Wanna get beaten in Ultra-Extreme Zombie Mayhem?”
With a twitch of his whiskers, Klawde hopped out of his litter box and swiped the helmet out of my hands. “You can never defeat me.”
“I’ll bet you ten bucks.”
“Fool,” he said.
An hour later, my cat was on level 91 and I was itching for a turn. “Fine, you win. Can I play now? Besides, don’t you have some ruling of the universe to do? I thought Barx was keeping you busy. He’s not still on vacation, is he?”
“Hah,” Klawde said, as he aimed his weapon at a horde of the undead. “A prison vacation, courtesy of General Ffangg.”
“Wait—what?” I reached over and took the helmet halfway off Klawde’s head. “Barx is with Ffangg? And what do you mean, ‘prison vacation’? Isn’t Ffangg the prisoner?”
Klawde narrowed his eyes at me. “First of all, I was about to slay an entire family of ogre zombies with a single cannon shot. And second of all, it is none of your business.”
“It is too my business, Klawde,” I said. “Barx is my friend!”
“Your ‘best friend,’ as the Earth saying goes,” Klawde said, pulling the helmet back down.
“This is serious, Klawde!” I said. “What happened to Barx?”
“Well, if you must know, the calico and her brothers rescued Ffangg and then kidnapped Barx,” Klawde said. His tail puffed, and he jerked his entire body to the left. “Blam! Take that, zombie fool!”
“Is there anything else you aren’t telling me?”
“Well, they also have Flooffee,” Klawde added, slicing off a zombie’s head. “And there is no laundry in the hamper. I require it for the nap I am about to take.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Because the hamper was not empty before.”
That was it. I turned off the VQ. Klawde hissed.
“I said, why didn’t you tell me about all this?”
“Well, you are always boring me with news of your life,” Klawde said. “I was trying not to do the same to you.”
“This isn’t boring, this is an emergency!” I said. “I can believe that you wouldn’t help Barx, but Flooffee? He’s your loyal friend.”
“My disloyal lackey, you mean,” Klawde spit
. “The fluff-furred fool betrayed me! He is now working for my enemies.”
“I don’t believe it,” I said.
“What’s not to believe? He’s done it before,” Klawde said. “And besides, he’s a cat. All cats are capable of betraying anyone at all times. Do you still understand nothing of felines?”
“Okay, but dogs are loyal. And no one is more loyal than Barx. You have to do something!”
“Oh, I would do something, if only I knew where Ffangg and the calico took him. But I definitely do not know that.”
“You have no idea where he is?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about the mutt,” Klawde said. “His fellow space ranger dogs are out scouring the galaxy looking for him, along with enough mice to feed all of Lyttyrboks for eight sunrises.” He put the VQ back on.
“Look, we—”
“Silence! I am about to level up.”
How could he go back to his game at a time like this? Oh right—because he was Klawde.
CHAPTER 36
I almost felt bad lying to the boy-Human about his canine friend. Like I almost felt bad for the horde of zombies I was about to destroy. BLAM! BLAM! Take that, zombie ogre scum!
The boy-ogre said he was going to get something to eat and began ascending the stairs.
“Bring your emperor a pint of ice cream—and don’t eat so much as a spoonful!” I ordered, thankful that someone else would be opening the food box. “Also, soften it with the microwave ray blaster first.”
I continued destroying zombies, but after I’d gone up three more levels, the boy-ogre had still not returned.
“Peon, bring me the frozen dairy, now!” I shouted up to him. No answer. “Your emperor has issued you a command. Obey!”
When even this was met with silence, I began to worry. What if he was eating the ice cream? What if he was eating it right now?
Hiss!
I raced up the stairs, only to find the kitchen empty. The cooling device door was open, and there was a large puddle of slime on the floor.
Revenge of the Kitten Queen Page 6