In the center of it lay an empty ice cream pint. And one of the boy-ogre’s shoes.
Curse him! He had eaten all the ice cream!
CHAPTER 37
I stomped upstairs, feeling totally mad at my cat. Why wasn’t he trying to rescue Barx? No matter what Klawde said, Barx was his friend. It made me wonder: Would Klawde rescue me if somehow I got captured? Not that it would ever happen, seeing as I didn’t have enemies. Well, maybe Scorpion and Newt, but all they did was insult me every once in a while—which made them nicer than my cat, who insulted me all the time. Even now, he was hissing at me, saying I shouldn’t so much as taste the ice cream he wanted me to serve him.
To teach him a lesson, I decided I would eat it. I opened the freezer door softly—Klawde’s hearing was insane when it came to that kind of thing—and I was even more quiet pulling out the silverware drawer.
Yum, this ice cream was good.
When I was done, I opened the fridge to get some cold water and found something kind of weird. Dad’s scoby was sitting out on the shelf. Wouldn’t it die out of the jar?
But wait—there was a scoby in the jar. Dad had said that the mother scoby could have baby scobies, but didn’t they have to be split apart by, like, a human? And why was this new one so big? And . . . was it getting bigger? And moving?
Yes, it was moving! It was rising up, like a wave of disgusting—“AAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!”
CHAPTER 38
After getting over the initial shock of the lost ice cream, I investigated the scene of the ambush, which was obviously the work of a Valumpian slime assassin.
As the father-ogre’s ‘scoby’ was still in its jar, this meant that the Valumpian in question had arrived, and—in a remarkable coincidence—also decided to hide in the food-cooling device.
Clearly, the Valumpian had been sent to kidnap me and had taken poor Raj instead. This was terrible. For the ogre, I mean.
That the slime creature had mistaken Raj for me was insulting, yet not surprising. Though Valumpians are the undisputed masters of travel between dimensions, they have terrible eyesight and can’t tell one non-Valumpian from another. Obviously, Flooffee had forgotten this problem. Had he and my other enemies discovered their error yet, or would I have the joy of informing them?
I immediately dialed my twice-traitorous lackey.
“Oh, hey, Most Powerful,” Flooffee said, cringing a little. “Sorry you got eaten by that Valumpian slime assassin I sent to capture you. Was it super gross?”
The minion yelped as he was slashed across the side of the head.
“You idiot,” Ffangg said from somewhere off-monitor. “If Wyss-Kuzz is calling us, he cannot very well be inside of the Valumpian, can he?”
A dumbfounded look passed over Flooffee’s face. “Then who’s in this thing?” he said, pointing down at the floor.
“It is the boy-Human, you fools!” I cried.
“Raj?” Flooffee said. His expression brightened. “Oh, goody. I love that ogre!”
Flooffee again got slashed across the side of the head. This time by the kitten, who was meowing ferociously.
“She says you are truly stupid,” Ffangg hissed to Flooffee. “Even stupider than Valumpians, who cannot bring us the correct target!”
“You think I wanted to swallow this thing?” the Valumpian said, unwrapping itself from around Raj. “Look how revolting it is! And how do you expect me to be able to tell the difference between a cat and a Human? All you monsters with your faces and your feet look the same to me.”
“As amusing as it is to watch you all botch one ill-conceived scheme after the other,” I said, “as emperor, I command you to return my Human to me at once, or suffer the consequences!”
“Meow, meow, MEOW!”
The calico pushed the others out of the screen, so furious she was growling.
“What is the wretched little barbarian trying to say now?” I asked Ffangg.
“She told me to throw the ogre and your idiotic minion into the dungeon along with Barx,” Ffangg said. “And that if you ever want to see them again, you are going to have to come get them.”
It was now my turn to growl.
“Impudent Earth cat,” I thundered. “While it is one thing to abduct a canine or corrupt a minion, it is quite another to steal the emperor’s pet ogre!”
“MEOW! MEOW!”
“And what are you going to do about it, Wyss-Kuzz?” Ffangg said. “You, who cowers behind the force field of canines?”
I narrowed my eyes and leaned in toward the communicator, pressing the glowing red button in my Cosmic Command Center. It made a satisfying ding.
“That, my nemeses, was the sound of a canine force field being deactivated. And this,” I said, pressing the green button with another ding, “is the sound of me activating the teleporter. Prepare yourselves to face the wrath of . . . THE EMPEROR OF THE UNIVERSE!”
CHAPTER 39
I opened my eyes, but it was so dark I couldn’t even tell where I was. I also seemed to be covered in something slimy and disgusting. And what was that smell?
“Raj! You’re awake!” came a familiar voice.
“Barx? Is that you?” I could just make out his shape as he came over to give me a lick. “What are you—”
“Raj!” another voice called. “Hey, Raj, yoo-hoo! Over here. It’s me, Flooffee-Fyr!”
“Flooffee?” I said. “You’re here, too? I really can’t see anything.”
“Oh, your eyes don’t work in the dark?” Flooffee said. “The Omnipotent One wasn’t kidding about how poorly designed you ogres are.”
“Why are the lights off?” I asked. “And what are you guys doing on Earth? And can somebody get me a towel?”
“No towels, buddy,” Barx said. “And, uh, we’re not on Earth.”
It took a long time to process what the two of them told me next. Apparently, a bounty-hunting slime-creature from another dimension had been sent to kidnap Klawde, but it had taken me by mistake. The thing crossed space and time in order to deliver me to a prison cell beneath the Calico Queen’s secret lair on the eighty-seventh moon of Lyttyrboks.
I’d always wanted to go to outer space, but not like this. It was terrifying! “You guys,” I said, “we need to get out of here!”
“Just sit tight for a bit,” Barx said. “I like sitting. Not as much as fetching, but—”
“I want to go home!” I said, starting to panic.
“Don’t worry, you will,” Barx said. “Even as we speak, Klawde is coming to the rescue!”
“No, he’s not,” I said. “When I tried to get him to rescue you two, he said he wouldn’t.”
“Well, you can’t totally blame His Magnificence,” Flooffee said. “I mean, I betrayed him, and Barx is a dog. No offense.”
“None taken,” Barx said.
“But as soon as His Overwhelming Omnipotence heard you were captured,” Flooffe said, “he was on his way.”
So, Klawde would come to rescue me! That made me happy—and worried.
“If the calico and Ffangg want Klawde to come, they must be setting some kind of trap for him, right?” I said. “What if they’re going to kill him? I don’t want Klawde dying trying to save me!”
“Oh, don’t worry, little ogre,” Flooffee said. “We’re probably all going to die here. But at least we’ll die together!”
“As best friends!” Barx said, wagging.
I knew they were trying to make me feel better. It really wasn’t working, though.
CHAPTER 40
Teleporting across the cosmos in the blink of an eye, I arrived on an uncharted dwarf planet deep in the neutral zone between Lyttyrboks and the Dog Star Cluster. It was a place no creature dared to trespass, except for one brave and daring soul: me. Desolate though it was, this cat-forsaken place held my most treasured possession:
&n
bsp; The StarLion!
The StarLion was my first and swiftest fighter craft, the one I flew as a cadet. Together, we had outraced Ffangg, staged many a successful coup, and, of course, blown up that stupid dog planet.
A purr rumbled in my throat as I strapped myself into my old pilot’s seat. The ship, controlled by my brain’s powerful psylo-waves, blinked to life. An instant later, we were aloft. Though our ultimate destination was the eighty-seventh moon, we had to make another stop first: the prison planet of Ham-Sturr.
Faster than you could say vengeance is mine, the StarLion was swooping past Ham-Sturr’s outer rings, where the worst criminals in the cosmos ran in endless loops, spinning the artificial planet on its axis. Descending to Ham-Sturr’s spherical plastic shell, I hovered at the planetary entrance. The StarLion’s robotic paw extended down to ring the bell.
The hatch popped open, and two hamster guards exited.
“What do you want, feline?” the larger one called up to me. “Hasn’t your kind brought us enough trouble lately?”
“Yeah!” the skinny one hissed. “The new emperor is furious at us. Karl here even got a time-out.”
“I was furious at you,” I declared. “Now I am demanding that you let me pass.”
Their beady eyes grew wide.
“Wait, are you—”
“The EMPEROR of the UNIVERSE?” I said. “Yes. You may now bow before my magnificence.”
They threw themselves upon the ground immediately. Their obedience—and their fear—pleased me greatly.
“It’s quite all right, rodents,” I said. “I have not come to punish you further. I am here to collect a prisoner.”
The StarLion entered Ham-Sturr’s interior atmosphere. Upon reaching Torture Ball Arena Six, I hovered over the vile squirrel and the vicious ground shark.
“What are you doing here?” Akorn chittered.
“I have come to make a proposal to my fellow evil warlord,” I said. “Not you, though. The shark.”
Zok rolled over in her giant ball. “What kitty-cat want to talk to Zok about?” The creature was suspicious, then hopeful. “Kitty-cat want free Zok?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” I said. “On one condition: that you join forces with me in destroying the Calico Queen. And Ffangg!”
A wicked smile revealed all 794 of her teeth.
“Zok like nothing more.”
“What about me?” Akorn said.
“What about you?”
“Aren’t you going to free me?” he said. “I want to get back at Ffangg, too! He could’ve taken us with him, but he left us here to roll around for all eternity.”
“I would have done the same. So it is lucky for Zok that she is the one creature in the universe who can break into the Titanium Fortress.” I leaped back up into the StarLion and called down. “Her teeth can bite through twenty meters of the hardest substance known to animal. What can you gnaw through? A hazelnut?”
The angry chittering of the squirrel colonel was drowned out as a long robotic suction hose emerged from the StarLion’s undercarriage and attached itself to Zok’s hamster ball.
“Bye-bye, little fluffy-tail creature!” Zok called.
The ground shark was so massive that the StarLion struggled to lift her off the ground, but soon we began to rise.
Far below, I could see Akorn, trapped in his little ball and shaking his tiny fist at us, screaming curses. It was the cutest thing I’d ever seen.
CHAPTER 41
“. . . and then, Ttimmee said to me, ‘Flooffee, you are the smartest and friendliest cat ever.’ Except it sounded more like, ‘Ffooffee, you are the ffmarteff and friendlieff . . . ’ ”
Klawde’s minion had been telling us about how great his own minion was for what felt like ages. I loved Flooffee, but Klawde was right—he really did talk a lot.
As Flooffee went on blabbing, I felt a lurch, and then the cell we were in started rising. I held on to the wall to steady myself. “What’s going on?”
“I think we’re headed upstairs,” Barx said. “To the main lair.”
“It’s much nicer up there,” Flooffee said. “Although it’s probably where they’ll kill us.”
Like an elevator, our cell rose higher and higher, until we came to a sudden stop, and the door swung open.
We stumbled out into a huge room with rounded metal walls and a really high ceiling.
“Greetings, despicable prisoners.”
It was General Ffangg, flanked by the three kittens. They’d gotten a lot bigger since the last time I saw them.
Barx growled, and I took a step backward. But Flooffee said, “Oh, hey, General! Hi, Calico Queen! And howdy to, um, Brother One and Brother Two. How’re you guys doing?”
He really was the friendliest cat ever. I wasn’t sure about the smartest part, though.
The calico began to meow at us.
“If I may translate,” Ffangg said coldly, “the soon-to-be Kitten Empress has told me to kill the three of you.”
I gulped.
“Your friend Klawde is on his way here,” Ffangg continued, “which means that the three of you have outlived your usefulness. If you have any final words, you may keep them to yourselves.”
“I could be super useful, though,” Flooffee said brightly. “I’m great at coding, betrayal, and companionship! Do you need me to add some memory to one of your devices? I could hack into a weapons system for you. Or maybe you’re interested in my minion training tips!”
“Your groveling is unbecoming of a feline,” Ffangg said. “Look, even the Human doesn’t beg for his life.”
Which was true, but only because I was frozen in terror. Then it occurred to me—what was I so afraid of? These were a bunch of cats. Couldn’t I, like, overpower them?
Cruelty to animals was pretty much the wrongest thing in the world. My ajji would be so disappointed in me. But was it all right to fight back if the animals were about to kill you?
“MROWR! MROWR!”
“Yes, yes, I am about to murder them,” Ffangg said to the calico. Then he sighed and turned back to us. “I tell you, these Earth cats are so impatient.”
“You may kill us before Klawde gets here,” Barx said, “but when he does arrive, he’ll send you right back to Ham-Sturr where you belong.”
“No, when that feeble feline arrives, he will be sent to where he belongs: his grave!” Ffangg said. “The trap is set. The anti-intruder laser satellites of the eighty-seventh moon will instantly fire upon any unauthorized craft entering the atmosphere.” Ffangg bared his teeth at us. “Because Wyss-Kuzz himself designed this system, he thinks he can disarm it with his secret code. But the code is no longer secret, thanks to Flooffee-Fyr!”
Barx and I both turned to Flooffee. “Hey, don’t blame me! Giving up secret codes is what you do when you betray someone.”
“When Wyss-Kuzz accesses the code, the laser satellites will not be disarmed. Instead, they will be turned to vaporize!” Ffangg snickered. “How delicious that will be—Wyss-Kuzz destroyed by his own creation!”
I felt my knees get weak. Maybe Flooffee was right. Maybe we all really would die here.
CHAPTER 42
Of course, I knew that Ffangg would set a trap for me, and I knew which trap it would be. Flooffee had no doubt told him about my secret access code, and Ffangg would have booby-trapped the system to attack me the moment I used it. What the scrawny wretch couldn’t know was that I had created a secret secret code—one that even Flooffee didn’t know about. I quickly entered it into the system, and the StarLion sped past the weapons satellites undetected.
“WHEE!” Zok cried as we entered the atmosphere of the eighty-seventh moon. “Flying through space so fun!”
We approached the Titanium Fortress at full speed. Just before reaching it, I released the suction tether holding Zok. Her ball s
lammed against the ground and cracked like an egg. I feared such a forceful impact might hurt even the shark warlord, but no—she was fine.
“Zok free!” she shouted up to the hovering StarLion. “Now what little kitty emperor want me to destroy?”
“That,” I called down to her, pointing at the Titanium Fortress.
The ground shark quickly followed my order. She bit into the stronghold’s titanium roof and peeled it off like it was a lid on a cat-food can. I saw all my enemies at once—and my one friend.
RAJ!
CHAPTER 43
There was a loud crack from somewhere outside, and the ground shook.
“What was that?” Ffangg demanded.
We all looked around nervously. The crazy metal building had no windows, though. Then came a much louder noise—the awful screech of metal being ripped apart. Seconds later, the whole roof was pulled away, and we were staring up at a ground shark that was the size of my house.
It was Zok! Why was she here? Had she come to eat us? Then I noticed the spaceship hovering above her.
Flooffee gasped, and Ffangg looked like he’d seen a ghost.
“What’s that?” Barx asked.
“That,” Ffangg spat, “is the StarLion.”
“Who’s inside it?” I asked.
“I’ll give you one guess,” Flooffee said.
The hatch opened, and out came:
KLAWDE!
CHAPTER 44
All gazed upon me in awe. All except for that barbaric calico and her two miserable brothers—they scrambled away in flight. The cowards!
“Human!” I commanded. “Get the kittens!”
He hesitated stupidly for a moment, then went running after them. If you can call what Humans do running, that is. Why do they use only two of their limbs? It baffles the mind.
Revenge of the Kitten Queen Page 7