Crash!

by Nancy Krulik

Still, Zeus had told Zeke to act like an Earth kid. So he stuck his fingers in Eddie’s pits and wiggled them.

  “Ha ha ha!” Eddie laughed.

  “Zeke! Eddie! Please stop that,” Mr. Zimmermoon scolded.

  Zeke pulled his fingers out of Eddie’s pits. He smiled at Mr. Zimmermoon.

  Zeke liked his teacher. Especially his name. He wondered if Mr. Zimmermoon was secretly a zeebop. Maybe his spaceship had been stolen by a junkman, too.

  Just then Mrs. Wartimer, the school librarian, sat down on a stool.

  “Today is a good time to read a fairy tale,” she told the class. “Because soon you will be writing fairy tales.”

  “Fairy tails?” Zeke asked. “Fairies don’t have tails. No one on Planet F has a tail.”

  “Planet what?” Amelia asked him.

  “Planet F,” Zeke said. “Where fairies come from.”

  The kids started laughing.

  Zeke didn’t understand why. He hadn’t said anything funny.

  “Save that for your story,” Mr. Zimmermoon told Zeke. “It could be a very interesting detail.”

  Zeke shrugged. He didn’t think that was interesting. Everyone knew fairies didn’t have tails. Everyone back on Planet Z, anyway.

  “This story is one of my favorites,” Mrs. Wartimer said. “It is called Rumpelstiltskin.”

  Mrs. Wartimer began to read the story. It was kind of boring—until she got to the part about Rumpelstiltskin spinning straw into gold.

  Now, that was interesting! Zeke sat up tall.

  Plop! Just then, a paper airplane landed in Zeke’s lap.

  “Amelia made that,” Eddie whispered to Zeke. “She makes the best planes in the class.”

  Zeke looked at the folded paper. It was pretty simple. He could make a better one.

  Zeke ripped a piece of paper out of his notebook. He began to fold it to look like a spaceship.

  Zeke knew his paper spaceship would be much better than anything any other kid—even Amelia—could make.

  After all, who knew more about flying than a kid from Planet Z!

  7

  KERPLOP!

  I figured out how we can buy our ship back!” Zeke shouted as he ran into his house after school.

  “You found gold?” his mom asked.

  “No,” Zeke told her. “I found these.”

  He held up a big bundle of red-and-white straws from the school cafeteria.

  “Ztraws?” his dad wondered.

  “They call them straws here,” Zeke said. “All we have to do is spin them, and they will turn into gold.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Zeke’s mom said.

  “I didn’t think so, either,” Zeke said. “But it’s in a book the librarian read today. So it must be true.”

  “How do you spin a straw?” Zeke’s dad wondered.

  “I don’t know,” Zeke admitted. “I wasn’t really listening to most of the story. I was too busy flying paper spaceships.”

  “Why were you doing that?” his father asked.

  “The Earth kids were doing it,” Zeke said. “And Zeus wanted me to act like an Earth kid.”

  “That’s true,” his dad agreed. “Can you show me how to make a paper spaceship?”

  “Forget paper spaceships,” Zeke’s mom said. “We have to focus on getting our spaceship back.”

  Zeke nodded. “I guess we just spin in circles holding the straws,” he said. “Then they will turn into gold.”

  He began spinning around and around.

  “It’s worth a try,” Zeke’s dad said. He began spinning.

  “Okay,” Zeke’s mom agreed. She began spinning.

  “Whoa!” Zeke shouted. “I’m getting dizzy!”

  Spin. Spin. Bash!

  Zeke slammed into a wall and fell down.

  “Me too!” his father said.

  Spin. Spin. Smash!

  Zeke’s dad fell into the table. Dishes smashed on the ground.

  “I feel sick,” Zeke’s mom groaned.

  Spin. Spin. Crash!

  She spun into a lamp. The lightbulb crashed onto the floor. It broke into hundreds of tiny pieces.

  “WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!”

  Uh-oh.

  Zeus was back.

  His ears were standing straight up.

  His claws had popped out of his paws.

  Zeus was mad.

  And that was never good.

  8

  TV TIME

  Aren’t you going to help clean up?” Zeke asked Zeus a few minutes later. He swept some more glass into the dustpan. “This is hard work.”

  “Cats don’t clean,” Zeus told him. “Not on Planet Z. Not on Earth. Not anywhere. Besides, I didn’t make the mess. You did. What were you thinking?”

  “We were spinning straws into gold,” Zeke explained. “Like in Rumpelstiltskin.”

  “But we didn’t get any gold,” Zeke’s dad said.

  “All we got was dizzy,” his mom added.

  “That’s not the right kind of straw,” Zeus said. “Or the right kind of spinning. The man in the story used a spinning wheel to turn dry grass into gold.”

  “Maybe we should try that,” Zeke’s dad said.

  “It doesn’t really work,” Zeus told him.

  “But the book said—” Zeke began.

  “The story is just make-believe,” Zeus said. “A lot of Earth books are filled with make-believe stories.”

  “You mean you can’t believe everything you read?” Zeke asked him.

  “Not on Earth,” Zeus said.

  Zeke frowned. He had been so sure the straw spinning would work.

  “Now how are we going to buy back the ship?” Zeke asked.

  “Someone is going to have to get a job,” Zeus said.

  “What’s a job?” Zeke’s dad wondered.

  “And where do you find one?” his mom asked.

  “Maybe there’s a job buried under that green furry stuff outside,” Zeke said.

  Zeus looked at them and shook his head. “A job is something earthlings do to earn money. You three have to learn to do things the way earthlings do.”

  “How are we supposed to do that?” Zeke’s dad asked.

  “You have to watch them,” Zeus said. He walked over to a small flat box on the wall. He pushed a button with his paw.

  “Whoa!” Zeke shouted. “Where did those tiny humans come from?”

  “Were they here the whole time?” Zeke’s mom asked.

  “I didn’t know earthlings came that small,” Zeke’s dad added.

  “They don’t,” Zeus said. “And they’re not really here. Those are just moving pictures of earthlings.”

  “They sure look real,” Zeke said.

  “I want you to study those earthlings,” Zeus said, “so you can act like them.”

  “Hey, there’s a teeny tiny Earth cat,” Zeke said, pointing at the screen.

  “Yes,” Zeus said. “It’s a commercial for cat food. This is the way Earth cats try to make other cats want to eat their food.”

  “Why did that earthling just call the cat her pet?” Zeke’s mom asked.

  “Why is the cat following the earthling all around?” Zeke’s dad wondered.

  “Maybe here the earthlings are the ones in charge,” Zeke said.

  “No, they’re not,” Zeus answered angrily.

  “But—” Zeke began.

  “Watch!” Zeus commanded. “The earthling is putting the cat’s food in a bowl.”

  “So the earthling must be the servant,” Zeke’s dad pointed out.

  “Exactly,” Zeus purred. “Because cats are always in charge, no matter what planet they’re on.”

  9

  THE CHAMP!

  Zeke stood outside his school and
looked around.

  There were no kids on the playground.

  The doors were all locked.

  Where is everybody?

  Just then, Eddie, Amelia, and a few other kids rode by. They were pedaling on strange machines with wheels and gears. The kids stopped when they saw Zeke.

  “What are you doing at school?” Eddie asked Zeke.

  “I am an Earth kid, like you,” Zeke lied. “All Earth kids go to school.”

  “Not on Saturdays,” Amelia told him.

  Zeke was surprised. Zeus hadn’t said anything about there not being school on Saturdays. It seemed the cat didn’t know everything about Earth, after all.

  “We’re going to play hide-and-seek at the playground,” Amelia told Zeke. “Do you want to play with us?”

  “What’s hide-and-seek?” Zeke asked.

  The kids all looked surprised.

  “You don’t know how to play hide-and-seek?” Eddie asked.

  “We don’t play it on my planet . . . er . . . I mean . . . where I used to live,” Zeke told him.

  “Oh,” Eddie said. “Well, it’s easy. Everybody hides except one person. That person has to find everyone else and tag them.”

  That didn’t seem hard to Zeke.

  “You be the seeker, Zeke,” Amelia said. “Cover your eyes and count to twenty. We’ll hide.”

  Zeke put his hands over his eyes. Then he smiled. Now he could see.

  Zeke watched through his teeth as the kids scattered.

  “One, two, three . . . ,” Zeke counted.

  Some kids hid behind trees.

  “Nine, ten . . . ,” Zeke kept counting.

  Some kids hid under the slide.

  “Fourteen, fifteen . . .”

  Some hid behind a big rock.

  Zeke knew where they all were.

  “Eighteen, nineteen, TWENTY!” Zeke shouted. He ran around, tagging the other kids.

  “Wow!” Eddie said a few minutes later. “You found us all so fast. Did you really cover your eyes?”

  “I did,” Zeke promised. It wasn’t a lie. It just wasn’t the whole truth.

  “Now I will be the seeker,” Eddie said. “Everybody hide.”

  Eddie began to count. “One, two, three . . .”

  The kids scattered again. Zeke hid behind a big tree.

  “Ready or not, here I come!” Eddie shouted when he reached twenty. He began to run.

  Eddie tagged two boys hiding behind the school. He tagged a girl hiding under the slide. He tagged Amelia under the seesaw.

  Then he started running toward the big tree.

  Zeke wiggled his right antenna. He disappeared. Eddie ran right past him.

  Eddie looked all over for Zeke. But he couldn’t see him anywhere.

  “Zeke, where are you?” Eddie shouted.

  But Zeke didn’t answer. He was hiding.

  Finally Eddie called out, “Zeke, you win! You can come out now.”

  Zeke wiggled his left antenna. He reappeared.

  “Here I am,” Zeke said. He walked out from behind the tree.

  “I looked there,” Eddie said. “But I didn’t see you. You must have been hiding really well!”

  “You are a hide-and-seek champ,” Amelia told Zeke. “The best of all of us.”

  Zeke smiled. Earth games were easy.

  10

  HAVE I GOT A CAT FOR YOU!

  After playing hide-and-seek, Zeke, Eddie, and Amelia decided to go get something called ice cream at Amelia’s Earth house.

  Zeke didn’t know what ice cream was. But he didn’t say that.

  Earth kids seemed to like it. He hoped he would, too.

  “Out of the way, kids!”

  Zeke heard a man shouting just as he, Eddie, and Amelia turned the corner onto Amelia’s street.

  “What’s going on?” Zeke asked his friends as the man hurried past them.

  “I don’t know,” Amelia said.

  “It’s looks like they’re filming something,” Eddie pointed out.

  Eddie walked over to a man holding a camera.

  “Are you making a movie?” he asked him.

  The man with the camera shook his head. “We are making a cat food commercial,” he said.

  “That’s one of those things where the teeny tiny cats try to get other cats to want their food, right?” Zeke asked.

  “Yeah.” The cameraman gave him a strange look. “But the cat ran away. Our director is chasing him.”

  “Why did the cat run away?” Zeke asked.

  “The neighborhood dogs started chasing him,” the man with the camera said.

  Zeke did not know how that was possible. On Planet Z, dogs were afraid of cats. But he didn’t say that. He knew better than to say anything about Planet Z.

  “It must be hard to make a cat food commercial without a cat,” Zeke said instead.

  “You can say that again,” the man agreed.

  “It must be hard to make a cat food commercial without a cat,” Zeke repeated.

  Eddie and Amelia laughed. The cameraman didn’t.

  Just then, the director walked over.

  “We’re going to have to stop,” he told the cameraman. “The cat is gone.”

  Suddenly, Zeke got a great idea.

  “Do you give the cat gold for making a commercial?” he asked.

  The director gave him a funny look.

  “We pay the cat’s owner,” the director said. “But he’s not getting any money now that his cat ran away. We have to hire another cat.”

  “Being a cat in a commercial is a job?” Zeke asked the director.

  “Yes,” the director said. “But it isn’t easy to find a cat that will do what the director says. Cats have their own ideas about things.”

  Zeke laughed. No kidding.

  “Does the job pay a lot of Earth money?” Zeke asked.

  “I’ll pay anything if I can just get this commercial made,” the director told him.

  Zeke gave the director a big smile.

  “Wait right here!” he said. “Have I got a cat for you!”

  11

  EARTH CATS DO NOT TALK

  Meow. Meow.

  Zeus sounded like a cat. A real Earth cat.

  At least that was what he sounded like until the hair and makeup people walked away.

  “I can’t believe you got me into this,” Zeus whispered to Zeke once the earthlings were too far away to hear him. “That makeup woman painted my claws purple!”

  “But we are going to get the money to buy back the spaceship,” Zeke reminded him.

  “And there is all the cat food you can eat,” Zeke’s mom added.

  “How bad can it be?” Zeke’s dad asked. Zeus pulled in his claws.

  “I’m just glad no one on Planet Z will see me looking like this,” Zeus groaned.

  Zeke didn’t blame him for feeling that way. The purple claws were pretty embarrassing.

  Just then, the director walked over. “We are ready for your pet cat now,” he told Zeke’s dad.

  Zeus hissed angrily. His purple-painted claws popped out from his paws. Zeus did not like being called a pet. Not one bit.

  The director jumped back, afraid. “Is he going to be okay?” he asked.

  “Sure.” Zeke petted Zeus on the head. “Zeus is a very good kitty.”

  Zeus hissed again. He did not like being called a kitty, either.

  “Okay, then, let’s go,” the director said. He sat down in his chair and shouted, “Action!”

  Zeke watched as an Earth lady poured some gray goop into a bowl.

  Slowly Zeus walked over to the bowl. He took two sniffs of the cat food and . . . backed far away.

  “Cut!” the director shouted. He turned angrily to Zeke and his parents.
“What’s wrong with your cat? Doesn’t he like tuna cat food?”

  “Sure he does,” Zeke said. “Cat food is like gold to him.”

  Zeke reached down and picked Zeus up in his arms. He stroked his fur.

  Zeus let out an angry hiss.

  But he did not say a word. He couldn’t. Earth cats do not talk.

  “Let’s try it again,” the director said. He went back to his chair.

  “That stuff is disgusting,” Zeus hissed in Zeke’s ear. “I can’t eat it!”

  “If you don’t, we will never get the spaceship back,” Zeke reminded him. “You will be an Earth cat forever.”

  Zeus didn’t say another word. Zeke put him back down on the ground.

  “Action!” the director shouted.

  Zeus walked back over to the bowl of gray goop.

  He took a big gulp of the slimy stuff.

  He forced a smile to his tiny mouth and looked at the camera.

  “Cut!” the director shouted. “That was perfect!”

  Zeus puffed out his chest proudly.

  “Now let’s do it again,” the director said. “This time with the liver cat food.”

  Zeus looked angrily at Zeke and his parents. He did not want to eat liver.

  Zeke smiled. “Sure,” he told the director. “Zeus loves liver.”

  Zeus hissed and bared his purple-painted claws.

  “Action!” the director shouted.

  The Earth lady poured some fresh goop in the bowl. This time it was brown.

  Zeus sniffed at the air. He wrinkled his nose.

  Zeke did not blame him. That liver stuff was really stinky.

  But Zeus walked over to the bowl anyway.

  He took a big gulp of the stinky liver. He swallowed it down.

  And then . . .