They Came From Planet Q

by Laura Dower

  Damon turned white as a ghost. No big surprise there.

  Stella had assumed her usual “I’m gonna kick your butt” pose. Hard to believe that she actually thought she could take on thirty-six robots! But she was always ready to try!

  I could not see Jesse, though. Had the robots gotten him, too?

  I swooshed through the air. The giant robot was not wasting any more time. He didn’t care about bargains or deals. He wanted me.

  I was a goner.

  “Hey!” I yelled. “Tell my mom and dad I love them, will ya?”

  The noise in the parking lot outside the mall was deafening. With all of our focus on getting the bots, I’d forgotten just how noisy and nuts the mall had become. From up here, I could see everything spread out for an acre or more. I wondered if Walter could see me, up here, clenched by this B-Monster. This was so not how I wanted to end today.

  All of a sudden, without warning, the robot opened its claw and let me roll right out.

  Thunk.

  I landed hard on the ground.

  I was alive! I was free! I was . . . confused.

  I darted back over to Stella and Damon, gasping for air.

  “What happened?” I said. “Why did it let go of me?”

  “Look at yourself,” Stella said. “The bot thought you were the firequartz rock. You’re covered in red dust. It got mixed-up.”

  “Where’s Jesse?” I asked. “Where’s the rock?”

  Jesse let out a whoop and a howl. “I’m over here!” he cried. “FIREQUARTZ IS OVER HERE!”

  He wanted us—and the robots—to hear him.

  What a fabulous photo opportunity that scene would have made! We watched as the army of bots turned their attention—and their clunky bodies—toward Jesse. Now they were definitely moving more slowly.

  Damon and Jesse each took a slab of the split firequartz and raised it over their heads. The bots moved toward them.

  What were we supposed to do?

  “Follow me!” Jesse bellowed.

  Their eyes were on the stone.

  “To the left,” Jesse called out to Damon. They moved from side to side like they were on the TV show Stars Who Dance.

  When Jesse and Damon ran to the left, the Bots ran to the left. Then Jesse signaled to Damon to switch to the right. They switched and ran right . . . and left . . . and right. They zigzagged in circles, lugging the heavy rock close to their chests. The bots tried to keep up.

  But they couldn’t.

  Some stumbled and tripped over their own robot feet. Others slowed to a stop. The robot leader was the only one who was keeping up—and even its red bulbs were beginning to dim.

  Jesse and Damon were winning! Monster Squad was winning!

  Stella and I ran to catch up with the boys.

  “What are you doing?” I cried to Jesse. “You’re a genius!”

  “Hurry up!” Jesse said. “I have a master plan. We have to get the firequartz over there!”

  Jesse pointed to another part of the parking lot where tons of power lines had gone down. One cable whipped in the air, blue sparks crackling.

  A zapper!

  “If we could just aim that cable at the rock, we could use it to destroy the rock.”

  “Why can’t we?” I asked.

  “Because it’s pretty unsafe,” said Jesse.

  “You know what else is unsafe?” Stella asked. She paused three beats for effect. “Robots who want to destroy humankind.”

  CHAPTER 16

  PHOTO FINISH

  We decided to risk it. Or, to be exact, we decided I’d risk it. Luckily we were standing next to the mall that just threw up. There were clothes all over the place. So I made myself a protective suit out of rubber gloves, a scuba mask, and a man’s down jacket that went all the way to my ankles. It wasn’t much of a fashion statement, but I figured it would do the trick.

  “Okay, Lindsey,” Jesse coached. “Just aim that cable toward the rock and let the sparks do their thing. The last firequartz will be destroyed just like in the movie. It’ll be like Walter said. All the molecules will get confused. And the bots will be magnetic no more.”

  I took a deep breath. Then I grabbed the end of the cable and aimed it toward the rock. “Don’t try this at home,” I shouted, wagging my finger at my fellow Squadders. My heart was practically pounding through the down jacket as I carefully picked up the cable, held it as far from my body as I could, and aimed it directly at the firequartz.

  There was a blinding white light and then a red, smoky cloud. Those bots didn’t know what hit ’em. Or rather, what zapped ’em. One by one, starting with the biggest bot, the Planet Q creatures began to fall to pieces until they were reduced to a pile of big, old, busted bots—literally.

  We jumped into the air, shrieking. Not that anyone could hear us. The sirens around us were still sounding. The mall was still a great big mess.

  But the disaster wasn’t over yet.

  All at once, even over all that noise, we heard a loud screech. We turned our heads in time to see each of the enormous magnetized piles in the parking lot . . . come undone.

  One car on the top of the car pile bumped its way over the side; a few washing machines and a plow shovel went next. Coins were flying off another pile, as were other metal objects of all sizes. The noise was incredible. People ran screaming. Without the bots or the firequartz to throw off Earth’s magnetic field, everything that had been magnetized came undone. It was a metallic landslide.

  How would the scientists explain this one? I wondered. It felt pretty cool to know that Monster Squad knew more than most people about the events that had just taken place. Leery was right. Being in the squad was an awesome responsibility.

  Just then, Walter pulled up in the limousine.

  “I don’t believe it!” Walter cried, racing from the front seat to meet us. “You beat the bots! Dr. Leery will be so proud! Jesse, the power line zapper was a stroke of genius. Lindsey, your bravery was next to none. Bravo, Monster Squad! Now hop in and let’s get away from this disaster!”

  Jesse, Stella, Damon, and I piled into the limousine.

  It was hard to calm down after the excitement of the bot battle. Everyone was positively giddy with happiness over our victory.

  But a little part of me felt sad.

  “Why so glum, chum?” Walter asked, eyeing me in the rearview mirror just like he always did.

  “My camera,” I said. “Grandpa Max’s camera. The giant robot took it and now it’s lost forever.”

  “Ahh,” Walter said. “I see.”

  Then he lifted something off the front seat and held it up for me.

  It was my camera! I grabbed it and kissed it. “Thank you! Thank you!” I said. “But how did you get it?!”

  “Oswald Leery wasn’t about to lose this again,” Walter said. “While you kids were fighting the bots, I was searching the piles of metal objects for one important prop from They Came from Planet Q. Let me tell you, my pile-climbing days are way behind me. Phew!”

  The dial on top of the camera was broken, but I didn’t care. I was just happy to have it back.

  Walter turned the key in the ignition and we started to drive away, but Damon screamed from the backseat.

  “WAIT! STOP!”

  The limo came to a screeching halt.

  Oh no, I thought to myself. What could possibly be the matter now?

  Damon reached into his backpack and pulled out the original reel of They Came from Planet Q.

  “We forgot to destroy the movie!” he cried. “Can you imagine if, after all that, we never even got rid of the reel? We have to do this—now.”

  “Yes, we do,” Walter said.

  I grabbed the reel out of Damon’s hands. “Here, let me do it,” I said.

  In a way, this had been my battle all along. I hopped out of the car and dropped the reel in front of the limo tires.

  “Okay, drive!” I commanded.

  Walter knew exactly what to do. He drove back and forth a
nd forth and back over the reel, until it was smooshed to smithereens. After that, I picked apart whatever wasn’t destroyed by the wheels of the car, piece by piece. In no time, the original reel was nothing more than a bunch of shreds.

  I got back into the limousine with my broken camera and one of those shreds (just for a random souvenir).

  “Uh . . . can we go home now?” Damon asked.

  We all laughed. I was sad about the camera, but home sounded so good. I was glad we were driving with Walter, too. We got home extra fast.

  Once inside my house, I raced past Mom so she wouldn’t see me covered in red dust from the mall. I changed out of my clothes and took a shower before heading back downstairs with the broken camera. I wanted to put it away safely in my darkroom.

  “Have fun with your friends?” Mom asked when I came back down.

  I nodded. “Yup.”

  “No more bugging your father at work, I presume?” Mom asked.

  “Uh . . . nope.”

  She has no idea that we just destroyed an entire alien robot army! I thought. Incredible!

  “Okay,” Mom said, just like every other night. “Dinner will be ready soon. Your dad called. Apparently there’s been some major hubbub at the mall all day. Good thing you went this morning, dear, or else you might have gotten mixed up in it!”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That would have been a bad thing.”

  I turned and sneaked down to the basement with my broken camera.

  The darkroom down there seemed empty with just me developing stuff in there. It had been so much fun to have my fellow Monster Squad members here, developing photos together and planning our counterattack on the bots.

  So much had happened in one day.

  I flopped on the sofa and looked hard at the camera. The dial was completely busted. I contemplated fixing it with super-duper glue, but no matter how hard I tried, I wouldn’t get it to work like before. It needed B-Force. It needed those bots. It needed red lightning.

  Even broken, however, the camera could still be the star of my collection. So I placed it up on the shelf.

  “LINDSEY!” Mom called out from upstairs. “Word Buzz is on! Want to play?”

  “I’m tired, Mom,” I said. “Not tonight.”

  “Tired?” Mom cried. “What could possibly have tired you out so much?”

  I sank back into the downstairs couch and just closed my eyes. There were so many things to “B” tired about. Ha-ha. Someday, I’d tell Mom about all of them—and about all of our great Monster Squad adventures. I’d even show her the photos.

  But for now, I just wanted to catch up on some sleep so I’d be rested up in time for the next Monster Squad mission. Somewhere out there, the next B-Force was already brewing.