We all watch him, enjoying the alien’s joy from afar.
Then Muckle says, “Oh, all right.”
He tucks his and Kermin’s zap-cannons into the band of his underpants, then hurries out to join his associate and the dogs.
Edsley’s the next to go.
Followed by Jerry.
And Bem.
Even Björn.
Then John Henry Knox.
Finally, it’s just me, Dan, and Mikaela standing there, watching the joyous commotion taking place on the other end of the field.
“Shall we?” asks Dan.
And Mikaela and I—we say it at the same exact time:
“RARF!”
With that, we run, laughing and shouting and barking our lungs out for the whole universe to hear.
Epilogue
THAT’S IT.
That’s really all there is to tell.
Eventually, the dogs got tired and ran back to their respective homes.
Kermin and Muckle boarded their ship, Björn in tow.
And Bem left too, after we thanked him, like, ten thousand times for helping to save our butts—not to mention the butts of the billions of other people on our planet.
He didn’t say bye to us, which was interesting.
Instead he said, “I’ll be seeing you.”
But that was six weeks ago. We watched his cloud-covered spaceship rise up into the sky and disappear, and we haven’t seen or heard from him since.
I can only assume that our plan worked. That Kermin and Muckle and Bem—and, of course, Björn—did and said enough to convince the leaders of Plerp-5 to spare our planet, to find somewhere else for their ginormongous bean billboard to go.
That’s the thing, though—we can only assume.
Which is why we’ve been on our very best behavior ever since. Why we’ve been doing everything we can to take care of our precious, precious planet, and to convince others to do the same. Why we’ve been trying, basically, to be the greatest galactic neighbors that ever did exist.
It’s why we’re now spending our Saturday afternoon at the one and only Feldman’s Field, our hands and knees covered in dirt, our backs aching, our muscles sore. Because just a few days after Björn soared up into the sky with Kermin and Muckle and Bem, we took the bot’s advice, and got to work turning that neglected expanse of patchy grass into a garden. We didn’t have Björn to help, of course, but we managed pretty well on our own.
We sampled the dirt and used a few of Mikaela’s gadgets to analyze the stuff and figure out just what sort of nutrients it needed before it could serve as half-decent soil. We gathered up a bunch of wood and built beds in the spots that got just the right amount of sunshine and shade. We even spent a couple days collecting fertilizer, hanging out at the dog park and—well, you probably don’t want to hear any more about that. Let’s just say we’ve got ourselves a thriving compost pile.
Kitty, perhaps unsurprisingly, likes to take naps right beside the thing.
We don’t have much to show for all our hard work—at least not yet. There are just a handful of small, bright green leaves poking up out of the dark brown earth. But that still feels like an accomplishment, and we’re all pretty darn proud of it.
“Cloud!”
It’s Edsley, shouting out from the other side of the field, where he and some of the other EngiNerds are doing maintenance on our rainwater collection system.
And all of us—each and every one of the EngiNerds, and even Kitty—look up at the enormous, curiously shaped cumulonimbus cloud cruising across the sky. It doesn’t slow down. It doesn’t sink. It just continues on its way.
We all watch it, silently wondering upward, for a full minute. Or maybe for even longer. It’s hard to tell. Time stretches and bends in weird ways when you get to wondering like that.
But then someone shouts, “Anyone got a Phillips-head screwdriver?” and the spell is broken.
Someone else calls out, “Right here! I’ll bring it over!”
We lower our heads and get back to work.
Acknowledgments
THANK YOU TO MY FAMILY and friends for all the love, support, and encouragement—especially Danni and Isla, without whose love, support, and encouragement I wouldn’t accomplish a single thing.
Thank you to Myrsini Stephanides, who always has my back and never bats an eye at my often off-the-wall ideas.
Thank you to Karen Nagel, who helps me turn my ideas into books—books that wouldn’t be even half as good without her.
Thank you to Karin Paprocki and Serge Seidlitz, the masterminds behind all the staggeringly excellent EngiNerds art.
Thank you to everyone else at Simon & Schuster/Aladdin who had a hand in making this book what it is, and thank you to everyone there who has promoted and/or celebrated the EngiNerds series.
Thank you to Mike Lowery’s fantastic Random Illustrated Facts, from which I took the random facts that John Henry Knox shares with Ken and Mikaela in Chapter 13.
Thank you to every educator, librarian, bookseller, parent, and other person who has helped get my books into the hands of young readers.
And thank you to my readers, every single kid who has picked up EngiNerds, Revenge of the EngiNerds, or The EngiNerds Strike Back, who has spent some time with my words, exploring this little world I’ve created. I hope these books have given you at least a fraction of the joy, hope, and inspiration that you have given me.
More from this Series
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About the Author
Illustration by Jarrett Lerner
JARRETT LERNER LIKES BEANS (GREAT Northern and garbanzo are two of his favorite varieties) but does NOT like planetary destruction (no matter what the variety). He lives with his family in Medford, Massachusetts. You can visit him online at jarrettlerner.com and on Twitter and Instagram @Jarrett_Lerner.
Aladdin
Simon & Schuster, New York
Visit us at simonandschuster.com/kids
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Also by Jarrett Lerner
EngiNerds
Revenge of the EngiNerds
Geeger the Robot Goes to School
Geeger the Robot: Lost and Found
Give This Book a Title!
Coming soon
The Hunger Heroes: Missed Meal Mayhem
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First Aladdin hardcover edition February 2021
Text copyright © 2021 by Jarrett Lerner
Illustrations copyright © 2021 by Serge Seidlitz
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Jacket designed by Karin Paprocki
Interior designed by Hilary Zarycky
This book has been cataloged with the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-5344-6934-1 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-5344-6936-5 (eBo
ok)
The EngiNerds Strike Back Page 10