by Nate Ball
“Whoa, and I thought I had it bad.”
The first bell rang then. It almost scared the blue off of Amp. He dove back into the pocket headfirst. Man, he was fast when he wanted to be.
“What on Erde was that?” he called out from somewhere in the pocket.
“Just first bell,” I groaned. I pressed the top of my head with both hands, trying to think. “You can’t bring a hamster to school without three permission slips. I can’t imagine what they’d think about a four-hundred-year-old alien.”
“They’d probably make an exception,” Amp said hopefully, crawling back out of the backpack.
“No!” I snapped. “Principal Luntz makes no exceptions. He has a strict no-exceptions policy. Of course, I don’t think the Reed School Student Conduct Guidebook covers alien invaders.”
“I can handle the principal,” he said. “Just bring me to him and I’ll have him barking like a cat in no time.”
“That’s not gonna happen,” I said. “And cats don’t bark; dogs bark.” His threat reminded me of the bus trip and Max Myers. “Now explain what happened with that ploog Max Myers.”
“Ploog?” Amp shouted with delight. “You learn things fast, Zack.”
“How’d you make him do those things?” I asked. “It’s like the most awesome Jedi mind trick ever! Can you teach me how to do that?”
“No, I can’t,” he said. “My brain is different from yours.”
“Yeah, it’s probably the size of a peanut.”
“Smaller, yes, but much more dense.”
“You’re dense?” I asked. “I think that means dumb.”
“No, as in density!” Amp said with disbelief. “C’mon, Zack, density is the ratio of mass to volume, a measurement of compactness. You should know that by now.”
“Oh, right. But what’s that got to do with mind tricks?”
“Let’s see, how can I explain this?” Amp stared at the ceiling for a second, then continued. “I can send a quick pulse, a short mental burst, similar to a sound wave, that can impact a human brain’s thoughts, but just for a few seconds. It’s more like an impulse.”
“An impulse?” I asked.
“You seem somewhat unfamiliar with your own language. Haven’t you read your dictionaries and encyclopedias? An impulse is a strong and sudden urge to act or do something, but it doesn’t last.”
“That’s why Max went from being my best friend, to offering me his lunch money, to smelling flowers, to having an itch,” I said excitedly, getting it now.
“Exactly,” Amp said. “It’s powerful, but it doesn’t last.”
“Do me!” I exclaimed, clapping at the thought of it. “C’mon, try one on me.”
“Really? Are you sure?” Amp asked. I nodded. “Okay,” he said with a smile.
Suddenly, I could taste the worst sour milk imaginable. Not just a few days old, but a few weeks old—the kind of spoiled, curdled milk with the big, slimy, gray blobs in it. “AUGH!” I rasped, ready to puke up my half-eaten frozen waffle.
I proceeded to stumble around gagging for a few seconds and, just like Amp said, it faded as fast as it came on. Powerful, but brief. My breakfast was safe, for now.
“You couldn’t make me taste cherry pie? Or pizza? You had to do sour milk?” I shouted.
“I was looking for a powerful demonstration,” he chirped with delight. “Now that I have your attention, there may be some materials here that we’ll need for fixing my ship. Do they have strong magnets in a classroom like this? How about tungsten?”
“What in the world is tungsten?”
“It’s right there in the table of elements, the box with the big W,” he said, pointing at the poster on the wall. “Its atomic number is seventy-four, which tells us how many protons are in its nucleus. Tungsten is a very dense metal with an extremely high melting point—the second highest of your elements, after carbon, of course. We’ll need some of that if we are going to repair my ship.”
“Man, you’re a total nerd, Amp,” I sighed.
“And you’re more dense than I thought,” he said with a shake of his head. “So do they have any here?”
“Amp, this is the science lab, and this year is the first year I’ll get to come in here, but I haven’t had a science lab yet. So I don’t know if they have your tongue stuff.”
“Tungsten,” he corrected.
“Whatever,” I replied. “Plus, I’ve got to go to class.”
“Then I’ll just stay here,” he waved at me. “Go on and learn, I’ll stay here and survey the inventory.”
“Oh no, you won’t,” I said forcefully. “I’m not leaving you anywhere. You’ll get caught.”
“Nobody will catch me, Zack, we need to gather these materials now to—”
The second bell rang. Amp yelped and bolted back inside his pocket with the pens and pencils. “How often does that floofy noise happen?” he called out with irritation.
“‘Floofy?’ Speak English, please,” I said, snatching up my backpack, zipping Amp’s pocket closed, and heading for the door. “That’s the second bell. It means I have less than a minute to be in my seat.”
09
Classroom Commotion
Rule #1: If you ever have an alien, do not bring it to school.
Ever.
Aliens and school do not mix.
This became clear within a few minutes after collapsing in my chair at the front of my classroom.
“Oh dear, does anyone smell vanilla?” Miss Martin was asking by the time I stuffed my backpack under my chair. She laughed nervously. “It’s like a vanilla extract truck has tipped over,” she said, looking out the window. “It’s so strong.”
“Oh, no,” I whispered to myself. “Not again.”
The entire class was silent, looking puzzled and giving each other mystified looks and shrugs.
“Class, please open up your social studies workbooks to chapter seventeen,” Miss Martin commanded as she returned to her senses. Before I could pull my workbook out she made another odd announcement. “First, class, I’d like everyone to know that I think Zack McGee is this school’s most handsome young man,” she said with oddly questioning eyes.
After a moment of stunned silence, everybody erupted in laughter. I sank lower in my chair. My face got warm.
“Amp,” I thought with all my might. “Please stop! Please don’t do this!”
Suddenly, Emily Binkbarton stood up next to her desk and exclaimed, “Oh, I agree, Miss Martin. He’s as cute as peaches.”
Peaches?
The class erupted with more laughter.
“Zack’s face makes me feel safe and relaxed,” shouted Davey Swope, apparently horrified by his own mouth.
Safe and relaxed? What the—
“I want to run my fingers through his hair!” Lexie Evans suddenly blurted out, as if she just won the big prize at bingo.
Now the laughter was so out of control it seemed to fill my head.
I must have blushed bright red. My face felt like it was about burst into flames.
Amid all this laughing, commotion, and confusion, I whipped my backpack out from under my desk, dropped it roughly on my desk, and yanked open the zipper of the pen-and-pencil pocket.
“Amp, you cannot just—” I began.
The pocket was empty.
Huh?
Amp was gone.
“Amp!” I yelped, searching desperately around my desk.
My alien had gone rogue!
“What is going on?” Olivia said in my ear, her voice piercing through the roar around us. Olivia sits a few desks behind me, in my row, but she was now standing next to me, shaking my shoulder. “Is this a prank? It’s great. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I can’t talk right now,” I said, pushing past her. With my backpack clutched in my hand, I proceeded to squat down and duckwalk down the aisle, searching furiously around everyone’s feet. “Amp!” I growled. “You’re in big trouble, mister. I’m gonna wring that tiny blue neck of yours! Ge
t back in your pocket!”
He was nowhere.
“Zack McGee, please take your seat,” Miss Martin ordered from behind me with a loud clap. Her impulse about my handsomeness had apparently faded. In fact, everyone else seemed back to normal, too. Amp probably was no longer in the room. Then it occurred to me: all this crazy talk was just a distraction. Amp used his Jedi mind trick so he could escape! He was probably running wild through the hallways right now looking for the science lab and his tongue stuff.
“Can I go to the bathroom?” I asked abruptly, jumping to my feet.
She must have seen the absolute panic in my eye. “By all means, Zack,” Miss Martin said with an understanding nod, waving me toward the door.
I stumbled out into the deserted hallway. Where was he? “I’m getting you a cage!” I whispered as loudly as I could.
I figured he was headed for the lab, so I bolted around the corner and ran right into Principal Luntz. His big belly stopped me like a wall of cheese.
“McGee, this is not good,” he said, staring down at me. He took a firm hold of my arm. With his other hand he poked his glasses back up his nose. He shook his head with disappointment. “Why are you running through the halls during class? What’s going on?”
Never before had telling the truth seemed like less of an option.
“Let’s see if a call to your parents loosens your tongue,” he huffed in frustration, walking me toward the school office.
10
Principal Luntz
“What is going on with you?” Olivia said.
Olivia?
She sat down next to me on one of the chairs lined up outside Principal Luntz’s office. I was waiting to be called in. She proceeded to punch me in the arm—not hard, but hard enough to let me know she wasn’t happy about being left out.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, looking around. “How’d you get out of class? Did you see anything odd in the hallway?”
“I got a bathroom pass,” she replied simply, jumping up and pressing her ear to the frosted glass on Principal Luntz’s door.
“Get away from there,” I hissed. “You’re going to get busted.”
“You’re acting like a weirdo,” she said, narrowing her eyes at me. She sat back down in the chair next to mine. “You’re sleeping with your window wide open so the whole world can see your unmentionables. You’re acting funny at the bus stop. You’ve got Max Myers crawling on the bus. You’re pulling off class pranks. Now you’re tangling with Principal Dunce.”
“It’s Luntz, not Dunce,” I whispered. “Be quiet, will you? I’m in enough trouble already.”
She placed her hand on my forehead. “Maybe you caught some kind of insanity flu. Do you feel hot?”
I pushed her hand away. “It’s not like that. It’s kind of complicated.”
“Look who you’re talking to! I’m a complicated chick. Spill the beans, Zacky.”
“I’m in a situation here,” I said. “It’s best if you avoid getting tangled up in my web of disaster.”
“Look, I’m a fixer, right?” she said, raising her eyebrows at me. “You’ve got a problem; I can fix it. I can handle Luntz,” she said, jumping to her feet. “Let me speak on your behalf,” she assured me, reaching out for the doorknob to Luntz’s office.
“Wait!” I pleaded. “Okay! Okay! I can sort of tell you what’s going on, but only because I may need your help finding my . . . my . . . new friend.”
Olivia looked at me with a funny face. “New friend? Do tell, Zack McGee.”
I collected my thoughts before speaking. “I have sort of a houseguest. A secret houseguest.”
She looked at me like a weasel just crawled out of my nose. “You mean at your house-home? Where you live?”
“Yes! You don’t know him. He’s really . . . um . . . really short.”
“You have a secret short man living at your house? Is he your Uncle Herb?”
“No, no! You’ve never met him. He’s not from around here.”
“So, you’ve got a short stranger living in your house?” she said slowly. She stared off for a few moments. “What’s that got to do with Miss Martin smelling vanilla or thinking you’re hot stuff?”
“Well, this guest . . . He’s different,” I said, trying not to say too much. “He’s . . . well, he’s blue.”
“Blue? You mean, he’s really sad?”
I knew this wasn’t going to be easy. “No, not that kind of blue,” I groaned. “You’re not getting it.”
“Oh, I think I am!” she said, raising her voice now. “You’ve got a secret, really short, very blue man who isn’t from around here living at your house. That makes perfect sense!”
“He’s actually not a man,” I said, sinking lower into my chair. “He says he’s not a boy or a girl. He is both and neither at the same time.”
Olivia stared at me for a full minute. “Zack McGee, you are too old for imaginary friends.”
“He’s not imaginary,” I hissed.
“What’s wrong with you?” Olivia shouted. She grabbed my shoulders with both hands and shook me vigorously. “Snap out of it!”
“MCGEE, WHAT’S GOING ON OUT HERE?!”
Principal Luntz had thrown open his office door. His face was red and unhappy.
Olivia suddenly stood up and brushed the wrinkles out of her shirt, composing herself like a professional actor. “Sir, I am here to represent the best interests of one Zack McGee, the troubled youth you see sitting here before you.”
If I’d sunk any lower in my chair, I’d have been on the floor.
Luntz looked us both over for what seemed like an eternity. “Fine, but I’ll talk to you separately. You first,” he said, pointing to Olivia.
I jumped up to protest, but he gave me his extremely-serious-principal look, and I slowly slumped back into my chair.
As his door clicked closed, I considered the fact that I should have listened to my mom and stayed home today.
11
Friends in High Places
As I listened to Olivia’s muffled voice behind the glass of Principal Luntz’s office, I considered the mess my life had become. My “new start” in fourth grade seemed in total jeopardy.
“I’m sorry, Zack,” Amp’s voice said from the chair next to me.
“AAGH!” I yelped, nearly leaping out of my own skin. “Where’d you come from?”
“Oh, please, I cannot be as scary as that floofy bell that keeps—”
Amp didn’t finish, because my hand shot out as fast as a frog’s tongue, and I snatched up my alien pal.
“I should be drop-kicking you across the blacktop,” I growled at the tiny blue head poking out of my fist.
He made a pained face. “Too tight,” he managed to bleat. I loosened my grip and he gulped at the air. “I said I was sorry.”
“You can’t just turn a school upside down because you need some spare parts for your crummy space ship,” I said. “Or turn a life upside down.”
“I haven’t turned anything upside down,” he said with a puzzled look.
“You know what I mean,” I said with clenched teeth.
“No, I truly don’t know what you mean.”
“This is a disaster,” I hissed. “Olivia’s in there trying to get me out of trouble. My whole class thinks I’m a complete nutball. Lexie Evans wants to touch my hair.”
He thought about all this for a minute. “You’re right, I was not careful with my impulse trick. I won’t do it again.”
“Thank you,” I sighed. But now it was my turn to think about things for a minute. “Not so fast,” I said, snapping my fingers. I sat up straight. “Hey, we could use your little mind trick one more time. I’m in a real pickle here.”
“Wait, what about a pickle? I didn’t follow the pickle part.”
“It’s a saying.”
“A saying?”
“A figure of speech.”
“I’ve spent years learning Earth languages. All of them. And never have I hea
rd that people can be in a pickle. Very strange—and dangerous. It seems to me you’d risk being eaten.”
“Listen,” I said, taking a deep breath. “We need to use your Jedi mind trick thing on Principal Luntz. If he calls my dad, I will be grounded until I’m a grandfather.”
“That sounds terrible.”
“So just shoot some of those thought-balls in his direction. You know, like how I’m a great kid.”
“No, you said not to do that trick anymore. You said my mind trick was turning things upside down. I was wrong to use it. How could using it again be a good thing?”
“My goose is cooked here, Amp. I’ve painted myself into a corner. I’m hanging by a thread. You get that, right?”
“Something about your goose hanging in a corner,” he said with a helpless look on his face. “I’m still trying to figure out the pickle thing.”
I groaned. “I know I told you to not do that mind stuff again. I get that. But I want you to make an exception in this case.”
He screwed up his little face and looked into the distance. “Let me think about this.”
I waited a full minute. “Well?” I finally said.
“I need more time. I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? Are you kidding me? I’m going to get creamed now.”
“Zack,” Olivia’s voice called out as Principal Luntz’s door clicked open. “Would you join us in here?”
I hoisted Amp up so we could see eye to eye. “You are the most frustrating alien in the whole stinkin’ universe,” I growled, then shoved him back inside my backpack and headed into Principal Luntz’s office.
12
Showdown
“Olivia here tells me you’ve been sleepwalking,” Principal Luntz said, focusing on me through his reading glasses like I was a fly caught between a pair of chopsticks.
“Somnambulism is nothing to be ashamed of,” Olivia added.
“Somna . . . what?” I said, sitting down next to Olivia in the empty chair in front of Principal Luntz’s desk.