Mothership

by Martin Leicht

  “It’s just that I found the perfect dress,” he says, flicking an imaginary lock of hair over his shoulder in his best Britta impersonation. Seriously, he ought to take that falsetto on the road. He could make a fortune. “But on second thought I don’t think I have the hips for it. So Molly Ringwald it is.”

  I laugh. “Good,” I tell him.

  That’s when we hear the noise behind us, the sound that’s a cross between an old-fashioned kazoo and a pygmy elephant in heat. We turn and look, and wouldn’t you know it’s Cole and Britta, driving along with shit-eating grins like they’re the goddamn prom king and queen, revving the engine of his classic red ’55 Kia Metric convertible. Beside me Ducky lets out a groan.

  Cole spots us and waves, and then—seriously, what the hell?—pulls over to the curb to say hey.

  “Hey,” he says.

  I can sense Ducky’s entire body go stiff. So I do what any good PIP would do in such a situation.

  “Bite me,” I tell Cole.

  Britta, who looks like she’d rather be swallowing live scorpions than conversing with Ducky and me on the side of the road, flips me the bird. “What’s your problem, pugly?” she says.

  I ignore her and instead inspect the length of the car.

  “Pretty sweet, right?” Cole asks with a grin.

  I snort. “Sure,” I tell him. “Just makes me wonder what you’re making up for, is all.”

  My dad has always had a thing for classic cars—any antiquated trip-dub machinery, really, but cars especially—so I’ve spent my fair share of time around automobiles, my head ducked under the hood of an old classic or tinkering with the motherboard of the more contemporary models. And I know for a fact that the Kia Metric is a penis-mobile, pure and simple. It has a two-cylinder hydrogen-injected engine, but Cole’s tricked it out with a newer set of magnetic spheres, the ones with the insta-gel traction system, which are really useful, you know, if you’re a race car driver or need to make a detour up the side of a building. But for the ’burbs, it’s a bit much. That confused puppy look crosses Cole’s face, the same one he gets whenever Mr. Fipps asks him to solve a proof in Algebra 2. “Huh?” he says.

  Ducky pulls on my arm. “Come on, Elvie,” he tells me. “Let’s go.”

  “You want a ride?” Cole asks. A small self-assured smile creeps around the edges of his mouth. “I can drive you guys home if you want.”

  “Excuse me?” Britta trills. Her eyes have become swirly orbs of fury.

  “We’re good,” Ducky says coolly. “We enjoy the exercise.”

  “But it’s really no prob—,” Cole starts, but I cut him off.

  “Where exactly are we supposed to sit?” I say. The Metric’s “backseat” is barely big enough for a full set of toenail clippings, let alone two human beings. Cole looks in the back, finally understanding, and starts sputtering like a dying goldfish. I roll my eyes. “Thanks for the offer,” I tell him, and wave him on his way. Britta turns around to shoot me the stink eye as they roll off down the road.

  “God, that guy is so dumb,” I tell Ducky when the prom putzes are finally out of sight. “Did you know that he’s flunking, like, every subject? The dude couldn’t pass a class if he swallowed it first.”

  “Funny,” Ducky says. “I thought we were done with this particular topic of conversation.”

  I bite at the skin around my thumbnail and dart my eyes down to my feet. Ducky moves on to the subject of his new Jetman strategy.

  And I’m actually into it, talking about power-packs and the secret underwater cave world Ducky recently discovered, and for the next fifteen minutes or so, Cole Archer and Britta McVicker are the very last thing on my mind. . .. Until we turn the corner.

  There’s the penis-mobile, pulled off to the side of the road again, hazards blinking. Cole is peering under the hood, doing his best impression of someone who actually knows what he’s looking at, while Britta is sitting up on the back of the car, pissed as hell, furiously jabbing at her phone.

  We can’t avoid the scene—we have to walk right by them. But while I’m passing with blinders on, Ducky heaves a deep sigh and stops walking.

  “Do you guys need help?” he asks. He says it the way you would ask someone if they wanted you to jump into a sandpit filled with bat guano, but he still asks it.

  “You’re a better man than I, Gunga Din,” I mutter.

  Britta screeches into the phone and then throws it into her purse. “My mom’s at rock aerobics,” she hollers to Cole. “And no one else can pick me up.”

  Cole pulls his head out from under the hood, brandishing a blue-stained rod. “It’s fine,” he says. “I’ve totally got it. It’s the Kuiper bonding. To conduct the current properly, it should be clear.”

  “That’s so true,” I say, and Cole nods, unaware of what a freaking dimwit he is. “Except that’s the wiper fluid.”

  “Oh,” he says.

  Ducky sighs again. “Elvie, why don’t you take a look?”

  I’m not sure who looks more surprised at that, me or Cole, but Ducky just pushes me toward the Kia. “She’s really pro with cars,” he explains.

  “Uh, thanks,” Cole replies, scooching over.

  “Whatever,” I tell the dumbass in distress. I’m not doing this for Cole, I tell myself. It’s just the nice thing to do. It’s just NICE.

  “First of all,” I say, lacing my voice with as much condescension as I can muster, “you’re looking in the wrong place.” I slam the hood shut, barely missing Cole’s perfect nose, and open the driver side door to slide inside. While Cole stands around blank-faced and Britta vies for the Scoffer of the Year Award, I punch up the diagnostic program on the console display.

  It doesn’t take me two seconds to see what the problem is. It’s not a hardware problem; it’s the software. When Cole tricked out the car with the new mag spheres, he must have decided to upgrade his primary CPU at the same time. Too bad he chose one with an architecture that conflicts with the original engine systems around it. Without the right emulation software installed, it’s no wonder the POS glitches. This is one reason my dad hates mixing and matching different-generation auto components—if you’re going to drive a classic car, you’ve got to use classic parts. Dur.

  I upload the correct emulators to my phone, sync to the console, and three minutes later I’ve got the coupe purring again. “That’ll get you home,” I tell Cole, slamming the door as I get out. “But you really need to get some native routers put in.”

  “Thanks,” Cole tells me, and I can’t help thinking as he says it how gratitude really makes his eyes sparkle. And God, how have I not ever noticed those cheekbones before? And that utterly adorable constellation of freckles just below his left eye? “You’re a lifesaver, seriously. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you, Elvie.”

  “Yeah,” Britta says, leaning out of the car to grip Cole’s arm. She gives it a protective squeeze, and smiles at me. “It’s so awesome to know that ugly girls can be good at stuff too.”

  In my mind I am already lunging at her throat, mountain-lion-style, when Ducky grabs my arms from behind to stop me. Cole hops into the car and looks at Britta pointedly. “Elvs hasn’t had an ugly day in her life,” he tells her, and the way Britta’s face falls is enough to make me stop wanting to rip her jugular out. After putting his now revived automobile into gear, Cole pulls away from the curb, then turns back to me and winks.

  And my stomach flips a somersault.

  • • •

  The next morning there is a surprise at the bottom of my locker—a cupcake with chocolate frosting. No sprinkles. I stare at it for a moment, then peel off the wrapper without bothering to eat the thing.

  There, written in the handwriting that I know so very well from gazing over his shoulder in lit class, is a message:

  You really rev me up.

  (Thanks, Elvs.)

  —Cole

  CHAPTER FIVE

  IN WHICH OUR LITTLE REUNION TURNS DEADLY

  “Co
le?” I screech, looking my former almost-boyfriend straight in his blue-green-blue eyes. Yep, there’s no denying it. It’s him. “What the—?” There aren’t enough synapses in my brain to process what’s going on right now. I can handle being attacked by space commandos. I can handle that our teachers were evil (heck, I already kinda suspected that). I even think that I’m handling the whole your-teachers-might-be-aliens thing pretty well. But when my estranged baby daddy turns up as one of said commandos, well, that’s just one cherry too many for Elvie’s drama sundae.

  “Uh, hey, Elvie,” Cole replies, and he actually sounds sheepish. You know, the way you might sound if you totally bailed on the girl you knocked up and then ran into her in outer space three weeks before her due date. “How’ve you been?”

  Oh, this goon is going down. If anyone were in line for an Elvie beat-down special, it’d be Cole Archer.

  “Hey,” I reply.

  It’s a really cutting “hey.”

  Ramona steps over to my side. “You know this haircut?” she asks, clearly unimpressed with Cole. Which makes me heart her just a little bit. She rounds on him, unfazed by the ray gun he’s been swinging all over the place. “Who the hell are you?” she asks.

  Cole opens his mouth to answer, but looks at me instead, as if he needs my permission to lay out our whole sordid history.

  “Cole is . . .,” I begin to tell Ramona, and then realize that the English language doesn’t have the right word for what Cole is. Boyfriend? No. Ex? It’s hard to be an ex if you were never a boyfriend. Raging douchetard from planet Ass Hat? Closer. “Cole is the Picasso of Lower Merion High School,” I tell Ramona. I point to my baby bump. “Behold, Guernica.”

  “Aaahhh,” she says, nodding in Cole’s direction. “Well, it’s nice to meet the artist in his prime.”

  “Look, Elvs . . .,” he begins.

  “Nice job biting it on the bleachers, by the way,” Ramona adds. “With moves like that, I’m thinking . . . Olympic long jumper.”

  I’m just about to tell Cole where he can stuff that ray gun, when from behind me I hear, “Baaaaaay-bee!” And Britta, still surprisingly agile for an about-to-burst cheerleader, elbow-smashes past my face and leaps into his arms. “Oh, my God!” she cries, kissing him all over—mouth, neck, hairline, shoulders. “I can’t believe you’re here! I haven’t seen you since . . . Why did you ever . . . How did you know I’d be . . . Oh, Coley, I’ve missed you!”

  I cross my arms and scowl. Much as I might not need some asshole like Cole Archer sucking up my oxygen, I can’t help being jealous at the sight of him sucking someone else’s. He plops Britta down onto her feet and runs his hand across her belly while she giggles. “The little guy’s doing all right?” he asks. And, okay, it’s not like I didn’t know before that Britta and I had the same baby daddy, but just now, at this moment, is the first time it’s occurred to me that our kids are going to be siblings.

  They should have put that in the posters for the Abstinence Club at school:

  Sex: Don’t Do It

  (Or your baby might be related to Britta McVicker)

  Just then the captain comes back our way, and when he sees Cole with his helmet off, palm to Britta’s maternity swimsuit, he goes ballistic.

  “Soldier!” he barks at Cole, whipping his own helmet off—to yell with greater clarity, I guess. “What exactly do you think you’re doing?”

  Cole straightens up, stiff-as-a-plank, but Britta just scowls. “God, loosen your jockstrap,” she says. “We’re having a reunion here.”

  Ramona nudges me in the side, gesturing toward Captain Freak-Out, and says, “Damn, are all these commandos smoking hotties?”

  Seriously. Even as the captain’s ears start spewing steam, I can’t help noticing that they are pretty handsome ears. He’s got a pretty handsome everything, actually. Cropped black hair, smooth dark skin, no trace of stubble. He’s kinda like an olive-skinned Cole. Stick a pout and a squint on him, and he could be an underwear model, easy mode.

  But maybe now is not the time to inform him that he rates billboard status.

  “Archer!” he hollers as Natty and Other Cheerleader wander over our way to find out what all the commotion is about. Apparently no one has ever told him that shouting is bad for your blood pressure, because the guy has one volume, and it’s Loud. “You’re acquainted with one of the targets?” Targets? I scratch my nose and play tennis spectator between Captain Whatshisname, who’s so mad he’s spitting, and Cole, whose face is absorbing the majority of said spittle. “Do you have any idea what a serious breach of protocol this is?”

  “I didn’t know she’d—uh, be here,” Cole stammers back. But Big Boss Man doesn’t seem to be biting.

  “You were given intel on all forty-six students at briefing, just like everyone else. If you knew this girl, you should have said something.”

  Cole looks ready to piss himself, but he does his best to squeak out an answer. “Yes—I—Sir, I know that, sir, but . . .” For once his dreamy good looks don’t seem to be enough to get by with. He straightens up and clears his throat. “But I hadn’t seen her since—”

  “And why would it matter when the last time you saw her was?” the captain bellows. Seriously, dude needs to check his spittle situation. I might as well go dunk myself back in the pool.

  Britta is glaring daggers at the captain. “For your information,” she tells him, “Cole is my boyfriend.”

  “Your boyfriend?” Ramona says, a curious smile creeping across her face. “But I thought—” That’s when I give her a Please, please, no, don’t bring it up look. Now is not exactly the time for Britta to learn about the whole maybe-sort-of-sleeping-with-her-boyfriend-behind-her-back-and-getting-knocked-up-in-the-process debacle. That’s really the kind of thing you need at least two minutes for.

  Thank God Ramona speaks eyebrow, ’cause she keeps her trap shut.

  “Archer!” Captain Loud barks at Cole. “Are you purposefully trying to jeopardize this mission, or are you just a complete moron?”

  Ramona folds her arms across her pregnant-lady rack. “This is better than Soap Net,” she says.

  “Are all our boyfriends here?” Chewie pipes up.

  Britta is still plastering Cole with wet kisses. “You’re so heroic!” she gushes. “Rushing in here and saving us from these creeps!”

  “Saving us?” comes a voice from behind me. “The teachers didn’t go all psycho until these guys showed up in the first place. What’s the deal? Who are you guys?”

  But it seems that Captain Spaz Attack doesn’t really feel like chatting. The vein on his forehead is getting the workout of a lifetime. Pretty soon he’ll be able to bench press with it. Rather than deal with all our baby mama drama, he decides to pull Cole aside—well, “yank” is probably a better verb—to yell at him in private. Still, he isn’t exactly mayor of Shushville, and the pool room is made for echoes, so we get the gist of things. A little bit of “If I even THOUGHT that you MANIPULATED your way onto this strike force . . .” with a generous helping of “. . . COMPLETELY disregarded the basic PRINCIPLES . . .” and a chorus of “. . . SUCH an idiot!”

  Honestly, part of me feels sorry for Cole. The guy looks like he wants to drop a smoke bomb and ninja vanish. Still, I’m not really in a forgive-and-forget frame of mind at the moment. He actually thinks he can just knock me up, totally ditch town, and then show up a couple months later to rescue me from murderous aliens, only to start sucking face with his “real” girlfriend right in front of me? Beefcake, puh-leez.

  While Cole practices his ghost impression—paper white, shaking, boo-hoo-hooing—one of the other commandos distributes towels and tells the girls still in their swimsuits to dart into the changing room to put on some real clothes. My sopping black V-neck and stretch jeans are sticking to my body, but my only change of clothes is back in my room, and now doesn’t really seem like the time to ask for a hall pass. It looks like I’ll be spending the rest of the day looking like a drowned marmot.

&n
bsp; The plan, the commando tells us after Ramona digs it out of him, is to rendezvous with the other girls and commandos from the On Your Own class, then jettison out of here on the ship they rode in on, leaving the Hanover School for good and returning safely to our homes. I join two of the commandos in their attempt to check for survivors while waiting for the girls to change. I do my best not to look at Linda’s—or Lindsey’s—floating body, the bile once again rising in the back of my throat. I try not to think about how they’ll tell her parents. How her folks will react to the news. Actually, it’s pretty easy not to think about things like that, what with Natty trailing behind me, yapping in my ear.

  “Do you really think they’re going to take us home?” Natty asks, apparently oblivious to the dead teacher I’ve just uncovered smushed behind a lounge chair. I close my eyes for a moment, squeezing them hard so that it’s only pinpricks of light I see behind my eyelids. When I open them again, the dead teacher’s still there, but I swallow down the awfulness, make a mental note to tell the commandos about him, and move on down the length of the wall.

  “Sure, Natty,” I tell her, although I don’t really know what to think. Obviously there’s a lot that Cole and the rest of these commando guys aren’t telling us. And yes, they’re being supermysterious and we should all be asking them some pretty important questions, like, you know, “Who are you guys?” But of the two opposing groups of sultry dudes on this ship, these are the guys who weren’t trying to drown girls in the pool, so, at least for now, I think I’m going to have to go on faith that Cole and his pals can get us out of here, and explain the rest later.

  Really, what other choice have I got?

  Finished with my inspection, I inch myself slowly away from Natty and join Chewie, who is cajoling a group of the commandos to take off their helmets. Her pout becomes even more pronounced as, one by one, she inspects their faces and discovers that no, her boyfriend is not on board. Although, based on the ravishing good looks of every soldier here, hotness is apparently a requirement for this particular strike force.