Willy Maykit in Space

by Greg Trine

  They kept walking, crossed a few creeks, then headed down a slope. After a while, it leveled off into some kind of grove with a very different sort of tree. The leaves on the trees were a light shade of pink—even the tree trunks were pink—and they were filled with apple-size purple fruit. Norp pulled one off a low-hanging branch and took a bite.

  Willy and Cindy hesitated. “Are you sure they’re edible?” Cindy asked.

  Norp grinned, purple juice running down his chin. “Been eating them for a week and I’m still here.”

  “Yeah, but he’s an alien,” Cindy whispered.

  “I know,” Willy whispered back.

  “Maybe aliens can handle poison.”

  “I know.”

  “What are you two whispering about?” Norp asked. “Isn’t telling secrets considered rude on your planet? Come on. Breakfast is served.”

  “Uh . . .” Willy muttered.

  Before he could decide, wings flapped overhead. “Caw.” Phelps landed beside him. Then he waddled over to a fallen piece of fruit and pecked at it.

  If it was good enough for the coolest seagull in the universe, it was good enough for Willy Maykit. “Come on, Cindy,” he said. “Let’s eat.”

  Willy and Cindy joined in. “Not bad,” Willy said, finishing one piece of fruit and reaching for another. It was much more than not bad. It was the best fruit he’d ever tasted—a combination of apple, orange, and pomegranate rolled into one.

  “Not bad at all,” Cindy added.

  For every piece of fruit Willy ate, Norp ate three. He was a purple-fruit-eating machine.

  “We should save some for later,” Willy said, “so we don’t have to come back here.”

  And that’s when he remembered his duffel. He’d left it in the clearing the night before when the monster chased them off. Everyone agreed that Willy’s duffel would be the perfect purple-fruit container.

  Willy raced back to the clearing and grabbed the bag. When he returned to the grove of pink trees, Cindy and Norp were already busy picking the purple fruit. Willy joined in and helped them fill the duffel. But hauling a full bag of fruit back to their tree was no easy task. And swinging Tarzan-style while carrying a heavy load proved impossible.

  “Now what?” Cindy said, gazing across the canyon.

  Willy shrugged. “I may be Tarzan, but I’m no King Kong.”

  In the end, they dumped the bag of fruit at the edge of the canyon. Then Willy swung across with the empty duffel and held it open as Cindy and Norp tossed the fruit across. The process took most of the day, since they couldn’t climb a tree with a full bag either.

  “A few at a time,” Willy said. “It’s the only way.”

  By the time they got the fruit up into the tree, they were two very tired humans and one exhausted alien.

  Fortunately, their tree hideout was big enough for the three of them and a large duffel full of fruit. They were safe from the Planet Ed creatures of the night, and they had plenty to eat. Not bad.

  “Now if we can just find a way home,” Willy said.

  “Someone will come to our rescue,” Cindy said cheerfully.

  “I don’t know.” Willy gestured to their alien companion. “Norp’s been here a week.”

  Norp stretched out, lacing his fingers behind his head. “A week at least. I’m starting to lose count of the days.”

  “And he’s still stranded, Cindy,” Willy said.

  “Earth’s only three hours away,” Cindy said. “How hard could it be to send a rescue team? It’s not rocket science.”

  “Hmm . . .” Willy said. “Traveling to another solar system at many times the speed of light? I think that is rocket science.”

  “Yeah,” Norp said. “If that’s not rocket science, I don’t know what is.”

  “You know what I mean,” Cindy said. “As soon as they got back to Earth, they should have seen we were missing.” She glanced at Norp. “How far is it to your planet?”

  “Five days,” Norp said. When Willy’s and Cindy’s mouths dropped open, he added, “They believe in long field trips on my planet.”

  “So it might be a while before they get back here,” Willy said.

  Norp sat up. “You mean if they get back here.” He reached into the duffel and grabbed a few of the purple fruit. “Dinner, anyone?”

  Willy took a couple and handed one to Cindy. They ate in silence. It still tasted good the second time around. Maybe in a few days he’d feel differently.

  A week, Willy kept thinking. Then he shook his head—he couldn’t imagine being stranded for that long. Someone had to figure it out and come after them. It wasn’t . . . uh . . . rocket science. Well, it was and it wasn’t.

  When Willy finished eating, he stood up and gazed out through the branches of the tree. “Are you sure the monsters can’t swing like Tarzan?”

  “Thortock,” Norp said.

  “Whatever,” Willy said. “Are you sure they can’t get to us?”

  “The vines won’t hold their weight.”

  Willy nodded. “Lucky for us.”

  “And lucky that Phelps came along when he did,” Cindy said. “That monster didn’t know what hit him.”

  True, the monster—let’s call him Sam—didn’t have a clue. In fact, it was the first time poop had ever dropped out of the sky and landed in his eyes. He was pretty upset about it, and fairly grossed out. Imagine having poop in your eyes. Eew!

  But that wasn’t the worst of it. News of what had happened spread throughout the monster village, which was really just a bunch of caves. Sam, the monster who had been pooped on, was scorned and ridiculed. All of the other monsters laughed and called him names. They wouldn’t let poor Sam join in any monster games.

  Not only that, but the annual Monster Ball was coming up, and Sam was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to get a date. Would you go out with a guy who’d been pooped on? Didn’t think so.

  So now he wanted revenge.

  If it’s the last thing I do, he said to himself.

  Willy and his companions had no idea that there was a monster out there who wanted revenge. They knew there were monsters out there, sure. And they knew that they roamed around at night, looking for things to eat. But they had no idea that it was personal.

  They had other things to think about, like getting home. “Maybe we should build some kind of signal fire,” Willy said.

  Cindy scoffed. “A signal fire that can be seen from outer space?”

  “Can’t be done,” Norp added.

  “I mean once we see some kind of spaceship, we light a signal fire so they can find us. Someplace where they couldn’t miss it, like a mountaintop.”

  Norp grabbed another piece of fruit from the duffel and took a bite. “Maybe.”

  “When the sun comes up, we can scout out a good location.”

  “I love playing with fire,” Cindy said.

  “Who doesn’t?”

  While they were discussing where to build the signal fire, and how to build it, and how much fun it would be to play with it once it was built, they heard someone—or something—cry out in the dark.

  “What was that?” Norp asked.

  “Not sure,” Willy said.

  “Sounded like a Tarzan yell,” Cindy said.

  A few seconds later, they heard what sounded like a human voice. “Knock, knock,” the voice said.

  Norp put down the fruit he’d been eating. “Did you hear that? Someone just said ‘Knock, knock.’”

  “I heard it,” Willy said. Cindy nodded in agreement.

  “Knock, knock,” the voice said again.

  “There it is again,” Norp said with wide eyes. “What do we do?”

  Willy shrugged. “Uh . . . who’s there?” he called out.

  “Oink-oink,” came the reply.

  Chapter 11

  Trouble in the Amazon

  Things were getting worse in the Amazon jungle.

  Willy’s father had been the foothunters’ prisoner for an entire year. And now th
ey were staring at his feet even more than usual. Every few hours, the foothunter chief and a few of his men walked by the cage where Mr. Maykit was locked up, pointed to his feet, mumbled something in foothunter language, and walked away.

  “Something is going on,” Mr. Maykit said to himself. He wasn’t going to stick around to see what the something was. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

  That night, he waited until the entire foothunter village was asleep, then he made his escape . . . or attempted it. The bars of his cage were made of bamboo tied together with thick leather straps. For several minutes he chewed on the straps, but it was no use. They were too thick, and his human teeth were too wimpy.

  “Plan B,” Mr. Maykit whispered.

  But wait a second. Mr. Maykit didn’t have a Plan B. He prided himself on coming up with a Plan A that worked every time. Up until now, his Plan A’s had always done the job.

  Up until now . . .

  Now he needed a Plan B, and he needed it quick. There was something scary about the look in the chief’s eye. Something very scary.

  “Plan B,” he whispered to himself, looking at the bars of his cage. The leather straps were too tough to chew through. He needed—

  It came to him, the perfect Plan B: Get into a football stance and yell something like, “Twenty-two, sixty-four, hike!” If it was good enough for his college football days, it was good enough for breaking out of a cage in the middle of the Amazon jungle.

  Mr. Maykit hit the cage hard—CRASH!

  It worked. He ran into the jungle, thankful he still had feet to run on.

  And run he did. But where to? The Amazon jungle was hundreds of miles in every direction. Mr. Maykit had no idea where to go. For now, he wouldn’t worry about that. Put some distance between himself and the foothunters . . . “That’s the ticket,” he said to himself.

  Hours later, when the foothunters woke up to start their day, they were surprised to see their captive had escaped, and even more surprised by how he had escaped.

  “Darn that American football,” the chief said in foothunter language. Then he sent his warriors after Mr. Maykit. “Don’t come back without him.”

  With any luck, Mr. Maykit had had a good enough head start, and they would never catch up.

  With any luck . . .

  While Mr. Maykit was running around, lost in a South American jungle, being pursued by foothunters, Willy was on Planet Ed, scratching his head and wondering about the mysterious voice he’d just heard.

  “Oink-oink . . . what?” Willy said.

  “You’re supposed to say, ‘Oink-oink who?’” said the voice.

  “Oink-oink who?”

  “Make up your mind. Are you a pig or an owl?”

  Willy looked down. Standing at the base of the tree was Max, the android pilot.

  “A pig or an owl,” Max said. “Ha, ha . . . that’s a real knee slapper. Okay if I come up?”

  “Max!” Willy cried. “You came back for us! Can you climb a tree?”

  “I can fly a spaceship,” Max said. “I’m pretty sure I can climb a tree.”

  Willy turned around and whispered to Cindy and Norp. “We’re saved!” Once again, a band started playing inside him. Trumpets blared; cymbals crashed. He wanted to break out and dance right there in the tree, a we’re-getting-rescued dance, a goodbye-Planet-Ed-hello-Planet-Earth dance, but there wasn’t enough room for dancing. Instead, he stepped over his duffel and high-fived Cindy.

  “Hooray!” Cindy cheered.

  A few seconds later, Max was sitting with them in the tree. “Max, meet Norp,” Willy said. “Norp? This is Max.”

  Max and Norp shook hands.

  “Where’s the ship?” Cindy asked.

  “Yeah, where’d you land?” Willy looked closely at the pilot. Even in the moonlight, he could see that Max’s shirt was nearly shredded, his hair singed. There were burn marks on his cheeks, as if sparks had been shooting from his ears. “What happened to you?”

  “Yeah,” Norp said. “You look like Thortock on a bad day.”

  “Uh . . .” Max began, “about the ship.”

  “Yes?” they all said together.

  “It’s not exactly in working order,” Max said.

  “What do you mean, not in working order?” Willy said, raising an eyebrow.

  “I mean, well . . .” Max hesitated.

  “What’s wrong with the ship, Max?” Cindy demanded.

  “How can I put this?” Max fiddled with his tattered shirt. “It kind of . . . it kind of blew up.”

  “What?!”

  Max started to tell the story, all about how he finally understood the knock-knock joke, and how sparks flew and microchips exploded, and how he couldn’t control his arms and legs, let alone the ship, and—

  Right in the middle off his explanation, he spotted Willy’s joke book next to the duffel. “You have a joke book?” He crawled over to it and picked it up. “Wow. I love a good laugh.”

  “Can we get back to what happened to the ship?” Willy said.

  Max flipped through the pages of the joke book.

  “Max?” Willy said.

  Max looked up. “Yes?”

  “Finish your story. What happened to the ship?”

  Max turned the page. “The ship is no more. I ejected just before it crashed into a mountainside. But listen to this . . . Why can’t ghosts tell lies? You can see right through them. Ha, ha! Want to hear another one? How do you get a one-armed baboon out of a tree? Wave! Ha, ha!”

  Willy looked at his two companions. “I take that back. Looks like we’re not rescued after all.”

  “Now what?” Cindy asked.

  “Yeah, what do we do?” Norp said, his antennae beginning to twitch nervously. He glanced up at Max, the tattered android who was busy looking for more jokes to tell and oblivious to everything else.

  Willy shook his head. “I have no idea. The ship is destroyed and the pilot has lost his mind.”

  Chapter 12

  Phelps

  Phelps was feeling pretty good about himself. After all, he had saved the lives of three people—or at least two people and an alien, which was something to be proud of. He flew with his head held high. He walked with his chest out. He almost swaggered a few times. And all this confidence caught the attention of a bird, or whatever you call things that fly on Planet Ed.

  We’ll call her Betty.

  Betty flapped down out of the sky and landed on a tree branch next to Phelps and said, “I like a guy with confidence. Want to hang out?” Actually, what she said was “Chirp, chirp, chirp, tweet, chirp,” but she meant, “I like a guy with confidence. Want to hang out?”

  Phelps turned to her and said, “Absolutely.” Actually, what he said was “Caw,” but he meant, “Absolutely.”

  And hang out they did, for most of the day. Then they flew over to a tree occupied by two humans, an alien, and an android with his nose in a book.

  By the next morning, Willy, Cindy, and Norp were tired of Max’s jokes. They had a signal fire to build, and so they set off early to find a hilltop to build it on.

  Max was disappointed. He’d spent all night memorizing every joke in Willy’s book, and now there was no one around to tell them to.

  No one except Phelps and his new pal Betty. They were sitting on a branch of the tree, watching Max’s every move and looking very much like they wanted to hear something humorous.

  Max cleared his throat. Then he looked up at the two birds and said, “What’s the difference between a guitar and a fish?”

  Phelps tilted his head to one side as if to say, “I don’t know. What is the difference between a guitar and a fish?”

  “You can tune a guitar, but you can’t tune a fish.” The android smiled. “Isn’t that a knee slapper?”

  Before Phelps and Betty flew away, he told them another joke, then another. Not all of them were knee slappers, but some of them were. At least Max thought so.

  He loved having an audience, even if they were just bi
rds.

  Willy and his friends headed through the woods, looking for a place to build a signal fire. As they walked along, Willy began to feel uneasy. Something wasn’t right. Norp had said the monsters only came out at night. Still, Willy had the feeling that they were being watched.

  “How about there?” Cindy asked, pointing to a clearing. “Nice and flat, with enough room to land a spaceship.”

  “Looks good to me,” Norp said. “Willy?”

  Willy kept scanning the trees around them. They were not alone. Something was out there—he was sure of it.

  “Willy?” Norp said again.

  “Are you sure they only come out at night?” Willy asked.

  “Pretty sure,” Norp said. Then he pointed to the clearing. “Looks like a good place for a signal fire. What do you think?”

  Willy tore his eyes away from the trees and followed his friends. All morning long, they worked on stacking wood for the fire, starting with tiny twigs, then adding larger sticks and logs.

  “That’s what I call a stack of wood,” Cindy said, standing back and gazing at the enormous pile. “We don’t light it until we see a ship, right?”

  “Right,” said Norp.

  “How?”

  “How what?”

  “How do we light it?”

  Norp pulled a small box from his pocket. “Don’t they have matches on your planet? You can fly through space but you can’t light a fire?” He passed out matches to Willy and Cindy. “We can take turns watching the sky. Whoever spots the ship—”

  Something went bump in the night.

  Only it wasn’t night, and it didn’t go bump. It was more like crack and crunch. Willy’s instincts had been correct. Something was out there . . . and it was coming their way.

  There was more crunching, huge footsteps, branches snapping, and trees bending. And then came the roar—grizzly bear, T. rex, and killer whale, all rolled into one.