by Nate Ball
Another man in a suit came through the backyard gate, walking backward and unrolling plastic yellow crime scene tape. Holding our breaths, we made it through the fence and into Olivia’s backyard before he ever turned around.
We were back in business.
I was already pretty confident I had a plan to rescue Amp from whatever prison now held him.
Shock and Awe
“It’s a miracle,” Olivia’s grandfather said, rubbing his hands gently down both sides of Amp’s spaceship.
The three of us were standing in their kitchen. I looked at Olivia, but she only shrugged.
Olivia’s grandfather gently poked the floating ship with his index finger and studied it carefully. “This material. It’s warm. And it glows. There are no seams. It’s light but strong. I never would have believed it.”
“Yes, we figured you’d believe us once you saw this,” Olivia said.
“Pretty cool, huh?” I said. “We never knew it could float like this. It just started. Usually, it’s kinda heavy.”
He shook his head in wonder. “It hovers like it weighs nothing. What is the power source? What is the mechanism that keeps it afloat?”
“We . . . we don’t know too much about it, actually,” I said. “It can’t blast off. It got damaged when it crash-landed. I know its name: the Dingle.”
“The Dingle? What a terrible name for such a magnificent machine.”
“Grandpa, we think it’s trying to get back to Amp,” Olivia said. “It’s going to lead us to him. We’re going to rescue Amp.”
“Who is Amp again?” he said, sinking slowly into a kitchen chair.
“The tiny alien we’ve been telling you about,” Olivia said. “The one who drove this through space and time to get here. He’s been living in Zack’s bedroom. Sorry to keep such a secret from you, but we decided it was the best for everyone.”
“This is why you were interested in the telescope?” he mumbled, remembering.
I nodded. “And now that everybody already knows, we can tell you.”
“Oh, thanks,” he said in a faraway voice.
He seemed a bit overwhelmed by everything. Who could blame him? It was a lot to take in all at once. He took his glasses off and cleaned them with a bit of fuzzy cloth he pulled from his pocket. He returned the glasses to their usual spot and blinked at the metallic spaceship that pulled on its string and hovered just above his kitchen table.
Olivia fidgeted. “Grandpa, things are kind of urgent at the moment.”
He cleared his throat and fixed his eyes on me for the first time since we’d walked in with the Dingle on a string. “And how do you propose to use this to track down your friend?”
“We’ll hold the string out of the truck window,” Olivia explained. “That’s how we’ll know when to turn and stuff. We’ll just follow the Dingle.”
He looked at us both. “This is crazy, you two.”
“I know,” Olivia said, putting a hand on her grandfather’s shoulder. “But the FBI is searching Zack’s house right now, and they’ll probably be at our door in a few minutes. They’ll put two and two together.”
He chuckled and shook his head in disbelief. “How did I end up in a kitchen with Bonnie and Clyde?” he said.
“Who?” Olivia asked.
“It’s a movie,” I said, and sighed. “About bank robbers from the old days. My parents won’t let me watch it.”
“Let me get my keys,” he said, and shuffled out of the kitchen in his slippers.
Olivia and I smiled at each other. Our plan was set. Things were starting to look up. And then: the power went out. In a breath the neighborhood outside seemed to go silent all around us.
Olivia went to the window. “What’s that mean? Is the FBI cutting off the power? Standard procedure probably.”
“No, it’s not the FBI. It’s the . . . the invasion,” I whispered. “It’s starting. I just know it.”
Olivia gasped and turned from the window. “You can’t be sure.”
I looked at the two lights blinking on the side of Amp’s ship, the one with Amp’s shape and the other warning of the invasion.
“I’m sure.”
Olivia blew out a big breath. “We need to get Amp more than ever. And soon. He’s the only one who can prevent the attack.”
Olivia’s grandfather stepped into the kitchen. He now wore sunglasses, a fishing vest with about forty pockets, some rugged boots, and a flimsy hat with a brim that went all the way around for sun protection. “Let’s do this,” he said simply.
He stepped over to me and tied the end of the string I was holding to a thick piece of wood that had had a hole drilled through the middle of it. He tied a knot that looked complicated yet simple, one like a true fisherman would have tied.
The stick was about a foot long and looked like it may have at one time been part of a broom handle. “What’s that for?” I asked.
“You don’t want to lose ahold of that thing,” he said, nodding to the Dingle. “Once you’ve got a live one on the line, you don’t want it slipping off. And besides, that spaceship is our golden ticket.”
“Grandpa, there’s one more thing.”
“What? Let me guess: you want to drive?” he said, with a smirk.
“No,” Olivia said uncomfortably. “We think the power went out because our friend’s planet is about to attack this one. Like millions of tiny Erdians . . . They’re going to invade Earth. They can’t hurt us—not really. Their weapons are actually just kind of ticklish. But we’re worried about them. They’re complete pains to have as roommates, but we don’t want to see millions of them get squished, either. Amp is the only one who can stop them. We need to break him free.”
Olivia’s grandfather looked at both of us. He nodded slowly, processing this new information. “I don’t know what to think of any of this. The rules are kind of out the window. So we’d better get started and make it up as we go, then, hadn’t we?”
And with that, we set off to save the world in a muddy creaky truck that was following a driverless spaceship tied to a string.
Camp Sutter
By the time we pulled to the side of the road, it was late at night and we were all exhausted.
We had parked just off a dark road far outside of town. We now sat in silence, the engine clicking in the darkness.
If you thought it’d be easy to follow a spaceship at the end of a string, you’d have been mistaken. Sometimes you turn left when it’s just the breeze blowing your spaceship. Sometimes you make a U-turn only to take another U-turn in about thirty feet.
We’d expected to reach our destination in minutes, but we wound up driving around for hours.
Traffic signals weren’t working because of the power outage, so traffic was terrible. We had to stop for gas twice. We went through a drive-thru for burgers, fries, and shakes, and ate in the car.
Olivia’s grandpa had a cell phone, but it wasn’t working for some reason. So at one gas station I had asked to use the phone, and I’d left my parents a message on our house’s answering machine.
I told them I had gone fishing with Olivia’s grandpa and would be back late. This was not technically a lie—I was trying to catch an Erdian—but it certainly was not the whole story.
Now the three of us got out and stretched our muscles next to the truck under some towering pine trees. My neck was stiff from leaning out of the window and looking up at the balloon.
Farther up the road was Camp Sutter, which Olivia’s grandpa told us was a large National Guard base. Parked in front of the camp were six or seven news vans with big broadcasting antennas extending from their roofs. Bright lights illuminated reporters, each holding a microphone and gesturing to the tall wire fence behind them. We watched as guards stood in front of the gates and spoke to each person who wanted to get in. A few had large dogs on leashes.
“How are we supposed to get in there?” Olivia asked.
We watched several thunderous helicopters land on the far side of
a big building, and we could see a few dozen people entering and exiting.
“That has to be where Amp is,” I said, pointing, quickly putting my hand back on the stick I was holding because the spaceship was really straining to go toward the camp.
“Notice they have big lights set up,” Olivia observed. “The power is out here, too.”
Six cars drove quickly by us on the road. We stood on the other side of the truck, so I don’t think they even knew we were there. In the first car I saw four men in suits who looked pretty tense. Then, in the third car, I saw my parents and Aunt Joni, all looking worried and sick.
“That’s my mom, dad, and aunt,” I said.
“I saw them,” Olivia said. “Taylor must be here, too.”
Mr. Prentiss was in the last car, talking on his phone. Luckily, it was inky dark on the road, and the headlights left us and Amp’s spaceship hidden in the shadows.
“Look at the stars,” Olivia’s grandpa whispered.
“Whoa. There’re billions,” Olivia said.
“There are too many,” Olivia’s grandpa said in a strange voice. “And they’re making a noise.”
It was true. A strange, distant, high-pitched humming sound filled the air. I would have thought it was a mosquito flying by my ear, but it was steady and unchanging.
I gulped. “You don’t think that’s—” The words got caught in my throat.
“The Erdians?” Olivia said next to me. “Is that them? You can hardly see them. And why aren’t they doing anything?”
Olivia’s grandpa shuffled his feet nervously. “They must have a cloaking technology of some kind so nobody can see them on radar. Kids, we need to report this.”
And that was when my feet left the ground.
Lift-off
“Zack!” Olivia screamed.
I was flying.
Or balloon skiing.
Or sky surfing.
“Aaaaaagh!” I yelped as the balloon pulled the kite string as tight as a wire. I kept rising in the air and drifting over the road.
“Let go, Zack!” Olivia’s grandfather shouted. “Let it go!”
I almost listened to his command, but then I looked down. I was already ten feet in the air.
Olivia ran at me through the dark—she was good in emergencies! She jumped up, but it was no use. I could see Olivia’s dark figure sprawled out in the middle of the road. I was easily twenty feet in the air. I had already fallen from this height earlier today, and I was not going to repeat that mistake!
I was rising incredibly fast. The world spun under me.
I cleared the top of the towering trees. My heart was thundering, and my breath was ragged with fear. I hadn’t tied my shoes, so they fell off. I could feel the moist air seeping in through my socks.
I was soon flying high over the bright lights of the reporters outside the gate.
I had no idea how high I was, but I knew if I let go now—or if the string broke—I’d become road pizza, a puddle of the kid formerly known as Zack McGee.
The thought of being pulled up into the sky with the creepy army of hovering Erdian ships crossed my mind. But it soon became clear that the Dingle was on a rescue mission. We were heading toward the roof of the big building with all the activity going on around it.
I was getting dizzy from so much spinning. I searched the dark sky as best I could for approaching helicopters, which would surely be bad news for me.
Then the spaceship started to sink. I could hear voices and the sounds of vehicles below. I could see the headlights of the cars that had passed us on the road now pulling up near the big building.
It was hard to be sure because I was now spinning so fast at the end of the string, I was afraid it would snap.
In the next moment I was touching down in just my socks on the smooth roof of the biggest building.
I had not been that dizzy since I got spun around for my turn at Pin the Tail on the Donkey at Nino Sasso’s birthday party in the first grade.
I stumbled about for a full minute, yanking the Dingle after me. I was finally able to get my footing. I waited for my brain to stop spinning inside my skull.
The Dingle landed gently next to a large open tube that extended a foot through the roof. Light from inside the building beamed out. The tube had a screen on top of it that I lifted off easily. It was big enough to look into, but I couldn’t have fit my body inside even if I’d wanted to.
I looked down and couldn’t believe my eyes. Amp was in a large plastic tub twenty feet below me. It was resting on a large white table. Two men in white lab coats where taking photos of him with a digital camera that flashed over and over.
Amp was pacing back and forth. He looked agitated. He was posing in silly ways. Sticking out his tongue rudely. Shaking his butt at the camera. Making faces.
I tried to fit the spaceship through the tube, but the ship was too wide.
I put my face against the tube’s opening, closed my eyes, and concentrated. “Amp!?” I mind-shouted.
I could see his body flinch. I also noticed that the two guys in lab coats had left him.
“Zack?” I heard him say quietly in his mind. “Are you here with your parents? I can hear them.”
“No!” I snapped at him with my mind. “I’m on the roof above you.” I watched him look up slowly.
“What? Oh, now I see you,” he said excitedly. “You look ridiculous.”
“Better than you do.”
“Where have you been? Get me out of this floofy place!”
I made a face. “Oh? What about giving up? I thought it was all over. I thought you didn’t care anymore.”
I could tell he didn’t like that because he hopped around in frustration. “Forget about that! I was wrong. I can see that now. The invasion is about to begin!” his voice echoed inside my skull. “They’ve got two dozen scientists gathered outside this room. They’re talking about starting the probe. I thought aliens probed humans—I didn’t realize it went the other way around. Get me out of here right now!”
“Your spaceship almost killed me getting here!”
“It’s here? You have the Dingle?”
“Yes. It flew me up here. It almost turned me into road pizza!”
“What is road pizza?”
“Never mind. Can you get up here?”
“I can’t even get out of this bowl!” he exclaimed, kicking the plastic tub that held him. “I can’t fly, you know!”
“And what? You think I’m Peter Pan?”
“The peanut butter?”
“Ugh! I can’t just walk in there and ask to see their lost and found box!”
I was getting frustrated. I pulled my face out of the tube and grabbed my head. “Think, think, think,” I whispered.
I looked around me in the dark, but besides a few antennas, an old soda can, and a rusty wire clothes hanger, there was nothing up there to help me.
That was when I got either the best idea of my life—or the worst. And there was only one way to find out which.
Escape
Standing on the roof in my underwear was a lot colder than I’d expected.
My body started shivering as I lowered my tied-together clothes through the hole.
I started with the string I untied from the Dingle. I tied it to the end of my belt, and I lowered the two into the pipe.
But when I lowered it through the pipe, it only got about halfway down to Amp.
“Do you think I’m a giraffe?” Amp shouted in my head. “Or a kangaroo? I can’t reach that!”
“Oh, be quiet,” I growled, pulling the string and my belt back up through the opening.
So I pulled off my socks and tied them together, and then I yanked off my shirt and pants and tied the end of one sock to a pant leg and the other end to a shirt sleeve. Then I tied the other sleeve to the string.
And eventually I was standing in the dark in my boxers. I dropped the crazy rope of string, belt, pants, and socks back down through the open pipe. The tub that held
Amp was positioned right under the open-air vent, so all he’d need to do was hop on and get pulled up.
“I still can’t quite reach it,” he said, gasping in my head. “How tall do you think I am?”
“I don’t think you’re tall at all,” I bellowed inside my mind. “But I thought you could at least jump a little.”
“They’re outside the door,” he mind-whispered. “At least you tried, Zack.”
“Get out of my head and let me think,” I said. I looked around in the dark in desperation. I had one last idea.
Using my bare foot, I reached out and pulled the clothes hanger to me, never letting go of the stretched-out sock in my fist. I quickly smooshed the hanger flat against my bare ribs—the hanger was freezing—and jammed its hook though my shirt sleeve. I dropped the hanger and my whole arm through the hole.
“Ouch!” Amp screeched in my head. “You hit me on the head with your belt buckle.”
“No one has ever complained so much during a rescue! Are you holding on? I can’t see; my arm is jammed into this pipe.”
That was when I heard shouting down below. Chairs being knocked over and glass breaking. I heard a scream. Then someone shouted, “The beast is escaping!”
The beast? Amp is a lot of things, but he’s hardly a beast.
I started pulling up fast, one hand over the other. First the hanger, then the socks, then the pants, then the string, then belt buckle. With an annoyed look on his face, Amp emerged from the pipe holding the belt buckle.
“It’s about time,” he said, rolling his eyes.
The air filled with a shrill, earsplitting alarm. Voices shouted from below. Someone barked commands outside. Somebody was climbing up the metal ladder that was attached to the side of the building and that ended at the roof’s edge.
“We’re trapped,” I said.
“Is that how you dress for a daring rescue?” Amp snickered, hopping over to his spaceship. He placed his little three-fingered hand on his blinking silhouette, and a tiny hatch opened with a click.