I would probably need to start practicing my autograph.
CHAPTER 18
I fell asleep kind of excited, but after that I had nightmares pretty much the rest of the night. In them, I was surrounded by adoring buttheads with toes that were perfectly picked clean. Then I looked down and noticed that, everywhere we went, we were stomping all over people I knew. Principal Hartley was nothing but a toe-picker, her face squashed under the heel of a butthead police officer. Hiroshi from Chop Socky, too, except he was being stepped on by a butthead ambulance driver. I saw Lloyd’s brothers and sisters under some buttheads’ feet, all of them fighting for the most comfortable spot. But what really scared me was the sight of my parents. They were lying on a sidewalk, reaching out to every alien toe that passed by. They were miserable, but when they looked up and saw me, their expressions changed to something even worse. It was the same look they had when they saw the nine hundred dollars in iPhone charges and discovered that the soda bottle was filled with supermarket swill.
They were disappointed in me.
I didn’t want the aliens to come. I didn’t want to be special. I thought about the way my life had always been, and for the first time, it sounded kind of perfect the way it was. I wanted to keep it that way, and to make my parents proud.
The next morning, the sound of my doorknob turning woke me up. That could only mean one thing: a wake-up serenade. For the first time in years, I felt a rush of excitement at the thought. I sat up in bed, ready to sing along, but to my surprise, it wasn’t Mom and Dad standing in my doorway.
It was Lloyd.
“Hey, dude! What’s up?”
I didn’t see how it was possible. Was it not seven o’clock yet? Were my parents still downstairs warming up for their big number? I checked the clock.
7:14.
“What’s the matter?” Lloyd asked.
There was only one possibility I could come up with for why they didn’t dance on my bed today. “Are my parents dead?”
Lloyd laughed. “No, they’re downstairs having breakfast and complaining about having to go to work, just like always.”
It wasn’t like always, of course. They had left me out of their routine and let me wake up on my own. It was the kind of morning I assumed most kids had. The kind I had always wished for.
It was horrible.
That’s when I heard a voice in my head. It was telling me to run downstairs as fast as I could, to throw my arms around my parents and scream, “Mommy! Daddy! Will you sing to me? Please oh please, like you always do?” I wanted to do it, to slide down the bannister with tears in my eyes and beg them to make this just like any other morning. To go back to the way things were, when they trusted me and obsessed over me. When they loved me.
“Go talk to them,” Lloyd said.
But I couldn’t. Not then. “No, Lloyd,” I replied. “First, we have to deal with them.” I pointed to my bed, where IAmAWeenieBurger and Doodoofartmama were still glowing underneath the sheets. “I can’t believe they slept in.”
“Seriously,” Lloyd agreed. “Don’t they have a planet to take over today?”
When we bent down to check on them, we got a sense of what was making them so tired.
They were sick.
Both of them. They were covered in chicken pox, from butt to toe. Their entire bodies were nothing but a collection of festering red bumps. They had pox on their scaly fronts and pox on their furry backs, on their three hands and all over their toe-noses. And more than anywhere else, they had pox on their butts.
A ton of pox on their butts.
“Dude, your plan worked!” Lloyd said.
The sound of his voice rustled IAmAWeenieBurger from sleep. “Ohhhhhhhhhhh,” the alien groaned as he began to stir. He scratched his body with all of his hands at once.
“FRRRRRRRRT,” Doodoofartmama groaned.
As they opened their eyes and took in the horrific sight of their own appearance, I tried not to smile or high-five my friend.
“EEEEEEEK!” IAmAWeenieBurger shouted. “What happened to us?”
“You’re sick,” I answered, trying to pass it off like it was no big deal.
“No!” IAmAWeenieBurger said. “Sick is when it’s a little hard to breathe and the yucky ooze comes out of your toe-nose. We had that!”
“That’s just one kind of sick,” Lloyd said. “This is chicken pox.”
“Dude, does chicken pox always suck so hard?”
I nodded. “Yeah, but you can only get it once.”
“Well, that’s a relief, yo!”
“Sure, don’t worry,” Lloyd said. “The next thing you get will be totally different.”
Doodoofartmama rolled all over the floor, trying to scratch every itch on his body.
“The next thing!” IAmAWeenieBurger said. “How many Earth illnesses are there?”
“Oh, I can’t count them all,” I said. “Strep throat, scurvy, pneumonia.”
“Don’t forget old-monia,” Lloyd interrupted. “And ALS, IBS . . .” He winked at me.
“FBI,” I added. “ATM, OMG.”
“These are all Earth diseases?” IAmAWeenieBurger asked.
“Oh right,” Lloyd said. “Earth Disease. That’s another one. And Earth-itis. Earthphobia.” He grinned as he continued to make up diseases to scare the aliens.
“Plus that new one, Wiz Khalifa,” I added. It was kind of fun. I wasn’t just watching Lloyd talk his way out of trouble. I was taking part in it. And I was doing a good job.
IAmAWeenieBurger starting biting his fingernails. “All that stuff is worse than what we have now?”
“Much,” Lloyd said. “I was in the hospital with Wiz Khalifa for months.”
IAmAWeenieBurger turned to Doodoofartmama, farting frantically. Doodoofartmama farted back at him. They nodded at each other, then turned to me and Lloyd.
“We both agree,” IAmAWeenieBurger said. “Your planet sucks.”
“FRRT!” Doodoofartmama nodded, then he collapsed into a blob on my floor.
“Doodoofartmama is texting our homies now.”
Doodoofartmama sent out another bubble, which seeped through the window and into the sky.
“What’s he saying?” I asked.
“He is telling the other buttheads to turn around and go home.”
“No, don’t leave!” Lloyd said. “You haven’t even been through your first hurricane yet. Or earthquake, tsunami, tornado, flash flood, mudslide, wildfire. You’ve barely seen all the ways Earth can suck.”
“I’m sorry, dudes. I know you’ll miss us, but we gotta go home so our scientists can cure this. And BTW, how about you not invite any more extraterrestrials here until you’ve spruced this planet up a bit? No offense.”
The bubble returned, seeping through the window back into my room. It was bigger now, its walls pulsing, as if it were a living thing.
“What is that?” I asked.
“That,” IAmAWeenieBurger said, “is our ride.”
Doodoofartmama resumed his butthead shape and stepped through the bubble. He floated inside it, waving for IAmAWeenieBurger to join him.
“Sorry, man,” IAmAWeenieBurger said to me. “You would’ve had such a kick-butt life if we could’ve stayed.”
“It’s OK,” I said. “I kind of like my life the way it is.”
IAmAWeenieBurger stepped one leg into the bubble, then turned around and looked at me and Lloyd. “Will you let the Ultimate Supreme President of the Native Residents of Quentonia know that we had to hit the road?”
“Our pleasure,” Lloyd replied.
IAmAWeenieBurger stepped fully inside the bubble, and Lloyd and I watched it glide toward the window. But before it seeped outside, IAmAWeenieBurger stuck his head out to say one last thing. “Later, dudes,” he said. “You guys are cool. Too bad your planet’s so lame.”
The bubble floated upward, through the clouds and out of sight. I turned to Lloyd and held my hand out for a high five.
“Darn it,” Lloyd said.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “We got rid of them! We saved the planet!”
“Yeah, but I have a history test today, and I didn’t study. I thought it’d be canceled due to the alien invasion.”
With one problem solved, I was ready to face my parents. “Come on, Lloyd,” I said. “I’m not sure this will be so easy.”
We found them in the living room, glued to the television. “Wow, that kid is always in the news!” my dad said.18
“He keeps doing such remarkable things,” my mom agreed.
On the screen was a live shot of Quentin’s house. There were reporters all over his lawn, aiming cameras at him, snapping pictures and holding out microphones. The bottom of the screen read: LOCAL BOY TO DELIVER PROOF OF ALIENS.
Mr. Mudd was there, too, talking to a news crew. “I met the aliens first,” he boasted, “back when I was Quentin’s age.”
To Mr. Mudd’s surprise, the reporter seemed kind of annoyed. “But you didn’t tell anyone? So why now are you trying to steal his glory?”
Mr. Mudd hung his head in shame. “This is going to be good TV,” Lloyd said, elbowing me.
My parents were so caught up in the broadcast, they didn’t even notice me and Lloyd behind them. “I never thought aliens were real,” my dad said.
My mom shook her head. “He must know what he’s doing. I’m sure his parents are proud.” Every word she said was like a knife in my back. Not only did my parents not love me anymore, but they had decided to worship my archenemy instead. They were going to feel awfully embarrassed when no aliens showed up.
Among the reporters angling for a good shot of the speech was Kaitlyn Wien-Tomita, who had set up her best camera for the event. “Doesn’t that girl go to school here, too?” my dad asked.
“She looks vaguely familiar,” my mom said. “Shh! He’s starting!”
“Greetings, fellow residents of Earth!” Quentin announced dramatically as he began his press conference. “From the beginning of time, humankind has searched for knowledge of intelligent life in outer space. Today, I not only bring you proof of their existence, I bring you an introduction.”
People began to murmur, alarmed. Flashbulbs went off. Quentin waited for the fervor to die down.
“In two minutes time, our extraterrestrial guests will arrive.”
Again, the crowd got rowdy, drowning Quentin out with their stunned chatter.
“Aliens are coming now?” my dad said. “No way!”
On screen, Mr. Mudd ran up to the podium, jumping behind the microphone. He was desperate to share in the attention. “I can confirm this,” he said. “I met the aliens, too! In fact, I met them first!”
Quentin nudged Mr. Mudd aside. “Naturally, things will be changing a bit on Earth. There will be seventy billion of them and seven billion of us. But don’t worry. I will be looking out for human interests as your new Ultimate Supreme President of the Native Residents of Quentonia.”
The reporters began shouting out questions in a frenzy. “Are they peaceful?” “Is this for real?” “What’s Quentonia?”
“Excellent questions!” Mr. Mudd said, before Quentin pushed him out of the way again.
“We will have plenty of time to answer your queries as we adjust to the aliens’ presence over the next several millennia,” Quentin continued. “But since we’re only a few moments away from when the sky will fill up with their spaceships, I’ll just tell you about the two aliens I’ve already met. Their appearance will be somewhat surprising to you, as they don’t look exactly like us. They’re a little shorter, a little furrier, and they have three arms.”
Reporters began to murmur and jot down notes. Then Mr. Mudd stepped up to the microphone and added, cheerfully, “Yes! And they have butts in the back of their heads!”
The crowd fell totally silent.
“Is this a joke?” one guy shouted.
Quentin nervously took back the microphone. “I wouldn’t joke as your Ultimate Supreme President, I swear. I can assure you, my information is reliable. We’ve already met two of the aliens.”
“What are their names?” someone called out.
Mr. Mudd smiled proudly. “Their names are Doodoofartmama and IAmAWeenieBurger.”
The crowd rose up, shouting at Quentin and Mr. Mudd. “You sure are!” one guy yelled. “This is not funny!” said another. “You’re trolls!” They were ruthless. When I looked closer, I saw that the “troll” comment was shouted by Principal Hartley. Ouch.
Devastated, Quentin looked to the sky, hoping to see spaceships, but of course, none had shown up.
Lloyd couldn’t help laughing. My parents turned around and finally saw us standing there. “That word,” my mom said.
“Yeah,” my dad agreed, pointing a finger at me. “That’s what you said the other day.”
“You mean Doodoo—”
“Don’t repeat it!” my dad said. “Do you know something about this?”
I didn’t know what to say. Thankfully, Lloyd jumped in.
“Yeah, of course. Josh is the one who met the aliens. They were waiting for us in the bathroom of Chop Socky. He brought them home in the trunk of your car, kept them in his room for three days, they rang up nine hundred dollars in charges on his iPhone, drank your soda, ate all the Oreos, then plotted to take over the Earth. Don’t worry, though, Josh gave them chicken pox and they called off their plans and flew away in a bubble.”
My parents looked at each other for a minute, then they both broke out laughing.
“Hahahaha! You guys are so funny!”
“Wacko, but funny,” my dad said, shaking his head.
“So you’re not still mad at me?” I asked.
“Oh, Josh, of course not,” my mom replied.
“Then why didn’t you wake me up today?”
My dad shrugged. “We figured you were getting too old for that.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, we’re sorry, buddy. It’s hard for parents when their baby grows up and he’s not so little anymore. I guess we just couldn’t accept that.”
My mom put her arm around me. “Dad and I talked, and we agreed we need to stop treating you like a child.”
It was such a relief. So that’s why they’d been less doting the last few days? It wasn’t because they’d stopped loving me. They’d actually gained respect for me.
“Does this mean I can charge purchases to my phone without asking?”
“You do, and we’ll take your phone away for a month.” My dad winked.
On TV, the newscast had returned to the anchorwoman in the studio. I’d never seen a professional newscaster blush before, but she was totally red-faced, bowing her head as if she couldn’t bear to look right into the camera. “Apparently, this press conference was nothing but a juvenile hoax. We deeply regret breaking into our regular programming to carry the rantings of a clearly disturbed young man, whose parents must be very, very ashamed.”
My mom clicked off the TV just as the newscaster was really laying into Quentin. “Don’t get us wrong, Josh. If we’re treating you like a grown-up, you need to act like one, too. That means making good choices and being responsible.”
“Yeah, no more ‘aliens’ drinking our soda, OK?” My dad made quote marks with his fingers when he said the word “aliens,” just to remind me that he didn’t believe me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I wish I could be perfect, like Quentin.”
“Quentin?” my mom said, shocked.
My dad rolled his eyes. “That obnoxious little monster?”
“I thought you liked him,” I said.
My dad looked like he might throw up. “Ugh! We can’t stand weenie burgers like him!”
“Yeah, nobody can,” my mom added.
“So you don’t care that I’m not changing the world?”
“Son, you don’t have to cure a disease or change the world for us to love you,” my dad said.
“All you have to do,” my mom added, “is just be Josh.”
Lloyd had picked up my laptop and was watching Quentin’s press conference again. “You should check this out,” he said. “It’s insanity!”
“I thought all the news people left.”
“This is Kaitlyn’s website,” he said. “She’s the only one still showing the live feed!”
Quentin’s press conference had descended into complete chaos. “You will show respect for your Ultimate Supreme President of the Native Residents of Quentonia!” he demanded, as reporters all around him packed up their equipment and started leaving.
“And Your Assistant Undersecretary of Submission and Subservience!” Mr. Mudd added.
“I’m not sure I like you being in that man’s science class either,” my mom said, shaking her head.
“I think we’d better leave for work,” my dad told her.
They walked to the door and put on their coats, then stopped and looked at me.
“There is one childish thing we wanted to do for you,” my dad said, “just this one last time.”
“Check your lunch box,” my mom said with a wink.
And as they did every day, they waved to me all the way down the driveway and as their car pulled down the street and out of sight.
Once they were gone, I peeked in my lunch box to see what they had left for me. It was another lunch note.
This one was a drawing of a goat, with the caption, “You’ll always be our little ‘kid.’”
I took it out of my lunch box, but this time, I didn’t tear it up or hide it. I stuck it on the refrigerator so I would see it every morning. My last ever lunch note. As terrible as all the ones that came before.
And I’d always treasure it.
Meanwhile, Lloyd was calling me frantically from the other room. “Dude, you have to watch this. He’s doing a countdown!”
I ran in and saw the live footage from Kaitlyn’s website. On my iPhone screen, Quentin was still talking to the few people who remained in his yard. Mr. Mudd was eyeing his watch and glancing periodically at the sky. “The alien invasion begins in 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . .” Quentin raised his hands over his head, expecting a wave of spaceships to appear. “2 . . . 1 . . . !”
Buttheads from Outer Space Page 14