You Can't Have My Planet

by James Mihaley

  Yeah, right. The chances of me getting through to the president were one in a trillion.

  Nikki was playing the violin on our front porch, a normal thing to do, except this time she was standing on her pink suitcase.

  “Why are you standing on your suitcase?” I asked.

  “I’m experiencing life at a different altitude,” she said.

  Nikki was only six. A six-year-old girl should not be told that aliens are trying to get us kicked off Earth. Even a six-year-old who uses big words like altitude.

  I raced inside and dashed upstairs. Bobby was in his bedroom packing for our trip back home to Manhattan.

  I shut the door, locked it. I was so excited I could barely get the words out. “Bobby, Bobby, I … I had an alien encounter.”

  “Sure you did,” he said, carefully packing his debate team trophy.

  “I’m serious. In the woods. They were … they were real aliens.”

  “Real aliens, huh? What kind of aliens?”

  “Well, there was a realtor.”

  “An alien realtor?” He snickered.

  “Bobby, I’m serious. This isn’t make-believe. I hid in the tree fort.”

  “Does the alien realtor want to sell our tree fort?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “He wants to sell Earth instead.”

  “You mean the whole planet?”

  “The whole planet.” I grabbed him by the arm. “We’re getting evicted, Bobby. Our entire species. Humankind is getting kicked off the planet.”

  Bobby burst out laughing and patted me on the head. “Then you’d better protect us, little guy.”

  I clenched my fist. I hated it when he called me little guy. He was only two inches taller and two years, two days and four hours older than me.

  I was tempted to whip out the lease Jerry gave me but decided against it. What was the point? Bobby wouldn’t think it was real anyway. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it never happened. Maybe I fell asleep in the woods and dreamed the whole thing. After all, if aliens came down to Earth, they wouldn’t waste their time talking to me. They’d go talk to the guy who invented Krispy Kreme donuts.

  I decided that it was all in my head and vowed never to think about it again for the rest of my life or in any future life if there was such a thing as reincarnation; but I didn’t think there was because I’m not some fool who believes in reincarnation or aliens.

  I slunk into my bedroom and tossed dirty clothes into a tattered suitcase. I pulled the lease out of my pocket and unrolled it. If everything was a figment of my imagination then what was this ancient document? It was written in symbols. There were circles looped together, three or four to a bunch. There were dozens of circles piled on top of each other in heaps. A few circles stood by themselves. Those circles all had x’s in the middle. There were upside-down triangles, octagons with dots inside. Everything was written in black ink except for some vertical bars, which were bright red. None of it made any sense to me. The only thing I could comprehend were the two signatures at the bottom. That was definitely an ADAM and that was definitely an EVE.

  A strange buzzing sound rang in my ear. I glanced over my shoulder. A hummingbird hovered right next to my head, its tiny emerald wings beating feverishly. Last summer I attached a hummingbird feeder outside my window, so I usually get hummingbirds out there, but this was the first time one actually flew into my bedroom. Hummingbirds never come this close to humans.

  It was only inches away. I could’ve sworn it was reading the lease. If a hummingbird is going to fly into your room and read an ancient scroll, that means the scroll has to be real. If I was reading about yetis in the National Enquirer, the hummingbird wouldn’t waste its time.

  It darted out the window, flew over to a blue jay on a swaying branch and twittered something. It was telling the blue jay about the lease! I knew this with a certainty I couldn’t explain. It was all real. I wasn’t losing my mind. I did have an alien encounter. For a split second I wasn’t scared of being evicted. I wasn’t concerned about it at all. I was thrilled and honored and overjoyed that the first kid in the history of the world ever to have contact with aliens was me, Giles. The first kid ever to valet park UFOs was me, Giles. The first kid ever to get licked by a sealadillo was, that’s right, me, Giles. I think I’ll say it again for good luck. Me, Giles.

  You’re probably wondering why you’re reading a book that has the writer always saying “me, Giles.” Well, don’t worry. Lots of really cool stuff happens in the following chapters that will blow your mind. And the cool thing that was happening to me at this particular moment was that for once in my life I felt more important than Bobby.

  “Come on, everyone!” Grandma yelled from downstairs. “It’s time to leave!”

  “New York City here we come!” Nikki shouted.

  I got a minute alone with Grandma at the station. Nikki and Bobby were off getting candy for the train ride.

  “Grandma, can we go visit the White House?” I said.

  “Certainly,” she said.

  “Right now?” I said.

  She gave me a long look. “Right now, Giles?”

  “Yes. We can change our train tickets from Manhattan to Washington D.C.”

  I pictured myself on a tour of the White House, breaking away from the tour group, sneaking past secret service agents into the Oval Office.

  “Giles,” Grandma said, “a trip like that has to be planned out months in advance. We’d have to book hotel reservations.”

  “But, Grandma, I want to go right now. You don’t understand. This is very important.”

  “Giles, it’s out of the question. Nikki has violin lessons this week. Bobby has an SAT seminar to attend.”

  “Who cares about a stupid SAT seminar?” I said.

  Bobby twisted my arm. “What was that?”

  “Knock it off, you two,” Grandma said. “It’s time to board the train.”

  Bobby let me go, smirking. “Six billion people getting evicted. That’s good, Giles. That’s really good.”

  For a moment, and this was highly unusual, I actually enjoyed the fact that my brother was teasing me. I deserved to get taunted. It was ridiculous to think an entire species could get evicted.

  I took my seat on the train, trying with all my might to believe that the key chain was messing with my head. He was a liar. That must’ve been why he got his head shrunk in the first place. He probably lied to the wizard and the wizard didn’t appreciate it.

  Shrunken heads are not known for their honesty.

  I imagined that the president and I were having a serious conversation:

  “Who told you we we’re getting evicted, Giles?”

  “A shrunken head.”

  “A shrunken head told you we’re getting evicted?”

  “That’s right, Mr. President.”

  The president and all his generals burst out laughing. I could hear them cackling over the roar of the train.

  But it wasn’t just the shrunken head. Jerry said we were getting evicted too. So did the king and queen. They said we were getting kicked off the planet. But what if it was all a hoax, a great big scam? Jerry could’ve planted the shrunken head just like he planted the snake, hoping that if he got us scared enough we might evacuate Earth on our own.

  Or what if none of this was happening at all? What if … what if I was hallucinating because of my cell phone? People were always saying cell phones were bad for you. The radiation zapped my brain cells and now I was seeing things.

  But the lease seemed so real.

  I didn’t know what to do or who to tell or where to start but at least my life wasn’t boring anymore. That was a major victory.

  Bobby eyed me suspiciously. “What are you smiling about?”

  “Never mind,” I said, reaching into my pocket, gently running my fingers over the scroll.

  Oh, how my brother would want it. Just the lease alone could get him into Harvard. All he’d have to do is saunter in
to the admissions department waving the gold parchment in the air. “Here, take a look at this. Now let me into Harvard.”

  But I vowed never to show it to him.

  Nikki leaped from her seat across the aisle into Grandma’s lap. “Grandma, did you know that when hippos are dishonest it’s called hippo-pocrisy?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “and a dishonest rapper is a hip-hop-acrite.”

  “You children are so clever,” Grandma said. “I have the cleverest RFLs in New York City.”

  Grandma called us grandkids her RFLs, her “reasons for living.”

  The train wound through rolling hills. A tractor glinted in the distance, dragging some dead branches. It rumbled down a dirt road. Overhead, three purple clouds floated in the same direction, as if they were tied to the tractor. The farmer was hauling purple clouds, pruning the summer sky, leaving it bright and blue and vast. This planet was breathtaking. No wonder King Zoodle wanted it.

  I kept running my fingers over the ancient scroll.

  As usual, Bobby tried to act like the star of the family. “Guess what?” he said. “I’m writing a book.”

  “So am I,” Nikki said.

  Bobby frowned at her. “What’s your book called, Nikki?”

  “How to Eat a Meatball,” she said.

  Grandma burst out laughing. “That’s the best title I’ve ever heard.”

  “It’s about ice cream,” Nikki said.

  Bobby rolled his eyes. “You’re writing a book about ice cream called How to Eat a Meatball?”

  “It’s going to be a best-seller,” Grandma said.

  “I bet,” Bobby said. “My book is called How to Get Your Homework Done.”

  “I like How to Eat a Meatball better,” I said.

  “You would,” Bobby muttered.

  Normally a remark like that would’ve annoyed me but today it bounced right off. The most important document in the history of the world was rolled up in my right pocket. That can work wonders on a person’s ego.

  (Hey, reader, can you believe I took a shot at my brother in my book title? Wait till he finds out. He’ll be so mad!)

  An hour later, the train pulled into Grand Central Station. A black limo was waiting to pick us up. Did I tell you my parents were loaded? The driver took our bags and we hopped inside. The limo crawled uptown through heavy traffic.

  Bobby kept on rambling about his stupid book. “You know how many kids have trouble getting their homework done?” he said, pointing at you know who.

  “Don’t look at me,” I blurted. “I do my homework.” It was true. The problem was, I still didn’t get straight As. No matter how hard I studied I would never be as smart as Bobby. But who cared? When you hold the fate of humankind in your right pocket no one cares what you got on your last algebra test.

  “Having poor study habits is a worldwide epidemic,” Bobby declared.

  “And you’re just the one to solve the problem,” Grandma said, patting Bobby on the knee.

  “Someone needs to solve the problem of all that trash,” I said, staring sadly out the window.

  When you go away to the country and come back, you realize just how filthy New York City is. Don’t get me wrong. I love New York. It’s the coolest, greatest, grandest, hippest, holiest metropolis in the world. But it’s filthy. And it stinks, especially in the summer. Garbage and graffiti are everywhere. Could something like that cause an entire species to get thrown off a planet?

  “Hey, Grandma,” Nikki said, “did you know that trash talking actually means trash talking?”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Bobby said. “Trash talking is a term used in sports when one player taunts another.”

  “That’s what you think,” Nikki said.

  “What is the trash saying, Nikki?” Grandma asked.

  Nikki peered out at the grimy sidewalk. “That hot dog wrapper just said, ‘I’m so happy people litter.’”

  Nikki pulled out a block of chocolate and began chomping on it. She had the biggest sweet tooth in New York City. Because of that, Nikki was a little chubby but that only added to her little kid cuteness. If aliens ever tried to hurt my little sister, boy, would they be sorry. I’d wipe out every single one of them. I was not someone you wanted to mess with. Just ask the video game monsters. If there was such a thing as a video game monster graveyard, it was a heckuva lot bigger because of me, Giles. I was a video game sharpshooter. No one was better at killing video game monsters than I was.

  Nikki tossed me the block of chocolate. I broke off a piece and handed it to Grandma. “Here, Grandma. Have something to eat.”

  “I’m not hungry, Giles.”

  “But, Grandma, you need to eat.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she said.

  I wasn’t so sure about that. Grandma had lost twenty pounds since Grandpa died. She was skinny to begin with. Now she looked emaciated.

  I shoved the chocolate into her lap. “Please, Grandma.”

  “OK, Giles,” she said, nibbling on it. “Now let’s be quiet so your brother can read. Charles Dickens requires great concentration.”

  “Finally someone in this family has a rational thing to say,” Bobby said, reading A Tale of Two Cities. He glanced up at me and cringed. “Giles, there’s a bee on your leg.”

  “So?” I just let it sit there. It wasn’t bothering anybody.

  “What do you mean so?” Bobby said, getting ready to nail it with his book.

  Before he could harm it, I rolled down the window and let it fly away. It sailed across Fifty-seventh Street into Central Park.

  The limo driver eyed me in the rearview mirror like I was crazy. I didn’t care. I don’t kill anything. Not even ants.

  We pulled up at a red light. A man crossed the street with a Great Dane. It stopped and sniffed a poodle. People say nature doesn’t exist in cities. If that’s true, then what are dogs and cats and squirrels and bees and butterflies? And what about pigeons? I love the way they sail over traffic jams. It’s like they’re saying, “Ha-ha, we can glide over gridlock and you can’t.”

  I have a telescope in my bedroom. I don’t use it to snoop on neighbors. I use it for bird-watching. I keep it aimed at Central Park. I’ve identified forty-nine different kinds of birds.

  What if my days as a bird-watcher were about to come to an end? What if I woke up tomorrow morning on a wasteland? What if they didn’t have a single bird on Desoleen? What if I was taken from Earth without ever having seen a satin bowerbird or a jabiru or a kookaburra or a rainbow lorikeet? Those birds were native to Australia. Ever since I was five and wore kangaroo pajamas, my great goal in life has been to visit Australia. Would I be evicted from this planet before I had a chance to explore the Land Down Under?

  Would I ever get to kiss a girl? That was another great goal of mine. I got the distinct impression from the shrunken head that there wasn’t a lot of kissing taking place on Desoleen.

  The limo pulled up outside our building on Central Park West.

  “Home at last,” Grandma said.

  The doorman grabbed our bags. We took the elevator up thirty floors to the penthouse.

  I helped Grandma to her room. I made her a cup of chamomile tea in the kitchen and brought it to her. She was staring at a photograph of Grandpa on the wall. I let her kiss me on the cheek, then I dashed back into the kitchen. I grabbed a box of glazed donuts and ran into my room. I bolted the door, sat down at my desk and gorged on a mouthwatering donut. I wiped my hands on my shirt. I wiped them on my socks. Never before have I made such a big deal out of cleaning my hands. Hand cleaning is not a major priority for me but this time I made sure every drop of powdered sugar was off my fingers. When they were finally immaculate, I pulled out the lease, spread it across my desk and beheld the ancient document.

  Trying in vain to read the confusing symbols, I had the odd sensation that someone was watching me. I slowly turned around. It was an alien. My heart bounced inside my chest on a trampoline of terror. It was here to assassinate me. I knew too much. I
may not have understood the lease but I knew about the eviction. That meant I had to die.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I CONSIDERED LUNGING for the baseball bat in my closet but it was too far away, so I did the next best thing. I grabbed the box of donuts. “Want a donut?” I asked, the box trembling in my hand.

  “No, thank you,” said the alien.

  “They’re really good. I mean they’re a lot better when they’re warm. And they’ve come right off the conveyor belt. And the frosting is all gooey ’cuz they just went underneath the waterfall of glaze. That’s what they call it. ‘The waterfall of glaze,’” I babbled.

  The alien stared at me.

  “If I were a donut I think it would be cool to pass underneath the waterfall of glaze.” I flashed a frightened smile. “Of course I’m not a donut. Donuts are things you eat. You don’t eat me.” I gulped. “Do you?”

  “No, of course not.” The alien smiled. “Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Tula.”

  Now that I knew I wasn’t going to be munched on, my brain started functioning again. It was a girl, an alien girl. She had human features but her face was pale blue like a clear sky and just as bright. She was luminous. Her puffy blond cloud-shaped hair reminded me of golden cotton candy. She was a sky creature, a sky chick but without feathers or a beak or any other bird-like quality. Even if she couldn’t fly, she looked like she belonged in midair. I half expected to see a miniature sun peek out from inside her cloudy hairdo.

  She wore a long gold skirt and matching suit coat, very adult-like, carrying a tan briefcase. She seemed all business, despite her skyness.

  The buttons on her jacket glowed. They were huge and round and moon-like, dotted with tiny craters.

  “What’s up with those buttons?” I said.

  “Nothing,” she replied.

  “Nothing?” I said. “That’s a good one. I saw a shrunken head this afternoon. Those are shrunken planets, aren’t they?”

  “No, they’re just buttons.”

  “What can they do?”

  “I can button my coat with them.”

  “What else can they do? Can they deflect ray guns? I mean if someone fires a laser at you will it bounce off your buttons?”