She pulled a sign out of her briefcase and stuck it on the kitchen door: FIGHTER PILOT SCHOOL!
“We’re a squadron,” I said, giving Toshi a high-five.
We entered the kitchen. It looked normal. Nothing was LCD, not even the cookie jar. Tula directed our attention to a pair of flies sitting on the counter. They were actually miniature spaceships, courtesy of Dr. Sprinkles!
“Each flyplane is equipped with a graffiti-removing laser. Your spaceships are also powerful fighting machines. Princess Petulance is committed to sabotaging this quest, and you must protect the droids. However, your lasers and missiles can only be used in self-defense. And never, under any circumstances, on humans. Do you understand?”
“Got it,” I said.
Toshi got it too.
She handed each of us a silver bracelet. “These are your S/Us. They have the power to shrink you down and return you to your normal size. They are encoded with thought-activation software. All you have to do is say to yourself, ‘I want to be smaller.’ And presto, you’ll be tiny.”
We slipped on our bracelets.
“You can use your S/U to make somebody else small, too,” said Tula. “But an S/U can’t make anything larger than its actual size. You can’t take a penny and make it the size of the Empire State Building. It’s only a shrinking device. Do you understand?”
“No problem,” Toshi said.
She picked up one of the flyplanes. “Toshi, this is your flyplane. It’s solar powered.” She set it down and gently picked up the other one. “Giles, your flyplane runs on rhyming.”
“It what?” I said.
“It was custom-made for you by Dr. Sprinkles,” she said, setting it back down on the kitchen counter.
I couldn’t believe it. “A spaceship that runs on rhyming?”
“It’s the first of its kind,” Tula said.
“How does it work?” I asked.
“When your flyplane is running low on fuel, it will give you a riddle. You must answer in rhyme. A nonrhyming answer is incorrect.”
“How can anything run on rhyming?” asked Toshi.
“Why wouldn’t it?” said Tula. “Poetry is the human soul’s highest-octane fuel.” Her briefcase started blinking. “Looks like I’m due back in court. Good luck, you guys.”
She disappeared.
“I guess we should shrink ourselves down,” Toshi said, a bit nervous.
“I guess so,” I said, trembling a little.
We stared at our flyplanes.
“We should sit on the kitchen counter,” Toshi said. “Then we’ll be up here by the flyplanes when we’re small. Not down on the floor.”
“Good point,” I said.
We both perched on the edge of the counter. I said to myself, Make me smaller.
Suddenly I was standing on the kitchen counter, peering up at the salt shaker as if it was a lighthouse. I’m serious. I was shorter than a blueberry. So was Toshi. When you’re shorter than a blueberry, life is good.
The kitchen counter was wider than a football field. If Peyton Manning was my size, he wouldn’t have been able to throw a pass to the sink. I peered over the edge of the Formica cliff at the tiled floor down below. Climbing down there would’ve been like descending Everest.
“I’ll race you to the cookie jar,” Toshi said.
Huffing and puffing, we pried open the lid and lifted out a chocolate chip cookie, using every muscle in our bodies.
“Let’s eat our way through it,” I said.
“Fighter pilots need to stock up on carbs,” Toshi said, gnawing away.
“Hey, Toshi,” I said while chomping, “do you think Tula has a crush on me?”
“I don’t know. It’s hard to tell with blue girls.”
When we were finished gorging, we sipped from a puddle of milk over by the sink and marched to our flyplanes.
Mine had two bulbous eyes, just like a normal fly’s. I climbed into the left eye, which contained the pilot’s seat. The right eye was the co-pilot’s seat. A glass hatch slid down over it like the film over an eye. There was a helmet and goggles lying on the floor by my foot. I put them on and sat down.
Just like when I was valet parking, a silent voice rang out in the center of my brain again.
Hello, Giles. Welcome on board. I am a 2012 miniature star cruiser. I am equipped with thought-activation technology. Let me explain how it works.
I already know how it works. I was driving a star cruiser that had it just the other day.
I was not aware that you had driven a star cruiser, Giles.
Come on. Do you know who you’re talking to?
Yes, I’m talking to a warrior poet.
That’s me, Giles. What’s your name? Do spaceships have names?
Dr. Melissa Sprinkles, the greatest scientist in the entire universe, named me—
Did she program you to say that?
Yes, Giles. As I was saying, Dr. Melissa Sprinkles, the greatest scientist in the entire universe, named me DubDub.
Cool name. OK, let’s take off, DubDub.
First I need some fuel.
We need to find a gas station.
Remember, I run on rhyming.
Oh, that’s right.
That concerned me. It was one thing to write a little poetry, it was another thing to fuel a spaceship with it.
Giles, if you were put on this planet to eat movie food, what does it mean?
How am I supposed to know, DubDub?
Unfortunately we won’t be able to take off until you figure it out, Giles.
Toshi took off in his flyplane. He shot out the kitchen window. Why couldn’t I have a solar-powered flyplane?
Tell me the riddle again, DubDub.
If you were put on this planet to eat movie food, what does it mean?
It means you’re going to eat a lot of Milk Duds.
Your answer didn’t rhyme, Giles. Therefore it is incorrect.
I heard Toshi over my intercom.
“Hey, Giles, where are you? I’m cruising over Central Park.”
“I’m having technical difficulties, Toshi.”
He laughed. “Dude, your flyplane sucks compared to mine.”
I shut off the intercom. I didn’t need to hear that right now.
Tell me the riddle again, DubDub.
If you were put on this planet to eat movie food, what does it mean?
I got it. It means you were born to eat popcorn.
Correct, Giles.
We zoomed out the window, over a nasty traffic jam and into Central Park. I met up with Toshi on a dandelion. We rose high above the sycamore trees and flew in formation over the Sheep Meadow, the Bethesda Fountain and the polar bear exhibit in the Central Park Zoo.
“Hey, Toshi,” I said into my intercom, “check this out.” I landed my flyplane on a gargoyle dangling from a rooftop on Fifth Avenue.
“Watch this,” Toshi said, doing a nosedive, landing on a poodle’s nose outside the Plaza Hotel.
We flew along Broadway to Times Square, spinning figure eights in the summer sky high above the tourists, then we headed downtown, past the Flatiron Building into Chelsea, the West Village, the Meatpacking District. We were two flyplanes darting with pinpoint accuracy at three hundred miles per hour past hot dog vendors, up fire escapes, around pizza parlor signs.
Imagine the most fun you ever had in your life. Now, multiply that fun by fifty million. That’s how much fun it is to go cruising in a flyplane.
We were veering toward South Street Seaport when suddenly a swallow swooped down off a traffic light and started chasing me. Swallows eat flies and this one wanted me, Giles, for lunch.
Toshi circled behind the swallow and shadowed it. “Should I kill it, Giles?”
“No, Toshi. It can’t catch me.”
“Come on. Let me vaporize it.”
“No,” I said.
“Tula didn’t say we couldn’t kill animals.”
“Well, I’m saying we can’t kill animals. And I’m
captain of this team. What I say goes.”
“Well, OK,” Toshi said.
I shot through SoHo with the bird in hot pursuit. Who would’ve thought that getting chased by a swallow could be so much fun? Its beak was only inches away. I let it stay close. If we got away too easily, the bird would’ve been depressed. It would’ve said to itself, “Boy, I’m the slowest swallow in the whole wide world. I can’t even catch a stupid fly.”
Swallows get depressed too. I didn’t want that. He had no idea he was chasing a star cruiser. By the time we got to Wall Street, he gave up and flew away.
Bobby’s image flashed across my console. “Giles, Tula wants you guys to practice removing graffiti over by the West Side Highway.”
I followed Toshi to an abandoned building that had graffiti on the walls.
DubDub, do you think Tula would ever go out with me?
I don’t know, Giles.
What are you talking about? You’re a state-of-the-art spacecraft. Your main computer knows everything about the known universe.
Love isn’t part of the known universe, Giles. It’s part of the Great Unknown.
DubDub, I may be a poet but that’s still too deep for me.
There was a whole lot of graffiti on this building.
How fast can you remove graffiti, DubDub?
Would you like a demonstration, Giles?
Yes.
It made an entire wall spotless in a fraction of a second.
Not bad, DubDub.
Thank you, Giles.
My smart phone rang in my pocket. And to think, once upon a time this was high-tech.
It was Navida.
“Giles, you still haven’t told me your big news.”
“My big news?” I said awkwardly. I had already told three kids about the test. That was my limit. I couldn’t tell Navida now.
“Yeah,” she said, “what’s your big news?”
I had to come up with something quick. “Oh. Here it is. Scientists at the Institute for Gluttony invented a new kind of donut.”
“You call that big news?”
“Heck, yeah. It’s part glaze, part jelly. It’s called a glelly donut.”
“That’s so exciting,” she said with zero enthusiasm.
“I thought you’d appreciate it,” I said.
“Giles, what are you doing right now to help the environment?”
“It’s kind of hard to describe,” I said as my flyplane flew upside down past the Empire State Building.
“No, it’s not, Giles. Your butt is on a couch and you’ve got a donut in your mouth.”
“I’m not sitting on a couch, Navida.”
“Oh, that’s right. You’re standing on a chair in the kitchen reaching for the glelly donuts your grandma hid on the top shelf.”
“I could go for a glelly donut right now, to be honest with you.”
“Giles, you’re an eco-embarrassment.”
“Hey, lay off. I’m trying. Not everyone is smart enough to have a blog like you.”
I couldn’t make her part of my team but at least I could build up her ego.
“What a joke that is,” she said. “My blog sucks.”
“Your blog is amazing.”
“If it’s so amazing then how come no one reads it? I got ten hits last week. Ten hits, Giles. In a city of eight million people, only ten of them read my blog. Is that the most pathetic thing you ever heard or what?”
DubDub glided over Madison Square Garden. “You know what your problem is, Navida?”
“Please tell me. I am dying to know what my problem is.”
“People don’t know about your blog. What you need is some free advertising.”
It was the perfect way to make up for not selecting her for my team. As soon as I got off the phone with her, I consulted with my flyplane.
DubDub, I want every kid in New York to know about Navida’s blog. Is there a way to do that?
Absolutely, Giles. Would you like me to do it right now?
Go for it.
Using way beyond nano-technology, DubDub created a cool commercial for Navida’s blog faster than a Madison Avenue advertising firm. The eco-mercial opened with a beautiful nature scene that featured a mountain with a waterfall cascading down it. The name of Navida’s Web site flashed in bold letters above the waterfall. Then a voice said, “We interrupt our regular programming for an important announcement. Dude, you need to check out Navida’s blog. If you don’t, you’re a complete dweeb.”
The commercial was in 3-D. Not just 3-D but Martian 3-D. That meant it didn’t require 3-D glasses in order to have the desired effect. Best of all, when the waterfall came spilling out of the screen, the viewer actually got drenched.
Those Martians are quite clever.
My fabulous flyplane broadcast the ad by hacking into every TV signal in Manhattan, focusing exclusively on kid favorites like Nickelodeon, the Disney Channel, MTV. He also hacked into every popular Web site for kids. So basically every kid in New York City who was on a computer or watching TV saw the ad for Navida’s blog.
We didn’t want parents fainting or drowning, so DubDub programmed the ad in such a way that adult energy would neutralize the 3-D effect. If an adult was watching TV with the child, the ad would appear without it. It wasn’t a big issue, since parents hated most of the shows we hacked into, anyway.
The commercial ran at precisely 4:45 in the afternoon. By 4:46, the number of wet kids in New York City increased dramatically. According to what they later posted on Facebook, the kids didn’t care if they got grounded for flooding the living room. Getting nailed by that waterfall was funner than going down the Colorado River on a raft.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
NAVIDA CALLED BACK later that night. “Giles, a miracle happened.”
“What do you mean, Navida?” I asked, lounging on my bed after a long day of intergalactic boot camp.
“I just got eighty thousand hits on my blog.”
“Sure you did.”
“I swear. Eighty thousand hits.”
“Are you serious?”
“I am totally serious. Some kid said he saw an ad for my Web site on MTV. Is that crazy or what?”
“Insane,” I said.
“How? How did this happen?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, I have a miniature spaceship and I had its main computer hack into all the TV signals in Manhattan.”
I knew she wouldn’t believe me so it wasn’t like I was divulging anything.
“Quit screwing around, Giles. I’m trying to be serious.”
“I’m being totally serious, Navida” I said.
“Quit mocking me.”
“There’s no mocking going on here. The words coming out of my mouth are totally mockless.”
“There’s no such word as mockless.”
“Sarcasmless. Is that a word?”
“It’s not a word, Giles. But moron is a word. It’s a person too.”
“I bet his name begins with the letter G?” I said.
“How did you know?”
“OK,” I said. “Let’s get serious. A miracle occurred. Who cares how? The bottom line is it happened. Deal with it. You’re popular.”
“Me, popular?” she said. “This is bizarre. It’s scary. It’s terrifying. It’s … the greatest thing that ever happened to me!”
That made me feel good. Anytime you can help a girl in a wheelchair, go for it.
I went out into the living room, where Tula and rest of my team were hanging out.
“I can’t wait to see these Eco-droids,” Toshi said.
“Tula, when is Dr. Sprinkles going to deliver the first one?” I asked. “It’s already Thursday night. The test begins in two days.”
Tula checked her watch. “Big Daddy should be here in less than an hour.”
I was still a little worried that Big Daddy might not show up. What if Dr. Sprinkles was off buying shoes and forgot all about us? How could you trust a lady with a moveable face?
> Toshi reached for the traffic jam. “A homeless man saw me removing graffiti in my flyplane this afternoon,” he said. “The poor guy fainted. I guess he’d never seen a fly removing graffiti before.”
“That could be a big problem,” Bobby said. “No one will pay attention to a homeless man. But what if someone else sees us?”
“It’ll freak them out,” Toshi said.
“They’ll call The New York Times,” I said.
“We need one of those gizmos to make people forget. Like they had in Men in Black,” Nikki said, strumming a few notes on her violin.
“Nikki, this isn’t a movie,” Bobby said. “This is real life.”
“Yeah,” Toshi added. “And in real life droids don’t suddenly start multiplying on the streets of Manhattan.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Tula said. “We must devise a way to conceal all abnormal activity.” Tula popped open her briefcase. “I’ve got just the thing.”
A rainbow slid out, stretching and stretching until it arched over the living room. It was the brightest band of color New York City had ever seen. Suddenly the rainbow shattered into one hundred pieces. Each piece was alive. Each piece was an alien. They swam through the air, dipping and diving and soaring in unison. They were red, green, yellow, blue, orange, and violet chunks of mist that were shaped like fish.
“They look like fish ghosts,” Bobby said, mesmerized.
“What are they, Tula?” Nikki asked.
“They have a rather long name, Nikki,” Tula replied. “It would take an hour and a half to pronounce. For the sake of convenience let’s call them cloudfish.”
(Hey, reader, if you know a word that means infinitely cooler than the word cool, please let me know and I’ll use it to describe the cloudfish. I’m going to leave an empty space right here for that word. If anyone can come up with it please text it to me. You can tell all your friends you helped cowrite my Gilesography.)
Bobby burst out laughing. He pointed to the one with the longest whiskers. “Look. It’s a catfish cloudfish.”
“This guy’s a lobster cloudfish,” I said pointing to another. It wasn’t really a creature. It was the hint of a creature. I don’t know how else to put it.
There were swordfish cloudfish, dolphin cloudfish, manatee cloudfish, an octopus cloudfish. When they merged in midair, they could turn themselves into a giant rainbow, but they could also shed their brightness and turn into a dense gray fog that filled the entire room.
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