Alien Superstar

by Henry Winkler

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Winkler, Henry, 1945- author. | Oliver, Lin, author.

  Title: Alien superstar / Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver.

  Description: New York: Amulet Books, 2019. | Summary: Buddy Burger escapes his home planet, lands in Hollywood, and is cast in a new television series, but must pretend his six eyes and suction-cup feet are the costume and his human skin, real.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019000754 | ISBN 9781419733697 (alk. paper) | eISBN 978-1-68335-636-3

  Subjects: | CYAC: Extraterrestrial beings—Fiction. | Disguise—Fiction. | Actors and actresses—Fiction. | Television programs—Production and direction—Fiction. | Humorous stories.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.W72934 Ah 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  B&N edition ISBN 978-1-4197-4528-7

  Text copyright © 2019 Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver

  Illustrations copyright © 2019 Ethan Nicolle

  Book design by Hana Anouk Nakamura and Chad W. Beckerman

  Published in 2019 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

  Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialsales@abramsbooks.com or the address below.

  Amulet Books® is a registered trademark of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

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  This book is dedicated to

  Garry Marshall, Tom Miller and Eddie Milkis because they taught me everything I know about television

  AND

  Stacey always.

  —H.W.

  For Anarres, Elettra, and new baby Noa. May you always read and laugh.

  —L.O.

  1

  This was no way to celebrate a birthday.

  I could hear the breath escaping from my third lung, the one that kicks into gear when I’m terrified. The red dust that covers my planet clouded my eyes—all six of them. But there was no time to unscrew them and soak them in fermented beetle legs, which as I’m sure you know is the only way to clean intergalactic dust off your retinas. The Squadron was gaining on me. I could feel the heat of their laser beams nipping at the suction cups that cover the bottom of my feet.

  Run, I thought to myself, like your life depends on it. Which it did. “Citizen Short Nose,” one of the Squadron commanders yelled. “Stop immediately. There is no escape for you.”

  “Don’t you dare stop, Grandson Short Nose,” my grandmother said, panting. I could hear the exhaustion in her voice. Being chased by the deadliest assault squadron in the galaxy is not easy when you’re 987 years old.

  I glanced out of my two rear eyes and saw my grandmother falling behind. My sensory enhancer, the trunk-like appendage that grows out of my upper back, must have smelled her fear. It’s good at that, just like it’s good at enhancing all our other senses like taste, touch, sight, and hearing. Instinctively, my enhancer stretched out to grab my grandmother’s hand. She slapped it away, and I felt the sting reverberate through my body.

  “Don’t help me, Grandson Short Nose!” she wheezed with her last bit of energy. “Escape from here and meet your destiny.”

  “I can’t leave you, grandmother Wrinkle.”

  “This is our plan, grandson. My life is nearing its end. Yours is just beginning.”

  Those were the last words I heard her say as the Squadron threw a titanium net over her frail body.

  “We have the old one,” the commander shouted. “Surrender now and you both will survive.”

  Survival was not my goal. Living was. There was no way I could live my life if I stayed here. They would neutralize me. Deactivate my sensory enhancer. Eliminate my ability to experience all the wonders of life. Turn me into one of them—robotic, joyless, dead. No. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

  I summoned the strength to run even faster, forcing myself not to look back. The red sun was setting, and I had to be at the Cemetery before the moonrise was complete or I would never be able to break out of my planet’s gravitational pull. But my stupid suction cups were not helping me. Here’s a piece of advice for you—if you need to get somewhere fast, remove all suction cups from your feet.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t. I was born with them.

  The Squadron was gaining on me. I could see Red Algae Ravine just ahead. The Cemetery was at the bottom, down a steep winding road. I made an instant and dangerous decision.

  Closing all six of my eyes, grabbing my sensory enhancer and pulling it close to my body, I tucked into a ball and flung myself off the rim of the ravine. I hit the ground hard and hurtled down the canyon, bouncing off jagged rocks that punctured my outer epidermal layer, what you humans call “skin.” The pain was so intense I couldn’t even scream.

  Just when I thought I couldn’t bear it anymore, I hit bottom and crashed headfirst into the iron wall that surrounded the Cemetery. My head was spinning, but there was no time for dizzy. Half the Squadron were up on the rim, firing laser beams at me, while the other half were scrambling down the road, also taking shots at me. I staggered to my feet and made my way to the secret keypad buried in a hidden compartment of the wall. Grandmother Wrinkle had instructed me to memorize the code, but now my mind was blank.

  I was codeless.

  “Stop!”

  The commander’s voice was near. I couldn’t tell exactly how close it was, but I knew it was too close.

  “Don’t be a fool! Give yourself up!” he bellowed.

  The code! The code!

  It was right there in my memory, but clouded by fear. Grandmother picked it because it was my favorite character from all the Earth movies we secretly watched together.

  Of course.

  With my fingers trembling, I reached out and punched in S-K-Y-W-A-L-K-E-R.

  The heavy gate rumbled open. I slipped through and pressed the button on the other side to close it.

  Wait! Was that a hand I saw, reaching through the gate, trying to grab me? The piercing scream I heard as the gate slammed shut confirmed my suspicion.

  The Cemetery was the final resting place for our planet’s obsolete vehicles. My grandmother would often go there to gather spare parts for old spaceships that she repaired. Because she had been the best master mechanic in the fleet, she knew every piece of equipment that was there, and had even secretly changed the code that opened the gate. Over the last year, she had snuck me in every afternoon, to prepare for this very moment when I would escape the fate that was awaiting me. She remembered a time before the New Squadron, when life on our planet was colorful and creative and fragrant, and her fervent wish was that I would have that life too.

  I knew every object in the Cemetery as well as my grandmother did. They were like old friends. I dodged my way across rusted-out spacecraft, forging a path through shattered interstellar fighters, busted-up afterburners, and an assortment of broken wings.

  “Citizen Short Nose,” the Squadron commander shouted, using the vocal cord amplifier built into his neck. “We have you trapped. You’ve given yourself no way out.”

  That’s what you think, you robotic puppet of the stat
e, I thought.

  I ducked behind the mountain of broken wings and pulled the metallic tarp off the faster-than-light vehicle Grandmother Wrinkle and I had rebuilt for my escape. There it was—but would it actually fly? We never had the opportunity to test it. As I climbed the ladder to the hatch, I felt a searing pain in my arm. My front eyes saw purple blood spurt from my shoulder as my rear eyes detected the soldier who had scaled the wall and shot me.

  Clutching my shoulder, I jumped into the vehicle and slid into the driver’s seat. I buckled myself in with my good arm and pulled the hatch closed, when suddenly it flew open again. My sensory enhancer had sprung into action and was pushing the door open every time I tried to close it.

  “Oh no! Not now!” I groaned.

  It snorted fiendishly. I knew that snort. It was reserved for only the most delicious of aromas.

  I looked through the open hatch and saw what the attraction was. A single vine of honeywort had pushed through the pile of broken wings, stretching its orange blossom up into the atmosphere. My sensory enhancer was going wild from the sweet floral fragrance. I was going wild from the constant ping of laser shots bouncing off the open hatch. Those shots were coming from close range. The Squadron was closing in.

  I reached out and grabbed my sensory enhancer, which had wrapped itself around the vine and was making deep grunting sounds as it inhaled the honeywort blossom. I yanked it inside with a vengeance and slammed the hatch shut.

  “Your timing sucks,” I screamed at it, pulling the orange blossom from its trunk. “For once, do as I say.”

  In the human world, I know you don’t make it a practice of yelling at your body parts. But sensory enhancers can have a mind of their own. They respond to all stimuli. That’s what is both wonderful and tricky about them—and that’s what makes them dangerous.

  I pressed the ignition and the panel lit up, showing my destination coordinates. That was a good sign. Fighting through the pain in my arm, I grabbed the accelerator and pushed it forward. The entire vehicle shuddered but did not lift off. I heard a pounding on the window and turned to see the commander’s face, pressed against the glass.

  “Surrender!” he shouted.

  “Never, creepoid!”

  “Every thirteen-year-old on this planet goes through it,” the commander snarled. “Once your sensory enhancer is deactivated, you won’t miss it.”

  “I refuse to become like you, one of the living dead.”

  I reached for the altitude lever, but I couldn’t get a tight grip. My own blood had soaked my glove, making the lever slippery.

  It was now or never. This was my last chance.

  I grabbed the lever with both hands and pushed it forward with all my might. I heard it engage and felt the vehicle lift off the ground, slowly gaining altitude. The commander was hanging on to the wing, barking at me to land the craft. Ignoring him, I activated the particle accelerator and we shot forward, heading at breakneck speed toward the wall of the Cemetery. I needed lift. Immediately, if not sooner.

  I located the thruster switches on both sides of the driver’s seat and pushed them down as far as they would go. The nose of the vehicle turned upward. The sudden burst of velocity made the commander lose his grip. From my rear eyes, I saw him plummet through the air, heading toward a pile of jagged metal refuse far below.

  My vehicle shot up over the rim of the ravine. I looked out the window and saw that the moon had just reached its highest point. I had been seconds away from total failure.

  The red dwarf sun faded into the distance and the vastness of space lay before me.

  As we hit maximum velocity and barreled into the galaxy, the g-force pushed me against my seat, compressing all my internal organs. My stomach flattened and my bodily gases exploded out of me. They erupted with such force that I was pretty sure my vehicle picked up speed. My body rumbled with a thunderous noise. On Earth, I believe you call that a giant fart.

  That was the last thing I remember before I passed out.

  2

  When I came to, I had no idea where I was or how much time had elapsed. Grandma Wrinkle had preprogrammed my vehicle to land on planet Earth, but I couldn’t tell how far along in the journey I was. I swiveled all six of my eyes to the front and looked out the windshield at the panoramic view. Wow, space is beautiful, I thought as I surveyed the swirling misty spiral ahead of me filled with two hundred billion stars. Moving my eyes to the left side of my head, I noticed a shimmering yellow planet circled by glowing rings of brown, gray, and pink.

  Wait a minute! That misty spiral had to be the Milky Way, and the glowing planet was Saturn. That meant I was only 746 million miles from Earth, give or take 50 million! I realize that to you this might seem far, but then you humans are still driving around on four rubber tires surrounded by steel. I don’t want to make you feel bad, but where I come from, our technology is way beyond that. Without getting into the physics of it, let’s just say my faster-than-light vehicle was using teleportation to get me to Earth in less time than it would take you guys to drive from Big Arm, Montana, to Green Acres, North Dakota.

  I suddenly became aware of a gnawing feeling in my stomach and remembered Grandma Wrinkle’s warning.

  “I have left some nutrient wafers for you in the sustenance box in the dashboard,” she had said. “I couldn’t leave more because every ounce counts and I didn’t want to weigh down your vehicle. The wafers will provide the nourishment you need until you figure out what will sustain you on Earth. And remember, you must always drink lots of water to maintain your life force.”

  As I reached out to open the sustenance box, I felt a burning sting in my shoulder. All my eyes raced to the right side of my head and glanced down at the wound, which was already scabbing over with dark purple blood. The pressurization system Grandma Wrinkle had installed inside my vehicle was healing the wound faster than normal. I hoped it would be entirely healed by the time I landed on Earth. It’s hard to make a good first impression when you have fresh purple blood gushing out of your body.

  I took out one of the wafers and popped it in my mouth. Immediately, I felt a burst of energy as it dissolved on my tongue. There was no need to chew—our species evolved past teeth eons ago. That must sound pretty good to you earth-lings, who still have to go to the dentist every year. I hear they drill holes in your teeth, which doesn’t sound like a lot of fun.

  Our Supreme Leader had decreed that our nutrient wafers should have every speck of taste baked out of them so that our senses are never stimulated. He believes that stimulated senses can lead to all kinds of trouble, as if enjoying a pepperoni pizza is the first step to overthrowing a repressive government.

  Even though I could have eaten all the wafers at once, I forced myself to leave one behind until I figured out what kind of Earth food I could eat. Earth food looked great in the movies and television shows Grandma Wrinkle and I watched secretly in her underground cellar. Especially ice cream. It looked like such fun to use your tongue as a spoon. Or spaghetti, which looks like a huge pile of string.

  Does it tie itself in knots in your stomach? I wondered.

  Suddenly, a massive object appeared, zooming right toward me.

  “Evade! Evade!” I screamed, with only me there to hear it.

  I grabbed the altitude lever and pulled, forcing my vehicle to shoot up and over the object. As it whizzed past, I looked down and realized it was a satellite with the gigantic letters USA emblazoned on its solar panels. That meant I must be close to Earth. Looking out the windshield, I could see the circular curve of the blue planet come into view. My three lungs started to work overtime, inhaling gulps of air in a combination of excitement and fear.

  There it was. Earth.

  I was heading right to the spot Grandma Wrinkle had programmed, our favorite address on Earth, the one we saw at the end of so many movies.

  Universal Studios, North Hollywood, California.

  We were the only ones on our planet who even knew movies existed. Grandma Wrink
le had remembered seeing several as a child at the Great Library, before it was destroyed by the new government, and she never forgot the influence they’d had on her. Later, being the master engineer that she is, she invented a device to funnel earthly movies and television across the universe directly to her cellar. We watched those movies endlessly, laughing and crying over every detail. And that’s how I learned that creativity had to always be in my life. I couldn’t be me without it.

  Had our Supreme Leader or any of the Squadron discovered Grandma Wrinkle’s cache of entertainment, she would have been placed in a single-being prison capsule and shot into space, banished forever. And I wouldn’t have been far behind. But our dream was that if I could reach Universal Studios before my sensory enhancer was deactivated, I would be safe and able to live my life as I knew it needed to be lived.

  “Landing coordinates in range.” The monotone voice of the onboard computer startled me.

  “Repeat, please,” I said.

  “Landing coordinates are locked in. Are you prepared?”

  “Yes.” I gulped. I wasn’t sure if I was at all prepared, but when you’re billions of miles from home, you want to let the universe know you’re confident, even if you’re not.

  “Make sure you go to the bathroom before you land,” the computer droned.

  “What am I, a baby?” I snapped.

  “Babies are defined as one year or younger. You are thirteen, so the answer is no.”

  Computers have no sense of humor. That’s the same no matter what planet you live on.

  The ride got very bumpy as we drew near Earth. My sensory enhancer burrowed closer to my body and hid in my armpit, obviously reacting to the change in atmosphere. I heard it take a whiff and then let out a big grunt. I couldn’t blame it—I hadn’t washed in days. I wrapped my fingers around the armrest until all fourteen of my knuckles turned white. Looking out the window, I could make out an ocean and a coastline, giving way to ribbons of highways packed with adorable little vehicles. There they were, four rubber tires surrounded by steel.