Target: Earth

by Johnny Marciano

  CHAPTER 31

  I was working at Starista, trying to make a caramel mocha chai latte, but the machine wasn’t working. I turned back to the person who had ordered it to apologize, but it wasn’t a person at all. It was the gym teacher from Pleasant Valley Junior High. He had molted again, so he looked different, but I could tell it was him by the baseball caps on his two heads and the whistles around his necks.

  All of a sudden, I heard sirens, and then more creatures were coming into Starista, but they weren’t customers—they were sauropod FBI agents. I didn’t know what I had done wrong, but I knew I was guilty anyway. They took me away in handcuffs, and my parents were there but they couldn’t help me. And then I saw Klawde.

  “Save me!” I said to him.

  “I’m sorry, do I know you?” he asked.

  Then I felt my toes getting bitten.

  “Ow! Klawde!” I pulled my feet away from him. “Will you stop doing that?”

  If it wasn’t for Klawde playing alarm cat, though, I might’ve missed school altogether. I was so tired—not because I was up all night playing VR games, but because I was dreaming about playing VR games. And I got arrested in every single one.

  Walking to school, I saw half a dozen squirrels hopping past me on the sidewalk. It looked like they were going to my house. What was Klawde up to with them?

  Actually, I didn’t want to know.

  “You feeling any better?” Cedar asked at the corner where we met up.

  “I think the answer is no,” Steve said. “He looks even worse.”

  “Are you sure you should be going to school, Raj?” Cedar said. “This can’t be allergies. You haven’t helped us with the garden stuff in a week. Maybe you have the flu.”

  I wished I could have taken the day off, but the only thing my mom considered legitimate for staying home was hospitalization.

  Just as we got to school, I felt the buzz of a text, and I fished my phone out of my jeans.

  It was from Annie, Lindy’s mom.

  There’s something I’m VERY concerned about. Can you stop over after school?

  Gulp.

  CHAPTER 32

  Finally, the most important holiday in the known universe had arrived! It commemorated the date of my birth, and was called the Universal Day of the Most Supreme Leader.

  True, no festivities were planned this year—the Calico Queen had made them illegal, curse her—but I felt certain there would be spontaneous celebrations on Lyttyrboks among the legions of cats who remembered it fondly.

  As a present to myself, I was going to purchase the satellites necessary to broadcast my Zom-Beams. I had found a network of them for sale, and the $12 billion price seemed quite reasonable.

  But first, I would search the agent-ogre’s computer. Once I accessed her wireless interface network, hacking into her device was pathetically easy.

  I did this not because I shared the boy-ogre’s panic, but because I thought she might have more nice things to say about me. And in her emails, I found that she had. I purred at being called brilliant, deceptive, aggressive, corrupt, and sinister. Who wouldn’t?

  I also read about how she planned to “put an end” to my scheme. While she might indeed be the most intelligent creature on this planet, she was an ogre, so I was hardly concerned.

  Still, a warrior must be vigilant. This “Annie” needed to be kept under careful squirrel surveillance. I closed Raj’s laptop and put on the VQ headset. The moment I did, however, I was met with something most unexpected.

  A green flash.

  CHAPTER 33

  It was impossible to focus on school after getting Annie’s text. What was she so concerned about? Did it have something to do with KitKoin? She couldn’t possibly suspect who was really behind it, because he was a cat. But did she suspect me? Or my parents? Was she going to bring us in for questioning?

  “Earth to Raj,” said Sarah, the girl who sat next to me in math. “See that test in front of you? You should probably think about taking it.”

  What? I looked down at my desk. It was a pop quiz. I tried my best, but I could barely think.

  What is ⅔ to the sixth power? What is 132⁄9-93/16?

  How was I supposed to know?

  I was the last kid to turn in my sheet, and I took so long that Ms. Rice had already graded everyone else’s. She took a quick glance at my quiz and looked up at me. “Raj, you know that eighteen divided by two does not equal five. Are you feeling okay?”

  That’s what everyone was asking me these days. And even though I’d gotten the VQ and all this other stuff I wanted, the answer was always no.

  The bell rang, which meant it was time to go to a super-boring assembly, and then an even more super-boring French class. (The teacher didn’t even know French.) Still, for once I didn’t want school to be over, because that meant I’d have to go talk to Annie.

  CHAPTER 34

  I had been sucked through more wormholes than I could count, but this time was different. Perhaps because of the utter surprise—or perhaps because I had been deposited here, on the cold, gray surface of what appeared to be a dead asteroid. I looked skyward and, to my shock, found myself gazing at the most beautiful sight in the universe: the magnificent planet of Lyttyrboks.

  But wait—if Lyttyrboks was up there, that meant I was on one of the eighty-seven moons. And the only one this desolate was number thirty-six, notorious for its supersonic tornadoes and cat-eating yetis.

  Why had I been brought here? WHO was responsible for this outrage? What kind of a FOOL would do such a—

  “Happy Universal Day of the Most Supreme Leader, O Most Supreme Leader!”

  Ah, yes.

  “What have you done?” I roared at my minion. “I was in the midst of spying on my new nemesis! Send me home, you dolt!”

  “Home?” Flooffee repeated. “But you can’t go home! You’re still Wyss-Kuzz the Butt-Sniffer.”

  “Not that home, fool. I mean Earth!”

  “Whoa, you’re calling Earth home now?” he asked. “Are you feeling okay, O Supremest? Earth’s toxic atmosphere isn’t finally getting to you, is it?”

  “Earth will never be my home,” I growled. “It is merely next on my list of planets to conquer. Now send me back so I can get on with it!”

  “Look, your Excellency, Earth will be there for you to vanquish tomorrow—just like a billion other better planets in the universe,” Flooffee said. “You’re always working so hard on your evil schemes and all. You need to learn to relax a little. Particularly on your special day!”

  My claws itched to slash him. “What part of ‘send me back’ do you not understand?”

  “Come on,” he said. “Isn’t it kind of nice to be here visiting your favorite moon?”

  “You idiot!” I said. “I told you moon sixty-three was my favorite!”

  His eyes went wide. “Oh, right! I always do get those two confused. I thought it was kind of funny you’d pick the one with randomly bursting acid geysers.”

  I again demanded that he transport me back to Earth, and the fool again refused.

  “There’s so much to celebrate together!” he said. “Take a look at what I made for you!”

  He stepped aside, and behind him I saw a—“What is that?”

  “It’s a statue of you!” He purred proudly. “It’s made entirely out of butter!”

  I peered more closely. The likeness was impressive.

  I always did make a fine statue.

  CHAPTER 35

  Annie answered my knock right away. Her smile didn’t look as bright as usual. “Hi, Raj,” she said. “Thanks for coming. How are you?”

  “Uh, fine,” I said, even though I’d spent the last seven hours being worried.

  “Good. Well, the reason I asked you here is a little strange. It’s because—”

  “O
h, hey, Raj!” Lindy said, coming out onto the porch. Usually I was kind of annoyed to see her, but right then I felt saved.

  “Watch this!” She went over to Flabby Tabby and said, “Lie down, Chad!”

  She beamed back at us. Neither her mom nor I had the heart to point out that the cat was already lying down. In fact, he was asleep.

  “That’s, uh, a great trick,” I said.

  “Want to see something else?” she asked.

  “I need to talk to Raj,” Annie said, interrupting Lindy. “About the, um . . . gutters.”

  The gutters? Phew—I’d been so convinced that it was about KitKoin!

  “Oh yeah, sorry about that,” I said. “I’ve been, uh, really busy. But I can get right on it.”

  When Annie and I went to get the ladder out of the garage, she said, “It’s not really about the gutters, Raj. It’s about what I found on your computer.”

  Oh no. My stomach tightened.

  “After I had dinner at your house, I got to thinking about your search history,” she said. “I have to admit, I thought you were fibbing about those searches not being yours. But then I got to thinking, why would a boy like you be looking up stuff like that?”

  “Uh, I don’t know.”

  “Not to alarm you, but I’ve seen evidence of surveillance activity around my house. And what’s worse, someone hacked into my computer. I’m not sure how, unless they had hacked into your computer first.”

  My palms began to sweat. “How would that work?”

  “Because you live across the street, your computer is close enough to get on my Wi-Fi network.” She wasn’t smiling anymore. “Does anyone else use your computer, Raj?”

  I could hardly tell her that my cat did.

  “Uh, no,” I said. “At least, not as far as I know.”

  Annie looked like she was thinking it over. Then she smiled at me again. “Oh well,” she said. “I don’t want you to worry about any of this. If there are bad people behind this, we’ll stop them.”

  I really had to get out of there. I turned to leave.

  “But, Raj?” she said. “I still need you to clean the gutters.”

  CHAPTER 36

  I wanted to tear him apart with my bare claws.

  Flooffee had gotten me streamers. And balloons. And a clown robot to twist the balloons into animal shapes.

  “This is not the Universal Day of the Most Supreme Leader!” I spat. “That holiday has the Running of the Hamsters! The Salute of a Billion Lasers! The Triumphal Road of Feathers! This—this is an Earth birthday!”

  “But you were so fascinated by the party your Human had that I thought this was what you wanted.”

  “Fascinated by the barbarity of it, you imbecile!” I cried. “Now send me home—I mean, to Earth!”

  Flooffee’s face fell.

  “Fine,” he said. “I just have to do one last thing.”

  I swished my tail. “What is it?”

  “Sing you a very special song.”

  I would do anything for this to be over with. Even listen to Flooffee-Fyr sing.

  “All right,” I said, gritting my fangs.

  Flooffee purred. Then, he began to yowl:

  Happy Universal Day

  of the Most Supreme Leader to you!

  Happy Universal Day

  of the Most Supreme Leader to you!

  Happy Universal Day

  of the Most Supreme Leader,

  dear Wyss-Kuzz!!

  Happy Universal Day

  of the Most Supreme Leader to you!

  “That’s not even the right tune,” I hissed under my breath.

  “What’s that, O Glorious Leader?” he asked. “Did you say you liked it?”

  “That is . . . precisely what I said.”

  That done, I turned to face my statue. It was handsome.

  “Now, I will engage in licking my likeness until I have consumed all of this butter, and then you will return me to Earth so that I may complete its conquest.”

  “Oh, I don’t think you want to lick that,” Flooffee said.

  “What do you mean?” I said. “Of course I do.”

  It was the one thing the dolt had done right.

  I approached my own face—I could already taste the delectable butter—and licked at it. My tongue struck nothing. I tried again. And then I went to touch the statue. My paw went right through it.

  “There’s no butter?” I said.

  “Well, it’s not the easiest thing to get on this side of the universe,” Flooffee said, scratching behind his ear. “And, you know, this is a simulation.”

  “What?” I said. “You mean this moon isn’t real?”

  “Of course not! This is your present—a virtual two-cat Universal Day of the Most Supreme Leader party!” Flooffee purred. “You’re welcome!”

  On the plus side, it meant that all I had to do was take the VQ helmet off and this torture would be over. But unfortunately, it also meant that I could not actually tear my minion limb from limb.

  CHAPTER 37

  The stairs up to my bedroom seemed longer than ever. All I wanted to do was forget about the day and crawl into my bed, but my cat was hogging it.

  “Hey, Klawde, move over and let me lie in my own bed for once,” I said. “I’ve had a really hard day.”

  “Ogre, you have no idea.”

  “What was so hard for you?” I said. “You were in that same spot when I left this morning.”

  “You could not be more wrong. I was kidnapped. My idiot lackey opened a wormhole and transported me across the universe to a moon with acid geysers!” Klawde said. “And it was not at all just a virtual reality simulation.”

  “Wow—you went across the universe and you’re back already?”

  “Yes. I demanded that he send me back to Earth, and of course he always does precisely as I say.” His eyes narrowed at me. “As all minions should.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “You demanded to come back to Earth? Does that mean you like it here now?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Klawde snapped. “I came back to conquer it.”

  “What?” I said. “You want to conquer Earth?”

  Klawde smoothed his whiskers with a paw. “Er, no,” he said. “That is just an expression.”

  That was weird, but I let it go because there was something I wanted to ask Klawde about. “Annie thinks that her computer might have been hacked—from my computer. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  “Of course not,” he said. “Now I must go.”

  As he raced down to the basement, I got a funny feeling that my cat might not be telling me the whole truth.

  CHAPTER 38

  I was most annoyed. It was taking entire days longer than it should to vanquish Earth.

  The fault lay with the ogres and their idiotic rules and regulations. Why did they have to make it so hard to purchase a dozen satellites?

  I had already paid the $12 billion price in KitKoin, but I still could not take possession of them. Not until the end of what was called the “approval process.”

  It was infuriating. As if a warlord should need approval for anything!

  Realizing I must not stay idle during this unwelcome delay, I cycled through all nine fundamental states of nap. It was in the final, most exalted state—the Nap of Knowledge—that I realized I had not tested the most important component of my plan. Could my squirrel zombies effectively sabotage the electrical grid of the Humans?

  I had to find a building on which to experiment. Although I needed a large target, I did not want to draw attention to my plans. Was there a structure that could suffer a power outage and no one would care? An institution of entirely pointless activity?

  The answer came to me almost immediately.

  CH
APTER 39

  In homeroom, Miss Emmy Jo flickered onto the smartboard screen five minutes after the bell rang. She had a weird look in her eyes, and a shirt that was even more glittery than usual.

  “Good mornin’, Bookslugs,” she said brightly. “Looks like I’m a smidge late!” Then she laughed—but it wasn’t a nice kind of laugh. “Actually, I wasn’t even gonna log in, but I figured I did owe y’all an explanation.”

  What was she talking about? An explanation for what?

  “Remember how I said my Fred bought me a KittyKoin?” Miss Emmy Jo said. “Well, he actually bought me three, and they’re worth so much now that this glitter on my sweatshirt is made from real diamonds.” She downright cackled now. “I sure have enjoyed teaching y’all from a few thousand miles away. And I’m real sorry I never got to meet y’all in person, but that’s the way the muffin crumbles.” Then she threw up both her hands. “Aw, shucks, who’m I kidding? I’m not sorry at all! I’m getting richer by the hour, and I quit!”

  Miss Emmy Jo was quitting because of KitKoin?

  I wondered what she’d say if I told her that the creator of her cybercurrency was an actual cat.

  Probably she’d like it even more.

  “Since you’re quitting,” Brody said, raising his hand, “does that mean we still have to behave and everything?”

  She leaned forward so her eyes filled up the screen. “Heck if I care! I’ve had enough of this here school thing. Let’s have a—”

  And then she was gone, right in the middle of a sentence. The screen had suddenly gone dark. In fact, all the lights had gone out, too. We just sat in our seats, stunned.