It wasn’t like I meant to lie. It just sort of happened.
Like I sort of happened not to mention the kittens to my parents.
But knowing I wasn’t being totally honest with everyone made me feel guilty. And like somehow I was going to get caught.
So on Monday, when Brody said there was a new kid at school from New York City, I felt a stab of panic.
“Hey, Raj, maybe you’ll know him!” Max said.
And then I realized how ridiculous it was to worry. I laughed. “There are, like, nine million people in New York. There’s no way I’m going to know him!”
I was just sitting down at my worktable next to Cedar and Steve when Miss Natasha began class with an announcement.
“Class,” she said, “I would like to introduce you to our new student.”
When I turned around, I just about fell off my chair.
Because I did know him.
And he was the last kid on Earth I wanted to see.
CHAPTER 18
Disaster had been narrowly averted with the boy-ogre. Thank the eighty-seven moons he was terrified of the mother-Human and willing to cooperate in my deception. Perhaps there was hope for him yet.
Still, I awoke with disquiet. My whiskers trembled, and I sensed a disturbance in the space-time continuum. I had first felt it yesterday, but it was much stronger now.
I tried to ignore it as I took the boys into the yard to begin acquainting them with intermediate Mew-Jytzu. When they napped in the grass, I taught the calico more advanced moves. I was in the middle of demonstrating the Flying Razor Slash on Flabby Tabby—he was useful as a tackling dummy—when my whiskers began to positively quiver.
Something was wrong.
Then I heard a loud buzzing.
It was the intergalactic communicator!
I pounced on it and looked to see who was calling.
MISERABLE TWO-FACED LACKEY.
It was Flooffee-Fyr! Finally!
I answered the phone triumphantly. “So, at last you call, you pathetic excuse for a feline.”
“Oh, hey, former Lord High Emperor,” Flooffee said. “I’m, uh, really glad I got through to you. I’m sure you’re really busy there, like, avoiding carnivorous ogres and all.”
“Enough with the small talk!” I said. “I know why you have contacted me.”
“You DO?” he said.
“Yes,” I proclaimed. “You have finally come to terms with your own ineptitude and have decided that you need me—the greatest warlord in the known universe!—to come replace you as Supreme Leader.”
“Uhhhh . . . actually, I’m pretty good as Supreme Leader,” he said. “I mean, I could do without all the violent uprisings and stuff, and it is hard to—”
“SILENCE!” I cried. “If you didn’t contact me to bring me home, then why are you bothering me, you ignorant imbecile?”
“Well, it’s, um, about the Council of Elders. You know how they are.” Flooffee shook his head. “And, well, they’ve exiled another cat to Earth.”
“WHAT?” I said. “That’s impossible! No one but I could ever be wicked enough to deserve the ultimate punishment!”
“Hey, I told them, ‘Elders, this is a total do-wrong,’ but the prisoner requested it.” Flooffee shook his head again. “I told the cat, ‘Earth is really not the place you want to go . . . ’”
“The prisoner requested it? What prisoner? Spit it out, you dim-witted dolt!”
Meanwhile the calico was trying to get my attention, pointing behind me, but I swatted her away.
“Tell me now, witless one!” I demanded. “WHO IS IT?”
“It is I, old friend,” came a voice from behind me.
I whirled around.
And it was the last cat I wanted to see on Earth!
CHAPTER 19
CAMERON ADDAMS! NOOOOOOOOOO!
CHAPTER 20
GENERAL FFANGG! HISSSSSSSSSSSS!
CHAPTER 21
Cameron Addams.
I couldn’t believe it! Why in the world was he here? How had my former best friend wound up in Oregon, in the exact same small-town school as me?
This had to be the biggest coincidence ever—and the worst one, too.
“Cameron just moved here last week,” Miss Natasha told the class, “and his favorite hobby is building robots!”
I felt sick to my stomach. Now all the kids would find out that I’d exaggerated about helping with Americaman! Cam would tell everyone that his mom had never taken my advice, and that we were no longer best friends, and nobody would think that I was cool anymore. Then Cam would tell lies about me behind my back, and that would be it for me at Elba Middle School.
“So let’s show him what we’ve done so far, class.” Miss Natasha gestured to our table. “How about you guys go first?”
As Cedar, Steve, and I followed the rolling Aqua-Bot to the front of the room, Cam nodded hello to me, just like he used to do when we saw each other every day. Like he wasn’t even surprised.
“So, uh, the Aqua-Bot here is, uh . . .” I couldn’t think straight, I was so freaked out. “Well, it’s supposed to, like, um, if you’re thirsty, well—”
“The Aqua-Bot is a state-of-the-art hydration delivery system,” Cedar said, coming to my rescue. “It is powered by lithium ion batteries, a series of Arduino processors, and human goodwill!” She smiled brightly as she grabbed the controller from me and guided our robot to Steve.
“Are you . . . THIRSTY?” the Aqua-Bot said as it lurched forward, lights blinking. Steve pressed the FIZZY button, and the Aqua-Bot extended one of its squirt gun arms. A narrow trickle of water dribbled out, splashing into the recycled plastic water bottle Steve was holding beneath it.
Frustrated, Steve kept pressing the buttons—SUPER-FIZZY, MEGA-FIZZY—but it wouldn’t make the fart sounds. The hose from the CO2 canister was probably loose again.
Nevertheless, Miss Natasha nodded encouragingly. “It looks like you have some fine-tuning to do, but that’s a great start. Good job, you guys.” Then she turned to Scorpion. “How’s your robot coming along?” she asked.
Newt and Scorpion unveiled a hideous tangle of plastic parts and said, “Meet the Ro-butt!”
Miss Natasha’s ears went pink. “Didn’t we discuss this already?” she asked.
“But this is totally different!” Scorpion insisted. “It’s not a Butt-bot, it’s the Ro-butt, and the Ro-butt’s job is to help kids sit down on their butts! Check it out!”
With Scorpion at the controller, the drone lifted a few feet into the air. Its long pincer arm dragged along on the floor as it hummed forward. Then the arm struggled upward and pulled out a chair for Newt to sit in.
At least, that’s what it looked like. But Newt had hooked the leg of the chair with her foot, and I could tell she was really the one pulling it out.
“See? It works!” Scorpion said.
Newt and Scorpion both smiled big, proud smiles.
Miss Natasha was not impressed.
“Cameron,” she said, “this team needs your help desperately. Will you please join them?”
“Sure,” Cam said, shrugging.
Miss Natasha told us to get to work, and then the thing I was dreading happened.
Cam walked right up to me.
“Raj,” he said, standing with his hands on his hips. “I was wondering when I’d run into you.”
CHAPTER 22
“I see your tail is mightily puffed,” Ffangg said. “Are you not happy to see your old friend?”
I hissed and spat into the grass. “You are not my friend! You are a mongrel-eyed milk-licker.”
His own tail twitched slyly. “Ah, Wyss-Kuzz, always so hasty with the insult. Have you still not learned that it is better to be quick with the claw than fast with the tongue?”
I growled at his
insolence. I would show him a quick claw!
“So, uh, I guess I’ll be hanging up now,” came the sound of Flooffee-Fyr’s voice from the communicator. “You two must have a lot of catching up to do . . .”
“Flooffee, you moron!” I said, grabbing the phone. “How could you have allowed this to happen! I will pluck all your whiskers out! I will use your tail to wipe my—”
“KSH-KSH! Oh, hey, what did you say? The static is really bad all of a sudden! KSH-KSH!” Flooffee waved his paw in front of the screen. “You’re breaking up. KSH-KSH! It’s those last hundred thousand light-years—really tough on the signal . . . KSH-KSH!”
I went to yell at him again, but he had hung up.
“Oh, poor Wyss-Kuzz,” Ffangg said. “You should have known that you are not the only cat evil enough to merit the ultimate punishment.”
My blood began to boil like the cauldrons in which I cooked my enemies. “Exile was my punishment!” I thundered. “Must you copy everything I do?”
Ffangg ignored my question, further infuriating me. “This planet is a miserable place indeed,” he said as he took in the walled training ground. “I can see why our ancestors chose it. Is it true that the Humans force you to play with stuffed animals for their amusement and steal your excrement with a small shovel?”
“You must go back to Lyttyrboks immediately!”
“Sadly, I cannot,” Ffangg said. “The wormhole, you see, was opened only long enough to deposit me here. So how about we allow bygones to be bygones?” He bared his teeth at me in a gesture of friendship.
It was grotesque.
“Let us return to the days before our troubles began. Let us join together.” Ffangg came close to me and spoke in a low hiss. “For together we can rise up and conquer our oppressors. Together, our evil warmongering will be . . . eternal and unstoppable!”
A purr rose in my throat.
Ffangg had come crawling back to me—just like I always knew he would! At last he had realized that he was nothing without me. (He would have to be punished for his transgressions, of course, but I could address that matter later.)
“You have finally returned to your senses, Ffangg,” I said. “What joy it shall be to overthrow that simpering simpleton Flooffee-Fyr.”
Ffangg nodded. “He must be vanquished.”
“His whiskers clipped!” I said.
“His tail shaved!” Ffangg cried.
“And his fur cast upon the wind!” we shouted together.
Just like old times.
We purred. We were in complete agreement.
CHAPTER 23
“Oh—oh, hey, Cam!” I stammered. “What—what are you doing in Oregon?”
“My dad got a job here,” he said. “Didn’t you know?”
It was so Cam to expect people to know every detail of his life.
“So you do know the new kid! I was right,” Max said, coming up to us. “Who is he?”
“Yeah, who is he, Brooklyn?” Brody said.
“Brooklyn?” Cam repeated. “They call you Brooklyn?”
“Uh, he’s . . . that friend of mine I was telling you about,” I said to Max and Brody. The words were painful. “The one whose mom . . . writes Americaman.”
“Whoa! You’re the one?” Max said to Cam.
“Dude, that is so cool!” Brody said.
“STUDENTS!” Miss Natasha said. “What have I told you about this not being a social event?”
Thank goodness for Miss Natasha.
But even though everyone went back to their tables, I couldn’t concentrate on the Aqua-Bot anymore. Cameron Addams was in my classroom. And already, I could tell he was ruining everything. I could hear Scorpion and Newt being nice to him, and Cam talking about what a big deal his mom was and dropping all kinds of Americaman references, and—worst of all—Brody saying, “Raj didn’t even know Cameron was moving here. Some best friends they are.”
I looked back and saw Max nodding.
I wanted to crawl under a table and die.
As soon as the bell rang, I slunk out of class, ran home, and sat in my room all afternoon reading comics.
Anything but Americaman.
When Mom came back after work, she called me into the kitchen and asked how my day was. I told her it was the craziest day ever.
“Why’s that, dear?” Mom asked, with that smile she saved for questions she already knew the answer to. But she couldn’t know this one!
I dropped the bomb. “Cameron Addams moved to Elba!” I said. “He’s in my class! Can you believe it?”
My parents looked at each other, and then they started grinning.
“We knew!” she said. “We wanted it to be a surprise!”
“What? Wait—how did you know?”
“Because I hired his father to work in my lab!” Mom said proudly.
Have you ever had the thought that you could actually feel the spinning of the Earth?
I could barely get out the words.
“So it’s your fault Cam is here?” I said.
“Fault? What do you mean, fault? You’ve been talking about how much you miss your old Brooklyn pals since we moved, and Cameron is your best friend.”
Didn’t she know anything?
As I went back to my room, I heard her say, “What’s the matter with him?”
CHAPTER 24
The kittens quietly observed me and Ffangg until the calico grew bored of our conversation and slunk away as if to nap. Then she turned, rose up behind her brothers on her hind legs, and crashed their skulls together.
The gray boys whirled around and counterattacked, for once their fury matching that of their sadistic sister.
“Very impressive,” Ffangg said. “I must commend you on training such excellent young warriors. Though I landed here but seven naptimes ago, it has provided me ample time to observe the pathetic state of catkind on this planet.”
Flabby Tabby, who had been hiding underneath a bush, came out and laid on his back, exposing his fat belly to the sun.
“Appalling,” Ffangg said. Then he turned to me and his eyes flashed with spite. “It will indeed be satisfying to lead you and your young soldiers in a coup against Flooffee-Fyr!”
“WHAT?” I howled.
“I said it will be—”
“I heard you, you traitorous fleabag!” I roared. “You will not lead me to anything! I am the Supreme Leader!”
Ffangg chuckled. “Oh, Wyss-Kuzz—still overestimating yourself,” he said. “Your belly is nearly as round as the one who suns himself!”
“My belly is as taut and muscular as ever!” I raged. “And even if it were rounder, it would only be on account of the mother-ogre being such an excellent chef.”
“Ha! Your teeth have grown yellow and your eyes are dull. You are no leader, Wyss-Kuzz.” He gazed pointedly at my girth. “But you would make fine cannon fodder.”
“You stringy son of a street cat!” I yelled. “You weak-brained claw-biter!”
I crouched in preparation for Ffangg to pounce, but the general merely lifted a paw and licked it.
“Dear old Wyss-Kuzz,” he said. “How could you say such things about a cat you raised from a suckling kitten?” He turned to my cadets. “Did you know? Your ‘master’ also trained me. And soon you shall learn the same lesson I did: Wyss-Kuzz is not the most evil warlord in the universe. I am.”
This was too much! I pounced, but the traitor performed the Mega-Triple Helix—a twisting backward leap—and landed deftly atop the fence.
“It has been lovely chatting with you all,” Ffangg said. “But I must be going. Ta-ta!”
I jumped up to the fence—which, it must be said, was higher than it looked—but Ffangg was gone.
“Yes! Run away, you coward!” I cried, and turned back to the kitten commandos. “You see? This is how v
ermin slink away when faced with their superior!”
In their faces, however, I could see that the seeds of doubt had been sown.
CHAPTER 25
After dinner, I went to find Klawde. He was the only person—I mean, cat—er, being I could talk to. Not that he was so great with sympathy, but he was always talking about his enemies, so maybe the arrival of mine would interest him.
He was down in the basement, crouched in the middle of a disaster area. There was shredded cardboard everywhere—could that possibly have once been a box?—as well as the chewed-up stump of the fern my dad had just bought.
Klawde did not look happy. So that made two of us.
“You would not believe what happened in school today,” I said, sinking down into Dad’s La-Z-Boy.
Klawde didn’t say anything. He just stayed in his crouch.
I told him about my former best friend moving to town and how it was going to wreck my life. Everyone in school already thought he was the coolest. And not only was I less cool, I’d lied about still being friends with Cam just so I could seem cool. Which made me the uncoolest.
Klawde still didn’t say anything.
“Earth to Klawde,” I said. “Are you listening?”
“Earth!” Klawde spat. “Home of carnivorous ogres and now my own mortal enemy!”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The most traitorous cat in the known universe is here, on this vile planet of yours!”
My mouth fell open. “No way! There’s another space kitty?”
Klawde growled. “He is not a space kitty. He is my former pupil and sworn enemy, a perfidious feline of arrogance, malevolence, and malice. And those are his good qualities.”
I didn’t know what at least two of those words meant. “But, Klawde, that’s so weird. The same thing happened to me! Your former friend and enemy, my former friend and enemy—they both just landed in Elba!”
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