An unnerving roar emanated from within, and, a moment later, an enormous space creature leaped out into the parking lot.
With the body of a six-hundred-pound lion, a giant ant’s head with wicked-sharp mouthparts, and a stinger on its tail the size of a baseball bat, the creature gave the impression that it wasn’t here to march in the annual firemen’s parade.
It let out another roar and pawed at the pavement like an angry bull, its antennae pointing at me like twin rifle barrels.
“Um, why’s it looking at me?” I asked the aliens. One of them responded with a grizzly voice.
“Every day since it was a kitten, its trainers have punished it with a stick that was coated in the scent of your pathetic Alparian species. It may have never met you personally, but, trust us, it hates your guts.”
“Um,” I said, trying to decide whether giant lions or giant ants scared me more, “you wouldn’t have any spare deodorant I could borrow, would you?”
The henchbeasts thought that was hilarious.
Chapter 33
I DON’T KNOW if you’re a fan of nature documentaries or otherwise familiar with the African savanna’s ecosystem, but the truth is that even if the lion is King of the Jungle, he’s not quite an all-powerful ruler.
The only truly supreme creature on that continent-the one creature that no other animal will go against-is the African elephant.
Weighing in at seven tons, more than twenty times the size of the largest lion, five times the size of a rhino, and with ivory-hardened tusks capable of tearing open a Jeep, there isn’t much that’s going to risk challenging the will of a full-grown bull elephant.
So I changed myself into one.
Although, in deference to my adversary’s mutant alien status, I included some special bonus features that I’ll explain shortly.
Unfortunately, my sudden shape change didn’t have the immediate effect I intended. Instead of leaping back into his cage, scared out of his wits, the beast charged me at an alarming rate of speed, leaping almost straight up into the air so that he could land on my back and dig his claws, jaws, and poison stinger into my unprotected flesh.
I quickly jumped sideways-setting off a few car alarms as I landed-turned around, dropped to my front knees, and raised my big elephant butt at the pouncing alien beast.
Now, before you interpret this move as a sign of submission, think again: What trumps an ant… besides a giant sneaker?
A spider. Ant-lion versus elephant-spider!
I raised my tail, exposing a massive set of spinnerets, and fired a tangle of web that would have impressed even Peter Parker.
The ant-lion fell to the pavement with a thud, bound up like a mummy. It growled at me in rage, wriggling helplessly in its silken straitjacket.
I knew I didn’t have much time before the aliens regained their wits and decided to attack me themselves, so I quickly charged up to the ant-lion, knelt down, and probed through the sticky threads with my trunk to find the back of his armored head.
Then I undertook one of the more challenging telepathic adjustments I’d ever undertaken.
“I hope this works,” I said, ripping the threads from its struggling body.
Fortunately, it did-the reprogrammed ant-lion quickly leaped to its feet, gave me a startled stare through his bulging bug eyes, and charged after the henchbeasts.
“Yeah,” I yelled in booming elephant voice as they ran away into the woods. “You know that memory he had of my scent on his trainer’s stick? Well, I kind of changed it to a memory of your scent, you ugly bugglies!”
But they were already too far gone to hear me. I could hear trees falling and their screams fading in the distance.
I morphed back into my usual handsome self just as Judy tentatively popped up her head from behind our Dodge minivan. Instead of Judy Blue Eyes, though, it was more like Judy Wide Eyes.
“Bet you didn’t know I could do that, huh?” I said, kind of embarrassed.
“Yeah… No…” stammered Judy. “What was…? Who were…? Hey, why are we outside? Are you leaving?”
Watching her face was like seeing lights get shut off inside a building. I had no idea how, but Number 5 had clearly done something to her short-term memory. And if that was the case… well, this guy was getting more worrisome by the minute.
“Yeah, I better run, Judy,” I said. “Stay out of trouble, okay?”
“Um, yeah,” she said, waving like a Disney theme-park character as she walked, oblivious, back toward the restaurant. “Come back and see us real soon.”
Chapter 34
I HOPPED BACK in the van but didn’t get very far. Main Street was basically a two-mile-long parking lot. People were just sitting in their cars, staring into the bumper of the automobile in front of theirs, not the least bit worried about the plume of black smoke that was billowing farther up the road.
I turned the van into a levitating skateboard-like the one in that Back to the Future movie-and offered the young man in the Ford Focus behind me the sort of nod I imagined Danny Way would give before undertaking one of his record-setting jumps. Then I put my helmet on, jumped on the board, and zipped down the sidewalk to see what was going on.
A house was on fire-and in the most stunning show of community cooperation I’d ever seen in the U.S. of A.-neighbors and passersby had formed a bucket brigade to the house, filling and passing buckets, hand over hand, to douse the flames. The place was a total loss, but it looked like their efforts would at least keep the inferno from spreading to any other properties.
“Where’s the fire department?” I asked a businessman standing in the line, sweating in his charcoal suit.
“Nobody’s seen them in a month.”
“What happened?!” I asked. “Isn’t there any backup? I mean, that’s nuts!”
“I guess they’re on vacation.” The man passed along another bucket.
I was flabbergasted. “Why didn’t anyone call a nearby town for help? Why hasn’t this been all over the news?”
“They’re on vacation too,” he answered, and twitched a little bit. “Everybody deserves a vacation.”
“So Number 5 brainwashed you too, huh?”
“What?” asked the man, sweat dripping from his brow.
“Never mind,” I said, shaking my head. And I put out what was left of the fire with one giant alien breath, like I was blowing out candles on a birthday cake. “Now go home and take a shower.”
Chapter 35
I’D LEFT LUCKY at the house with Mr. Gout-but one of the bigger problems with the telepathically adjusted is that, while they’ll do what you tell them to do, they generally won’t do what you’ve forgotten to tell them to do. Like taking the dog for a walk.
By the time I got home, poor Lucky was practically putting on a Number 5-style disco dance.
Since Mr. Gout had been diligently alienproofing the house for the past twenty-two hours, following the blueprints Dad had given him, I told him to go take a nap. Then I materialized a collar and leash and took Lucky for a much-needed stroll.
I don’t know if you have a dog, but it’s a real responsibility. I mean, they need to be fed, and they need to be walked, and if they make a mess on the sidewalk, you need to take care of that too.
Lucky seemed great and all, but I quickly decided that-after holding him back from chasing his third squirrel, and two neighbors’ cats before that-until I had completely crossed every alien off The List, I couldn’t possibly let myself be a dog owner.
Emma was going to kill me, but she and everybody knew that my responsibility here-to safeguard the Earth from a deadly alien scourge-was more important than providing a happy home for one dog. How did Mr. Spock put it? The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.
Especially when “the one” is a squirrel-chasing, cat-hating, car-barking, sidewalk-dookying dynamo of energy incapable of walking in a straight line.