Alien in My Pocket Read online

  Contents

  Chapter 01: Totally Crackers

  Chapter 02: Couch Head

  Chapter 03: Dumber and Dumbest

  Chapter 04: Potato Power

  Chapter 05: Spy Games

  Chapter 06: Slapdash Science

  Chapter 07: Scientific Train Wreck

  Chapter 08: The Big Idea

  Chapter 09: Bolts and Zucchinis

  Chapter 10: Sleep Magnet

  Chapter 11: Breakfast Breakdown

  Chapter 12: Spider Attack!

  Chapter 13: Down to Business

  Chapter 14: Magnetized

  Chapter 15: Showtime

  Chapter 16: Missing in Action

  Chapter 17: Panic Attack

  Chapter 18: Showdown

  Chapter 19: Meltdown

  Chapter 20: Keeping It Secret

  Try It Yourself: Building Your Own Electromagnet

  Excerpt from Alien in My Pocket: Radio Active

  About the Author

  Back Ad

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  01

  Totally Crackers

  I’m guessing you can’t imagine how your life gets turned upside down when an alien flies through your bedroom window and crash-lands his spaceship on your bed.

  I know I couldn’t. Until it happened to me.

  My life wasn’t just turned upside down; it was pulled inside out, tied in a knot, and beaten like an egg.

  At least that’s what it felt like.

  As I’ve learned, this alien was named Amp. He was from the planet Erde. He was sent to Earth to gather information about how to take over our planet. But after his first day here, he decided that attacking Earth would be a disaster for the people of Erde. Humans were too big—Amp was no bigger than a fat hamster—and too hard to predict.

  Problem was, his ship wasn’t working and his radio wasn’t transmitting. Amp had no way to call off the attack. We had more than a few days, but not more than a few months. So an impending attack on planet Earth by a bunch of Erdian dudes not much bigger than avocados was always in the back of our minds—though if the Erdian dudes are like Amp, I can’t say I’m too worried.

  “We need more Ritz crackers,” Amp said, pulling on my lower lip.

  “Amp, I’m sleeping,” I mumbled, not opening my eyes. “Let go of my lip.”

  “All you do is sleep,” he said, yanking my bottom lip up over my top lip. “Can you go down to the kitchen and get me some more?”

  I opened one eye and focused it as best I could on my glowing clock. “It’s 3:12 in the morning, Amp! I’m off duty.”

  At that point, my secret alien roommate released my lip and proceeded to dump Ritz cracker crumbs from the crinkly paper wrapper all over my face.

  “AMP!” I shouted, sitting up, flicking crumbs from my eyelids, snorting crumbs out of my nose. “That was just rude,” I hissed.

  “Well, as long as you’re up,” his high-pitched voice said from the dark, “you might as well go on a Ritz cracker run. I’ll wait here.”

  It may sound cute and harmless and fascinating to have a four-inch-tall, blue-skinned, three-fingered alien hanging out in your room, but he was getting under my skin. My life as a fourth grader was slipping out of control.

  Amp’s diet of Ritz crackers and SweeTarts was also becoming annoying. He had no need for variety. Worst of all, he apparently never slept.

  “Have you seen my helmet?” he asked.

  “I can’t see anything! It’s dark!” I snapped. “Humans need to sleep, okay? We’ve gone over this, Amp. Now pipe down, or I’ll drop-kick you all the way back to Erde.” I collapsed back into my warm pillow.

  My outburst won me just five seconds of silence. “Touchy,” came his reply.

  “Annoying,” I said between clenched teeth.

  I heard Amp whisper into the little device he wore on his wrist.

  “Council Note: Humans appear to need to lie down, close their eyes, and breathe deeply for eight hours a day. It appears necessary for them to function well and stay healthy.”

  “What I wouldn’t give for eight hours,” I growled. “You keep me up most nights.”

  “I’m unsure how this civilization ever gets things done,” he concluded.

  “I’m unsure why I haven’t stuffed that voice recorder up your nose,” I simmered.

  “Do you mind if I turn on the lights?” he said.

  AAGH! That was it! I slapped the mattress with both hands, threw my legs off the side of the bed, and yanked up my covers as I stood.

  “WHOA!” came Amp’s cry, as he was sent tumbling somewhere in the blackness. Served him right.

  “You need to work on your manners,” I growled. As I pulled open my door, I heard one of my little brother’s crawling robots scamper past my feet and into my room. Reaching out quickly with my foot, I flipped it onto its back and into the hall. Its gears and legs worked furiously, trying to find the floor. Was everybody in this house trying to drive me insane?

  Without another word, I stomped down the hall, descended the stairs, and did a face-plant on the living room couch. I was finally safe from Amp’s pestering. He rarely left my room on account of Mr. Jinxy, our cat; Smokey, our dog; and Taylor, my pesky little brother.

  Since Amp had entered my life, my grades had headed south, my parents thought I had concentration issues, and my chances of making the travel baseball team were fading fast. Worst of all, my hope for the future of mankind was starting to dim.

  All this, plus too many nights on our lumpy couch.

  Lucky for me, before my eyes could start tearing up, I fell asleep.

  As you can see, living with an alien is a lot harder than it sounds.

  02

  Couch Head

  “Wow, it looks like your head is exploding,” my little brother Taylor said when he saw my roosterlike hairdo. “Did you cock-a-doodle-doo at sunrise?”

  I gave him a blank stare.

  I was still in my pajamas, wrapped in my sheets and blankets. My eyes were only half open. I had managed to make it to the fridge before plopping down at the kitchen table, but hadn’t yet made it upstairs to get ready for school.

  Apparently, I had bedhead.

  “Whoa, it’s the ghost of Christmas past,” my dad exclaimed, bursting into the kitchen and making a beeline to the coffee pot. “Is that what you’re wearing to school?”

  Everybody in my house was a comedian.

  “Well, look what the cat dragged in,” my mom chuckled when she saw me half-asleep in front of my slice of cold pizza. She folded her arms and gave me the look. “How are things going with General Washington at Valley Forge?”

  “Funny, Mom,” I said, closing my eyes.

  “Cold pizza?” she said with a tsk-tsk. She snatched the slice away before I could grab it. “Let me get something proper for a growing baseball player. I picked up thirteen SweeTart wrappers in your room yesterday.”

  I groaned. “Mom, please don’t go snooping in my room.”

  “Since when is putting clean and folded laundry in your room snooping?” she said, digging around in the refrigerator.

  “Zack slept on the couch again,” Taylor tattletaled. “I thought he was a robber. I almost hit him in the head with a lamp.”

  “With that hairdo, it looks like you actually did,” Dad said, not looking up from reading emails on his smartphone.

  “And who were you talking to all night?” Taylor asked. “Do you have someone hiding in your room?”

  I gulped.

  “Oh dear, you’ve been talking in your sleep again?” Mom said, spooning peach yogurt into a small bowl.

  “It’s not just talking,” Taylor continued. “It’s like he’s arguing and d
oing weird voices.”

  “I’ve also heard you up at odd hours of the night, dear. Maybe I should call Dr. Bell and ask him what he thinks.” She placed the yogurt in front of me.

  “I hate yogurt,” I said flatly.

  “You don’t hate anything,” Dad said, looking up from his phone. “You dislike things, Zack, you do not hate them.”

  “Oh, I dislike a lot of things,” I said. “But yogurt I definitely hate.”

  “Fine, I’ll make you eggs,” Mom said, giving the bowl of yogurt to my dad.

  “I dislike yogurt,” Dad said, giving me a sideways glance and pushing the yogurt in front of my brother. Taylor happily attacked the bowl of peach yogurt with one of the electric spoons he had invented.

  I honestly felt like crying.

  “I’ve got an email here from your teacher, Miss Martin,” Dad said slowly, apparently reading as he spoke.

  “Uh-oh, that can’t be good,” Taylor said.

  “She says everyone’s ideas for the science fair are due today,” he said.

  “I’m doing a new spider robot,” Taylor announced proudly.

  “Son, this is your chance,” Dad said, raising an eyebrow at me. “The science fair project is fifty percent of your science grade.”

  “What are you going to do, Zack?” my mom asked as she cracked eggs into a sizzling frying pan.

  “It’s kind of hard to explain,” I lied.

  “That means he doesn’t have an idea yet,” Taylor said.

  Dad gave Taylor a look, then turned back to me. “You remember our deal: if your grades slip, no baseball.”

  I stared at the spot on the table where my cold pizza used to be. “I swear I’m all set with something really good,” I lied. Again.

  My mom turned around from the stove. “I’m sure it’ll be great, Zack. You started off with such a bang, but you’ve seemed a bit distracted lately. It sounds like you have your focus back now.”

  “It does?” Taylor squawked. “Look at him. He looks like he got run over by a tractor.”

  “That’s enough,” Dad said to Taylor.

  Taylor made a face at me.

  A steaming plate of gross-looking, half-cooked scrambled eggs was placed before me. It reminded me of my life: a steaming, gooey mess. “Ugh,” I said.

  I needed an idea for my science project fast, and I knew just who was going to help me come up with one.

  03

  Dumber and Dumbest

  Amp sat on the alarm clock I kept next to my bed. My mom was waiting downstairs to drive me to school. The time on the clock told me I had missed the bus fifteen minutes ago and would probably be late for school.

  “Listen, Amp, I have a D in science right now,” I said with as much patience as I could muster. “Miss Martin told us—”

  “What’s the D stand for?” he interrupted.

  “It stands for . . . ,” I began, trying to remember what the D stood for. “I can’t remember! The D stands for disaster, okay? Or dummy! Or dimwit! It doesn’t matter what it stand for. It’s bad!”

  “If it stands for bad, it should be a B, not a D,” he said.

  “No, a B is good,” I said.

  “Good should be a G then, right?”

  “Gosh dang it, Amp!” I howled. “You can’t change the grading system that’s been around since my parents were kids. You’re missing the main point.”

  “Hey, I have a great idea for a science experiment.”

  “Oh, yeah. What?”

  “I’d need some special equipment, of course, and I’d need to sequence a sample of your DNA, but growing a third arm would be really interesting, and easier than you think.”

  I stared at him. He was either clueless or intentionally trying to make me angry. I could never tell which. “I can’t grow another arm!” I shouted. “None of my shirts would fit.”

  “But you’d be a heck of a juggler,” he said softly.

  “I can put you in a hamster cage, you know,” I said.

  “Okay,” he said, holding up both hands in surrender. “I’m just asking that you think about it.”

  I grabbed my head and squeezed it, which, surprisingly, helped me remember something. I jumped up and pulled my science textbook out of my backpack and flipped through the pages. There were twenty or so suggestions for classroom experiments in the glossary in the back. One caught my eye. It showed a potato with a bunch of wires stuck in it and a small lightbulb that was lit up next to it. It was labeled POTATO BATTERY. All I’d need was a potato, some wires, and a lightbulb. How hard could that be?

  “Easy,” I announced. “I’m going to make a battery out of a potato.”

  I dropped the book on my bed and pointed to the two photos.

  Amp leaped onto the bed and stepped onto the open page. He read in silence. Studied the photos for a minute, stroking his tiny blue chin the whole time.

  “Seems kind of dull,” he said.

  “No, it seems easy. A simple potato battery is perfect.”

  “Whoa, someone didn’t brush his teeth this morning,” Amp said, waving his hand in front of his face.

  “Funny,” I said. “That’s what I’m making.”

  “Fine, but I should warn you that—”

  Just then my door popped open and my mom stuck her head in.

  I whipped my head in Amp’s direction.

  But Amp was gone. I looked around, but, thankfully, he had vanished. Mom hadn’t noticed. He really was the fastest thing I had ever seen—or not seen.

  “Who on earth are you talking to up here?”

  “I’m . . . I’m practicing my science fair presentation,” I said weakly.

  “You’re still doing your homework, Zack?” She sighed. “C’mon, I need to get to work. Better fix that hair first, honey.” She headed back down the hallway.

  “One second, Mom,” I called after her.

  “Between her popping in all the time and your brother snooping around, I’m getting nervous about being discovered.”

  I froze. “What? Taylor’s been in here? Looking around? Has he seen you?”

  “No, because I usually make myself invisible. Would you like me to tell you how?”

  “No, I don’t care how. We just can’t get caught. If someone sees you they’ll take you away, Amp. Then you’ll never get home.”

  Amp looked concerned. “One of these days our luck will run out, Zack. I think your brother is suspicious. We need to get my spaceship repaired!”

  “We will, Amp. As soon as I get through this science fair. I can only handle one disaster at a time.”

  04

  Potato Power

  “I’m going to make a battery out of a potato,” I said quietly to Miss Martin.

  I was standing next to her desk. The classroom was silent. They were all staring at me. I was like a car wreck on the interstate. You might have wanted to look away, but you just couldn’t.

  Miss Martin looked up from the science fair binder spread out in front of her. She was writing down each student’s science project idea next to their name. “And do you have the registration form signed by your parents?”

  My stomach dropped like a broken elevator. “Uh, I forgot about the form,” I said as quietly as I could.

  Miss Martin stared at me with disappointment. I squirmed.

  “Zack, you need to bring that form tomorrow.”

  “Consider it done,” I said and smiled.

  “So does your science fair project test a hypothesis?” I looked at her blankly. “What do you hope to prove with your experiment?” she asked patiently, waiting to write down my response in her notebook.

  I gulped. “I just hope to prove that I can do it,” I said.

  “Do what?” she asked.

  “Do the project, of course,” I said with a shrug.

  “That doesn’t sound like a hypothesis,” she said.

  “Oh, the high-pothesis,” I said as if I’d misheard her the first time. I proceeded to nod my head for twenty seconds, trying to think o
f something to say. “I am going to prove that yams work better than potatoes. You know, when it comes to using vegetables for batteries.”

  Miss Martin stared at me dead-on for a full ten seconds. “Yams vs. potatoes,” she said coldly. “Okay, please return to your desk and see to it that you bring me that signed form tomorrow, Zackary Frederick McGee.”

  “That should not be a problem,” I said.

  I returned to my desk, sank into my seat, and opened my science workbook to our assignment. “I hate science crossword puzzles,” I said louder than I should have.

  “You don’t hate crossword puzzles,” a familiar voice said. “You dislike them.”

  Olivia.

  Olivia was my best friend and next-door neighbor. We spend a lot of time together. She’s also the only other person on this planet who knows about Amp.

  “What’s your project?” she whispered.

  “I’m doing a potato battery. Potatoes can generate, you know, electricity.”

  “Really?” she whispered. “Sounds pretty boring.”

  “Ugh,” I groaned, letting my head drop to my desk.

  “What’s with your hair today?” she asked. “It looks like you’re wearing a crown back here.” She started mashing down my hair.

  I jerked away. “Why is everybody so obsessed with my hair?”

  “Touchy,” she whispered in my ear.

  “I should have just worn a hat,” I grumbled.

  “Are you done building your experiment?” she asked, poking my shoulder.

  I sank a little in my chair. “I haven’t started yet.”

  “You better get on it, rooster head.”

  “I know, I know,” I mumbled as my eyes started to close.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she asked with real concern in her voice. “Did you eat breakfast? It’s the most important meal of the day, you know.”

  But I didn’t answer. I had fallen asleep. A sweet, deep, and extra-sudden sleep. I dreamed of dancing yams and potatoes. Soon, they began to fight with tiny toothpick swords. The battlefield became a huge potato salad of fallen spuds. It was the kind of dream that makes you hungry for a picnic.

  I slept in my chair for a good ten minutes and nobody noticed. When the bell for recess finally rang, I jumped three feet in the air and everybody laughed.