Alien in My Pocket #4 Read online

  “I have a headache,” I said, staring at the ceiling.

  “Do you want me to put Mikey on your head?” Olivia asked, dangling her pet above my head. “His little feet can massage your scalp.”

  “Yuck, no!” I said, pushing away her arm. “He’ll poop in my hair.”

  Olivia was officially annoying me.

  Amp was now walking in circles, enjoying the conversation. “Much of the energy from your crash could have been absorbed by something other than a bed. A pile of leaves. Soft dirt. Even bushes or ivy.”

  “Or I could have landed on Max Myers,” I said. “He’s kinda big and gooey.”

  “Exactly,” Amp said, snapping his tiny fingers.

  “I’m just joking,” I said, rolling my eyes at his enthusiasm.

  “We’re just saying you can be a little slow in these situations,” Olivia said.

  “Yes, perhaps if you spent more time on your studies—”

  “GET OUT!” I shouted. “BOTH OF YOU!” I yelled. “With friends like you, I should consider upgrading to enemies!”

  “Zacky, I was just—” Olivia started, but I didn’t let her finish.

  “Just get away from me and leave me alone. The both of you!”

  Just then, Mom knocked and opened the door.

  I peeked out under my forearm in Amp’s direction, but he had already made himself invisible.

  “Sorry, Olivia, Zack needs to get some rest,” Mom said sweetly. I was pretty sure she had heard me raise my voice.

  “Okay,” Olivia said awkwardly. The room was filled with uncomfortable silence. She left quietly without saying good-bye or “I’m sorry.”

  Egg on My Face?

  I woke up feeling like I’d been beaten on the shoulder with an iron skillet.

  It also felt like a dirty gopher had crawled into my mouth and died on my tongue.

  My hair felt greasy and my T-shirt clung to my sweaty skin.

  I seriously needed to stretch my muscles, take a hot bath, and brush my teeth for about an hour—and not necessarily in that order.

  I turned my head to check if it was day or night, and that’s when I saw my little brother’s face inches from mine.

  “AAAGH!” I gasped. “You never sneak up on a sleeping person like that, Taylor! I could have karate chopped you or something!”

  “All you do is sleep,” he said, waving his hand in front of my face. “And oh my gosh, your breath . . .”

  “What are you doing in here?” I said, suddenly realizing that he could have been poking around for the last hour, looking for Amp.

  Despite being a total science nerd, Taylor had been unable to blow the lid off my little secret. He knew Olivia and I were up to something, but hadn’t figured out that I was playing host to an intergalactic houseguest.

  “Mom asked me to wake you up for dinner,” he said. “She also said you’re going to help me with my new Club Edison experiment.”

  “No way,” I groaned. “I almost lost my arm! I don’t want to do nerd experiments with my little brother. Why should I be punished?”

  Taylor shrugged. “Don’t blame me. It was Mom’s idea. She said you’re not playing baseball this weekend and that your sling will give you a chance to slow down and spend some quality time with a genius.”

  “Good grief,” I said.

  Just thinking of doing science experiments for fun gave me a brain cramp.

  Taylor now held an egg up for me to see. “We’ll be experimenting with these.”

  “Or we could make French toast,” I said.

  “We’ll be doing an experiment about kinetic energy.” Before I could stop him, Taylor held the egg above me as high as he could and dropped it. It hit my stomach and rolled off.

  “Are you crazy?” I hollered, grabbing the egg.

  “See, your belly is soft enough to absorb the energy in the falling egg. The impact didn’t crack the shell.”

  “My belly isn’t soft,” I said, but I was reminded of what Amp had been saying earlier about a bed absorbing my energy. “Oh, I know all about Connecticut energy, smarty-pants.”

  Taylor stared at me. “Don’t worry, Zack, I just need you to film the experiment for my YouTube channel,” he said, patting my leg. “You don’t actually have to think. Leave that up to your little bro. You’ll just be, like . . . the assistant.”

  “I’m smarter than you think, twerp,” I said, faking that I was throwing the egg at him. He ducked. I smiled. “Made you flinch.”

  He crossed to the door of my room, scanning his eyes around the room as he did.

  “Don’t be so nosy,” I said.

  “Mom and Dad are down there waiting to eat, so hurry up . . . assistant.”

  I couldn’t resist. I threw the egg for real this time—just as he closed the door behind him. It hit my bathrobe, which was hanging on the back and muffled the impact enough that it didn’t break. That didn’t happen until it hit the floor.

  Egghead

  After dinner, we sat there stuffed, staring at the mess on the table, too fat and satisfied to start cleaning up.

  We had waffles. Weird, I know, but every two weeks or so, Dad cooks, and all he knows how to make are waffles, pancakes, or French toast. We’re supposed to pretend like it’s fun, but really it’s just sticky.

  “So, I hear you two have big plans for a new experiment on Taylor’s YouTube channel?” Mom asked.

  I rolled my eyes. I was using my napkin to wipe off the maple syrup I had accidentally dripped all over my sling. “I’m thinking of starting my own YouTube video channel.”

  “For what?” Taylor asked. “How-to-crash-your-bike videos?”

  “Don’t be a smart aleck, Taylor,” Dad half said and half burped.

  “It’ll be nice for you two to spend some time together,” Mom said. “Bonding.”

  “Do I have a choice? Usually you don’t punish someone who nearly loses an arm, Mom.”

  “Listen to your mother,” Dad mumbled, rubbing his belly with half-closed eyes.

  “Maybe helping your brother record his experiments will inspire you,” she said.

  “To do what? Become a nerd?”

  “Why’d I have that last waffle?” Dad groaned, his eyes closed in regret. “So, what’s the experiment, sport?”

  “Allow me to demonstrate,” Taylor said, rushing to the refrigerator. He pulled out a Styrofoam container of jumbo eggs and a dish of green Jell-O. “Observe,” he said. He placed the Jell-O on the table in front of his chair. He then stepped on his chair, plucked an egg out of the container, held his hand high above his head, and dropped the egg.

  “Taylor!” Dad cried.

  The egg sank into the wobbly green slime an inch or so, but it didn’t break.

  Taylor jumped up and down on his chair with excitement. “See, the Jell-O absorbs the egg’s energy and it doesn’t crack!”

  “Be careful,” Dad grumbled. “One broken arm at a time, please.”

  “It’s not broken, it got dislocated,” I said.

  Instead of being angry, Mom clapped and laughed. “You are the cat’s meow, Taylor,” she exclaimed. “That’s so neat! See, Zack—fun.”

  “Fun?” I said. “Seems like a dumb way to ruin a perfectly good bowl of Jell-O.”

  “Zack, your grades have been falling all year,” Dad said. “You could stand to put in a little extra time on something educational.”

  “I don’t need to be part of Taylor’s lame experiments. I can do my own.” I jumped up, snatched an egg from the container, and pulled about three feet of paper towels from the roll. I wrapped the towels around the egg and held the paper towel–wrapped egg high above my head. I gave my brother my watch-and-learn look, and dropped it.

  The egg burst like a balloon. Some of the gooey yellow yolk and slimy egg white exploded from between the folds of the paper towel and splashed across my dad’s face.

  Dad’s eyes popped open. “WHAT WAS THAT?!”

  We all stared in complete silence.

  “Wha
t am I going to do with you, Zack,” Mom whispered, giving me her angry eyes.

  “Dad, that was Zack displaying his ignorance of the basic laws of physics,” Taylor said.

  I looked across at Taylor. He stuck out his tongue at me.

  I rolled my eyes. “Egghead,” I said.

  “Oh, I think you’re the one with egg on his face,” he said.

  This made Dad chuckle. “I think that’d be me, actually,” he said, and he and Taylor roared with laughter.

  I didn’t even get it.

  I already knew this was going to be the worst weekend of my life.

  Sleepyhead

  Saturday morning I woke up in a panic.

  My clock said 9:30 a.m. Baseball practice was at nine.

  Then, as I reached to fling off my covers, a shooting pain in my shoulder reminded me I was damaged goods. My wing was broken. I would not fly today. I’d be grounded in the nest, playing with eggs.

  I groaned.

  I was sure Coach Lopez would forget about me. I would lose my place on my travel baseball team. My teammates would forget my name. They’d find another catcher—easy.

  How did this happen to me?

  One word: Amp!

  My door popped open and Taylor stuck his head in. “Science waits for no man.”

  “Buzz off, egghead.”

  “Mom said. And you missed breakfast. And Olivia is on the phone for you.”

  “Tell her I will not be taking any of her calls today,” I said. “And I’m not hungry. Now shut my door.”

  “Okay, cranky face,” Taylor said. “But get up, I need a camera man.”

  I sat and burped loudly. Since Amp had entered my life, I hadn’t slept well once. But since I hurt my shoulder, I was easily getting twelve to fourteen hours of sleep a night. My brain must be in shock.

  Still in my sweaty T-shirt and pajama pants, I mummy-walked to the bathroom, then into Taylor’s room. His floor was covered with several egg-holding contraptions in various states of completion. He was weighing little piles of parts on a tiny scale.

  “Good morning, Igor,” he said, not looking up. “Do you know how to shoot video on Mom’s phone?”

  “Of course I do,” I snapped, despite the fact I had never done it before.

  “How’s this, Taylor?” my dad called from outside Taylor’s window.

  We both walked over and looked down to the backyard below. My dad was standing on the grass in front of a giant, flat piece of wood that he had placed directly underneath Taylor’s window. Dad was wearing his work gloves and holding a spray can.

  “Look, I even spray-painted a big target on the board,” Dad said.

  “That’s perfect, Dad!” Taylor shouted. “Isn’t this the coolest, Zack?”

  I imagined my baseball teammates forgetting about me at this very moment.

  That’s when I saw the balloon floating near Taylor’s bed. It said HAPPY BIRTHDAY on it.

  At that moment, I had a great science idea.

  I snatched the scissors off Taylor’s workbench, cut the balloon’s string and caught the string as the balloon started to rise. I plucked an egg out of the Styrofoam container that was open on Taylor’s bed and helped myself to the scotch tape dispenser on his desk. I quickly attached the egg to the string. With only one hand available, my work was a little messy, but sometimes science isn’t pretty.

  Taylor was still admiring Dad’s spray-painted target out the window when I leaned out past him. I held the egg in the hand of my good arm. I let the balloon float up, aimed my egg, and let go.

  “My balloon!” Taylor said.

  In an instant I could tell the balloon wasn’t big enough to set the jumbo-sized egg down gently, as I had imagined it would. Instead, the egg dropped like a boulder, pulling the helpless balloon behind it. The egg exploded dead center on the target, the goop from the egg splashing onto Dad’s sneakers.

  Dad’s head snapped up at me like I was a madman. “Really, Zack? Again?” he yelled.

  Now that the egg was scrambled, the balloon had no trouble lifting the tiny piece of taped shell still attached to the string. Taylor and I watched as it floated up over the roof and disappeared.

  “Thanks a lot,” Taylor hissed.

  “It’s just a lousy balloon,” I said. I waved at Dad, who was giving me his angry face from the grass below. “Sorry, Dad. Learning can be messy.”

  He grumbled something to himself and walked off, shaking his head.

  Taylor grunted and went back to preparing his egg contraptions on the floor. “Seriously, Zack, let me do the thinking, or this is going to be a very long and very messy weekend.”

  I walked past him without another word.

  I had another idea—a better idea.

  Egg Drop Derby

  I pulled an old shoebox off the shelf in my closet. Among the trinkets and junk inside was a little plastic army guy with a parachute attached to his back. If I could untie the parachute strings tied to the little loop on the army guy’s backpack, I could tape the parachute to an egg.

  I smiled at my brilliance.

  The parachute would set the egg down gently on the board and I could show Dad and Taylor my ideas were as good as any a brainy first grader could have.

  At my desk, I had to use my teeth to work out the knot at the end of the parachute string. I was concentrating so hard on the task at hand I didn’t see Amp approach.

  “You must be very hungry,” he said, suddenly appearing from behind my cup of pencils and pens.

  “Wha da you vant?” I said, holding the string between my teeth.

  “You look like a beaver flossing his teeth,” he said. “What are you doing to that poor green plastic man?”

  “You’re next,” I said, giving him a look I hoped would convince him to disappear for a week.

  “I saw your failed balloon experiment.” He giggled. “That idea wasn’t as bad as your usual ideas.”

  “I know,” I said, feeling the top of the knot loosening and my patience fading.

  “You simply miscalculated,” he said, pointing at me. “If your balloon had been bigger, contained more helium inside, well, then, maybe you’d have something.”

  “I know,” I said as the knot finally gave way and came unraveled.

  Amp turned away and spoke into the device on his wrist.

  “Council Note: The element helium is used here on Earth to make balloons float. Ha! Sort of a waste of a very useful gas. Although it is the second most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen, it’s fairly rare here on Earth, and seems to be used only for making children’s toys float. Very curious indeed.”

  “Do you do that just to bug me?” I asked. “If you do, it’s working.”

  “Now you’re going to try a parachute, aren’t you?” Amp asked, ignoring my irritation. “Zack, I’ve been thinking.”

  “Oh no,” I said.

  “That switch you helped me with the other morning . . .”

  “The one that made me late for school and ended up breaking my arm? That switch?”

  “Dislocated, not broken. Yes, that switch. Anyway, my power booster is now working, thanks to you and that switch. That means I am very close to leaving.”

  “Really?” I said. “Huh, that’s great, Amp. When can you go?”

  “Well, that’s just it. I may be able to get to Erde, but I wouldn’t be able to stop. That crash into your bedroom wall would be nothing compared to how I’d hit planet Erde. I’d go splat, like a pancake.”

  “Bummer,” I said. “Then fix your braking system. I’m kinda busy right now—”

  “Which is why, Zack, this parachute idea has me so excited. See, it’s all so simple: we could install a parachute like this one on my ship. The air on Erde is thicker than the air here on Earth. With the right entry angle into the Erde atmosphere, a parachute would work great.”

  “I’ll let you know how this works,” I said, standing.

  “Well, that’s just it,” he said. “Let me take over this e
xperiment. With my training, experience, and smarts, I think I could arrive at a solution much faster than with someone of your, your limited—”

  My hand shot out and grabbed Amp. I cut him off mid-sentence. I had totally surprised him. Now he struggled to get free. His three-fingered hands pounded harmlessly on my fingers. He started to blink on and off in my sight, using his old disappearing trick in his panic, but it wasn’t working.

  “Actually, I don’t need your help, Amp,” I told him. “If I need a complete disaster, I’ll call you. But this is my idea and I’ll handle it on my own, without your meddling.”

  “Release me this instant,” he demanded in his squeaky voice.

  I was about to put him in my desk drawer when I saw Olivia’s hamster ball sticking out from under my bed. What a great idea! Mike certainly wouldn’t mind if Amp spent a few hours wandering around my room inside his plastic ball. The fact that it probably smelled like hamster poop wasn’t my fault.

  I placed Amp inside, and as quickly as I could, I replaced the cover and spun it back into place.

  Now Amp put his hands on his hips and gave me his best Erdian stinkeye. “You wouldn’t dare leave me in here, Zack. I am from an advanced civilization!”

  “What? C’mon, you’ll have a ball in there,” I said, smirking.

  “This isn’t funny!” he cried. “It stinks in here.”

  I rolled the ball a few inches and Amp had to take a few steps so he didn’t fall over. He looked so ridiculous I had to laugh. I rose to my feet, grabbed my toy parachute, and dashed to the door. Amp rolled after me, with a hilariously angry face. I closed the door before he got to me. I heard the plastic hamster ball bump off the other side of the door.

  I smiled.

  Maybe this weekend wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

  I headed down the hallway for a test that I was now thinking would put me back on top of the McGee Family Egg Drop Derby.