Alien in My Pocket #5: Ohm vs. Amp (6 page)

Beard Boy

I
was grounded.

Mom said I could not leave my room until I had grown a beard.

I think she was kidding.

But once she had seen Aunt Joni crying, somebody had to pay.

“This is Zack One, over,” I said into my walkie-talkie. “I repeat: this is Zack One. Come in, Twinkle Fairy Pants. Over.”

“Twinkle Fairy Pants?” Amp squawked. “What on Erde is that?”

I dropped the walkie-talkie into my lap. “It's Olivia's new call sign. I know it's stupid, but she won't answer to anything else. I think she just likes to make me say it. Trust me, I feel like an idiot.”

“Clever girl,” Amp said to Ohm with a chuckle.

Ohm seemed to not get any of it. “Perhaps we could use this crude communication device to contact Erde—”

“No,” I said, cutting him off. “We already tried that, to disastrous results.”

I was sitting in my closet, both Erdian spaceships parked in front of me. The Erdians were between the ships, each sitting on a marshmallow. Amp had started nibbling on his seat every minute or so, and now a chunk of his marshmallow was missing.

“So now you like marshmallows?” I asked.

“Look, I'm an emotional eater,” Amp exclaimed, repeating something he must have heard my mom say. “This whole situation is giving me the munchies.”

“Munchies?” Ohm said, shrinking back in alarm. “Is that contagious?”

“Zack One,” my walkie-talkie blurted out. “This is Twinkle Fairy Pants. Over.”

“Where have you been?” I said, leaning into the microphone more than I needed. “We've got a problem with the boys and their car.” I gave Ohm a wink or two, letting him know these were
the secret code words we used when talking on the walkie-talkie.

“Is something stuck in his eye?” Ohm asked Amp, not getting the wink thing.

“I was helping my grandpa replace the condenser unit in the refrigerator, Wacky Zacky. What did those two blue bummers break now? Over.”

Both Erdians looked offended. “Uh, the two bummers can hear you,” I said, pressing the button. “Over.”

“Oh, sorry, guys, no offense,” Olivia said matter-of-factly through the tiny speaker. “We still blasting off at perigee?”

“Perigee?” I asked, confused.

“Perigee, dude,” Olivia answered. “When the moon's orbit is closest to Earth. Those guys need to blast off at exactly one minute after midnight. I looked it up on the internet and worked out the timing.”

Ohm looked surprised and impressed. “That timing is correct,” he said.

I cleared my throat. “Uh . . . problem is that, just like Thing One's car, Thing Two's car can't get off the starting line.”

The walkie-talkie was silent for a full thirty seconds. “Not again!” Olivia shot back, now sounding distressed.

“I know!” I said, eyeing the Erdians. “You'd think such an advanced civilization would have invented roadside towing service by now.”

“We just need help getting high enough to fire off the secondary booster rockets,” Amp mumbled defensively. “We only have enough power for one boost.”

“We already tried the rocket thing,” Olivia said after a moment.

I shook my head at the memory. “We need something simpler this time. Something we can rig up in a few hours. Something that doesn't draw attention to itself. My house is crawling with unfriendlies.”

The Erdians and I exchanged uneasy glances while we waited to hear back from the team member. Her voice eventually came back with no enthusiasm. “So we have no money. No time. No resources. Nobody to help us. It must be done in secret. And it has to work perfectly.”

The Erdians looked at each other, then back at me, and nodded their heads in agreement.

“Yes, that about sums it up,” I said, putting down the walkie-talkie.

I left the Erdians and my walkie-talkie in the dim light of my closet. I paced around my room and nervously pulled on my hair. Maybe tugging on my brain would spring loose a good idea.

It was already getting dark outside. The sun
was setting and we were no closer to coming up with a solution. I picked a few stale marshmallows off my carpet and ate them in silence.

That's when I spotted the great idea I had been looking for.

And it was right under my nose all this time!

Atlatl or Bust

“T
his is a tennis-ball-thrower thingy,” I explained to the Erdians. “It helps you throw a ball farther. I use it when I take Smokey to the park.”

“Is that the animal that tried to eat us?” Ohm asked, alarmed by the memory.

“No, that was Mr. Jinxy,” I said. “Cats won't chase things you throw, only dogs.”

“Why is that?” Ohm asked.

I shook my head in frustration. “I have no idea! You'd have to ask a cat. Look, just stay focused. See, we can use this ball thrower to launch your ship.”

Both Erdians screwed up their faces in an odd way, like my idea gave them terrible gas.

They were both standing on my desk in front of me, each pulling down on their lower lip skeptically. I could tell the Erdian twins weren't getting it.

“Here, watch,” I said. I picked up a marshmallow and put it in the holder at the end of the ball thrower. With a grunt, I flung the ball chucker at the hole in my window screen. Both Erdians flinched, then spun and watched the white marshmallow rocket across our dark backyard and disappear over the fence near the garage.

“Whoa,” they both said at the same time.

Excited now, I dropped to my knees and fished around under my bed for one of Smokey's chewed-up tennis balls. My hand found one and I placed it in the cup of the ball thrower.

I did the same thing with the tennis ball, but this time I got a running start and flung it even harder. It easily sailed over the roof of the garage.

“Impressive indeed,” said one of the Erdians, I couldn't tell which.

I ducked down when a car alarm across the street started blaring. “Oops,” I whispered giddily. “See, guys, this idea rocks.”

I dropped the scuffed plastic thrower on the
desk and the Erdians began walking in circles around it, looking it up and down.

I was getting excited. “My dad says this thing is based on the atlatl, which was an Aztec weapon that combined the throwing device with a spear,” I explained, enjoying teaching the Erdians a thing or two for a change.

“What does the word mean in the Aztec language?” Amp asked.

“Oh, atlatl?” I said, trying to remember. “I forget, but it was something like ‘the thing that helps you throw things.'”

“Oh, I doubt that.” Amp sniffed, giving me a disapproving look.

I shook my head. “It doesn't matter what it was called a million years ago.”

“Probably humankind's first compound tool,” Ohm said to Amp.

“Compound tool?” I said.

“
Compound
just means more than one part,” Amp explained.

I cleared my throat, ready to make my case. “Yeah, well anyway, ancient humans made a device like this to throw spears or long darts when they
were fighting or hunting. Apparently, atlatls were used for tens of thousands of years. They were eventually replaced by the bow and arrow, but that wasn't until fairly recently.”

Amp considered me for a moment. “This clever idea uses the law of leverage to increase man's limited physical abilities.”

“Limited?” I said. “I could flick you out the window with my pinky finger, Short Stuff.”

“Exactly,” Amp said. “But that's about it. Humans aren't very strong compared to other animals on Earth. You aren't quicker or tougher or bigger. You don't have long claws or big fangs. But humans are at the top of the food chain. Why is that?”

“Because we have brains?” I guessed. “Which we use to make compound tools? And things like the internet?”

“Exactly, Zack,” Amp said, smiling with pride.

I noticed that Ohm was staring at me. “So you want to throw us into outer space with this plastic dog toy?”

“C'mon, you guys said you only have to get high enough for the secondary booster rockets, right? Ohm's spaceship is pretty light and no bigger than a small football. I could tweak this a bit so it fits as snug as a bug in rug. You only need a good jump start, and I've got a strong arm! Everybody's afraid to steal second base on me.”

Ohm pulled on his antennas and looked at Amp. “Snug bugs? Jump starts? Strong arms? Stolen bases? I cannot understand a word he says!”

“I still don't know what he's talking about half the time either,” Amp replied quietly.

I sighed and sat on the corner of my bed. “This could work. Unless, of course, Olivia has come up with something better.”

“Indeed,” Amp said hopefully.

That's when I heard Olivia's ladder bump into the wall just outside my window.