Alien in My Pocket #4 (4 page)

“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.

“What 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

S
aturday 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.”