Alien in My Pocket #5: Ohm vs. Amp (4 page)

Bedspread Rumble

“W
hat were you going on about in there?” Olivia hissed. “Like two old ladies having tea and crumpets!”

“What the heck is a crumpet?”

“We've kind of got an urgent situation here, Zack.”

I sighed. “She thinks I've got a junk-food-eating problem.”

“She's right about that.”

“Thanks for your support.”

From around the corner, I could hear my mom throwing away the mountain of marshmallows and crinkly old candy wrappers.

“So, Amp, how do you want to play this?” I asked into the darkness.

“Amp's not here right now,” Olivia said. “He
bit me on the finger—the rat—and then he ran off.”

“Are you serious? Maybe he really is in cahoots with this Ohm guy. Maybe they're working together. I don't know what's going on. Which way did he go?”

“I don't know. I forgot my night vision goggles.”

“I didn't know you had night vision goggles.”

She was silent and still for a moment. “I was joking,” she said flatly.

“Well, he could be anywhere by now. He could be up on the roof directing the Erdian traffic.”

Just then, Olivia and I both flinched.

“HELP! THIS! GOT! EYE! GLECH!” Amp shouted inside my head. It was a brain ball tossed directly into my skull from wherever he was. The gasped words seemed to echo in my brain as they slowly faded away.

“Whoa. Did he brain-whisper to you, too?” Olivia asked.

“Yes, I hate when he does that! It's like wearing someone else's pants.”

“It sounded like he's choking on a pretzel.”

“Maybe Mr. Jinxy is chewing on his tiny head right now.”

The light above the stove snapped off in the kitchen. My mom would be heading up these stairs in seconds. “C'mon,” I whispered, pulling Olivia by the pajama sleeve.

I could hear the shuffling of my mom's slippers as we made it to the top of the stairs. We tiptoed down the hall, opened my door as silently as possible, and slipped into my room.

There we were met with a sight so shocking and odd that neither of us moved a muscle.

Amp and Ohm were squared off in front of each other on my rumpled bedspread. They appeared to be in the middle of a fight, but they weren't touching each other—but they were fighting just the same!

Amp grabbed at his throat. Ohm was body-slammed. Suddenly, Amp's legs were kicked out from under him and he fell onto his back, wriggling in pain. Ohm then floated five inches into the air and was driven downward onto the top of his head. Amp then clutched his eyes and stumbled around blindly. All these crazy movements were accompanied by a wild assortment of grunts, growls, yelps, howls, and Erdian words, which I can only assume were naughty.

Olivia and I watched the bizarre match in silence as each Erdian inflicted invisible blows on the other.

“It's like shadow boxing, but the shadow actually makes contact,” Olivia said.

We watched as Amp stuffed a fist in his own mouth and gagged. Ohm yelped loudly and began hopping in circles as his little leg was bent painfully back behind him.

“They're fighting with their minds,” I said. “That's the dumbest thing I've ever seen. Or maybe this is how Erdians say hello. A mental handshake that looks like cage fighting.”

“No, I'm pretty sure they're hurting each other,” Olivia said.

Before I could stop her, she picked up the glass of water I kept next to my bed and splashed the two stumbling and grunting combatants.

The cold water had the intended effect: the two Erdians were soaked out of their mental battle. They stood there, dripping on the giant wet spot that now stained my bedspread.

“Hey, that's where I sleep!” I protested, but Olivia wasn't listening.

“You two are hundreds of years old, but you're acting like children,” Olivia scolded. “I will put you both in a pickle jar for a month if you don't shake hands right now.”

Boy, Olivia seemed ready to get into the scuffle herself if these two didn't make friends fast.

“Why on . . . Erde would we . . . shake our hands?” Ohm said, gasping for air.

“Yes, that makes no sense,” Amp agreed, not taking his eyes off Ohm.

“Just do it,” I said. “You don't want to tangle with Olivia when she's mad, trust me.”

“Now shake hands and make up,” Olivia growled, staring the two down.

Still not taking their eyes of each other, the two huffing and puffing Erdians both raised their three-fingered hands into the air and began shaking them, like a silent cheer at a basketball game.

Olivia turned her head toward me and slowly shook her head. I think she was holding back a smirk. “Look, Zack, they're shaking hands.”

“They sure are,” I said with a smile. “Now that's more like it.”

The Inspection

S
ince the Erdians were momentarily at peace in my room, and Olivia was technically my visitor, I decided to take the lead in questioning the strange Erdian.

“Listen, Mr. Ohm, what are you doing here? Is the invasion starting or what?”

“You told them?” he barked at Amp.

I snapped my fingers to get Ohm's attention again. “Hey, you obviously didn't travel through those wormholes that go through space like Swiss cheese just to fight an imaginary wrestling match with my Erdian houseguest.”

Apparently, Ohm was not impressed with my knowledge of space travel, which was easy to see by the way he scrunched up his face. “Don't they learn about science on this planet?” he asked Amp.

“They do,” Amp replied with a shrug. “Some are better at it . . . than others.” He said this while gesturing to Olivia and then to me when he said “others.”

“Oh, stuff it,” I said. “You can't even fix your own spaceship, smarty-pants.”

“What?” Ohm exclaimed, turning again to Amp. “What's wrong with your vehicle?”

“That's what I've been trying to tell you. I've spent my time here repairing my ship,” Amp said.

“And destroying my perfectly ordinary childhood in the process,” I grumbled.

Olivia harrumphed in frustration. “Uh, could we get back to the more pressing issue of whether we're being invaded by little green men from outer space?”

“Blue, you mean,” Amp corrected, looking down as if to double-check his color.

Ohm just waved Olivia away like a fly at a picnic. “Attention, Scout Amp!” Ohm barked. Amp snapped instantly into a tall, rigid stance, fists at his side, antennas straight up, eyes staring straight ahead.

Olivia and I looked at each other in surprise.

Ohm looked Amp up and down like he was inspecting a used car for sale. He walked slowly around him, shaking his head in disappointment. I could swear he made a “tsk-tsk” sound when he looked at Amp's backside.

When he reached his original position in front of Amp, he nodded and Amp seemed to collapse back into his natural slump, exhausted from the effort of standing at attention.

“What happened to you?” Ohm asked.

“The atmosphere damaged my ship's central—”

“I'm not talking about your ship; I'm talking about you. Look at you! It looks like you've eaten a lifetime's supply of gribble grubs.”

Olivia and I looked at each other. “Gribble grubs? Seriously?” she said.

“It is true,” Amp said, looking down at his feet, “I have grown fond of the earthling's food.”

“He can go through a roll of SweeTarts like a termite can go through a toothpick,” I said, trying to help, but Amp shot me his please-shut-up look.

Ohm continued. “I thought you had a copilot behind you, but it just turns out to be your rear end.”

“Oh, snap.” Olivia giggled. Now it was my turn to shoot her a look.

“Where is your fight, soldier? You're spilling Erdian secrets to these earthling spies like a Yommer's geyser.”

“A what?” Olivia said, starting to enjoy herself.

“Hey, we're not spies!” I protested. “This is my room. If anything, you're the spy!”

Olivia laughed and nodded at Ohm. “Oh, Zack got you good there, Grumpy Gills!”

Ohm didn't miss a beat. “You've grown pudgy and plump around the middle, scout. Distracted. Soft. Weak. Have you forgotten your mission? Your obligation to your fellow Erdian soldiers?”

“My ship was damaged!” Amp roared. “My communication system will not work from here! What was I to do?”

That was all I could stand. I shot my hand out and grabbed Amp's bossy boss and held him up in front of my face.

“Okay, yes, Amp's put on a couple of ounces,” I said, “but he tried his hardest to warn everyone back on Erde not to come here.”

Ohm thought about that one. He seemed to look at me carefully for the first time. “I saw a bigger version of you earlier. Huge.”

“That was my mom. And don't call her huge, she wouldn't like it. She's just an adult. Most people are adults. And if you think she's big, you should see my dad. Heck, you should see my uncle Steve.”

“It's true,” Olivia said, nodding. “Zack's uncle Steve looks like a parade float.”

I stared at Ohm. “We're too big for you Erdians. If you think you're going to take over this planet with your little zapper guns and rotten-egg mind tricks, you're in for a rude awakening.”

“And you haven't even heard about cats yet.” Olivia said. “There are millions of them, and they were built for hunting and eating Erdians. Mr. Jinxy is probably just outside Zack's door waiting for snack time.”

Hearing our words, the Erdian in my fist sagged a bit. He seemed to be thinking about what I said. He looked at me, then Olivia, then back at me. “Yes, perhaps you're right. We have miscalculated. Amp and I must return immediately to cancel this attack.”

“Now that's more like it,” Olivia said.

Ohm looked at the device on his wrist and pressed a few buttons. “But we are almost out of time. Our next opportunity for optimum planet alignment is tomorrow night, when your moon is at perigee. We will both leave in my ship tomorrow night.”

“Erdian Council note. It seems that the young earthlings are unaware that their only moon orbits around their planet in an irregular oval shape, including a point when the moon is closest to their planet—called perigee—and a point when it's farthest from Earth—called apogee.”

Amp and I looked at each other, ignoring Ohm's lesson on moon orbits.

Tomorrow would be our last day together.