Jacob Wonderbar and the Cosmic Space Kapow (7 page)

Jacob knew that when dealing with bullies, the best opening strategy was a show of confidence to try to intimidate them, even if he didn't really want to fight. Jacob swallowed, mentally crossed his fingers that the cockpit shield was resistant to blasters, and pulled the trigger to fire a warning shot. He heard a pop, and a stream of brightly colored pink and yellow confetti rained down on everyone in the cockpit. “Happeeeee New Year!” the blaster shouted with a tinny voice, followed by sounds of cheering and glasses clinking.

Officer Bosendorfer glared at Jacob and brushed the confetti off of his uniform. “Young man, this is no time for a party.”

Mick Cracken smirked and beckoned the group to follow him. “You're coming with me.”

Officer Erard's shoulders slumped. He grabbed his helmet and started walking after Mick.

“Why should we go with you?” Dexter asked, and then covered his mouth as if he immediately regretted saying anything.

Mick stepped over and attempted to look Dexter in the eye, but Dexter avoided eye contact and instead pretended there was something across the cockpit that demanded his attention. “Because if you don't come with me, I'll blow this ship into a million pieces.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Dexter said quickly.

Jacob stepped between Dexter and Mick and tipped up his chin. “Leave him alone. Step back.” Mick stood his ground and Jacob clenched his fists as he considered teaching Mick Cracken an interplanetary lesson. Mick grinned like he was ready for a fight.

But then Sarah Daisy stepped over and put her hand on Jacob's shoulder, and he unclenched his hands. He knew what she meant with the gesture, and he knew she was right, although he never would have admitted that to her out loud. Mick had Lucy trapped and they had no way of knowing how to get home. Jacob would have to find a way to escape that didn't involve pulverizing the ego out of any famous, or, correction, “extremely famous” bandits.

Jacob nodded to Dexter and Sarah. “Let's go see what his ship looks like.” He tried to ignore Mick's triumphant smirk.

“Children,” Lucy said with a pained sigh. “Please return to me as soon as possible so we can get out of this mess. I don't particularly like you very much, but I sure as Jupiter like you better than Mick Cracken's insufferable nav system.”

“We will,” Sarah said. “Thanks, Lucy.”

Jacob, Dexter, and Sarah grabbed their space helmets and trudged down the stairs, following Mick Cracken and the space officers.

When they reached the cargo door, Jacob looked out into space at Mick Cracken's ship. Up close, Jacob saw that it wasn't actually dark gray, as he had originally thought, but rather a clumsily painted black. It was a rounded square and looked very ornate under the slapdash paint job, with majestic horses carved into the edges. There were dainty, almost feminine touches with swooping lacy swirls and flowers, and a hint of glittery silver peeked through some of the places where the black paint had worn off, almost as if . . .

“Is this a girl's ship?” Jacob asked.

Sarah Daisy looked over at Mick Cracken's ship and immediately saw what Jacob saw, namely that underneath the shoddy black paint was a spaceship that Cinderella wouldn't have minded taking to an outer space ball. She pointed and burst out laughing.

“Hey Mick,” Jacob said with a big grin. “Maybe after we're done robbing aliens we can go take some space ponies for a picnic.”

Mick glared at Jacob. “If you're asking if this ship once belonged to a girl, then yes, I personally stole it from the princess while evading the entire royal guard and half of the armed fleet. It is extremely fast, it is powerful, and as you can see from how easily I captured your own pitiful excuse for a ship, I have made some rather tremendous additions. Happy?”

Jacob nodded. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

“It's a beautiful ship,” Officer Erard said. “I wish I had such a wonderful ship. Truly a specimen.”

“One in a million,” Officer Bosendorfer said. “My eyes hurt from looking at its spectacular . . . ocity, uh, ness. I would arrest you for stealing it from the princess were it not for the fact that your father would surely—”

“Don't talk about my father!” Mick Cracken turned around and jabbed them both in the chest with his finger. “That's it, you're walking the star plank!”

Officer Bosendorfer exhaled and nodded, his face relaxing. “Thank you Mr. Cracken,” he whispered with a quiet shudder. “Thank you for showing us mercy.”

“Helmets on, everyone,” Mick said. “Let's go.”

Jacob, Sarah, and Dexter put on their helmets and followed Mick and the space officers as they stepped out into the vacuum and sailed through space toward Mick Cracken's ship. Jacob allowed himself a quick glance back at Lucy, all wrapped up in knotted cable. Even though Lucy was the ship that had taken them so many billions of miles from home, away from their families and from Earth, somehow the fifty yards between her and Mick's ship seemed even greater than all those miles they'd traveled. Home was now a lot farther than just a comfortable spaceship ride away. He had no idea how he would get back to Lucy, let alone back through the Spilled Milky Way galaxy and through the solar system and back to his house on the little block where all the houses looked the same. If home was still there at all.

Mick escorted the officers to the top of the ship, and Jacob followed them. He stood atop the ship in the blackness of space and stared at Mick's shiny helmet, wondering what he would do.

After a long, deliberate pause, during which Jacob imagined Mick silently gloating that he had their undivided attention, Mick reached down and pressed a button. A thin plank extended out from the ship into space.

“Walk the star plank!” Mick yelled through the intercom, using his vocal modifier to lower his voice. He jabbed the officers in the back.

“Good-bye, children,” Officer Bosendorfer said.

“Now!” Mick shouted.

Officers Bosendorfer and Erard shuffled to the edge of the plank and stared out into space. They turned back to give the group one wave good-bye and then they stepped off the plank one after the other.

Jacob, Sarah, and Dexter rushed over to the edge and saw Officers Bosendorfer and Erard sailing comfortably and safely through space. They turned back to wave once more before they continued on in the direction of their police cruiser.

Mick joined Jacob, Sarah, and Dexter at the edge of the ship, watching the officers spacewalk away. “I wish there were water and sharks and alligators. It would be so much more fun.” He sighed. “Oh well.” He turned to Jacob, Sarah, and Dexter. “Who wants to go steal something?”

D
exter walked around Mick's spaceship and marveled at the massive ordeal the ship had clearly undergone after Mick had stolen it. Pre-Mick the ship had evidently been a princess's luxury cruiser, with rooms of pink and purple, massive walk-in closets, statues of horses and lap dogs, stuffed animals, and plush carpet galore. Post-Mick the walls were covered with garish graffiti, ornate fixtures had been broken and strewn about, and the ship looked as if it had not been cleaned in several months. Dexter stared in particular at a large, beautifully painted portrait of a brunette girl, upon which Mick had drawn horns, thick eyebrows, and a large curling mustache.

“Um. Don't take this the wrong way, but do you have psychological problems?” Dexter asked.

Mick stood beside Dexter and looked at the defaced painting. “Trust me, it's an improvement.”

Sarah Daisy walked around the ship munching on a cucumber sandwich and sipping a glass of tea in a dainty porcelain cup. The tea had been highly recommended by Praiseworthy, the ship's nav system, whose voice followed her around the ship no matter which room she was in. Sarah
uh-huh
ed occasionally out of politeness, but Praiseworthy did not need any encouragement to continue speaking.

“Oh, we've had the most wonderful and dangerous adventures,” Praiseworthy said in his exceedingly proper accent. “I am operating fully outside of my capacities, but the excitement, the dramatics, the theatrics! My previous owner was Mistress Silver Spoon, which is Master Cracken's name for Her Highness, not mine, and you shan't tell Master Cracken I said this, but she is
quite
a lovely young lady, but you see I just always wanted to be a pirate ship, or dare I say a buccaneer ship because Master Cracken feels that buccaneer is a more impressive name than pirate, which is just so pedestrian, don't you think? Have I told you about my rocket boosters? No? They are quite advanced and—”

“So listen up.” Mick waited for a few long seconds to build anticipation, and gathered Jacob, Sarah, and Dexter around. “We're going to steal . . .”

After waiting a few moments for Mick to finish, Dexter said, “We're going to steal what?”

Mick paused a few more seconds for good measure. “We're going to steal . . . the Dragon's Eye.”

Mick waited expectantly for a reaction. Jacob, Dexter, and Sarah looked at one another, and since none of them showed any hint of recognition, they unanimously reached the conclusion that they had never heard of a Dragon's Eye.

“We're not impressed,” Sarah said. “Look, Cracken, we really need to see if our planet is okay.”

Mick rolled his eyes. “Earth? Who cares. I'm sure it's fine.”

“How do you know?” Jacob asked.

“People. Dragon's Eye. The biggest diamond in the galaxy. Focus.” Mick waited for them to react with suitable excitement, but when it was clear they didn't know what he was talking about, he continued: “A long time ago some space explorers came across an asteroid orbiting a planet in a backwater corner of the galaxy. The planet was tiny, dusty, and not very interesting, and it smelled like burp breath. So everyone left it alone. But then some explorers were in trouble because their ship was having mechanical problems, so they decided to land on the planet, even though it smelled like burp breath.”

“Quite right,” Praiseworthy said. “Fine storytelling, Master Cracken, and if I may interject . . .”

“As the explorers were trying to land, they crashed into a foreign object. It was about twenty feet in diameter, and it seriously damaged their ship. It was the asteroid. But here's the thing. When the ship issued a distress call, they swore that they had been hit by a huge, pure, perfectly round diamond. A diamond twenty feet in diameter. The single biggest diamond in the galaxy.”

Sarah looked at Jacob and Dexter and shrugged. “Still not impressed.”

“What happened to the explorers?” Dexter asked.

“Who cares, they probably landed on the planet and smelled bad. The point is, the biggest diamond had been discovered, and the people who received the distress call went and found it. They could have sold it and gotten rich beyond their wildest dreams, but instead they completely lost their minds and donated it to science.” Mick leaned in. “What do you say we do the right thing and steal it? I just need a few subordinates for my plan to work.”

“We really should be trying to get back home,” Sarah said.

“Agreed,” Dexter said.

Mick sneered and shook his head. “You have to be joking. It's a huge diamond!” When none of the children signaled that they were changing their minds, Mick waved for them to lean in closer. He looked around carefully, as if someone could possibly be eavesdropping on them on a ship in the middle of nowhere in outer space. “What if I told you this diamond has the power to grant a wish?”

“What kind of a wish?” Sarah asked.

“Any wish,” Mick said. “The Dragon's Eye is more than just a diamond. It's a machine. The greatest machine ever created. It uses quantum manipulation to create any possibility in the entire universe. It can create anything out of thin air. All you have to do is place your hand on the Dragon's Eye and wish.”

“How many wishes?” Dexter asked. “Can you wish for a million wishes?”

Mick smiled. “There's only one way to find out. Why do you think I want to steal it so badly?”

Jacob narrowed his eyes. He didn't think there was any possible way a diamond could grant a wish, no matter how much technology they had in outer space. And as a highly skilled liar himself, he was fairly good at knowing when someone wasn't telling the truth. “I don't believe you,” he said. He turned to Sarah and Dexter. “He's full of it. Let's get out of here.”

“Jake,” Sarah whispered, “if you told me yesterday that it was possible to fly through the solar system in a talking spaceship I would have thought you were bonkers. What if the wish thing is true? We could wish ourselves back to Earth! If it was destroyed maybe we could wish it back to life! How else are we going to get back home?”