The True Meaning of Smekday (25 page)

Seconds stretched out like little lifetimes as I crouched there on my legs and willed the Chief to wake up and be fine. Suddenly J.Lo was at my side, holding Pig.

“Run get his bedsheets, or a towel,” I said. J.Lo dropped Pig and ran off. Pig went and hid inside Slushious when Lincoln returned from wherever he’d been hiding and licked the Chief’s head.

“No, Lincoln…don’t…”

J.Lo arrived trailing a white bedsheet. I bunched it up and pressed hard onto the head wound. Right away the sheet blossomed like a red carnation.

“I don’t know what to do,” I said. “I think we need to take him into town.”

We tied Lincoln to something heavy and managed to get Slushious right-side up with nothing more remarkable than a tire jack. The car was in sad shape now. The left side fin was crushed again, and the roof was crumpled like a paper sack. But it still floated, and it was the only way we were going to get one hundred and fifty pounds of unconscious Indian to the UFO museum.

We spread out the bedsheet and slipped it under the Chief’s body. It was only then that I noticed the two circular cuts in the fabric.

“This is your ghost costume. You’re not wearing your ghost costume.”

“No. I will get outfrom Slushious befores we arrive. I will hide.”

We needed a ramp to get the Chief into the hatchback. Luckily, we were surrounded by a little of everything. J.Lo stacked sections of white PVC pipe up an old refrigerator door, and we rolled the Chief in.

We got a good start, coasting down the shallow hill with the setting sun behind us. I kept checking the movement of the Chief’s chest in the mirror. Then I looked at J.Lo.

“Where were you? Could you see everything?” I asked.

“Only did I hear,” said J.Lo. “I hid. I feared the Gorg might smell me. They haves very good noses.”

“Not this one,” I murmured. “He had a cold.”

“Get out of town.”

“He did. He had a cold.”

“He could no have had this. The Gorg do not get sick.”

“He sneezed.”

“Tip was probably very scared. Imagined it.”

“I did
not
—”

I paused when I noticed we were nearing one of those mechanical cat hunters.

“Get Pig down. Hold her there. Shoot, we should have left her at the scrap yard.”

“No Gorg around,” said J.Lo. “A few cat robots, but no Gorg.”

“Suits me.”

“I also. But if the Gorg have put onto the land a working telecloner, they could be everyplace. Why not for?”

“Maybe Gorg don’t like being around Gorg any more than we do. C’mon, we need to run some more.”

Another ten minutes and we were close to Vicki’s apartment and the UFO museum.

“You better get out here,” I said. “Take your toolbox and go see if you can find some food and water, and a police car or something we can borrow. Please,” I added.

J.Lo ran off, and I started shouting.

“Hey! Anybody! Help!
Heeeelp!
”

The combined members of BOOB, Roswell Chapter, came running out of the museum.

“Oh, man,” said Trey when he saw the Chief. “What happened?”

“He tried to stop a Gorg from hurting me,” I said.

“What’s a Gorg? Are those the new aliens?”

“You saw one up close?” squealed one of the boys.

“It tried to hurt you? Cool!”

“Boys, quiet,” said Beardo.

“Hey, Chief,” said Kat as she and Trey eased him out of the car.

“Hey,” said the Chief.

“He’s awake?” I shouted, and ran to the Chief’s side.

“Hey, Stupidlegs.”

He was slurring his speech a little.

“Has he been drinking?” asked Vicki, who’d just come across the street. I gave her a dirty look but it bounced right off her. I was so mad I could have spit acid.

“No, Vicki,” Beardo said. “He got hit by one of the big aliens.”

“Don’t you look at me like that. I was just asking is all. Indians drink—I saw a special about it.”

Chief Shouting Bear was carried into the UFO museum and over to the alien autopsy exhibit. The fake dead alien was pushed aside and the Chief was placed on the gurney. The adults leaned over him while the boys, already bored, moved into the lobby to play some kind of slapping game they’d invented.

“God, he probably has a concussion,” said Trey. “You shouldn’t even have moved him.”

“Well, I couldn’t call an ambulance, could I?” I said. “How did the Gorg know where to find him, anyway? They knew his name and everything.”

No one answered, but all eyes turned to Vicki Lightbody. She picked at a hangnail and didn’t meet our gaze, but I understood. She mumbled something about checking on Andromeda, and left the museum.

I sighed. “Can anyone help him?”

“Just need a bag of ice,” said the Chief. “Got any ice?”

“I don’t know, Chief,” said Kat. “I don’t think anyone has ice.”

“Go outside,” he said. “Get some snow.”

Everyone exchanged worried looks.

“And whiskey,” the Chief added. “Ask one of the pilots.”

“Can anybody help him?” I asked again.

“I can,” said Trey. “My ex-girlfriend was a nursing student.”

“That doesn’t really count, Trey.”

“Can any of you do better?” he snapped. “I used to quiz her before tests, and before the big exam. I’m practically a nurse myself.”

The Chief looked up at my face.

“Always said you were the prettiest nurse,” he creaked. “Don’t care what the other boys think.”

I wiped at my wet eyes with the heel of my hand.

“Don’t tell anyone I said,” he added. “Gota girl back home.”

“Chief,” said Kat, and the Chief blinked his eyes a couple times. He looked around at the other faces.

“Chief,” said Kat, “do you know what year it is?”

He didn’t answer.

“What’s the president’s name?” Beardo said. “The last one.”

“Roosevelt,” said the Chief. Beardo frowned.

“Roosevelt was the last
real
president,” the Chief said. “Every one since has been a jackass.”

When it became clear that Trey really did know what he was doing, I relaxed a little. Beardo and I walked out to the street.

“We all have to get out of Roswell as soon as possible,” he said. “It’s getting dangerous. Those…Gorg?…were flying around all afternoon, shooting at cats. You’d better keep a close eye on yours.”

“What, were they eating them?” I asked. “I thought they
liked
cats.”

“I think they just like shooting them. I mean, after those guns erase them, there’s nothing to eat.”

“Erase them?”

“Yeah,” said Beardo, looking up at the stars. “You’ve seen how those guns work, right? No noise, but they make stuff disappear? Kat thinks they emit antimatter particles. I don’t know.”

“But those erasing guns are the kind the Boov use,” I said. “Gorg like loud noises and explosions and stuff.”

Beardo looked at me hard for a moment. “Where’s JayJay?”

“Still at the Chief’s place. I’m going to go back for him now.”

“You know,” said Beardo, “Kat is convinced your brother’s a Boov under that sheet. She hasn’t figured out what you are yet.”

I paused too long before answering.

“That’s ridiculous. Why would my brother be a Boov? It’s impossible. That Kat should have her head—”

“I don’t care,” said Beardo. “Just go get your brother and stay close to me after that. Kat’s pretty worked up about it.”

That was that. J.Lo and I had to leave right away.

“What’s your name?” I said. “I never asked.”

“David.”

“Okay,” I said, and took off toward Slushious. I opened the door and pushed the car around until it was pointed at the Chief’s house again. I noticed that Pig wasn’t inside the car anymore. Had I left a window open? No—they were cracked but not open. Maybe she’d slipped out in all the confusion surrounding the Chief. Maybe J.Lo had her.

“J.Lo!” I hissed.

The headlights hadn’t worked for a couple days, but the parking lights still did. I flashed them on and off and on, and that’s when I saw someone in the dull orange glow.

It was Vicki Lightbody, and she was holding Pig.

“Oh. You found her,” I said, trying to be civil. But then I got a good look at her, hunched over Pig like a blond goblin, hands tight around the scruff of her neck. You could see in her eyes she was having a full-on crazy.

“I found your little J.Lo all right,” said Mrs. Lightbody. “And we’re all lucky I did! She’s a cat! You still have a cat!”

Sometimes you really want to say “Duh,” but you can’t. It’s a part of growing up, I guess.

“Why don’t you let me take her,” I said. “I’m sorry she got out—”

“Oh, no. No one’s taking little J.Lo except the aliens. Do you know what could have happened to us if they knew we were harboring a cat after sundown? Do you? I don’t think you do.”

Pig began to yowl. Mrs. Lightbody was hurting her. I looked in every direction, hoping to see David, maybe, terrified I’d see lights in the sky or hear the whir of one of those cat hunters.

“This is just what I’d expect from little
Grace.
I know all about you. You’ve fooled the others, maybe, but
Iseeright throughyou.
”

What she didn’t see was J.Lo creeping up behind her. He’d found a new sheet, and was in ghost costume again. I was trying to think how I might signal him to crouch behind Mrs. Lightbody while I gave her a push. I’d seen it done once in a Marx Brothers movie and had always wanted to try it out. But my mind went blank when J.Lo pulled off his sheet and retracted his helmet. He had no costume, and all Vicki Lightbody had to do was turn around.

He said, “Excuse me.” She turned around.

I was only a little pleased to hear her shriek at the sight of a Boov so close. But I couldn’t imagine what he thought he was doing.

“Good evening,” said J.Lo. “I am Chief Animals Control Officer Cher. I understands you have a cat for us.”

Vicki was frozen in place. Pig made a sound like an electric toothbrush.

“How…how did you know to come?” Vicki asked.

“Powerful telescopes.”

“Oh. Uh-huh.” Mrs. Lightbody nodded.

“Put now the cat in the bag, please,” J.Lo said, holding his sheet out in front of him. Mrs. Lightbody did as she was told.

“It was this girl that was keeping it.” she said, “
I
was going to bring it to you!”

Pig scrambled around a bit, but went limp as J.Lo drew the sheet tight.

“We know. You have our thanks. For your good service you will receive prizes. Flowers! And an expensive hat.”

“Oh! Well, that’s very…very…wasn’t it the other aliens who wanted the cats?”

“Mmmmyes. The Boov are…doing little favors for them. So they will stop shooting us. Now move along! Everyones back to their homes!”

Mrs. Lightbody gave me a smug look and hustled off.

J.Lo got in the car and let the cat out of the bag, so to speak.

“Fun,” he said, looking at his sheet. “Covered in cat’s hair.”

J.Lo had really kept busy while I’d been in the UFO Museum. Apart from supplies and a new ghost costume, he’d found us a police car. Sort of.

“It’s not a police car,” I said.

“It is,” said J.Lo. “Looknow. Lights for flashing.”

“That’s true.”

“Writing on the sides.”

“Yeah, but the writing? It says ‘BullShake Party Patrol.’”

“Yes. Whatnow?”

BullShake was one of those energy drinks. Do you still have them in the future? They came in these tall, thin cans and were supposed to make you feel vital and hyper so you’d have the drive and focus to save lives, or run that extra mile, or solve that unsolvable math problem or whatever.

“Looks just alike a police car,” said J.Lo.

“Except it’s smaller. And police cars aren’t usually red. And don’t normally have six-foot-long cans of energy shake on their roofs.”

“Can we not take it?” asked J.Lo.

We took it. We towed Slushious back up to the junkyard, which looked sad and flat, apart from the big busted water tower standing a couple hundred feet away. J.Lo got right to modifying the Party Patrol car so it would be easier to drive and see over the dashboard.

“Waitaminute,” I said. “Let’s just get the teleclone booth and make sure it’ll fit in this car before we waste too much time on it.”

We untied Lincoln and let him run around, and J.Lo took me to the center of the naked wooden floor that used to be the Chief’s house. He hunched over, searching all around his and my feet.

“You know,” I said, “after that Gorg sneezed, he was all looking around my feet, too.”

“The Gorg did not sneeze.”

“He did. And then he shouted
‘Where is it?’
and looked at my feet. Is there something I don’t know about teleclone booths, like how they shrink real small when they’re not being used or something?”

“I am not looking forto the booth. I am looking to the hole. Ahanow!”

He put his fingers to a spot on one of the floorboards and pried it up. A large square door lifted clean out of the floor.

“Oh, cool,” I said. I defy you to say anything less stupid when you discover a secret trapdoor for the first time.

J.Lo found a switch on the wall. Bare lightbulbs winked on, giving a dull glow to the space below.

“This is where you hid?” I asked as we toed our way down a metal ladder bolted to the side of…well, to the side of an enormous pipe. A huge concrete water pipe that bottomed out about thirty feet below.

“Yes. And to where we hids the teleclone booth. Arounding the corner.”

We reached bottom and I saw we were standing at the intersection of two huge pipes that made an upside-down T. One direction, leading toward town, was invisibly dark. But in the opposite direction the lights stretched out a long way. The pipe was all dry and full of stuff. The teleclone booth was here, and a stack of metal lock boxes, and a bunch of regular cardboard boxes filled with antiques. There were big round army helmets and old newspapers. There was a Bible in German and a pewter plaque with the Declaration of Independence on it.

“And look,” said J.Lo. “Talkie-walkies.” They must have been Chief’s from the war. They were the Incredible Hulk of walkie-talkies: really big and green, about the size and weight of a half gallon of milk, with a long antenna and a mouthpiece like a telephone.