How I Stole Johnny Depp's Alien Girlfriend Read online

  The mother picks up her axes before getting into the bus. “Come now, babies.” She kisses each blade. “We’re going back to Vahalal.”

  20

  KEY TO VAHALAL LOCKED ON THE EARTHLING CREATURE CALLED DAVID GERSHWIN—VALIDITY: REMAINS UNLIMITED

  They drag Zelda to a seat in the back and duct-tape her mouth to make her stop screaming. The Valks guard her, and they won’t let me talk to her.

  “I want to see her,” I say, but Lena won’t budge.

  “Why are you treating her like a prisoner?” I ask the mother as she passes by, counting her disciples like a teacher counting her pupils after a trip to the zoo.

  “We’re all in,” the mother says, pretending she didn’t hear me. “Driver! To the Temple of Zook.”

  My eyes meet with Zelda’s.

  “She’s Space Flopped,” the mother says. “Transferring the key is a very debilitating process.”

  Here is another piece of Vahalalianism: There are two things that cause Space Flop, intergalactic traveling and…well…doing it with an Earthling.

  I look at Zelda. “Mmmm! Mmmm! Mmmm!” she moans, shaking her head.

  “I’m not sure I want to do this anymore.”

  “What?” The mother turns to me, her good mood all gone.

  “I think…Zelda doesn’t want me to open the door.”

  “It’s too late. We have a deal.”

  “I want to talk to Zelda. If you don’t let me talk to her, I won’t do it.”

  “How typical.” The mother sighs. “It was such a lovely evening, and now you’re ruining it.” She grabs my neck in a flash and squeezes till I can’t breathe. Pela grabs Malou and does the same thing to her before she can try to come to my rescue.

  “Listen carefully,” the mother says, pulling one of her beloved axes from its holster on her belt. She holds the edge dangerously close to my eyes. “You’ll be begging to open the door when I start popping your eyes out.” She scratches my cheek ever so slightly with the blade to give me a preview of what’s to come. “Now sit tight and enjoy the ride.”

  They park the buses in the middle of the tiny rue des Oiseaux, in front of the Temple of Zook. They don’t care about being discreet or getting a ticket; in a few minutes, they will be zooming through space and back to Vahalal! And they sure sing loudly about it, like a bunch of drunken sailors.

  “I haven’t been in here for five hundred years,” the mother says, dragging me into the temple. She looks up at Zook and sighs sadly. “See that hole?” She points to the pit at the base of the painting. “It was made by all the Vahalalians trying to return without a valid key.”

  “How do I open it?” I ask, getting more and more anxious. “Do I show the key to your goddess? Do I rub it against the painting? Are you going to draw my blood?”

  “That would be interesting.” The mother smiles and taps my face. “But no, there will be no blood and no rubbing.”

  I turn around to Zelda. She’s tied to a bench at the very back of the chapel, humming, fuming, and kicking.

  “The secret to opening the door,” the mother says gravely, “is speed.”

  “Speed?”

  “You will Space Splash, collide into the wall at a very high speed, and before you know it, you’ll find yourself in Vahalal. And, let me tell you from personal experience, it’s better to hold a valid key if you don’t want to end up with a bad concussion.”

  Wait a freaking minute! “I can’t Space Splash!”

  “Of course you can’t. Tena, Lena, Pela,” the mother calls, and the three Valks grab me by the arms and waist, ready to push me into the wall. “Since you Earthlings are so slow, they will help you reach critical speed.” She gives them the go go go! sign with her baton. “See you in Vahalal.”

  “Wait!”

  “What?!” She slams her baton against a bench, like I’m getting on her last nerve with all my hesitations.

  “Don’t they disintegrate all males except chosen ones the second they set foot on Vahalal?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Yes, of course,” she says. “But don’t worry. Disintegration is painless.”

  Malou puts my general feeling about that in very simple words: “NO FREAKING WAY! You’re not disintegrating Tadpole!”

  “Mmmmmm-mmmmm!” Zelda moans.

  I look at her sadly. She tried to warn me: Opening the door means turning into a heap of ashes.

  “Ready?” Lena asks, holding me tight.

  “WAIT!”

  The mother growls angrily, raising her baton in the air, and looking like she’s about to break something, possibly my head. “Wait? I’ve been waiting three thousand years on your stupid planet. Why would you want me to wait more?”

  She’s not close enough, not if I want to…“I need to tell you something. It’s very important.”

  “Speak. Quick! And be done.”

  “It’s also very personal.” I wave my head, inviting her to get closer.

  She sighs and takes one step closer, leaning so I can whisper my last words in her ear. I take a deep breath, and here goes! I yank my arm away from Lena and reach for the axes on the mother’s belt. Bingo! I got one. I hold it aloft for everyone to see.

  The mother looks at it and laughs. “You want to fight? With us?”

  The other Vahalalians laugh, too, clapping their own axes, knives, and batons on the walls and benches. They find me irresistible with my ax and my grand delusions.

  “I won’t fight you.” I turn to Zelda. “She will.”

  “Mm-mm!” agrees Zelda.

  I close my eyes. We’ve been here before. Apples, marbles, or axes, it’s all the same thing: Hit the target first, then throw and reverse time with your mind. It is basic psychophysics!

  I throw the ax toward Zelda, aiming for a spot right beside her hand. The good news: I don’t cut off any of her fingers. The bad news: I still throw like a Zokoplasm from planet Altar! The ax lands on the floor a good six feet away from her. Zelda looks up at me, shaking her head and moaning some inaudible harsh words. And the laughter gets louder.

  “Entertaining,” says the mother, still laughing, and walks down the aisle to retrieve her darling ax. “If I weren’t in such a good mood, I’d cut off one of your hands just on principle.”

  “Cut this!” screams Malou, throwing herself on the ax and grabbing it first. She springs to her feet and—slash!—cuts the rope tying Zelda to the bench and—ZAM!—cuts the rope tying Zelda’s hands. Zelda snatches the ax and walks down the aisle for a good, old-fashioned, one-on-one fight to the death.

  Even the mother looks impressed. She draws the second ax, but instead of Space Splashing or charging, she turns to the girls holding me and gives them a small nod and a simple order. “Open the door.”

  They grab me tighter, and before I can say “Hold on there, guys,” everything goes, like, zooooooooooooooom!

  You know, I was supposed to spend a quiet summer with my dad in Normandy, a hundred miles from Paris. No one told me I’d be shooting away from our galaxy and traveling to the far reaches of our universe.

  Not that it’s such a big deal, per se. It’s fast. Instantaneous, for that matter. Like you start to scream “omigod!” on Earth and you finish spitting out the last syllable on Vahalal.

  When Tena, Lena, and Pela let go of me, I look around and I know for a fact that we’re not in gai Paris anymore.

  I’ve got three words for you: gold, silver, and gigantic.

  I can’t focus my eyes on anything. The light’s so intense it hurts.

  There are a few things I know for sure:

  1. We’re surrounded by great columns of metal, rising all the way up into a deep, bright red sky.

  2. Everywhere I look, I see girls clad in fancy silver swimsuits and gold jewelry.

  3. They’re squeaking up a storm.

  When my eyes adjust to the strange light, I realize that the mother, queen of the exiles, is standing beside me, squeaking back at the girls in silver bikinis.

  I don’t
speak dolphin, but I’d say disintegration is near.

  A huge shadow is cast upon us. I look up. Holy spaghetti! A flying thing shaped like a prehistoric bird is floating right above our heads. Girls in shiny silver armor glide down from the sky and land all around us. Their helmets are shaped like human skulls. The minute they set foot on the metallic floor, they start to squeak at an intolerably high pitch.

  The exiles who have magically appeared all around me don’t look too perky anymore. The armored girls draw metal disks and point them toward me, and since everyone starts to gasp and cry and back away from me, I’d say it doesn’t necessarily look like good news.

  “So long, Earthling,” the mother says.

  That’s it! I want to go home.

  “David!”

  “Zelda? Where are you?”

  I spin around, desperately searching for her. She stands right beside me. She drops the mother’s ax on the floor and wraps her arms around me. “Close your eyes,” she says. “I’m taking you home.” The armored girls’ disks are getting brighter. I think they’re about to shoot. I close my eyes and hear a big sonic boom. Before I can start screaming, I feel this incredible pull dragging me back again: mooooooooooZ.

  We fall back on the stone floor of the Temple of Zook.

  That’s Temple of Zook, Paris, France, Earth, Galaxy zeta-7895.

  I stare at the ceiling. The candles are making quite a show of light and shadow up there.

  Malou’s face appears above me. “Tadpole?” She pokes me. “Your girlfriend just…walked into the wall, and you…you fell out of it in her arms like a freaking ghost,” she whispers. “This is so totally creepy.”

  I sit up and look around. All the Vahalalians have gone to the other side. There’re only the three of us left on this side of the galaxy. I turn to Zelda. I still can’t manage to focus my eyes on her face. I try to stand up, but my legs feel like two bags of jumbo marshmallows. I fall back on my ass.

  “We’re Space Flopped,” Zelda explains, struggling to stand up. “It will pass.” She dusts something off her arms…stardust, I suppose.

  “That’s where you want to drag Johnny Depp?” I ask, pointing to the painting of Zook. “He’s not going to like it up there!”

  She shakes her head. “He’s never going to Vahalal. He’s not my chosen one.” She helps me stand up, holding me tight. “I went to his movie premiere. The one you talked about. I was hiding in the crowd waiting for him. I jumped out when he passed by, and I sampled him.”

  “You did what?!” Imagining my very own spacegirl smooching Johnny Depp feels like swallowing bleach.

  “He tastes wrong,” she says, ignoring my pained face. “Nearly as wrong as you, by the way, which proves once more that face recognition cannot be trusted.”

  Malou gasps. “You kissed Johnny Depp? Really? What did he have to say about that?”

  “He’s a strange Earthling. He laughed and walked away when I told him he was worthless.”

  “Do you know how many girls would have killed to be in your knee-high boots?” Malou shakes her head. “You’re really a strange person, Zelda from the stars.”

  “So if he’s not your guy…?” I ask carefully.

  And considering that you love me madly as proven by your attempt at saving my life and…giving me the key…and…

  “My real chosen one is still out there, somewhere, and I will find him.”

  Oh no!

  “Here we go again!” Malou complains.

  “But…” I show her the octopus thingy on my arm. “I have the key, right? How would you give it to your chosen one?” I shake my head warily. Because if she mentions transferring it to him through…the usual way, I’m going to scream.

  “We can’t transfer it anymore,” she admits, grabbing my arm and inspecting the tattoo. “It’s locked on you forever, and only you can open that door for me. And you will, the day I find him.”

  “No way!” I pull my arm away. “I’m never going back there to be pulverized by a bunch of bikini girls so you can live happily ever after with a guy you don’t even know.”

  “It’s not your decision to make, Pudin. And if it makes you feel better about it, they will probably pulverize me too, for I have committed a deadly sin going back to Vahalal to save you. But I will plead for our lives and leave our fate to Zook.”

  Space Flopped or not, she’s still very annoying. I grab her sweater with both hands. “YOU ARE IMPOSSIBLE, ZELDA!”

  “Behave, Pudin, or I will hurt you.”

  “Guys!” Malou complains. “I know you have this cute S-and-M thing going on, but we better get away before the cops come to investigate those two buses parked outside.”

  To be continued. I let go of Zelda and try to take a few steps. But my knees are still wobbly, and I end up falling back into her arms. She doesn’t push me away. Or yell at me. Or tell me I’m just a clumsy useless key doomed to be pulverized by bikini girls.

  It’s my cue to try something new and daring. Something an intergalactic traveler like me shouldn’t be scared of.

  I lift myself up, pull her body against mine, and kiss her—or sample her—right there in front of Zook.

  And I don’t care if she’ll ever find her chosen one or if she’ll throw me into that wall and let the Valks turn us into two heaps of ashes because of all the terrible sins we’ve committed. Because, personally, I see a thousand stars, and I know for sure that the universal balance has just been restored with a single smooch.

  “GUUUUYS!” Malou shouts. “I hate to spoil the moment, but can we go hide someplace and then make out!?”

  21

  SOMEWHERE ON A BORING PLANET ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF GALAXY ZETA-7895…

  “Can you cover yourself? You’re going to give Olivier another anxiety attack.”

  Malou shrugs and flips to her other side, sunbathing on the grass in the type of super-mini bikini that’s already made Olivier’s head explode on many occasions in the past. And then I’ll have him crying on my shoulder for hours, begging me to pass her another of his love letters.

  I’ve told him he’s not her type. He’s not middle-aged, he’s far from anorexic, he hasn’t done time in a mental or penal institution, and he doesn’t look like he’s into mass murder. All red flags for Malou.

  “Your friend is obsessed.” She sits up. “Do you know the sort of shit he writes in those letters? Like, I’m the caramel to his butter-scotch pudding!” She takes off her bikini top, exposing her things to the sun.

  I hear someone screaming and falling in the neighboring garden. I have a pretty good idea what sort of UFO crash-landed the instant bazooms came into the landscape.

  “Olivier? Are you all right?”

  I walk to where I can see into his garden. Olivier is standing up, brushing dirt and grass from his knees and ass and clumsily picking up a ladder. I retrieve something that must have fallen on the ground during his plunge: his air gun.

  “I was coming to get you. Frogs?” he asks, blushing.

  “Can’t.” I give him back his air gun. “I have to go to therapy soon,” I lie.

  “Wait.” He follows me back to my own garden. Freezes. Stops to breathe. Makes a face like Godzilla’s mowing my lawn. Malou is still flashing her bazongas, singing and drumming the grass as she listens to her iPod.

  “Did you give her my letter?” Olivier whispers, unable to take his eyes off her.

  “I did.” I carefully back away before he can start quizzing me—he might shoot a pellet through his heart when I tell him she’s not into him.

  “What did she say?”

  “She was very intrigued by your food metaphors.”

  “Hey! Butterscotch boy!” Malou takes out one of her earbuds and throws her bottle of suntan lotion toward him. It lands in front of his feet. “Can you do my back?”

  I leave them to it and run into the house, then check on them through the window to make sure Olivier hasn’t died of spontaneous combustion. He’s walking toward Malou in ultraslow motion, hol
ding tight to the lotion. You can hear him swallowing saliva from sixty feet away.

  I laugh and open the fridge, grabbing leftovers from lunch, a bottle of milk, and her absolute favorite: a pint of vanilla ice cream from the freezer. I pack all this in a plastic bag and head toward the back door. As I pass Dad’s office, I can hear him snoring happily. I have a good three hours before he calls me and Malou in for afternoon snacks. (Dad’s an afternoon-snacks fanatic and thinks a day isn’t complete without a proper milk-and-cookie break.)

  I stop under the apple tree in the back garden, then climb up and retrieve the baton Zelda made for me. I jump over the fence and run across Monsieur Dupuis’s cornfield, knocking, kicking, clubbing, and shouldering the cornstalks like they’re a thousand imaginary enemies.

  “OUCH!” I scream, scaring some bats away. She clubbed me on the shoulder again.

  “I said keep your guard up. And watch for my side blows.” Zelda kicks some dust toward me with the tip of her boot, getting back into her combat stance. “Fight!”

  “Wait. I need to finish rubbing my dead shoulder.” The sun is beaming on the thick waves of nettles outside. A strong, warm wind flows in and out of the cave. “Can we do something else? I’d love to take another crack at bending time.”

  The wind blows her hair across her face. She brushes it away and smiles. “Sure. I’ll bend time for you.” And—zaaam!—she Space Splashes.

  I hate when she does that!

  She reappears right in front of me and goes for the head. I’m able to block that one. She keeps swinging. Left, right, front. BAM! Gets the same shoulder on the very same spot. My howling sends another family of bats looking for quieter parts of the cave.

  “You’re too predictable. Too slow.” Zelda corrects my position with the tip of her baton. “Left leg forward. Bend your knees. Stomach in. Shoulders relaxed. Chin up, and…fight!”

  “Stop!” I throw my baton away and sit down in the dust.

  This old clay mine is our secret kingdom. The Cornouaillois never come here. It’s supposed to be haunted since SS soldiers murdered and buried a group of resistance fighters here during World War II.