How I Stole Johnny Depp's Alien Girlfriend Read online

  I’ll tell you one thing: This girl’s got legs.

  I’m lying on my bed, contemplating the little fluorescent constellations, galaxies, and stars glued to the ceiling above me. She’s so violent. I’ve never met a girl as violent as she is. Dad’s the nicest person in the world. You cannot smash an iron elephant on the nicest man in the world’s head!

  I’m so angry at her. Spacegirl, my foot! She’s just another thug with too much imagination, like all the nutcases Dad tries to fix!

  Dad is downstairs waiting for the policemen to bring Zelda back. They caught her at a gas station outside Paris. She beat up a truck driver this time. Dad’s so ashamed. Two violent escapes in two days: She’s ruining his reputation as a friendly nutkeeper.

  Knock knock.

  I sit up on my bed. Dad comes in, carrying a large glass of Cognac. “Son?” he says, sitting beside me and sipping his drink. “I’ve changed my mind about Zelda. She might be dangerous.” He has a bump the size of a chicken egg on top of his bald head to corroborate that fact.

  “I can’t have you here anymore,” he says gently. “I’m phoning your mother. You’re going back to Paris.”

  I don’t know what’s worse: leaving Zelda or going back to Mom and her tantrums for the rest of the summer.

  “In the meantime, you must promise to stay away from Zelda, and that means not talking to her. At all.”

  There goes my favorite pastime.

  “Promise me.”

  I do.

  “Now I have to talk with your mom.” Poor Dad. Talking with Mom is not his favorite pastime. He makes a face like one of his ulcers just popped.

  “Why are you angry with me, dwarf?” she asks. “I didn’t do any-thing to you.”

  “I’m not supposed to talk to you. I don’t even want to talk to you,” I lie.

  Zelda sits down on the terrace floor, pulling on the gizmo locked on her ankle, trying to figure out how to get rid of it pronto. I’m staying at a safe distance, carefully monitoring her movements while pretending to be very busy fixing the back wheel of my bike.

  She stops pulling at the gizmo. “I could have killed your father if I’d wanted to. I didn’t. I rather like him.” She picks up the apple Dad gave her earlier and sniffs it suspiciously. Sniff sniff. She decides it’s food and bites off a large chunk. Crunch crunch.

  “Interesting,” she says, and goes back to working on the gizmo. “I asked him to remove my handcuffs and let me go. He would not. Knocking that artifact on his head was necessary protocol.”

  “Protocol?” I push the damn bike away, stand up, and give it a serious kick for good measure. “He’s trying to help you. Do you understand that?”

  “If he really wanted to help, he would let me go.”

  She can’t escape anymore. She can’t go farther than the terrace since the policemen locked the gizmo on her ankle. If she tries to leave again, it will go wild and they’ll pick her up within minutes. Dad explained it to her: One more escape, and the judge will take her away from him and place her in a more conventional institution—like a proper nuthouse, with padded cells, straitjackets, and horse tranquilizers for afternoon snacks.

  “Your father doesn’t understand. I can’t be here. I have a mission to complete and very little time left on this planet. What I did to him was unavoidable.”

  “It wasn’t unavoidable!” I yell, turning away from her and going back to looking for the puncture on the tire. “You’re not from another planet, Zelda. You’re just another violent nutcase, and Dad’s too nice to tell you so to your face.”

  Oh, I think I found the punc—OUCH!

  She threw the apple at me, and it slammed into the back of my head.

  “Pfft.” She shakes her head. “It has interesting qualities as food, but it is too soft as a weapon.”

  Forget the bike. I stand up, rubbing the back of my neck. There must be steam coming out of my ears. “What did you do that for?”

  “It felt right at the time.”

  I grab the apple and throw it back at her, but I don’t have her talent. Bang! It ends up hitting Dad’s office window.

  “David?” Dad yells.

  Shit. The apple interrupted Dad’s “reading.”

  “I’m fixing my bike in the backyard!”

  He comes out on the porch to check on us. “You remember what we agreed?”

  He means avoiding Zelda like she’s contagious until Mom finds the time to come pick me up.

  “I’m waiting for you in my office,” he tells Zelda. He has removed the elephant from his desk. He has also locked up his letter opener and his heavy stapler.

  She picks up what’s left of the apple on her way inside. “That was a really terrible throw, dwarf.”

  “I didn’t take the time to aim.”

  Actually, I’ve never been good at throwing things. I’m not good at spitting, either. And Olivier always laughs at me because I can’t burp on demand, but that’s another story.

  “See the hominid artifact all the way back there?” She points at the angel statue at the other side of the garden.

  “No way! That’s way too far!”

  She sneers, bites off a large chunk of apple to bring her ammunition to the right weight, and throws it without even aiming. It flies like a bullet and explodes on the angel’s face.

  That’s the most amazing thing I’ve seen since Olivier fell in the cemetery pond and nearly drowned.

  “How did you do that?!”

  She puts her finger to her mouth. “You are not supposed to talk to me.” And off she goes to therapy.

  3

  EXPIRATION: 74 HOURS

  It’s impossible. I’ve been at it for hours, and there’s just no way. I stand exactly where she was. I have a fair supply of apples collected from our apple tree. They’re not edible, but they make perfectly good ammo. I pick up another one and throw it with all my might. It crashes on the lawn and rolls to join the dozen other apples that landed a gazillion miles away from the target.

  I pick up another apple and take a few steps toward the angel.

  Knock knock knock!

  What?

  Knock knock knock!

  I turn toward the house. Zelda’s looking at me from her window, mouthing something I can’t make out. She mimes throwing the apple and then points at me.

  “I can’t hear you!”

  She tries to open the window, but it’s permanently sealed, and the glass is unbreakable. She waves at me, like Come, come, little dwarf!

  I know it’s a bad idea, but I really want to learn more about throwing apples. I climb on top of the water tank, step on the little roof above the porch, and crouch in front of her window.

  “You’re doing it wrong,” she says. “You must hit the target first, then throw the apple and reverse time with your mind. That is the only way to bend the space between you and the artifact—you get it? It is basic psychophysics.”

  Nice theory, but I shrug it off. “Why don’t you just admit it?”

  “What?”

  “That you got lucky, or that you’re a total star at throwing things. Why do you always need to make up a weird story for everything?”

  “You cannot bend time, Earthling? Even a little?”

  “I broke Dad’s watch once. Does that qualify?”

  “By Zook!” She bangs her forehead against the window and closes her eyes. “This is such a primitive planet!”

  You must hit the target first, I repeat like a mantra. Then throw.

  I stare intently at the jaw of the rubber T. rex on top of my desk. I think of the marble entering its mouth. You must hit the target first. I close my eyes, reopen them, and throw. Damn!

  I knocked down Bart Simpson to the left of the T. rex.

  Last marble. Sixteen throws, zero hits. I stand up from my bed. Focus, David. Here is the marble. There is the T. rex. I picture the marble disappearing inside its jaws.

  And throw—

  And shit!

  “You’re throwing like
a Zokoplasm from planet Altar!” Zelda says from the hallway.

  That’s the problem with the high-tech gizmo on her ankle: Dad doesn’t lock her in her room anymore, so she’s free to move around the house and mock me at will. “Are you even trying to bend time?”

  “There’s no time thingy. You just got lucky. Mystery solved.”

  She sneers and points at the T. rex. “Give me those marbles.”

  Twelve throws. Twelve hits.

  She’s so annoying! And pretty amazing, too.

  She flips upside down and stands on her head on top of my bed and—pop!—Thirteen throws. Thirteen hits. The marble didn’t touch the T. rex’s teeth or anything.

  “Can you teach me how to do that?”

  “I do not think it is possible, Earthling. Not if you cannot bend time.” She reaches for the gizmo on her ankle and starts pulling on it with both hands.

  “You better be careful with that,” I warn. “It goes off easily.”

  “You know how it works?”

  “Sure.” I give her another handful of marbles. “You’re not the first one to have one of those here. It’s unbreakable, but if you try to break it, it goes off. You leave the house, it goes off. You keep pulling on it like that, and it will definitely go off.”

  “And then?”

  She rolls down from her headstand. Her legs land on mine. Physical contact! She doesn’t seem bothered by it, but I stiffen up like someone just bit my ass.

  “Then?”

  I retract my legs carefully. “Then the policemen come and get you.”

  She leans over to give the gizmo a last pull. I can see some sort of tattoo at the edge of her sweater collar. She turns to me. “And then?”

  Her hand lands beside mine on the bed. I can feel the heat radiating from the tips of her fingers. If she gets any closer, she’ll have to sit on my lap.

  “I…”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. Like…they put you in a proper nuthouse. You never, ever get out. Just like Dad said.” Even swallowing excess saliva seems like a major accomplishment.

  “What is wrong with you? Why do you make a face like a dead fish?”

  Fourteen throws. Fourteen hits.

  I jump off the bed and take refuge by my bookshelves, far away from her. I pretend that I need to reorganize my Fantastic Four comics, doing my best not to look like a dead fish.

  “Why are you trying to get to Paris?” I ask, sorting the comics by villains: Namor, Galactus, Doctor Doom. “I realize that Cornouaille is not, like, zee place to find a boyfriend, but there’s the city of Rouen just a few miles west. There’re plenty of boys in Rouen. They drive around the high schools on their motorcycles.” Apparently, the girls love that.

  “I am not looking for any boy. I am looking for my chosen one,” she says. “And he is in Paris.”

  Fifteen throws. Fifteen hits.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Zook told me.” She rolls onto her stomach and studies the Tintin prints on my pillows and duvet. Not the sexiest choice of bedspread, I’m afraid.

  “What’s Zook?” I ask.

  “She’s the one watching over me and all Vahalalians. What you Earthlings call God.”

  Even the Silver Surfer on the cover of the comic I’m holding looks shocked.

  “You talk to God?”

  “Yes.”

  Sixteen throws. Sixteen hits.

  “And God told you your future boyfriend is in Paris?”

  “Yes.”

  This girl is nuts, the Silver Surfer seems to agree right before I return him to his place on the shelf.

  “Did God tell you his name?” I ask ultra slowly, keeping in mind that I’m talking to a seriously deranged girl.

  “No.” She turns to me and throws the last marble without even looking. “But Zook told me the only important thing about him.”

  “What?”

  “His entire genetic code,” she says, yawning.

  How romantic!

  “Are we done?” she asks, standing up and stretching like she wants to leave.

  “Wait!” I don’t want her to leave now. I want to hear more of her crazy stories. And maybe watch her throw another set of marbles. “We’ve established that you talk to God. Not bad. But…do you have any other powers?”

  “Powers?”

  I grab a random Fantastic Four comic, The Coming of Galactus!, and hand it to her to illustrate my point. She flips through the pages, narrowing her eyes and trying to make sense of it.

  “You know. Flying. Self-combusting. Turning into a rubber band. Things you do on your girl planet that we can’t do around here. Superpowers.”

  “I do not know where to start.” She makes a face, like she can think of a gazillion things, just off the top of her head.

  “Like what?”

  “Space Splash.”

  “Space Splash!” I start laughing but immediately stop when her green eyes go two notches meaner. “Okay, what’s Space Splash?”

  “The ability to be at two points in space at the same time, making us able to move fast.”

  “How fast? Like a plane?”

  “Faster than anything you know. Our martial art is based on Space Splashing.”

  Can’t wait to see some of that. “Show me!”

  She shakes her head and hands me the comic. “I cannot, Earthling.”

  “You cannot?” Oh, what a surprise! I smile, returning The Coming of Galactus! to the brand-new Galactus section.

  “It would kill me if I tried, because of Space Flop.”

  “Sure. Space Flop.” I wish she could hear herself.

  “Traveling a very long distance in space causes Space Flop. When I am no longer Space Flopped, I can Space Splash.”

  A serious Marvel guy like me prefers more complex scenarios. “Space Flop. Space Splash. I’m Space Shocked!” I laugh.

  “Do not mock me!” she barks. “Do you think I would be trapped here if I could Space Splash? When Space Flop is over, an army of Earthlings will not be able to stop me.”

  She squashes Tintin’s face on the pillow with her fist and looks at me like I’m next.

  Which reminds me:

  1. Do not laugh at a patient’s bonkersness.

  2. Do not upset someone who regularly breaks people’s bones.

  “I get it. You’re flopped. When you’re not, you’ll splash. Don’t…flip on me. Hot cocoa?” I try to walk away. Cocoa should restore the peace between us.

  She leaps right in front of me, grabs my T-shirt, and pulls me toward her till I can feel her…well, bazongas right there against my chest. “I could punch you in the nose and give you a taste of Space Splashing,” she says, raising a threatening fist.

  I’ve never been this close to a girl before. And if I weren’t so scared about the aforementioned punch, I would think she smells amazing! Like honey and…space spices?

  “Ahem!”

  We turn around. She lets go of me. Dad is standing in the hall, looking annoyed and probably wondering what part of “leave Zelda alone” I didn’t get.

  “A word, please,” he says, motioning for me to follow him into the hall.

  I’m totally going to get it, Dad’s way: a long lecture on the importance of keeping promises, and I’ll probably have to read a book on the subject, too.

  Dad’s lying in bed reading his own article, which was recently published in a scientific journal, as if to remind himself of his own principles of inner peace and tolerance before Mom arrives tomorrow morning to pick me up and give him hell.

  I’m lying beside him, thinking of Zelda and pretending to read the copy of Sophie’s World he gave me at the beginning of summer.

  Dad wants to make sure there’s no more interaction between me and Zelda, so I’m sleeping in his room tonight, which is a real bummer, since Dad snores like a jet engine and I’m dying for more interaction.

  “If you knew someone’s DNA,” I ask suddenly, “could you tell for sure that you were meant to
be together?”

  “Well…” Dad drops the journal on his lap and thinks about it. “It’s quite a theory she’s got there. If only it were that simple!”

  “How do you know, then?”

  “It’s more a question of trial and error.”

  Like him and Mom, if you put the emphasis on error.

  “But if it’s not DNA, there must be something that makes you want to be with someone.”

  “I guess love would be that something.”

  Love! Now, that’s a fishy subject, I tell you.

  “Did you tell Zelda that?” I ask.

  “I did, actually.” Dad switches off his bedside light.

  I put my own book away and switch off my light, too. “What did she say?”

  “She said love was a sin.”

  Sweet dreams.

  4

  EXPIRATION: 62 HOURS

  I’m having a nightmare where Zelda orders the T. rex to eat me when I’m woken up by Dad’s voice. I switch on the light, get out of bed, and find him pacing the kitchen in his pajamas, talking on his cell phone and scratching his bald head hysterically.

  “I don’t know how she did it!” he keeps repeating. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire life! It’s shocking! Unbelievable!”

  I shoot to the staircase and run toward Zelda’s room.

  “David!” Dad calls after me and makes gestures, like, Wait a second, don’t go in her room, etc., but I shrug and pretend I don’t understand, and he’s way too busy on the phone to stop me.

  “Zelda?” I call.

  I go into her room. “Zel…”

  Her gizmo lies in the middle of the room, intact, unbroken, perfectly closed, but there’s no Zelda in it. I hear Dad’s heavy footsteps. He stops beside me. We contemplate the gizmo for a while.

  “She’s gone again,” he says, looking like he ate a slug and it refuses to slide down.

  A bald policeman inspects the gizmo from every angle and passes it to his hairier colleague. “Have you ever seen anyone take one of these off?” he asks.