How I Stole Johnny Depp's Alien Girlfriend Page 8

  She stops suddenly. “Sorry, guys, I—”

  “She screwed up again!” I yell.

  Zelda slaps the wall right in front of us. Malou has led us straight into a dead end. We’re so busted; the cops behind us even slow down to catch their breath.

  “We’re going to do this nice ’n’ easy,” one of them shouts from the other side of the street. He holds his rib cage. I guess running isn’t his thing, either.

  “Can you do some more of your space kung fu?” Malou demonstrates by doing some random arm and leg movements. She adds sound effects: “Kai! Kai! Kai!”

  “I sure will,” Zelda says, taking a combat stance and getting ready to Space Splash them to hell.

  “Hey! I said nice ’n’ easy,” the cop repeats. “No kung-fu shit.”

  Bing bang boom!

  The policemen turn around.

  “What the f—,” one of them starts.

  It’s not Zelda. She’s still beside me. But three girls have just appeared right behind the policemen—like, freaking poof! They’re very much like Zelda, same age, same size, and same mean expression that says “I’m going to get you, you male scum.” Otherwise, they have many more facial tattoos, piercings, and dreadlocks for hair. And their choice of outfit is like worn-out paramilitary clothing, put together in an urban-squadron-from-hell fashion.

  Before the policemen can understand the nightmare they’re in for, the girls draw batons and—chaching badabing boom—the four men are lying on the ground, moaning.

  “Are those your friends?” I ask carefully.

  They don’t even put away their batons as they approach us.

  “Somehow I preferred the cops,” Malou says, backing up all the way to the wall.

  One of the girls pushes up her sleeve and shows the inside of her arm as she approaches. She has the exact same tattoo as Zelda, the one saying she’s a Vahalalian, only it’s been covered by a completely new tattoo—a green snake, the same snake that was on that letter Dad received.

  “Valk exiles,” Zelda says grimly.

  I want to ask Zelda what they want from us, but they don’t give me the chance. The three girls start singing a weird whale song, and I immediately feel terribly sleepy.

  I bet they’re doctors, too.

  12

  EXPIRATION: 21 HOURS

  The first thing I see when I open my eyes is Malou and Zelda looking down at me. And then just Zelda slapping me across the face.

  “Oooouch! Aren’t we on the same team?!”

  “Keep those eyes open!” Malou lifts me off the floor and shakes me hard. “Come on! Wakey, wakey!”

  “Ask him his name,” Zelda says, getting ready for another good whack.

  “What’s your name, Frog?”

  “I wish you’d stop calling me that.”

  “He’s fine,” Malou says, dropping me back on the floor.

  “Where are we?” I sit up and look around. We’re in a small room with no windows. An old projector is lying on the floor, and the wall in front of me is covered with large maps of Europe. Zelda and Malou are sitting against the wall beside me.

  “We don’t know. It’s like a cell.”

  I stand up groggily. “And the good news is?”

  Zelda shrugs. “There is no good news, Pudin. Exiles are Vahalalian outcasts. Failures. War criminals. Mass murderers.”

  “Great! I love meeting new people.” My legs feel soft like marshmallow. I lean against a map of Europe. “By the way, what do they want with us, besides murder?”

  “Quiz us on geography?” Malou suggests.

  “Hope so. I’m an ace at geography.” Thanks to my addiction to atlases and hours of planning imaginary travels around the globe.

  “I don’t know what they want.” Zelda stands up, readjusting the Starck vase on her arm. “We will soon find out.”

  She’s right. Someone is unlocking the door. And—zaam!—we’re standing in front of three angry-looking girls.

  “Whatever happens, don’t look them in the eye,” Zelda says. “Looking a Valk in the eye is a deadly sin.”

  One of the girls says something, and whatever it is, it’s not French. It sounds like the dolphin talk Zelda used to make me her Pudin. Squikitikiki.

  “They are taking us to the mother,” Zelda translates.

  “Who’s the mother?” Malou and I ask at the same time, hiding behind Zelda and doing our best not to look those girls in the eye.

  “Their leader, the eldest exile.”

  A grandma in dreads!

  The girls push us out of the cell and escort us down a long corridor. It’s dark and damp and dirty. There are windows, but they’ve been painted over or covered by newspapers.

  Here is a thing about Vahalalian exiles: They hate daylight and cleaning up things.

  “This is a school,” Malou says as we walk past rows of coat hangers and pass in front of classrooms piled high with trash.

  “Look.” Malou points at a group of girls ahead in the corridor, about a dozen of them, with different tattoos, piercings, and weird haircuts and identical hateful looks on their faces.

  “No, don’t look at them,” Zelda says as we walk toward them. “See the markings on their faces?”

  Yes, I can see them now. Their faces are covered in dark green tribal tattoos, just like the three girls escorting us. It looks cool, in a terrifying sort of way.

  “Only Valks register their killings on their faces. Keep walking and look away, Pudin.”

  I try to keep looking away while walking toward their group. Not an easy thing, since:

  1. They’re painfully beautiful.

  2. They’re fighting and Space Splashing like it’s nothing. Poof, disappear, poof, reappear, jab, jab, cross, baton, and kick, poof, redisappear.

  “I’m never going to get used to this Space-Splashy-thingy,” Malou says.

  “And you won’t have to if you keep looking at them, Earthlings. They will include you in their practice routine and destroy you.”

  I look at my sneakers as we pass by. Being destroyed by a dozen gorgeous girls armed with batons only sounds good on paper.

  “Are they all looking for their chosen ones, like you?”

  “Valks remain virgin and childless. They focus on fighting, killing, and praying to Zook.”

  I guess it takes all kinds.

  “Why are they here?” I ask.

  “They’ve been punished and exiled. Most of them for murders that were not directly dictated by Zook. War crimes. Unjustified massacres. I SAID DON’T LOOK AT THEM, PUDIN!”

  “Oops. Sorry!” Couldn’t resist glancing back.

  Zelda pushes me forward.

  “Why do they all look so angry?” I ask. It’s like someone just stomped on their combat boots or confiscated their favorite weapons.

  “They’ve been away from Vahalal for too long.”

  “How long is long?”

  “Hundreds of years for some. Thousands for others.”

  Wait a second. “A thousand years?!”

  “We live much longer than you Earthlings.”

  “But…they all look about the same age.” Just like Zelda, about sixteen.

  “We perfected our DNA. We do not age. We can potentially live forever.”

  That is long.

  “Those are Travelers, like me,” Zelda says, pointing at another group of girls farther down the corridor. “It is okay to look at them.”

  “What’s wrong with them?” Malou asks. “They’re like—”

  “Insane,” confirms Zelda.

  They’re dressed in old rags, pieces of clothing and material randomly tied around their bodies, like sexy young hoboes. Some of them rock back and forth, lunatic style. Others walk on all fours, picking up bits of crap from the floor and throwing them into their mouths, performing gustative biochemistry on dust balls like mad scientists.

  “When a Traveler fails to find her chosen one, she loses all purpose in life,” Zelda says. “She ends up like her.” She nods toward
a Vahalalian hobo who has just found an old piece of gum. She throws it in her mouth and chews it enthusiastically. No wonder Zelda is so eager to find Johnny Depp.

  The Valks drag us into a school gym packed with about a hundred more girls like them. They stare at us with enough intensity to set my hair on fire.

  They make us sit on three exercise balls in front of another angry teenager. “Don’t look her in the eye,” Zelda says. “This is the mother, and she’s a Valk.”

  I knew that! There’s not an inch of her face that’s not covered with the green tribal markings. And holy Armani! She’s really into strong fashion statements, too: She wears a black vinyl outfit with a long black cape. Snake tattoos twist around her neck, wrists, and ankles and all around her face, framing the markings that sum up a lifetime of murders. Her gray blue eyes are so intense I don’t need Zelda to tell me not to look into them for too long. She stands exactly in the middle of the basketball court, where you’d expect to find your PE teacher, only I’m pretty sure she’s not about to tell us to drop and give her twenty. She speaks, and it’s immediately obvious this isn’t going to be a French class, either.

  Zelda answers with the very same sort of tongue-clicking dolphin gibberish: Quikidizikzik quikidizokzok.

  “Are we in trouble?” I ask when they’re done squeaking.

  “Yes. We’re in trouble.”

  Good, that’s one thing clarified. “What do they want?”

  “They want what every Vahalalian desires most.”

  “We want to return to Vahalal,” the mother says with a dry, dusty, creaking, mummy-type voice. “And Zelda will give us the key.”

  “Mother,” Zelda says, falling to her knees to address her, “Zook forbids us to open the door or return without our chosen one.”

  “CHOSEN ONES DON’T EXIST!” the mother shouts, as if Zelda hit her in the gut. “Three thousand years I’ve been on this planet! I’ve seen hundreds of Travelers come here and fail. So we Valks say chosen ones are nothing but a myth. Travelers are wrong. All men are RATS!”

  “Scumbags!”

  “Liars!”

  “Cowards!”

  “Pigs!”

  The girls in that gym have a pretty definite opinion of male Earthlings.

  “We Valk exiles,” the mother declares, “challenge the Book of Zook and the obsolete beliefs of Travelers and declare there is no good man on this testosterone-infested planet.” There: heretic and proud of it. “Don’t force us to torture or kill you or the two Earthlings. Just transfer the key to me while it’s still valid, and let us go home.”

  What did she just say?

  TORTURE?! KILL?!

  “Frog!” Malou shouts. “Nine hundred fifty-two euros is, like, way underpaid!”

  “You are the one who is wrong!” Zelda shoots to her feet as if she’s done with diplomacy. “The Book of Zook warns us that finding our chosen one is an almost impossible task. Zook tells us of the doubts and failures. But Zook also tells us that being a Vahalalian is to keep fighting and searching. So you can torture me. You can kill these Earthlings. It won’t change a thing. I won’t disobey our laws and pass you the key, for I have already found my chosen one.”

  Ooooh, aaaah! A chosen one! A chosen one! It sends a shock wave through the school gym. Even the failed Travelers stop chewing on dust balls to listen to what Zelda has to say.

  “Did you sample him?” the mother asks.

  “Not yet.”

  They all shake their heads. False alarm! No sampling, no deal.

  “I will sample him soon. His name is Johnny Depp.”

  “THE ACTOR?”

  “Yes, the actor.” And the crowd goes wild, like no matter what planet you’re from, if you’re a girl, Johnny’s big news.

  “SILENCE!” orders the mother. She sits down on her exercise ball once the initial Johnny Depp shock has passed. “So be it, Traveler,” she says softly. “Tena! Lena! Pela!”

  The three girls who reduced the cops to mumbling goo rise up from the assembly and step forward. “Get me Brad Pitt. Lock him in a safe location. Wait for my instructions. We will exchange him against Zelda’s goodwill.”

  “She said Johnny Depp, your highness.”

  “Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Robert freaking Pattinson! I don’t care. We will abduct every single Hollywood stud if it will bring us back to Vahalal. GET HIM!”

  And off they go with lethal looks on their faces and batons under their belts. I tell you, if I were Johnny, I’d start running in the other direction.

  “What are you going to do to him?” Zelda cries in anger.

  “Nothing, if you give me the key. But if you don’t…” She slaps the palm of her hand with a closed fist, like…squash! Good-bye, Johnny. “No more chosen one for you, my girl.”

  “You cannot do that! It is heresy! Valks are supposed to help Travelers in their holy quest.”

  “Believe me, Zelda. After you have spent more than a hundred years on this pathetic little planet, you’ll eat your own tongue just for a chance to get away.”

  The mother waves her hand, talks dolphin, and Malou and Zelda are led from the room. “Bring me the boy,” she says, and a Valk pushes me toward her.

  “Interesting,” she breathes, grabbing my face and squeezing. The snakes on her wrist look like they could bite. “Zelda must find you fascinating.”

  Ha! “Trust me, I’m the last thing to fascinate Zelda in the entire universe.”

  Ouch! She squeezes harder. I get it: Do not contradict a Valk either. “The first young male she sees. And you’re cute like a box of ducklings.” She turns my face east and west, then pulls me toward her by the neck. Now it’s the snakes around her face that seem to want a piece of me. “So young, so innocent,” she purrs in my ear. “Pity you all turn into pigs as you get older.” And with that, she pushes me back into the hands of her disciples.

  “Zelda is not used to emotions,” the mother calls after me as they drag me back to our cell. “I envy her. Nothing’s more beautiful than a first feeling.”

  13

  EXPIRATION: 18 HOURS

  “She’s making me dizzy going in circles like that,” Malou complains. “Tell her to stop.”

  There’s no point talking to Zelda right now. Her answer to everything is no, no, no!

  No, I won’t stop walking in circles and kicking and punching the agricultural maps of Europe. No, I won’t disobey Zookian laws. No, I won’t give them the key.

  She checks her forearm. “I don’t have time for this!”

  “How would you pass this thing to them?” Malou asks.

  “I can transfer it to any of them during sexual intercourse.”

  Malou puts her hands over my ears. “Zeldie! You’re going to permanently traumatize the poor kid! You Spacegirls are so totally D-I-R-T-Y!” she shrieks.

  I push her hands away. “Don’t worry. I’ve seen and heard enough during the last twenty-four hours to spend the rest of my life in therapy.”

  “It doesn’t matter how I would give it to them,” Zelda says finally, stopping her pacing and sitting down in a corner of our cell. She strokes the key, like she’s trying to give it a little extra life. “Giving them the key would mean failing. Didn’t you see what happens to a failed Traveler?”

  True. I can’t imagine someone like Zelda dressing in rags and eating dust balls for the next few centuries.

  “What about us?” Malou asks. “The mother girl mentioned torture and FREAKING MURDER.”

  “Is there a Zookian law against letting two innocent Earthlings get tortured or killed?” I ask hopefully.

  Zelda thinks about it for a nanosecond and then shakes her head. “No. Zook does not care about the lives of Earthlings.”

  I can’t stop thinking about what the mother said. Fascinating? Me? No way!

  I catch Zelda’s eye.

  “What?” she barks.

  “Nothing,” I say, pretending to study a map of the European Union as it was in 1989. I’m studying Austria when there’s
a loud thump on the door.

  “What was that?”

  Zelda puts a finger over my lips before I can say another word.

  I’m not dreaming—something’s definitely happening outside. Malou’s already beside the door, listening. “It sounds like they’re fighting out there.” She jumps back.

  There was a blunt noise, like a sack of potatoes hitting the floor. Then someone unlocks the door, and a group of Valks come in.

  They squeak a bit. Zelda squeaks back, and then they do something quite unexpected: They kneel right in front of us like Zelda did in front of the mother.

  “Ahem, excuse us, Zeldie.” Malou clears her throat. “We wouldn’t mind getting a bit of that decoded.”

  “They’re going to disobey the mother and let us go.”

  “Why?”

  “They still believe in their duty to help a Traveler. They have faith in my holy quest for a chosen one.”

  “You guys should totally rebel,” Malou tells the Valks. “I mean, your old queen is so totally overdoing the mother thing. You know, I had a teacher just like her. The old bag!”

  We (collectively): “Shhhh!”

  “The mother is a good leader,” one of the Valks says as we cross a ruined playground in front of the abandoned school. “She lost faith in Travelers a few centuries ago, just like the rest of us.”

  “When Zelda talked tonight,” says another one, “she reminded us of what we had forgotten long ago: what it means to be Vahalalian.”

  We climb over a fence and land in a parking lot. I turn back. A poster says that the school is due to be demolished soon. There’s also graffiti over the poster. The Vahalalian snake tag: Beware! Keep out!

  “How long have you been living here?” I ask.

  “We moved in just a year ago. Finding a place for the Sanctuary is becoming harder, and our group keeps expanding.”

  It’s a curse: more and more Spacegirls, less and less good real estate to snatch.

  “Why don’t you integrate into our society? Go to school. Find jobs. Rent apartments. Live like us.”

  “We want nothing to do with your society. We detest Earthlings. We loathe your primitive civilization.”