Willy Maykit in Space Page 6

  I’ll get revenge, he thought. If it’s the last thing I do.

  He wandered about, keeping his eyes peeled and sniffing the air for their scent. Monsters on Planet Ed have a great sense of smell. They also kind of . . . smell. Monster breath and monster B.O. is a horrible combination.

  Sam climbed a hill and found the pile of wood that Willy and his friends had stacked. Good time for a marshmallow roast. He just happened to have the Planet Ed version of marshmallows with him. He lit the fire, grabbed a long stick, and started roasting one after another and popping them into his mouth. He’d much rather have been part of the Monster Ball, but what could he do? He’d been pooped on and was dateless . . . but boy, did those marshmallows hit the spot.

  Willy got up to pee in the middle of the night.

  “Where are you going?” Norp asked.

  “Nature’s calling,” Willy told him.

  “It is?”

  “Don’t people pee on your planet?”

  “Of course,” Norp said. “But what does that have to do with nature calling?”

  “Never mind,” Willy said, annoyed. “I’ll be right back.”

  Willy climbed down from the tree, and when he did, he saw their signal fire burning in the nearby clearing. He was so upset that he forgot to pee. He quickly climbed back up into the tree.

  “Wow,” Norp said. “You Earthlings pee fast.”

  “Someone lit our signal fire!” Willy yelled.

  Cindy sat up, rubbing her eyes. “What’s going on?”

  Willy’s face flushed red with anger. “Our signal fire is burning!” He sniffed the air. “I smell marshmallows.”

  “What do we do?” Norp asked.

  Willy shook his head. There was nothing they could do. It was nighttime, and everyone knew that you didn’t go out at night on Planet Ed. Meanwhile, the woodpile that they had worked so hard to stack was slowly turning to ash.

  If only we had graham crackers and chocolate, Cindy thought. She’d always loved s’mores.

  Chapter 17

  Where’s Max?

  The next morning they sat in the tree, eating the last of the purple fruit. There was plenty more fruit where those had come from, but now, going out in the daytime was as dangerous as going out at night. The monsters might have spare sunglasses, and if they did, Willy and company would never be safe.

  They also no longer had a signal fire.

  “What should we do about the signal fire?” Willy asked, wiping juice off his chin. “Build another one?”

  “And have someone burn it down again?” Norp asked.

  “Exactly,” Cindy added. “We stack the wood, and they use it for their weenie roast.” It was a marshmallow roast, but you get the idea. Why build something if someone’s going to come along and destroy it?

  “What’s a weenie roast?” Norp asked.

  “Never mind,” Willy said.

  For most of the morning they discussed what to do—build another fire or don’t build another fire, gather more of the purple fruit or eat on the run. After a while, Willy’s thoughts began to drift. He started thinking of Max. He also thought of Phelps, but mostly it was Max who concerned him. Where was he? What had happened to the joke-telling android?

  Max had last been seen swinging on a vine like Tarzan. Or Thortock—take your pick. He had dropped into the clearing, taken a step toward a monster, who, by the way, had very bad breath—Max was an android, but even he could smell it—and then he told a joke about a chicken walking into a bar. Chickens were funny creatures in general. And a chicken going into a bar was hilarious.

  This was what Max thought, anyway. Get a monster laughing and he won’t want to eat you. But that only works if the monster in question speaks English. The monster in question did not. He was fluent in Monster and only Monster.

  When the monster didn’t laugh, Max went right into another joke, about a lizard and a doughnut, a real knee slapper. Only the monster didn’t get it. He didn’t understand. He thought Max looked as delicious as Willy Maykit, and he was way bigger, which meant a larger portion size. The monster came at Max with a mighty roar and took a bite out of his leg.

  Max didn’t know enough to get out of the way. He was an android, and androids are machines, and machines don’t grow up with monsters living under their beds. In fact, androids don’t have beds, so there was no reason to be afraid.

  When the monster took a chunk out of his leg, Max wasn’t scared. Nor did he feel pain. He was just annoyed. He looked down and saw a hole in his leg. “Hey, stop that!” he yelled. “That’s my leg!” It was as if someone had just bumped a shopping cart into a Mercedes. “Hey, look what you did!”

  Then Max ran. He didn’t run out of fear. It was more like he wanted to protect a fine piece of machinery from some maniac with a sledgehammer.

  The problem was that the chunk now missing from his leg was the part that gave him his sense of direction. He remembered that Willy, Cindy, and Norp’s base camp was in a tree on the other side of a deep canyon, but he didn’t know how to get there.

  Meanwhile, a big hairy guy who didn’t understand jokes and preferred large portion sizes was after him.

  Max kept running, not realizing that he was getting farther and farther away from Willy and his friends.

  Cindy and Norp were in a pretty heated discussion about fire building and fruit gathering. Which was more important, eating or being rescued? Cindy argued in favor of being rescued. For Norp, it was all about food. After all, if you starve to death, who cares if you get rescued? You’re already dead.

  “But if we get rescued, they’ll have food on the ship.” Cindy said. She crossed her arms and glared at Norp.

  “Dead people can’t eat,” Norp said, glaring back.

  Willy interrupted. “What do you think happened to Max?” he asked.

  This stopped the argument in its tracks. Cindy and Norp turned and looked at Willy.

  “What?” Cindy said.

  “What?” Norp said.

  “Max,” Willy said. “Android? Flies spaceships? Tells jokes? Where is he?”

  Cindy thought she was getting the upper hand in the build-a-fire/gather-fruit discussion. She hated letting go of a winning argument, but now the thought of Max took over. He was annoying, a little pushy with his joke telling. But hadn’t he saved them all when he arrived by vine with a joke? More important, he was part of their group. And now he was missing.

  “Max,” Cindy said out loud. “He saved our lives. I hope the monster didn’t get him.”

  “What do we do?” Norp said.

  “Hmm . . .” Willy said. It had been his idea to introduce humor to the android in the first place. And humor had rescued them—something about a chicken walking into a bar, if he remembered correctly. Humor had also caused Max to crash the ship, but Willy tried not to think about that. “We should go look for him.”

  “It’s a pretty big planet out there,” Cindy said. “Where do we begin?”

  This started another discussion on the dangers of wandering away from the safety of their tree, now that the monsters were out and about day and night. On the other hand, at some point they’d need food and water. They’d have to risk it.

  “Yep, food and water,” Norp said, smiling victoriously at Cindy. He gave himself a pat on the back. The food argument was winning.

  Cindy ignored Norp and decided not to argue. Eat, drink, and get rescued. That would work. “No time like the present. Let’s go. Willy, grab the duffel.”

  Willy slung his father’s duffel over his shoulder and climbed down from the tree. Then he pushed through the circle of trees and stopped. There on the ground was a huge pile of—

  “Monster poop!”

  Norp squeezed between the trees, followed by Cindy. “What?” they said in unison.

  Willy pointed to the ground, then glanced nervously at the forest around them. “How do you think they got across the canyon?”

  “Not sure,” Norp said. “Maybe they can swing on vines after
all.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Cindy said. “Our safe tree is no longer safe.”

  Willy and Norp nodded. They swung across the canyon and headed into the forest, glancing nervously around them. They knew they wouldn’t be coming back to the tree.

  Planet Ed was becoming more dangerous by the second.

  Chapter 18

  A New Home

  They moved through the forest, each with his or her own agenda. Willy wanted to find Max, Norp wanted food, and Cindy was torn between creating a rescue plan and finding new shelter. They kept walking, scanning the trees around them, keeping their eyes peeled . . . and their noses perked. They could smell monster breath a mile away. Maybe having no breath mints was a good thing.

  Cindy stopped suddenly. She turned to Willy and Norp. “What about the wreckage of the Starlite?”

  Norp cocked an eyebrow. “Starlite?”

  “The spaceship,” Willy explained. He turned to Cindy. “What about it?”

  “There’s got to be something left of it,” Cindy said. “Fuselage, galley, computer parts. I bet we could rig something up and send a distress signal. Way better than a signal fire.”

  “Did you say something about a galley?” Norp asked, licking his lips.

  Cindy turned to him and nodded. “I bet you there’s even food.”

  “I’m in.” Norp was getting excited. “Lead the way.”

  “And if enough of the ship is still intact, we have a new home base,” Willy said.

  “Exactly,” Cindy said. “Maybe with locking doors. Those monsters are strong, but they’re not that strong.”

  The problem was how to find the downed Starlite. They had no idea where to look. And Planet Ed was huge.

  “Remember the night we heard that big explosion?” Cindy asked. “I said I hoped the monsters didn’t have dynamite. It wasn’t dynamite. It was the ship crashing.”

  “You’re right,” Willy said, pointing. “And it came from that direction. Follow me.” He headed off into the trees, blazing a new trail. “A new hideout—cool.”

  “Rescue,” Cindy said.

  “Food,” Norp added.

  Three agendas, one journey. Willy kept walking, leading the way. Overhead, dark clouds began to gather. Now and then they heard a thunderclap off in the distance. So far there was no rain.

  For most of the morning, the trio walked in silence. On the night of the crash, the explosion had seemed fairly close to their tree hideout, but there was no sign of a wrecked ship.

  “Didn’t Max say the ship crashed into the side of a mountain?” Norp asked. “Maybe we need to find higher ground.”

  They were standing beneath a large pine tree . . . or the Planet Ed version of pine. Willy glanced at the branches above them. “I’ll go up and take a look around.” After all, he was an explorer. Looking around was what he did best. Seeing what was lurking around the bend was in his blood. Hopefully, he could spot the downed Starlite.

  Willy climbed the tree.

  “Well?” Cindy yelled to him after a while.

  “Hold on,” Willy said. He kept climbing. “A little higher.” He stopped and scanned the forest around him, to the right, then to the left. “I think I see some—”

  Willy’s foot slipped and he fell, straddling the branch he’d been standing on.

  “Ouch,” Norp said, wincing. “I hate when that happens.”

  “Are you okay, Willy?” Cindy called up to him.

  Willy tried to nod, but he didn’t want to lie. He climbed back down. “Oh, my aching you-know-what,” he said in a high voice.

  “I know what,” Norp said, wincing again.

  “I don’t know what,” Cindy said. She turned to Willy. “What?”

  “Never mind,” Willy said. “I think I saw something. It’s to the right, on the side of a hill. Looked like something metal hidden among the trees.”

  “Sounds promising,” Cindy said.

  “Yes, lead on,” Norp said. Where there was metal hidden among the trees, there could be a crashed spaceship. And where there was a crashed spaceship . . . Norp licked his lips again, thinking of the possibilities. “Let’s hurry.”

  They moved on, Willy once again leading the way. He was a little sore from his fall. Still, the excitement of finding what was left of the Starlite kept him going. Meanwhile, thunder continued to roar off in the distance. So far, it hadn’t started to rain, but the sky was growing darker by the second.

  They kept hiking up the side of the hill. But there was no sign of a wrecked anything, let alone a wrecked spaceship. Willy decided to climb another tree and take another look around. This time he didn’t climb as high and was careful not to slip.

  “Well?” Cindy asked when he reached the ground.

  “Something’s there,” he said with a smile. “We’re close.”

  An hour later, they were walking among the wreckage of the Starlite. “Not much left,” Willy said, disgusted, kicking at the debris. He had really hoped they’d find enough of the ship for a new home base. All about them lay blackened pieces of metal and the remains of electronic parts. Half of the cockpit’s control panel hung from a tree. Shattered glass crunched beneath their feet. “Good thing Max ejected.”

  “There’s gotta be something we can use,” Cindy said. “Keep looking.”

  “Where’s the galley?” Norp looked the saddest of the three. The thought of food had kept him moving as they hiked the steep hillside to the wreckage. But there was no sign of anything edible, just a burned-out crash site.

  And then—

  “Look!” Cindy yelled, pointing through the trees. Fifty yards away, there was more of the Starlite. “The ship must have split in two. This is just the front half.” She hurried through the forest to the rest of the wreckage, followed by Willy and Norp. There were bits of tables and parts of couches. A large chunk of the movie screen dangled from a fallen tree. Three metal toilets lay in a row. And the library was fully intact . . . or mostly so.

  Cindy tried the door and swung it open. Inside, smashed computer monitors were strewn about. Cindy and Willy picked through the rubble, while Norp moaned about there being no food.

  “If we send out a distress call, someone will come to our rescue,” Cindy told him.

  “Someone with food,” Willy added.

  “Good point,” Norp said, joining in the search for something usable. “I’m great with computers. I’m better at eating, but I know computers.”

  “Me too,” Cindy said.

  “Not me,” Willy said. “I’m an explorer, not a computer geek.”

  Norp straightened up and pointed toward the door. “Okay, Willy, you go find us something to eat. Cindy and I will work on sending out a distress call.”

  “I’m on it,” Willy said. He headed out and down the hillside. Far away, in the valley below, he could see a grove of pink trees. Where you find pink trees, you find purple fruit. He’d prefer a cheeseburger, but purple fruit would do in a pinch.

  Chapter 19

  Something Smells Fishy

  What is it about aliens and food? Willy thought as he walked along. Hadn’t they just eaten breakfast? Still, if they could get a distress call going, he was glad to do his part by making Norp happy. As they say, the way to an alien’s heart is through his stomach.

  Willy kept walking. After some time, he came across a small creek and decided to follow it. It was heading downhill, as creeks do. And downhill was where the pink trees were. Food and water right in the same place. Not bad.

  Something flashed in the water. Willy stopped and stared. There it was again—a silver flash, not one, but many. Planet Ed had fish? A hot dinner would really hit the spot. Norp would be one happy alien. But how do you catch a fish without a rod and reel? Willy glanced around at the smooth, skinny branches of a nearby tree. With a spear, that’s how.

  Overhead, thunder roared, or maybe it clapped. The point is that a whole lot of noise was coming from the clouds. And it was much closer this time. Willy felt a fe
w drops of rain. He didn’t care. Rain or no rain, he was going to catch a fish.

  He broke a thin branch off the tree, about the thickness of his finger, and got to work sharpening the tip on the rough surface of a boulder.

  The wind began to pick up. Then—

  CRACK!

  Lightning flashed.

  “Lightning, schmightning,” Willy muttered. “Just don’t scare my fish.”

  The rain began to pick up and so did the wind as he crept to the edge of the pool where he had seen the fish. Willy cocked his arm back. He could hit anything with a baseball. How difficult could it be to hit a fish? After all, the fish were much closer than a fellow player on a baseball field.

  “Here goes,” Willy whispered. He jabbed the spear, and—

  A direct miss.

  He tried a second time, correcting his aim.

  Again he missed.

  Third time’s a charm? Not even close. The fourth wasn’t any better, nor was the fifth.

  By this time the fish were so spooked that he had to move downstream to find another pool with an unsuspecting fish . . . or three. A few minutes later, Willy found another pool. He cocked his arm back, and—

  “Yes!” he yelled, pumping a fist. He hit a fish dead-center. Hot dinner, coming right up. Willy was so excited, he went after another fish. Then another.

  Even as lightning cracked and thunder roared, even as the rain came down harder, along with a fierce wind, Willy couldn’t help smiling. He’d caught three fish on a faraway planet, in a faraway solar system. And he did it without a rod and reel. “This is what you call a good day,” he said out loud.

  Right then, a monster stepped out of the woods and gave a tremendous roar.