“What,” I shrieked, “in GOD’S name are you—”
J.Lo ripped the sparking Snark’s from its place in the hood and threw it over the back of the car, trailing blue lightning in its wake. I watched it catch in a tangle of thorny branches right in front of the swarm of Gorg, then Flash! Bam! and the cabin of the car went bright with blue-white light, and the big clap of force somersaulted Slushious over and again on its fat pink Safetypillows.
We shuddered to a stop.
“Wroooo,” said Pig.
“Yeah. Me too,” I answered. “J.Lo?”
I could see one of his hands wiggling.
“I am fine.”
He was fine, pressed firmly between two cushions on the hood.
“That was a good plan, J.Lo.”
“I am quietly proud,” he said through the high whine of the shrinking pillows.
Slushious couldn’t be driven after we lost the Snark’s Adjustable Manifold, but it still floated, so it wasn’t too difficult to push once the Safetypillows disappeared again. We moved it as far as we could from the arroyo, in case any Gorg came poking around. We pushed around the edge of the city until about five or six in the morning, when the air was waking and opening its big blue eyes. The birds were singing, and I felt weirdly happy, considering we were talking about all the things that didn’t exist anymore, now that the Boov and Gorg had arrived. We hid Slushious in a car wash, between the part with the huge spinning brushes and the part like a big pasta maker.
“There used to be a ton of TV channels, maybe hundreds. Now there’s just the Emergency Broadcast System.”
“Hm.”
“And there’s no World Series this year. Probably no baseball teams at all, because there are no states. And…no countries anymore, either. Not really.”
“Mm,” said J.Lo. “I am not knowing if these countries were evers such a good idea in the first place.”
He frowned. “Which place is this first place, anyways?” he asked, looking at the atlas. “Is it Delaware?”
“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “About countries, I mean.”
“Yes. And I am thinking, if the baseball was being played before, it is still being to.”
“Maybe.”
“And televisions will return. Earthland never had so much to beginto.”
“Are you kidding? There were so many channels that they had one just for old cartoons. And about five just for new cartoons. And a music video channel that didn’t even play music videos.”
“Fhf. Boovworld had once five million channels beforeto the Purging.”
“The what?”
“The Purging.”
“Purging.”
“Yes. In the Purging, all channels but one were eliminatited, to prevents the death of society.”
“Oh. Yeah. People are always going on about how TV is going to ruin Earth, too.”
“Is well proven. Let us say, after televisions are invented, that there is only then a few channels. Three or four. We will call them A, G, Semicolon, and Pointy.”
“How about we call them A, B, C…and ABC.”
“Whatevers. Let us now think of these channels as like four cups filled with eggs. Cup A holds inside News eggs, and Sport eggs, and Variety Show eggs. Cup B has News and Animated Story eggs and Situationally Comedic eggs. So on. More big cups are added because peoples want More Choices.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Soon it is noticed that between the cups there is room for smaller cups.
“These cannot hold much. Maybies there is one with only News eggs all the time. Maybies one with only Funny. But maybies Funny is your favorite sort of egg, so you like this cup.
“Then even smaller cups are made for inbetween the small cups and even smaller between those. The more cups, the more new gaps to fill. Every kind of show is invented. Shows like Pillowbusters! And What Are People Willing to Put in Their Mouths? Or The Week in Balancing, or Watch Out, Baby Animals! Cavalcade, Big Celebrity Poomps, Guy on a Table…lots of shows.”
“So what was the problem?” I asked.
“It went out of the control,” said J.Lo. “Shows had to be recorded whilst even more shows were watched. Not enough time for seeing everything a Boov wanted to see, so some had to quit their jobs, or hires someone to watch for them.”
“Um…”
“Televisional scientists theorized a point into the future when each and everys Boov has his own show, and this show only shows him watching shows. So HighBoov decree: no more television but what the HighBoov say. And the HighBoov mostly say cooking shows.”
“Uh-huh. I’m really tired, J.Lo.”
“Yes. I also.”
I curled up next to Pig in the back of Slushious.
I awoke in the afternoon to find a note from J.Lo saying he’d gone ahead to Vicki’s to eat soap. Actually, it just said “JLO(BiKi5OP,” but I thought that was pretty good. I fed Pig and walked back through town.
I entered Vicki’s apartment, ready to launch immediately into explaining where we’d been all night. But no one was there. Not even J.Lo. I went downstairs and squinted down the hot street. Trey appeared on a corner.
“Hey! Grace, right?” he said. “We’ve all been looking for you.”
“Sorry,” I answered. “We realized we had to go check on our cat, and then we were tired so we just slept in the car, and have you seen J.Lo?”
“Who—the actress?”
“I mean JayJay.”
“Not today.”
I sighed and shaded my eyes from the hot July sun that made everything look flat and washed-out.
“Maybe he was abducted by aliens.” Trey laughed.
I didn’t think it was a very funny joke, all things considered, but I let it go.
“You don’t believe in any of the stuff they do,” I said, meaning the other Roswellians. “Do you?”
“No reason to. There are perfectly rational explanations for everything.”
“Like weather balloons?”
“Scientific balloons,” he said. “Sure. You know that NASA has a ballooning facility just a couple hours from here? They send up these enormous silver balloons all the time. I’ve seen them launch one. But the UFO nuts never tell you about that, do they?”
I was reminded of something else they probably wouldn’t tell me.
“Do you know where Chief Shouting Bear lives?” I asked.
“Gonna go see the flying saucer, huh?”
“Just for fun.”
He told me how to get to the right road, and how to follow it out of town to the big scrap yard that surrounded the Chief’s house.
“Go,” said Trey. “Look for yourself, that’s what I say. Don’t take these jokers’ word for anything. You’re not one of them, I can tell. You’re like a young me.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but I’m working on it.”
“What?”
“Thanks. If you see JayJay, send him back to Vicki’s, okay? Oh, wait—look.”
I almost said, “There he is,” but stopped myself when I realized I was not looking at a Boov in a ghost suit—I was looking at a Boov.
“Whoa,” said Trey.
This Boov wasn’t even wearing the right color uniform. It was white with green and pink trim. He, it, looked back and forth, right and left. It saw us, but barely paid us any mind. Then there were more Boov following behind, wearing all kinds of colors. Many were armed, especially the ones in green, and Trey stepped backward toward a shop window. I approached the group.
“What’s going on?” I said. “Why are you here?”
“Whyfor are you here?” shouted a Boov in green, and he raised his weapon. But the one in white told him something in Boovish, and he put it away again.
“You are supposed to have gone to the Human Preserve,” said the Boov in white.
“I know. I’m trying. What’s going on?”
I saw now that there were more than a hundred Boov, all moving quickly through Roswell on foot. None of them looked happy.
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“The Gorg, they established a…an outpost south of here,” said the Boov. Then it looked at me for the first time. “The Gorg are the newcomers, in the big rounded ship.”
“I know. I mean, I heard.”
“Some of our number were onto a warship, fighting forwith the Gorg. Some of we were just living in New Smeksico. We are moving away fromto the Gorg. So should you, also.”
“Are they coming?”
“They might do. And they will not show unto humans the same respect you were shown by the Boov.”
“Respect?” shouted Trey. “Respect?”
“Shh!” I said to Trey, and waved him off.
“Say,” said the Boov, stopping next to me, “you do not happens to have any cats, do you?”
My heart skipped.
“What?” I said. “No. Why do…Why?”
The Boov shrugged.
“The Gorg, they love cats. They are wanting all the cats for themselfs.”
“Why? Do they…do you mean for pets, or for food, or…?”
“Who can understands the Gorg?” asked the Boov in white. “I only thought if we had some cats, we could trade them for not killing us.”
The Boov then joined the rest, and the last of them passed by. Trey and I watched them leave.
“Hey,” said Trey, when they were out of earshot, “you have a cat, right?”
“I gotta go find J.Lo,” I muttered.
“You mean JayJay,” Trey called after me.
I ran a figure eight around a couple of city blocks, then a couple more, but no J.Lo. Then I saw a little white ghost in front of Vicki’s building just as I was going back.
“Where were you?” I asked.
“The U if O museum. For using the Boovs’ room.”
“I was looking for you.”
“I am sorry. I could not to stay near Bicki. She tried to feed to me something called pasta, which seemed to be mostly noodles.”
“Yeah. What are you holding?”
J.Lo was cradling a bundle with his sheet.
“When I left, Bicki gave me granolas bars and cans of Goke. Tip can eat the bars, and I can eat the cans!”
“Good. C’mon. Trey told me where the Chief lives, and we’re in a hurry.”
I ate the granola as we walked. J.Lo pulled up his sheet and bit into a soda can, causing cola to shoosh out the sides of his mouth and through his nose.
“Mm. Spicy,” he said.
It was a long walk. We cut across the wide streets of town until it became more trees than buildings and more scrub than trees. Before I could see the junkyard, I heard barking. It was steady and regular, more like a clock made to sound like a dog than an actual dog. But then we saw it: a big gray Great Dane, sitting comfortably, folded up like a deck chair.
“So much for the element of surprise,” I said as the big pony of a dog trotted over and stuck its nose everywhere.
Behind the dog was a high wooden fence covered in faded, peeling signs. Signs like from a circus, or carnival.
SEE! THE WONDER OF TWO WORLDS! said one.
GAZE! UPON THE ASTRONAUTIC AERODISK THAT ASTONISHED THE ARMY!
IT MADE THE OSS SAY “OH, ’S WONDERFUL!”
That sort of thing.
The fence was too tall to see any of the junk inside. Standing this close I could just see the top of a distant water tower, dry and rusty with a gaping hole in its side.
“That’s where the UFO stopped,” said a low voice.
I looked down to see a thin, dark man, like a strip of jerky—the Chief. His head was covered by a faded red cap with flaps and a strap that hung down past his ears. It looked like something a pilot might have worn long ago. He otherwise wore the same clothes as anybody else—no buckskin or beads or anything. I’m probably an idiot for even mentioning that.
“The UFO…crashed into the water tower?” I asked. Despite all the signs, he hadn’t said it like a carnival barker. He’d just said it like it was fact, and one he’d gotten used to a long time ago.
“You two the new arrivals? Got here yesterday afternoon?”
“Yeah,” I answered. “Did the others tell you about us?”
“Nah. Just saw you around.”
I wondered if he’d seen us around the mine the night before.
“You drive here all by yourselves?”
“Yeah.”
“Hrmm. If you’re here to see the saucer, can we make it quick?” he said. “Got work to do. C’mon, Lincoln.”
I figured he was addressing the dog, because the big lanky thing stopped sniffing around J.Lo’s sheet and galloped back up to the fence, casting a long contrail of dog spit behind him.
“What kind of work?” I asked. J.Lo and I followed Lincoln to the gate.
“Top secret. All right. Here we go.”
Past the gate was a big yard dotted with piles of unwanted everything: halves of cars, burned-out motorcycles, rusted kitchen appliances, and what I think was an entire airplane nose cone full of hubcaps. There were bales of sheet aluminum tied together with wire, baby strollers piled high inside a Stonehenge of bathtubs, and a jukebox with sunflowers growing out of it. We were walking toward a small house in the center of it all, every inch of which was covered by pennies, and shingled with scraps of dull brass. The Chief launched into what sounded like a prepared speech that he wasn’t keen on giving.
“Behold, the wonders of the discarded world, what treasuresliewithintherustedrefuse blah blah, the grime that time forgot, seetheancient circle o’tubs that the Druids called Bathhenge, beholdthepile of doll parts that reputable blah blahs from the University of blah believe hides Egypt’s shortest pyramid, mysteriouslytransportedtothehighplains of Roswell in the year blah-blah-and-six A.D. But that is not what you have come to see, isitnowmyfriends?”
“Um—”
“No!” he answered, unlocking a pair of basement doors. “Youcametoseethefantasticcraft that crashedherefrompointsunknown, lo thesedecadespast.”
We went down concrete steps to the edge of a big dark room, and the Chief turned to face us with his hand near a row of switches on the wall.
“I give you…pause for dramatic effect…the flying saucer cue music cue smoke machine cue lights.”
As he flipped the switch, music began to play, and a machine somewhere rumbled and hissed thick fog into the room, and flickering green and blue lights outlined a dim shape about as wide as a kiddie pool and twice as tall. The fog was mysterious. The lights were mysterious. The music was “A-Tisket, A-Tasket.”
“Sorry,” said Chief Shouting Bear. “I put on some Ella Fitzgerald after everyone left town. Used to be ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra.’ Very stirring. Hold on.”
He turned off the music.
“The flying saucer!” he said again, and threw a final switch.
The main lights winked on, revealing the absolute worst UFO in the universe. I mean, this was elementary school–play kind of stuff. It was misshapen but mostly saucer-shaped, made out of papier-mâché, and covered in tinfoil. It stood atop three legs made from PVC pipe and old satellite dishes. In the side was the round door from a front-loading washing machine, and it still said Speed Queen along the rim. Topping the whole thing was a TV aerial.
“Can I take a picture?” I asked.
“Knock yourself out.”
“Go up to the yard and look for that telecloner,” I whispered to J.Lo. “I’ll keep him busy down here.”
“Can you just…go around the corner into the room,” I said to Chief Shouting Bear, “so I can get a clear shot? Thanks.”
With the Chief out of sight, J.Lo scrambled up the steps and was knocked over by the Great Dane. I fumbled around with my camera until he recovered. Then the camera flashed and a picture snapped out the front.
“Old Polaroid,” said the Chief. “Don’t see those anymore.”
“Yeah. Uh, thanks for showing us the UFO. I can’t wait to tell everyone I’ve seen it. Y’know, the famous Roswell UFO. And all.”
He gave me a fu
nny look. “An’ you don’t find anything unusual about this thing?” he said, waving toward the saucer. “You don’t question its authenticity?”
“Um…I dunno. I like to, you know…keep an open mind. Why? Don’t you think it’s real?”
“I have things to do, girl. Where did that little spook kid go?”
“He’s my brother.”
“Fine. Where’d he go?”
“I’m sure he’s around.”
Chief Shouting Bear pushed past me and climbed outside.
“This isn’t a playground. Hey, Spook! Time for you an’ your sister to go.”
On the opposite side of the junkyard, J.Lo walked around, inspecting different pieces of scrap, and keeping a wary eye on the Great Dane. It stayed one step behind him, sniffing at his ghost costume—like they were reenacting a Scooby-Doo cartoon.
“Lincoln sure likes your brother,” the Chief said. Or the way he smells like fish, I thought.
“I don’t think the feeling’s mutual,” I said.
“Lincoln’s harmless. Unless you’re allergic to dog spit.”
“Why do you live in a junkyard?”
“I trade it and sell it,” the Chief said. “Or I used to.”
“Oh. Is there…a lot of demand for junk?”
“More than you’d guess.”
I thought about mentioning that we’d nearly been killed in a junkyard in Florida, but I wasn’t sure if it would sound friendly or not.
We were interrupted as J.Lo ran toward us, waving his hands under the costume, Lincoln loping behind him. With his arms in the air he was hoisting the sheet up a few inches, and you could make out Boov feet if you knew what you were looking at. I stood and blocked the Chief’s view as I caught all thirty pounds of J.Lo right in the gut.
We fell in a heap, and Lincoln straddled us and put his wet nose in my eye.
“Hoof,” I said. “What is it? If this is about the dog—hey! No licking, Lincoln. If this is about the dog, you are totally overre—Knock it off, Lincoln!”
It wasn’t about the dog. J.Lo got to his feet and snapped his little sheet-covered hand over mine, pulling me up.
“I think he wants me to see something,” I said as J.Lo yanked me to a shady corner of the yard.
“What? What is it? Did you find it?” I said when we were out of earshot. Lincoln turned circles around us until J.Lo stopped right in front of a weird metal cage the size of an elevator. Some of the bars were blackened and warped at the bottom, but right away I could tell this wasn’t human junk—the metal didn’t look right, and there was some Boovish-looking machinery piped into the back. And at each intersection of the metal bars, the cage had a tiny plastic nozzle, like a rosebud. Other parts had been removed, it seemed, and were arranged on a towel nearby.