“J.Lo?”
Chh “Yes.”
“I’m coming back. What was that last part you said?”
Chhhk “Cloning food turns it—down, Pig!—to poison.”
I began to climb, sweating and wheezing, and at that point I really should have put the walkie-talkie down.
“Wait,” I said. “We’ve been…eating nothing but milk shake for six months, and it’s…it’s poison?”
“Chukk No no. Simple—stop that, kitten—simple sloppy cloning works fine. Evens teleporting works fine. But complicated cloning, not so good I said stop, kitten!”
That was it. That was why the Gorg pillaged planets for food. That was why they didn’t just overrun them with clones.
Of course, my planet still had more Gorg than was healthy. Two of them turned the corner and began to fire, and I was still on the ladder. I threw the walkie-talkie up through the hatch and scrambled up as fire burned all around me. I wasn’t even hit but I still cried out in pain. My left leg was charred and bleeding. My shoulder felt wet and hot against my shirt as the boys pulled me through the trapdoor. I kicked it shut and threw asprin until it was buried under snow.
Now I heard meowing. A lot of meowing. A cat chorus. It was getting light out, and I turned to see hundreds of cats milling around, sniffing each other. And every one of them was Pig. Hundreds of heads turned. Two thousand eyes watched me.
“Hi, Pigs,” I said.
“Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow 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meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow,” said the Pigs.
A thousand cats, and they were all underfoot.
They purred like a swarm of really big bees. Or really small motorcycles.
I slogged through them, trying to make my way to the boys.
“What…” said Christian. After a second he said it again.
“Bleep,” said Curly.
“I’ll explain later,” I answered. “Maybe. Where’s that booth?”
We ran into Motorama, which was this gleaming white motorized vision of the future. Conveyor belts that bring you toast in bed. Robots that brush your teeth. Mostly the future was all about never having to move your arms. But I suppose you time-capsule people know that already. How’s it working out?
The Gorg were beating their way through the foam as we approached the automated bathroom. There were Pigs streaming out of it, but I expected that. If things were going according to plan, there were Pigs spreading all across the earth, great herds making miniature stampeding noises from each and every booth the Gorg had had the nerve to put on my planet.
“J.Lo!” I shouted into the mouthpiece. “We’re at a telecloner on the other side of the park! Can you bring us to you?”
Sch “Hold on,” J.Lo answered. “Did your booth justnow stop cloning Pigs?”
“No.”
Kkc “How for now?”
“Yes! That’s it! That’s the booth!”
The booth’s hum died down and stopped, and a wheeeeee noise came in its place.
Shh “Alls ready.”
“You,” I said to one of the young boys. “In the booth.”
He couldn’t know what was going to happen, so he did as I asked. There was a spark and a crackle, and he was gone.
“Who’s next,” I said. “Go.”
“Bleep! What’d you do to Tanner!” said Curly.
“Go find out,” I answered, and I pushed him into the booth. When he disappeared, too, the other boys began to back away from me.
“Do what she says,” said Christian, and then he
teleported by example.
I was the last through the booth. It was a crowded bathroom on the other side, with about fifty cats and eight boys and Mom, all with the same look on their faces. I hugged Mom. The Pig production started up again behind us.
J.Lo was sitting on one of the urinals with his legs pulled up, snacking.
Chchk “You look terrible.”
“You don’t have to use the walkie-talkie anymore, J.Lo. What are you eating?”
“Cake,” he said, and plucked another toilet deodorizer from the neighboring urinal.
“We should shut the booths off at some point,” I said. “With any luck, the Gorg will want to use them to leave.”
“YES,” came a voice behind me. “PLEASE. LET US LEAVE.”
The thing that spoke was almost unrecognizable as a Gorg. There were others behind him, and they were all fat inflated raspberries with limbs. Their guns dangled uselessly from their swollen fingers. They all bobbed their heads from sneezing.
The boys were flipping out. I asked Christian and Curly to take them out to the street, and they edged away, backs against the toilets.
“WE CANNOT BEAR IT,” said a Gorg in the middle as his eyelids puffed up like microwave hot dogs. “PLEASE.
“LET US GO. WE ARE BEATEN. EARTH IS NOT FOR THE GORG.”
His words echoed off the tile.
“EARTH BELONGS TO THE CAT.”
“Stop half the booths,” I said to J.Lo. “After a few minutes, start them up again and stop the other half.”
J.Lo squeezed and prodded the booth controls, and the flow of Pigs stopped. I grabbed some treats out of my backpack.
“Treat?” I sang. “Pigs! Treat?”
I pushed through the crowd, tossing treats as I went. The Pigs followed me outside, and a long line of Gorg rushed immediately for the booth. There was a crackle of pops, and they were gone.
When the cat food ran out, Mom and J.Lo joined me on the street. The Gorg must have stopped the Snow Queen’s Castle turning when it was good-side up, and Mom stared at it with moist eyes.
“See?” she said. “See what I mean? Always perfect.”
“Yeah,” I said, and squeezed her.
“The Gorg are not going to like it onto their ship so much,” said J.Lo. “Look.”
You could see the huge Gorg ship in the early morning sky, but there was something wrong with it. It was growing darker, and redder. When I realized what I was seeing, I could make out volcanoes of red rash erupt on the surface, and the whole globe seemed to shudder and ooze. More than usual.
“There are ten thousand cloners on the ship…No…down, Pigs,” said J.Lo. “Cloners for to make its skin. I sent a handful of Pig hair to every one.”
“The ship has hay fever.” I laughed.
Around us the boys were mostly petting cats. Alberto was even talking about adopting one, and he and Cole argued which Pig was best.
Suddenly I had a sinking feeling.
Where was Pig?
It was a ridiculous question, of course. We were surrounded by them. But I didn’t want the copies. I wanted Pig.
Behind me, with no more treats to occupy them, some five hundred cats turned their attention to J.Lo. They slinked around his legs and licked his feet. They put their claws into his suit and bit his knees.
“Maa-a-a! Look, they all—no, kittens! No! Good kittens!”
I stood apart from them and watched as the ship began to move.
“Tip! No, no, kittens! Tip? Tipmom? Helpnow! TIIIP!”
Then I felt something brush against my leg, and looked down. A cat, purring, rubbed the side of her head against my shin. She was the only one.
“There you are,” I said, and picked her up. “I thought I’d lost you.”
All eleven of us plus Pig teleported back to Old Tucson and piled like clowns into the car. Mom and J.Lo had to share the front seat, and Mom was so happy she even kissed him on the top of his head and wiped her mouth with her hand. We drove back to the casino, to find the Chief sitting atop his truck with Lincoln, looking out over the southern horizon at the big red ball that was slowly sailing away.
“Ha!” I heard him shout. “That’s what you get, jerks.”
People returned to their homes and shot their guns up in the air in celebration. Word spread quickly: the Gorg had been defeated by Dan Landry.
They were preparing to slaughter and enslave the human race when Landry, in keeping with an ancient Gorg tradition about which the details were a little fuzzy, challenged the Gorg leader to a duel of strength and wits. He emerged victorious, and banished the Gorg from Earth, and their departing ship could actually be seen to turn red with embarrassment and shame. Well, you know the details. You’ve probably read his book.
Anyway.
That’s it. I saved the world. J.Lo helped.
We can’t take all the credit. For months after the Gorg left, stories poured in from around the world about humans fighting back. I can’t get into all of them here, but let’s just say the Gorg were not prepared for the Chinese. Ditto the Israelis and Palestinians, who managed to work together, for a change. And I hear they didn’t even set foot in Australia. And word even got around about a group of Lost Boys living under Happy Mouse Kingdom who made life miserable for a local Gorg encampment. And we couldn’t have done it without the Chief.
Frank Jose, the Chief, died this past spring. He was ninety-four. He said it was his time, but I wish his time and mine had overlapped more. We donated some of his war things to a museum, and gave away everything else. Except Lincoln. Lincoln we kept.
The Boov were in a much weaker position than before, and they owed us humans for getting rid of the Gorg, even if they weren’t sure how we did it. They helped people all over the world relocate, signed a lot of treaties, and left Earth for good on Smekday, one year after they’d arrived. Word is they’re thinking of trying one of Saturn’s moons, but it’s a bit of a fixer-upper.
Mom and J.Lo and Pig and Lincoln and I moved back home, but then we moved again. We all agreed to be very slow and careful about revealing J.Lo to the world, and slow and careful was not going to work in a big city. GM bought our patent for the floating car, so money wasn’t a problem, and we bought a nice house near a lake.
So far we’ve only introduced J.Lo to close friends and family, but it’s gone well. Every now and then I catch him looking at the sky, and I figure I know what he’s thinking. But then he might notice me and say he’s considering building an escalator to the moon, just for day trips, so I don’t know what to think.
One day he discovered that his name wasn’t as common as he thought, so he decided to change it. For a while he went by Spoon Possums, and then he was Dr. Henry Jacob Weinstein, and for a couple of days he was The Notorious B.B. Shaq Chewy before changing back to J.Lo, which I’d never stopped calling him anyway.
And speaking of famous people who get married too much:
Right now you’re probably wondering why I never told anyone about what J.Lo and I did. Maybe you even think I’m lying. A person would have to be crazy not to want the fame, and the spotlight. Well, maybe I am. I’ve earned my crazy. But let me tell you something about the famous Dan Landry.
He hasn’t had a moment’s peace since the Gorg left. Not one. His every movement has been reported, his every word recorded, his every stumble and blockhead idea captured on film forever. He has, in fact, in the past year alone, been married twice (pop star, anchorwoman), divorced three times (clerical error), and suffered one very public nervous breakdown (Chinese restaurant, wrestling). At the moment, I understand, he’s recovering from “exhaustion” at a hospital in California.
If that’s not enough to convince you that keeping quiet was the right thing to do, then think about this: I saved the world. I saved the whole human race. For the rest of my life, even if I live to be a hundred and ten, I will never again do anything as fantastic and important as what I did when I was eleven. I could win an Oscar and fix the ozone layer. I could cure all kno
wn diseases and I’ll still feel like my Uncle Roy, who used to be a star quarterback but now just sells hot tubs. I’m going to have to figure out how to live with this, and I sure don’t need everyone I meet bringing it up all the time.
So.
You asked what the moral to my story was. I’m not sure real stories have morals. Or maybe they have so many it’s impossible to choose. But here’s one: what goes around comes around. And as far as pets go, a cat is a nice thing to have.
*Salt, Fizz, Animal-shaped, and Blue
ADAM REX is the illustrator of The Dirty Cowboy by Amy Timberlake, Ste-e-e-e-eamboat a-Comin’! by Jill Esbaum, and Small Beauties by Elvira Woodruff. He wrote and illustrated Pssst!, Tree Ring Circus, the New York Times best seller Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich, and its sequel, Frankenstein Takes the Cake. Adam lives with his wife in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Adam Rex, The True Meaning of Smekday
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