They both reached their backyard, gasping for breath, leg muscles throbbing, holding their sides.
Mrs. Nichols stood on the back steps, car keys in one hand, the other hand pressed against her waist. “What took you so long?” she snapped.
“We … we …” Nathan struggled to speak. But his lungs felt about to burst!
“I told you I was in a hurry. I told you I needed you to watch Brenda,” Mrs. Nichols said angrily.
“More-monsters!” Lindy cried.
“Two aliens!” Nathan uttered breathlessly. “They want to kidnap us!”
Mrs. Nichols scowled and shook her head. “You’ll have to do better than that. There’s no way I’m going to buy that excuse!”
“Mom—listen!” Lindy begged. “We’re in trouble. We—”
“I know you’re in trouble,” her mother interrupted. “That’s why I have to go talk to the school board.” She pointed to the house. “Get in there. Brenda is waiting for you. I’m terribly late.”
“But—” Lindy protested.
Her mother disappeared into the car and slammed the door.
“Mom—we’re not kidding!” Lindy wailed.
“They’re going to take us away!” Nathan cried.
Mrs. Nichols called out something through the windshield. They saw her mouth moving. But they couldn’t hear her.
“Listen to us!” Lindy pleaded.
But her mother turned her head and backed the car down the driveway.
With an unhappy sigh, Nathan opened the kitchen door and led the way into the house. He locked the door carefully behind him.
The kitchen smelled of chocolate. Mom must have been baking brownies, Nathan thought.
“Brenda, where are you?” he called.
“In here!”
Nathan started to follow her voice to the living room. But Lindy held him back. “What are we going to do?” she whispered frantically.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. We have to think. But … let’s not scare Brenda.”
She nodded in agreement. “Maybe we can get her to watch a video or something. Then we can think. Think of a plan, someone to help us.”
They stepped into the living room. Brenda was on her stomach on the floor, surrounded by her Barbie dolls. “Where were you?” she demanded. “I want you to play dolls with me.”
“Well …” Nathan hesitated.
“We thought you might like to watch that new video,” Lindy suggested. “The one about the girl who moves to—”
“No!” Brenda interrupted. “I told you. I want to play dolls.”
“But Lindy and I—” Nathan started.
That’s as far as he got.
He heard a loud CRASH. And knew at once what it was.
The sound of the kitchen door being smashed open.
“What was that?” Brenda cried.
No time to answer.
The two ugly aliens slid into the room. Their yellow eyes gazed at Nathan and Lindy. Eyes cold as ice. Their mouths were turned down in tight scowls.
“Yuck!” Brenda exclaimed. “Who are they?”
“Slaves, we need you to come with us,” Gobbul boomed. “We don’t plan to chase you all over this planet.”
“No!” Lindy screeched.
“We’re not going!” Nathan cried. “We’re not!”
Gobbul sighed through all of his purple tentacle pods. “I guess we will have to persuade you.” He nodded to Morggul.
Morggul moved quickly. He bounced across the room and lifted Brenda off the floor in two tentacles.
“Put me down!” she wailed, kicking her legs, thrashing her arms, trying to hit the big creature. “Help me, Nathan! Lindy! Make him put me down!”
Nathan started across the room to help Brenda.
But Gobbul swung a tentacle around Nathan’s neck and started to tighten it.
Nathan stopped short. He struggled to breathe.
“What are you going to do?” Lindy shrieked.
“Persuade you to come peacefully with us,” Gobbul replied calmly. He turned to Morggul. “Go ahead and eat the little one,” he said.
Morggul’s purple tongues slid out hungrily. Thick saliva splashed the floor. “Yes. Good!” he gurgled.
“Save me a leg,” Gobbul said. “You know I like legs.”
Brenda screamed and kicked.
But Morggul raised her easily over him. As he lowered her to his face, his mouths stretched wide … wider. …
“Stop!” Nathan gasped. “Please!”
“Don’t swallow her!” Lindy begged. “We’ll go with you. Promise! We won’t run. We’ll go with you. Just don’t eat her!”
A cruel grin spread over Gobbul’s mouths. “Too late,” he whispered.
The inside of the aliens’ spaceship was silvery and bright, so bright Nathan and Lindy had to shield their eyes at first.
Squinting, Nathan saw dozens of small compartments. Like a honeycomb, he thought. Or the inside of a beehive.
Before he could see clearly, Gobbul and Morggul shoved Lindy and him into a small, square compartment. Shimmering silver bars formed the walls, floor, and ceiling. They heard the click of the door being locked.
“It’s a cage,” Lindy gasped. “They locked us in a cage.”
The two aliens disappeared into a silvery passageway. Nathan and Lindy leaned against the cage wall, waiting for their eyes to adjust, for their hearts to stop pounding.
“This thing is going to take off soon,” Lindy whispered. “We’re never going to see home again. Never going to see Mom and Dad. Or our friends. Or anyone.” A sob escaped her throat.
Nathan shook his head sadly. “At least we saved Brenda.”
“That sick, fat alien had Brenda’s head all the way down his throat,” Lindy uttered, her face twisting in disgust. Her whole body shuddered. “One more second and …”
“And he would have bitten her head off, just like that bird,” Nathan said. “If we hadn’t begged him. If we hadn’t promised to be good slaves …” His voice trailed off.
Lindy groaned. “I feel sick. I really do. When he pulled Brenda out, and I saw her head was covered in that yellow slime, like runny egg yolks … her hair all sticky and stuck to her head …”
“Stop talking about it,” Nathan said sharply. “We saved her. She’s okay. Now … what about us?”
“Yeah,” Lindy sighed, holding onto the bars. “What about us?”
“We have to find a way out of here,” Nathan whispered. “If the ship takes off, we’ll never see home again.”
He swept his eyes around the glittery cage. “I … I can’t even find the door!” he stammered.
Lindy peered out. “All I can see is cage after cage,” she wailed. “Little squares piled on top of each other.”
Nathan slid his hand along the bars. “Wait!” he cried. “I think I found the cage door.”
He tugged. He pushed. He tried to slide it—one way, then the other.
“I can’t move it,” he sighed.
“Maybe if we both try to push it,” Lindy suggested.
“It’s solid metal,” he told her. “And it’s locked. And I don’t see the lock. Or the latch.”
Lindy uttered a frightened cry. “We’re supposed to be geniuses—aren’t we?”
Nathan nodded. “Yes. We know we’re super-smart.”
“So we should be able to think of something.”
Nathan peered out through the gleaming bars—and saw Gobbul staring in at him. “We’ll be taking off soon,” the alien announced. “Try to relax. And don’t talk so loud. From the control deck, Morggul and I can hear everything you say.”
“Let us go!” Lindy pleaded. “Please!”
“We won’t make good slaves!” Nathan cried. “Your emperor will be very unhappy. He’ll be very angry. Lindy and I have an attitude problem! A bad attitude problem!”
But Gobbul had vanished back to the control deck.
Clinging to the cage bars, Nathan and Lindy both let out unhappy groans.
br />
“Was that our best try?” Nathan sighed. “That was really lame.”
“Come on—” Lindy urged. “Think. We’re geniuses. We should be able to use our brains to escape.”
She stared hard at Nathan.
Nathan stared back at her. “Yes. Our brains,” he repeated. “That’s why they are taking us to their planet, right? Because of our brains?”
Lindy nodded.
They both remained silent for a long while, staring out at the silvery honeycomb in front of them. Then gazing thoughtfully at each other.
“Think …” Lindy murmured. “Think of something.”
“Wow,” Nathan said, shaking his head. “I … I can’t think of anything. Not a single plan.”
“I can’t, either,” Lindy confessed. “I can’t think clearly at all. It’s like my brain is on overload or something.”
Nathan swallowed hard. Behind his glasses, his eyes grew wide as he turned to Lindy. “The Brain Juice—I think it’s wearing off!” he cried.
Nathan grabbed the bars as the cage began to vibrate and rock. He heard a roar beneath him. The whole spaceship rumbled and shook.
“We’re taking off!” he cried. “Now what?”
“Maybe we can outsmart them when we get there,” Lindy said in a trembling voice. “Maybe we can talk to them. Convince them to send us home.”
“How?” Nathan asked weakly. He pressed his forehead against the silvery cage bars. “I don’t feel smart anymore, Lindy. I can’t think clearly at all.”
“I don’t feel smart, either,” she confessed. “But maybe it’s just because we’re frightened. Maybe if we calm down …” Her voice trailed off.
“They expect us to be super-smart,” Nathan said unhappily. “What will they do to us when they find out we’re not?”
Lindy didn’t have time to answer.
Morggul bobbed up in front of them. His smooth green skin glistened wetly under the bright lights. “Gobbul and I can hear your lies,” he growled. “Our Brain Energizer Fluid is the best in the universe. We know it cannot wear off!”
“But it has!” Nathan started. “Our brains—”
“Silence, slaves!” Morggul ordered. “You cannot fool us.” He shoved a stack of papers at them.
Nathan grabbed the papers. “What are these?” he asked the fat alien.
“Puzzles,” Morggul replied. “It’s a long trip. You need to keep your minds busy.”
Nathan stared down at the stack. “Crossword puzzles? How did you know we like these?”
“We watched you carefully,” Morggul replied. He held several pencils in one tentacle. He shoved them through the bars at Nathan. “Keep your minds busy,” he said. “The emperor wants his slaves to be sharp.”
“But—but—” Nathan sputtered.
“You’re making a big mistake,” Lindy cried. “Turn this ship around. We can’t be slaves. You can’t do this!”
Morggul didn’t reply. He turned and lumbered back to the control deck.
“He—he doesn’t believe us,” Nathan moaned. “He refuses to believe that the Brain Juice wore off.”
“What are we going to do?” Lindy wailed.
Nathan stared down at the first crossword puzzle. He read a clue to Lindy. “Opposite of go,” he said. “A four-letter word.”
Lindy rubbed her chin. “Hmmm …” She thought for a long while. “What is the clue again? I forgot it.”
Nathan read it again. “Opposite of go. That’s a tough one. …”
“Let’s go on to the next one,” Lindy suggested.
“Family pet that purrs,” Nathan read. “Three letters.”
They both thought in silence.
“Try dog,” Lindy said finally. “It should fit.”
Nathan lowered the pencil to the puzzle and began to write in dog. “Do I write in the white squares or the black squares?” he asked.
“The white squares, I think,” Lindy replied. “Try the white squares.”
“But—the pencil won’t write!” he exclaimed.
Lindy narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re holding the wrong end,” she said. “You’re trying to write with the eraser.”
“I am?” Nathan stared at the pencil in his hand for a long time. “What’s an eraser?” he asked.
They stared wide-eyed at each other. Nathan let the pencils and puzzles fall to the floor.
“We’re … stupid!” he gasped.
Lindy shuddered. A soft cry escaped her lips. “Yes. The Brain Juice wore off. And it made us dumber.”
Nathan shook his head, his expression tight with fear. “How are we going to escape? We’re too stupid to think of anything.”
Lindy swallowed hard. “How are we going to survive?”
They were both sitting on the floor, gazing blankly at the wall, when Gobbul and Morggul appeared at the cage door. “We have landed,” Gobbul announced.
Nathan and Lindy shook their heads, as if trying to wake up. “We didn’t feel the landing,” Lindy murmured. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“How long was the trip?” Nathan wondered out loud. “I lost track of time.”
Lindy stared at her watch. “I think you can tell time with these things,” she told Nathan. “But I don’t remember how.”
Nathan grabbed her wrist and raised the watch to his face. He squinted at it. “Which is the big hand and which is the little hand?”
“We don’t have time for this fakery!” Gobbul declared impatiently. “We know how smart you are.” He pressed a tentacle against the front of the cage.
Nathan heard a loud click. A buzz. And then the cage door slid open.
The two aliens were breathing hard. The pods up and down their tentacles pulsed and throbbed, opening and closing rapidly.
“I’m so excited,” Morggul declared.
“Morggul and I are excited to present you to the emperor,” Gobbul told them.
“We’re excited too,” Nathan replied. He squinted at them. “What’s an emperor?”
Lindy scratched her head. “I used to know that word, I think. Give us a hint.”
“No more stalling,” Gobbul growled. “Come out now. Follow us. We have landed our ship beneath the emperor’s palace.”
“Beneath?” Nathan asked. “Is that above or below?”
“Be quiet!” Gobbul snapped. “Remember that you are slaves. You will speak only when spoken to.”
“But—what will our jobs be?” Nathan demanded shrilly, his voice revealing his panic.
“As the emperor’s personal slaves, you will do all of his mathematics for him,” Gobbul replied. “You will do all of the difficult calculations. You will—”
“Mathematics? Does that mean numbers?” Lindy asked.
“Of course!” Gobbul cried impatiently.
“But we’re too stupid to do numbers!” Nathan whispered to his stepsister.
“Ssshhh.” She raised a finger to her lips. “Maybe we can fake it.”
Morggul turned to Gobbul. “Why are they doing this?”
“They’re just frightened,” Gobbul replied. “Ignore it. We know how smart they are. The emperor will see.”
“Here are your translators,” Morggul announced. He slid a silvery chain around each of their necks. “They will allow you to understand our language.”
“Hurry,” Gobbul ordered. “Follow us. We must take you first to the cleaning room.”
“Huh? The cleaning room?” Nathan gasped.
The aliens led them out of the spaceship and then down a long, silvery hall. Everything appeared to be made of chrome and mirrors. Like the spaceship, everything gleamed and glowed.
Their footsteps echoed loudly as they made their way. Nathan and Lindy had to hurry to keep up with the two aliens.
They stopped at shiny double doors. The doors slid open. They followed the aliens inside a silvery box.
“This elevator will take us up to the cleaning room,” Gobbul announced. “Remember that you are slaves. You will speak to no one.” r />
The doors slid shut. Nathan felt the pull of the elevator as it began to rise rapidly.
“No one will believe their eyes when they catch a glimpse of these two!” Morggul snickered. “Only two arms. Only one mouth!”
“Yes, they are disgusting to look at,” Gobbul sneered. “But they will make excellent slaves.”
The elevator doors slid open. Nathan and Lindy followed the aliens down an even brighter hallway. The glow from the walls, the smooth, shiny floor, and the mirrored ceiling were so bright Nathan had to shut his eyes.
He felt a chill of fear roll down his body. Panic suddenly froze him. He had to struggle to breathe.
We’re on another planet, he thought.
We’ve been kidnapped.
We’re going to be slaves.
The long, shimmering, silver hallway made him feel as if he were walking through a dream. But he knew it was real. The panic that froze his body told him it was real.
The hall opened into a vast area. Nathan gazed up at an immense wall of squares. Like crossword puzzle squares, he thought. Hundreds and hundreds of them covering the walls.
were they windows? Doors?
Green tentacles wriggled out of many squares. Purple pods on the writhing tentacles opened and closed.
“It looks as if the whole wall is alive!” he whispered to Lindy.
She gazed wide-eyed at the tentacles in the squares. Her mouth hung open. “Why are they doing that? Do they live behind those squares?”
A group of green aliens—fat and walrus-like —identical to Morggul, lumbered by. They turned and stared in shock at Nathan and Lindy.
“What are those?” an alien gasped.
“They are called humans,” Gobbul told them, pushing Nathan and Lindy forward.
“Ugh,” one of the aliens muttered.
“Faces like a bad dream,” another alien snickered.
“Hurry,” Gobbul urged the two frightened kids. “We don’t want to keep the emperor waiting.”
They passed another wall of squares. Squares from the floor to the high ceiling. Green tentacles twisted and curled out of dozens of squares.
In the distance, Nathan could hear strange music. It sounded like the droning of bees, mixed with the shrill whine of an electric saw cutting through wood.