Herbert's Wormhole Read online

  Alex pointed at the suits, and Sammi nodded. She noiselessly did a double-cartwheel across the room, then gracefully dived into a somersault, avoiding dozens of half-built inventions and spare parts that would’ve clattered Herbert out of his slumber if she’d knocked into them. Popping up in front of the laundry basket, she snatched the suits from atop the dirty pile of clothes. Again Alex thought, This was way too easy. Then, as he noticed the balloons lifting the laundry basket off the floor, he thought, Or maybe not.

  The basket reached the ceiling, where four thumbtacks were glued, pointy-sides down. The balloons popped, startling Sammi and setting off a complicated chain reaction that ended with a bar blocking Herbert’s bedroom door from the outside, and a beaker of acid being splashed onto a rope suspended from the ceiling. Herbert yelled, “Stop! Thieves!” He grabbed his heavy book and hurled it just as the burned rope snapped. Sammi spun into a leaping roundhouse kick and deflected the book across the room into the open window, wedging open a door that was falling to block it. She tossed Alex the suits and dove through the tight space held open by the book.

  Alex climbed out behind her, but stopped to look back at Herbert, who was running toward him. “Mind if I borrow this?” he asked, putting a hand on the book. “I’m traveling today, and I could use a light read.” Alex yanked the book and released the metal shield just as Herbert reached the window, sealing him inside his own room.

  Sammi and Alex scrambled down the ivy beneath Herbert’s bedroom window, jumped the fence, and reached the jungle gym.

  Herbert bolted out his front door and ran over to Alex’s house. As he approached, he saw Alex and Sammi climbing the top of the tunnel-slide and the shimmering blue light of the wormhole reflecting off their silver suits. He reached the ladder and climbed to the top just as Alex and Sammi disappeared into the slide. Herbert closed his eyes and dove in behind them. He felt a powerful rush of air, heard an echoing FOOMP!—and tasted a bitter taste in his mouth.

  Herbert opened his eyes. He was lying on the ground at the bottom of the slide in Alex’s backyard. He opened his mouth and spat out a clump of grass and yelled.

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  GOR-DON stepped back to peer at his hard work. The trashed prehistoric diorama was now completely restored. The cavemen all had their heads again. The woolly mammoth stood at attention, her woolly fur shampooed and dried, her tusks scrubbed and polished. And most important, the G’Dalien UFO, saving the stupid human race yet again, was shined and waxed. Although GOR-DON hated humans, he took pride in his work—mostly because it told the story of how useless and doomed humans would be without his species. This pleased him.

  A floating MonitOrb drifted up the hallway, reminding him what had caused all of this destruction. It projected the picture of Herbert and Alex atop the SquadCar. At the top of the video wanted poster it said, HAVE YOU SEEN US?

  GOR-DON snorted at the weakhearted efforts by Inspector Illinois to find the guilty humans, then he spotted a smudge on the floor. GOR-DON thought of smudges the same way he thought of humans—he hated them both and lived for wiping them all out. He oozed down the hall to get his mop.

  POP!

  POP!

  Alex and Sammi flew out of the fake cave and slammed into the side of the woolly mammoth.

  The newly cleaned stuffed beast teetered a bit, then slowly tipped over. Its long tusks snagged the edge of the fake G’Dalien UFO, yanking it down from the ceiling. The two biggest objects in the diorama hit the ground with a crash, knocking over the cavemen like bowling pins. Sammi stared at the mammoth in horror, as Alex snapped her out of it. “It’s not real. C’mon, we’ve gotta stash these suits!” He helped her over the railing and quickly led her down the hallway.

  GOR-DON came back around the corner with his mop, glanced up at the diorama, then dunked his mop into his bucket. He froze, and slowly looked up again. Staring at the trashed scene, his jaggedy-toothed mouth fell open.

  From somewhere deep within his alien throat emerged a small gurgling sound.

  Alex led Sammi on a tour through the streets of Merwinsville. He was acting as if he’d built it all himself. “See that over there?” he said. “That’s the Memory Bank. I have so many memories in there. Seriously. I really do.” Sammi was half listening, trying to take it all in as Alex pointed to the huge golf-tee building. “And that there’s City Hall. It’s see-through and run by G’Daliens.” She stared up at it, but a huge MonitOrb floating up above caught her eye.

  “Wow, you really know this town,” she said.

  Alex smiled, “Well, I guess you could say it’s like home to me.”

  “And they really seem to know you.” She gestured toward the MonitOrb screen. They both stopped and stared up at Alex and Herbert’s digital wanted poster.

  “So are you guys in some kind of trouble?” Sammi asked.

  Alex glanced around. There were MonitOrbs everywhere, showing the same image. He looked up. Their faces were being blasted across huge screens all over the city. He glanced across the street and thought he saw two G’Daliens whispering as they looked right at him. Panicking, he grabbed her hand and pulled her over to a corner street pole, where he shoved his head into a hair-helmet. It beeped, and Alex pulled his head out. Sammi laughed. Hard.

  “Hey, great disguise!” Alex heard a familiar voice. “Nobody’ll ever recognize you guys dressed in regular clothes.” Chicago turned to Sammi. “And Herbalulu! If I didn’t know this was a costume, I’d ask you out on a date!”

  Sammi looked at Alex.

  “Uh, Chicago—,” said Alex, “Herbalulu kinda overslept today. This is, uh, Sammi…land.”

  Chicago’s face turned almost as red as Sammi’s. “Sorry,” Chicago said. “I guess I thought—”

  “It’s okay,” Sammi beamed. “Nice to meet you.”

  Something about the way Sammi was smiling at Chicago bugged Alex, and he was happy to change the subject. “Hey, sorry about yesterday,” he said. “You really helped us. I hope we didn’t get you in any trouble.”

  “Are you kidding? That was the most fun I’ve had in a long time! Forget it,” Chicago said. “Besides, we’ve got a game to concentrate on now.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Alex’s mom found Herbert sitting in the backyard, glaring angrily at the bottom of the slide. Alex’s little sister, Ellie, sat beside him, as did her teddy bear, Mr. Snugglebuns. All three were wearing pajamas.

  “Hi, Mommy. Herbert is sad,” she said. “So Mr. Snugglebuns and I are throwing him a daytime pajama party.”

  “That’s great, sweetie,” she said, turning her attention to Herbert. “Herbie? Are you all right?”

  “I’m perfectly fine, Mrs. Filby,” Herbert said, sounding not fine at all.

  “Where’s Alex?” she asked. “He said he’d be playing at your house today. You two are still best friends, I hope.”

  “Oh, yes. In fact, my best friend woke me up bright and early today. Couldn’t wait to get started. What a pal!”

  Mrs. Filby looked relieved. “Oh, good. Because I got something for both of you. To share. Together.”

  Mrs. Filby pulled a familiar-looking box out of a bag.

  “The gentleman at the video game store told me it’s the last one in the entire western hemisphere,” she said. “I had to bodycheck three teenagers to get my hands on it.” She chuckled. “We told Alex no more video games this summer, but an article in Perfect Parenting magazine said playing these games can improve neurological dexterity, which sounded to me like something he might need.”

  Mrs. Filby handed Herbert a brand-new AlienSlayer: 3-D! video game system, complete with motion-synchronized weapons and, most importantly to Herbert, two brand-new motion-sensor bodysuits. “Would you mind giving it to Alex when you see him?” she asked.

  “Oh, don’t worry, Mrs. Filby,” Herbert grinned. “I’ll see that he gets it.”

  Herbert tore back to his room, locked the door and wrote his primary objectives on his chalkboard,
“to-do” list-style.

  He’d finished his first objective by lunchtime. The second one would be a bit trickier. According to everything he’d read on multi-dimensional wormhole theory (which was a lot), attempting to pass electronic devices through a wormhole could have extremely dangerous results. Luckily, he had a brilliant idea. Again.

  Herbert wheeled his solar-powered Red Rider wagon up to Andretti’s Pizzeria, careful not to park it in the shade. He pulled out an old, plastic suitcase and spun its built-in combination lock. “Three…Fourteen…Eighteen…Seventy-nine.”

  CLICK!

  Herbert opened the suitcase and checked it carefully. Set snugly inside was the AS:3-D! game. He closed it and spun the dial numbers to set the lock. Then he glanced around to make sure no one was watching. He looked down the street leading up to Andretti’s and saw normal cars, normal buildings, and normal sidewalks—ones without huge, squidlike creatures oozing up and down them. All of this will be gone in the next century, he thought. All of it except…

  He turned and smiled up at good ol’ Andretti’s Pizzeria. With the suitcase tucked under his arm, he snuck around the side alley and climbed a fire escape ladder. Once on the roof, he looked around. He ran to the stairwell door in the center of the roof. Beside it was a large air-conditioning vent. He took one last look around to make sure he was alone, and then stashed the suitcase containing the AS:3-D! game just inside the vent where no one—but he—would ever find it.

  CHAPTER 25

  Sammi stared down at the city drifting below her. “And I thought there was a lot to do in Merwinsville before,” she said. Her voice sounded funny because she had her nose pressed against the window of the Anti-GraviTram. Alex kept his head turned toward the window, too. But he was trying to hide his face from the passengers on the tram. Every few minutes a floating MonitOrb would pass by outside, mega-projecting his face next to Herbert’s along with the words HAVE YOU SEEN US? He was just waiting for a G’Dalien commuter to jump up, yank off his giant curly hairdo and yell, “Aha!!”

  Chicago leaned over to Alex and whispered, “Don’t worry. Even if they recognized you, they wouldn’t care—everyone’s headed to today’s big Meteors game.”

  Alex sneaked a peek. It was true. Nearly everyone on the tram, humans and G’Daliens alike, had hats or T-shirts or little flags. And they all said, GO, METEORS!!, or something similar.

  “Besides,” Chicago continued, “even my dad doesn’t believe that crazy janitor. And he’d really like to. It’d make his job a lot more interesting.” “So what’s with the wanted signs all over the city?”

  Chicago shrugged. “Dad had his department put those out. He’ll give you guys an I-DNA scan, verify you on the Global Directory, and let you go. Then he can file a case report. Poor guy never gets to file case reports.”

  Alex had no idea what an I-DNA scan was, or a Global Directory, but they both sounded like things he should probably avoid. “So, uh, where’s your dad now?” he asked carefully.

  “That nutty G’Dalien called him up to the museum again,” Chicago said. “Now he can’t coach us tonight!” Alex felt relieved that he wouldn’t be seeing Chicago’s dad. This feeling lasted exactly two and a half seconds.

  “Whoa!” Sammi said from the window. “Is that where you guys are playing?!”

  Alex stepped over to the window. Below was a gigantic, perfectly white boulder, the size of a football stadium. Alex laughed.

  The entire tram, humans and G’Daliens alike, suddenly jumped up and broke into a cheer. They began patting Chicago on the back.

  “Wait a minute,” Alex said nervously. “Who are the Meteors, exactly?”

  Chicago plopped a METEORS baseball cap on top of Alex’s massive, shrublike hairdo. “We are!” he said. The fans cheered again, this time breaking out into a horrible song about the Meteors.

  The tram doors opened and they were flushed out along with the singing fans. Alex saw thousands more streaming into the giant rock-shaped arena. He had a strong urge to run and hide.

  Before he could, Sammi grabbed his arm. “This is so cool!” she whispered. “Thank you for bringing me here!”

  Alex forced a smile, turned, and followed Chicago toward a marked door—ATHLETES ONLY.

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  POP! Herbert hit the rocky dirt in front of the fake cave. He quickly switched off his suit, hopped the railing, and turned down the Hallway of Human History.

  GOR-DON stood there wearing an evil grin on his puffy face and a boo-boo bandage on his upper lip. Beside him was Mr. Illinois. LO-PEZ stood in the back, eating from a bag of muffins.

  GOR-DON stepped closer to Herbert. He held in his tentacles Alex and Sammi’s silver N.E.D. suits. “Oh, goody,” he snarled. “Another Alien- Slayer Army uniform. I’ll add it to my collection.”

  “There’s no army,” Herbert said. “It’s just my two friends. And none of us are alien slayers—they only came to play in some stupid T-ball game!”

  Mr. Illinois and LO-PEZ shared a sudden look of concern.

  GOR-DON gasped. “Did you hear him?!” he hissed. “The whole city’s trapped in that stadium with those killers! What are we waiting for?”

  “I’m in charge here, Gordo,” Mr. Illinois said. “Why don’t you just back on down.”

  “It’s GOR-DON.”

  Mr. Illinois pulled out his detective’s notebook and took a step toward Herbert. “Now, I know you’d never lie to me, Herbalulu. And I want to believe you and your friend. But some new evidence has come to light, and it doesn’t look good. Especially for your friend.”

  Mr. Illinois flipped open the notepad. A small lens popped up. GOR-DON handed the detective his small green cube. Mr. Illinois snapped it into his notepad. Suddenly projected in thin air above them, as big as a movie theater screen, was Alex’s memory of playing video games.

  Mr. Illinois was right. It didn’t look good. Not at all. Alex was standing in his bedroom, holding a blaster in his hand, yelling, “You want summa that, you bug-eyed slimebags? Come and get it, slug-monkeys!! Die! Die! Die!!” He was playing AlienSlayer 2, and boy was he slaying aliens. A lot of aliens. Herbert watched Alex happily blast them into tiny bits of green goo. He saw how this might look pretty disturbing if you didn’t realize it was just a video game—and if you happened to be an alien.

  “Turn it off!” GOR-DON suddenly fake-sobbed, “I can’t bear to watch! Oh, the horror! The horror!” Mr. Illinois handed him the green cube and GOR-DON stopped crying immediately.

  Mr. Illinois suddenly looked very serious—more so than usual. “Son, just tell me who you are and where you’re from, and we can put this whole thing behind us.”

  Herbert thought a moment. “Sorry, sir, but I can’t,” he said. “And you’d never believe me, even if I could.”

  GOR-DON snorted.

  “Then you leave me no choice.” Mr. Illinois snapped his fingers. LO-PEZ stuffed four muffins into his mouth in order to free up a tentacle to hand his boss a small device. It was marked I-DNA SCANNER. “This won’t hurt a bit,” Mr. Illinois said. He pressed the I-DNA Scanner to Herbert’s arm. Herbert felt a warm pulse shoot through his body. The device beeped.

  “There,” Mr. Illinois said. “We’ll locate your identity on the Global Directory, and I can file my case repor—” He stopped mid-sentence.

  “What’s it say?” GOR-DON blurted. “Who is he?”

  Mr. Illinois glanced at his partner. A chunk of muffin fell out of LO-PEZ’s mouth.

  “Who IS he?!” The veins in GOR-DON’s spongy head-flesh were now throbbing.

  “The I-DNA scan says he’s Herbert Slewg,” Mr. Illinois said. “Born and raised right here in Merwinsville.”

  Herbert’s face brightened. “Right! That’s me!”

  “Look son, I don’t know how you fooled the scanner, but you can’t be Herbert Slewg,” Mr. Illinois said. “According to the Global Directory, Herbert Slewg is one hundred and ten years old.”

  CHAPTER 28
r />   Alex walked out of the Meteors’ locker room, through the dugout, and onto the field. “Oh, no,” he said. Endless rows of seats were built into the craggy walls of the Meteor-Dome, and they were filled with human and G’Dalien fans. The Meteors fans munched on Meteor-Dogs, sipped bright green liquid from humongous rock-shaped drink cups, sang terrible songs terribly, and cheered at highlights from past A.G. T-Ball games shown on a huge MonitOrb floating in the center of the dome.

  Dallas slapped Alex on the back, a bit too hard. “See?” he said thickly. “This guy’s funny!”

  EL-ROY was also scanning the crowd. “Actually, there are still two seats left, so technically today’s match isn’t even sold out.”

  “Sold out?” Alex snapped. “We’re ten years old! Who’d pay to see a bunch of little kids play an even littler kid’s recess game? There isn’t even a pitcher!”

  The team stopped strapping thick, heavy pads to their bodies and stared at him. Sausalito tucked his long hair into his helmet and burst out in a high-pitched laugh. The rest of them busted up along with him.