Akiko in the Castle of Alia Rellapor (11 page)

 Chapter 21 

There’s not a
whole lot to say about what it was like to get home. I was expecting this really big—I don’t know—
feeling
when I got back to my bedroom. It wasn’t like that, though. It was just as if I’d never left. Everything was exactly the same.

The Akiko robot came over and opened the window and we traded places without anyone seeing us. Before she left, I asked her if people had become suspicious of her or if anyone had figured out that she wasn’t the real Akiko. She said she didn’t think so, but that Melissa was surprised at how good I’d become at building card houses all of a sudden. And my parents had commented on how I’d started eating more vegetables than I used to.

“Oh, great,” I replied. “Did you tell my parents you were going to stop watching TV while you were at it?”

“No,” she answered with a smile. “I thought I’d leave that up to you.”

A moment later she was gone, and Bip and Bop with her. All at once it was very, very quiet.

I took a peek out into the hallway. I could hear my father snoring. Or maybe it was my mother. (They
both
snore, can you believe it?) I went back to my room and spent a few minutes just looking at all my stuff: my schoolbooks, my Japanese dolls, the half-finished jigsaw puzzle I’d stopped working on months before.

It was good to be back home. But it was also kind of weird. It was as if I’d gotten
used
to being on Smoo. I half expected to turn around and find Spuckler and Mr. Beeba in my closet, arguing about what I ought to wear to school the next day.

It was hard to get to sleep that night. I kept wondering about things on Smoo, and what was going on there, and whether they’d be coming back to get me sometime in the future.

After a few days, though, things slowly went back to normal. Soon I could go hours without thinking about Smoo, even whole days. Sure, sometimes I’d be sitting in the middle of Mr. Moylan’s class at Middleton Elementary and suddenly get this uncontrollable urge to stand up and shout, “Hey, everybody! I’ve been to another planet!” But, thinking it through, I knew there was simply no point in making everyone think I was crazy.

In the end I guess I’ve gone back to being an ordinary kid again. But hey, there’s nothing wrong with being an ordinary kid, is there? I mean, I
like
it here on Earth, I really do. Take it from me: Nothing makes you appreciate this planet like being taken somewhere
else
for a few days.

But I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t like to get another letter someday, inviting me back to the planet Smoo. I would. And if I do, well, let me tell you: I’ll be right there at my window at eight o’clock, ready to go.

About the Author and Illustrator

Mark Crilley was raised in Detroit, where his parents sometimes wondered if he wasn’t in fact from another planet. After graduating from Kalamazoo College in 1988, he traveled to Taiwan and Japan, where he taught English to students of all ages for nearly five years. It was during his stay in Japan in 1992 that he created the story of Akiko and her journey to the planet Smoo. First published as a comic book in 1995, the bimonthly Akiko series has since earned Crilley numerous award nominations, as well as a spot on Entertainment Weekly’s “It List” in 1998. Crilley lives with his wife, Miki, and their son, Matthew, just a few miles from the streets where he was raised.

See where it all began in

on the Planet Smoo

Join Akiko and her crew on the Planet Smoo!

When fourth grader Akiko comes home from school one day, she finds an envelope waiting for her. It has no stamp or return address and contains a
very
strange message. . . . 

At first Akiko thinks the message is a joke, but before she knows it, she’s heading a rescue mission to find the King of Smoo’s kidnapped son, Prince Froptoppit. Akiko, the head of a rescue mission? She’s too afraid to be on the school’s safety patrol!

Read the following excerpt from
Akiko on the Planet Smoo
and see how the adventure began.

Excerpt from
Akiko on the Planet Smoo
by Mark Crilley
Excerpt copyright © 2000 by Mark Crilley
Akiko on the Planet Smoo
Published by Delacorte Press
an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
a division of Random House, Inc.
1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036
Reprinted by arrangement with Delacorte Press
All rights reserved

 Chapter 1 

My name is Akiko.
This is the story of the adventure I had a few months ago when I went to the planet Smoo. I know it’s kind of hard to believe, but it really did happen. I swear.

I’d better go back to the beginning: the day I got the letter.

It was a warm, sunny day. There were only about five weeks left before summer vacation, and kids at school were already itching to get out. Everybody was talking about how they’d be going to camp, or some really cool amusement park, or whatever. Me, I knew I’d be staying right here in Middleton all summer, which was just fine by me. My dad works at a company where they hardly ever get long vacations, so my mom and I have kind of gotten used to it.

Anyway, it was after school and my best friend, Melissa, and I had just walked home together as always. Most of the other kids get picked up by their parents or take the bus, but Melissa and I live close enough to walk to school every day. We both live just a few blocks away in this big apartment building that must have been built about a hundred years ago. Actually I think it used to be an office building or something, but then somebody cleaned it up and turned it into this fancy new apartment building. It’s all red bricks and tall windows, with a big black fire escape in the back. My parents say they’d rather live somewhere out in the suburbs, but my dad has to be near his office downtown.

Melissa lives on the sixth floor but she usually comes up with me to the seventeenth floor after school. She’s got three younger brothers and has to share her bedroom with one of them, so she doesn’t get a whole lot of privacy. I’m an only child and I’ve got a pretty big bedroom all to myself, so that’s where Melissa and I spend a lot of our time.

On that day we were in my room as usual, listening to the radio and trying our best to make some decent card houses. Melissa was telling me how cool it would be if I became the new captain of the fourth-grade safety patrol.

“Come on, Akiko, it’ll be good for you,” she said. “I practically promised Mrs. Miller that you’d do it.”

“Melissa, why can’t somebody else be in charge of the safety patrol?” I replied. “I’m no good at that kind of stuff. Remember what happened when Mrs. Antwerp gave me the lead role in the Christmas show?”

Melissa usually knows how to make me feel better about things, but even she had to admit last year’s Christmas show was a big disaster.

“That was different, Akiko,” she insisted. “Mrs. Antwerp had no idea you were going to get stage fright like that.”

“It was worse than stage fright, Melissa,” I said. “I can’t believe I actually forgot the words to ’Jingle Bells.’”

“This isn’t the Christmas show,” she said. “You don’t have to memorize any words to be in charge of the safety patrol.” She was carefully beginning the third floor of a very ambitious card house she’d been working on for about half an hour.

“Why can’t I just be a member of the safety patrol?” I asked her.

“Because Mrs. Miller needs a leader,” she said. “I’d do it, but I’m already in charge of the softball team.”

And I knew Melissa meant it, too. She’d be in charge of everything at school if she could. Me, I prefer to let someone else be the boss. Sure, there are times when I wish I could be the one who makes all the decisions and tells everybody else what to do. I just don’t want to be the one who gets in trouble when everything goes wrong.

“Besides,” Melissa continued, “it would be a great way for you to meet Brendan Fitzpatrick. He’s in charge of the boys’ safety patrol.” One thing about Melissa: No matter what kind of conversation you have with her, one way or another you end up talking about boys.

“What makes you so sure I want to meet Brendan Fitzpatrick?” The card house I’d been working on had completely collapsed, and I was trying to decide whether it was worth the trouble to start a new one.

“Trust me, Akiko,” she said with a big grin, “everyone wants to meet Brendan Fitzpatrick.”

“I don’t even like him,” I said, becoming even more anxious to change the subject.

“How can you not like him?” she asked, genuinely puzzled. “He’s one of the top five cute guys in the fourth grade.”

“I can’t believe you actually have a list of who’s cute and who isn’t.”

That was when my mom knocked on my door. (I always keep the door shut when Melissa’s over. I never know when she’s going to say something I don’t want my mom to hear.)

“Akiko, you got something in the mail,” she said, handing me a small silvery envelope.

She stared at me with this very curious look in her eyes. I don’t get letters very often. “Are you sure you don’t want this door open?” she asked. “It’s kind of stuffy in here.”

“Thanks, Mom. Better keep it closed.”

It was all I could do to keep Melissa from snatching the letter from me once my mom was out of sight. She kept stretching out her hands all over the place like some kind of desperate basketball player, but I kept twisting away, holding the envelope against my chest with both my hands so she couldn’t get at it.

“It’s from a boy, isn’t it? I knew it, I knew it!” she squealed, almost chasing me across the room.

“Melissa, this is not from a boy,” I said, turning my back to get a closer look at the thing. My name was printed on the front in shiny black lettering, like it had been stamped there by a machine. The envelope was made out of a thick, glossy kind of paper I’d never seen before. There was no stamp and no return address. Whoever sent the thing must have just walked up and dropped it in our mailbox.

“Go on! Open it up!” Melissa exclaimed, losing patience.

I was just about to, when I noticed something printed on the back of the envelope:

TO BE READ BY AKIKO AND NO ONE ELSE

“Um, Melissa, I think this is kind of private,” I said, bracing myself. I knew she wasn’t going to take this very well.

“What?” She tried again to get the envelope out of my hands. “Akiko, I can’t believe you. We’re best friends!”

I thought it over for a second and realized that it wasn’t worth the weeks of badgering I’d get if I didn’t let her see the thing.

“All right, all right. But you have to promise not to tell anyone else. I could get in trouble for this.”

I carefully tore the envelope open. Inside was a single sheet of paper with that same shiny black lettering:

And that’s all it said. It wasn’t signed, and there was nothing else written on the other side.

“Outside my window? On the seventeenth floor?”

“It’s got to be a joke.” Melissa had taken the paper out of my hands and was inspecting it closely. “I think it is from someone at school. Probably Jimmy Hampton. His parents have a printing press in their basement or something.”

“Why would he go to so much trouble to play a joke on me?” I said. “He doesn’t even know me.” I had this strange feeling in my stomach. I went over to the window and made sure it was locked.

“Boys are weird,” Melissa replied calmly. “They do all kinds of things to get your attention.”