How I Stole Johnny Depp's Alien Girlfriend (12 page)

And
poof.
Lights out.

When I come back to life, I'm in Dad's arms. He's carrying me like he did when I was a kid. He's practically running through the corridor, he's so eager to get me out of this place.

I can see Mom over his shoulders. “You nearly killed him, you idiots! I'll sue the ass off you!” she yells at the Red Tie Man, who follows us into the corridor, taking off his tie, coughing, and yelling harsh words.

He's gone from purple to simply red.

No one's talking in Édouard's car. No one mentions Mom's car and what we did to it. Dad sits between Malou and me in the backseat.

“Get her out of there,” I say.

Dad never lies, and he tells it the way it is: “I can't get her out of there.”

“Mom?”

She turns to me, hiding her eyes behind her large purple sunglasses again.

“Can you get her out of there?” I repeat.

She shakes her head. She can't get Zelda out, or she just doesn't want to.

“She's not crazy.”

They pretend I didn't say anything.

“She's not schizophrenic. She's…”

“She's
what
?” Mom asks coldly.

“She's really from outer space,” Malou answers for me.

“Say something!” Mom gives Dad a furious look. “You're the cuckoo expert.”

“This is not about you and your stupid fights,” I shout before Dad can explain that no one is ever cuckoo. “This is about Zelda. She needs my help.”

“They're going to
help
her in that place,” Mom says. “It's not your business, anyway.”

She leans over to grab my arm and show the tattoo to Dad.

“I found a clinic that will laser this
thing
off.”

I pull my arm away. “You're not touching it!”

She turns back to the highway. Her hands shake as she lights her next cigarette. She takes a few drags before she can speak again. “This crazy girl has turned my son into a terrorist.”

Damn right. And I'll give them more terror. “Malou is coming back to live with us,” I declare, like I'm in charge now.

Mom and Édouard exchange a look. They thought they could just drop her off anywhere in Paris and forget all about her.

“Maybe Malou doesn't want to live with us,” Mom says hopefully.

“I don't want to be alone right now,” Malou whispers.

“I guess she can live with us for a while,” Mom concedes hesitantly, “if she promises not to touch any of my things or drive Édouard mental.”

“I won't touch your things,” Malou says. She can't promise anything about driving her father mental.

“W
ake up,” I say, squatting in front of Malou in the middle of the night. She's sleeping on a mattress straight on the floor in the middle of my room. I give her a serious push.

“Wha-at?”

“You snore.”

She moans. “You woke me up because I snore?”

“No, I woke you up because we're getting Zelda out.”

Zap!
That does it. Malou sits up as if the devil just poked her ass with his tail.

“Tadpole, you know I'm all for it. But that nuthouse is like a freaking prison.”

I shrug. “I don't care. We're going back.”

“It will take, like, an army to get Zelda out.”

“Good. I know exactly where to find one.”

“Oh
no no no
! You're not really thinking of those girls.”

I'm
precisely
thinking of those girls. “Mom and Édouard are asleep. Hurry up.” I throw her jeans on the mattress. “Are you in or out?”

“You don't want to involve the freaking Valks,” she protests, but she starts pulling on her jeans. “Remember how they are: Kill this, destroy that!”

“Great!” I kick her sneakers toward her. “That's exactly the sort of attitude we need.”

This time, we steal Édouard's cherished BMW SUV, since Mom's Mercedes is still impounded by the police.

“You'll see. He's totally going to blame this on me,” Malou says, stopping the car in front of the abandoned school.

“They'll never know.” I get out of the car and face the decaying building. Somehow it's even more sinister than I remembered. “When they wake up, we'll be sleeping in our room. The car will be in its parking place. Zelda will be in my closet.”

Two Vahalalians spring out of their foxholes the second we pass the playground. Their faces are covered in markings. We're dealing with two angry Valks.

They squeak nervously, circling us, their batons in hand. “Look, they came back, the fools,” they seem to say.

“We want to talk with the mother,” I tell them, trying to avoid looking them in the eye.

Instead of answering, they start sniffing me like two hound dogs.

“Okay, that's disturbing,” Malou whispers.

But we haven't seen anything yet. One of them grabs my hair, pulls my head back, and kisses me roughly.

“For Chrissake!” Malou pulls me away from the girl's embrace. “Easy now,” she tells the second girl who's charging like she wants some, too.

But the second Vahalalian is not after a kiss. She lifts my sleeve and looks at my key tattoo and—
oh boy
! They start squeaking like dolphins eyeing a bucket of sardines.

“They are right,” the mother says as soon as we step into the gym, where she awaits us. She gets closer and sniffs me just like her watchdogs did. “You stink of it.”

“Stink of what?”

“Check his tattoo! Check his tattoo!” the disciples seem to chant in their lingo, whirlpooling closer and closer around us on the basketball court. Even the failed Travelers get closer to me, some of them pinching me and my clothes like they want to chew off a piece of me.

“I need your help,” I say. “Zelda is being held prisoner.”

The mother isn't listening. She grabs my arm, lifts my sleeve, and checks my tattoo. “Clever girl,” she sneers. “She transferred the key to you before it expired.”

And to make absolutely sure I'm the real McCoy, she closes her eyes and…er…
samples
me.

Some of the Vahalalians howl and rattle the climbing ropes; they find all this extremely exciting.

“He's just a kid, you
vinyl freak,
” Malou screams, trying to pull me away.

“Delicious,” the mother whispers, licking her lips like she just tasted a great wine. “He has the key!” she yells.

And the girls go wild! They touch me. Pull my hair. Drag me this way and that, like they all want a piece of me.

Malou is holding me tight, trying to protect me from this pack of lunatics. “Frog, I'm going to be honest with you. I think they're going to eat you.”

Ooouch. There's some truth to that. One of the failed Travelers just went on all fours and bit my left calf.

I turn to the mother and look her straight in the eyes. I don't care if it's a sin. “Help me get Zelda back,” I beg. “I will give you the key. Even if it means…
transferring
it to you.”

Ooouch. Another one bites me on the butt. Jeez, these girls are eager.

“I'll do anything you want if you free her.”

The mother sneers, like, “isn't he cute?” and then she asks the million-dollar question: “Will you open the door to Vahalal for us?”

“I will,” I say, moving away from a particularly voracious Traveler.

“So be it!” The mother raises her hand. Her disciples stop trying to eat me alive to listen to her. “Girls, pack up! We're going home.”

“Woohoo!” they hoot collectively.

“Oh, one last thing.” The mother turns to me with a wicked glint in her eye. “Did Zelda tell you how we open the door?”

“No.”

“Let me tell you, Earthling,” she says with a nasty smirk. “You're in for quite a ride.”

This feels just like a school field trip. Since all the exiles are coming to Zelda's rescue, the Valks stole two school buses to transport
everyone comfortably. We're zooming through the distant Parisian suburbs. The moon is up. I'm sitting beside Malou, thinking of Zelda.

The Vahalalians are singing beautiful songs in their dolphin dialect—a girls' soccer team celebrating a victory wouldn't look happier.

“We meet again, Earthling,” a Vahalalian says, leaning over my seat and putting her hand on my shoulder. It's Lena. She looks much better, almost fully recovered from our trip down south.

“What are they singing?” Malou asks her.

“War songs. This one is about chopping your enemies' heads off and making trophies out of them.”

The Red Tie Man and his goons are doomed.

“I feel like murder!” the mother says, stepping off the bus holding two scary old axes. “Let the engine run. This won't take long.”

“Just one more thing.” I stop her before she charges with her troops.

“What?” she shouts.

“Actually, I'd really appreciate it if you wouldn't do the Ugo thing with those.” I nod toward the axes.

“Why?”

“Consider it part of the deal. If you chop off anyone's head, I won't open the door.”

“What about gutting?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Cutting off limbs?”

“Afraid not.”

“Killing at all?”

“Nope.”

“Argh!” she groans and throws the axes on the ground, drawing her baton instead. “Girls! Find Zelda, destroy this place,” she orders. “And, well, no killings!” she adds sadly.

I swear, the Valks moan in disappointment.

Twenty minutes later, every building is on fire and all the patients and nursing staff are running around the lawn like head-less chickens.

“They know how to get things done,” Malou says approvingly. We're leaning against the bus, watching the show. Even the failed Travelers are participating in their own way by chewing on bits of grass and dirt from the lawns.

Then I see her. My very own Vahalalian, dragged away from the mayhem by our old friends Lena and Pela.

Zelda! I'm flying, I'm overwhelmed, I'm running toward her, I'm—

“Don't do it, David!” Zelda screams the second she sees me. “Don't open the door for them! They'll—”

Pela claps a hand over her mouth, and they drag her onto the bus before she can say more.

The mother picks up her axes before getting into the bus. “Come now, babies.” She kisses each blade. “We're going back to Vahalal.”

T
hey drag Zelda to a seat in the back and duct-tape her mouth to make her stop screaming. The Valks guard her, and they won't let me talk to her.

“I want to see her,” I say, but Lena won't budge.

“Why are you treating her like a prisoner?” I ask the mother as she passes by, counting her disciples like a teacher counting her pupils after a trip to the zoo.

“We're all in,” the mother says, pretending she didn't hear me. “Driver! To the Temple of Zook.”

My eyes meet with Zelda's.

“She's Space Flopped,” the mother says. “Transferring the key is a very debilitating process.”

Here is another piece of Vahalalianism: There are two things that cause Space Flop, intergalactic traveling and…well…doing it with an Earthling.

I look at Zelda. “Mmmm! Mmmm! Mmmm!” she moans, shaking her head.

“I'm not sure I want to do this anymore.”

“What?” The mother turns to me, her good mood all gone.

“I think…Zelda doesn't want me to open the door.”

“It's too late. We have a deal.”

“I want to talk to Zelda. If you don't let me talk to her, I won't do it.”

“How typical.” The mother sighs. “It was such a lovely evening, and now you're ruining it.” She grabs my neck in a flash and squeezes till I can't breathe. Pela grabs Malou and does the same thing to her before she can try to come to my rescue.

“Listen carefully,” the mother says, pulling one of her beloved axes from its holster on her belt. She holds the edge dangerously close to my eyes. “You'll be begging to open the door when I start popping your eyes out.” She scratches my cheek ever so slightly with the blade to give me a preview of what's to come. “Now sit tight and enjoy the ride.”

They park the buses in the middle of the tiny rue des Oiseaux, in front of the Temple of Zook. They don't care about being discreet or getting a ticket; in a few minutes, they will be zooming through space and back to Vahalal! And they sure sing loudly about it, like a bunch of drunken sailors.

“I haven't been in here for five hundred years,” the mother says, dragging me into the temple. She looks up at Zook and sighs sadly. “See that hole?” She points to the pit at the base of the painting. “It was made by all the Vahalalians trying to return without a valid key.”

“How do I open it?” I ask, getting more and more anxious. “Do I show the key to your goddess? Do I rub it against the painting? Are you going to draw my blood?”

“That would be interesting.” The mother smiles and taps my face. “But no, there will be no blood and no rubbing.”

I turn around to Zelda. She's tied to a bench at the very back of the chapel, humming, fuming, and kicking.

“The secret to opening the door,” the mother says gravely, “is speed.”

“Speed?”

“You will Space Splash, collide into the wall at a very high speed, and before you know it, you'll find yourself in Vahalal. And, let me tell you from personal experience, it's better to hold a valid key if you don't want to end up with a bad concussion.”

Wait a freaking minute! “I can't Space Splash!”

“Of course you can't. Tena, Lena, Pela,” the mother calls, and the three Valks grab me by the arms and waist, ready to push me into the wall. “Since you Earthlings are so slow, they will help you reach critical speed.” She gives them the
go go go!
sign with her baton. “See you in Vahalal.”

“Wait!”

“What?!” She slams her baton against a bench, like I'm getting on her last nerve with all my hesitations.

“Don't they disintegrate all males except chosen ones the second they set foot on Vahalal?”

She rolls her eyes. “Yes, of course,” she says. “But don't worry. Disintegration is painless.”

Malou puts my general feeling about that in very simple words: “NO FREAKING WAY! You're not disintegrating Tadpole!”

“Mmmmmm-mmmmm!” Zelda moans.

I look at her sadly. She tried to warn me: Opening the door means turning into a heap of ashes.

“Ready?” Lena asks, holding me tight.

“WAIT!”

The mother growls angrily, raising her baton in the air, and looking like she's about to break something, possibly my head. “Wait? I've been waiting three thousand years on your stupid planet. Why would you want me to wait more?”

She's not close enough, not if I want to…“I need to tell you something. It's very important.”

“Speak. Quick! And be done.”

“It's also very personal.” I wave my head, inviting her to get closer.

She sighs and takes one step closer, leaning so I can whisper my last words in her ear. I take a deep breath, and here goes! I yank my arm away from Lena and reach for the axes on the mother's belt. Bingo! I got one. I hold it aloft for everyone to see.

The mother looks at it and laughs. “You want to
fight
? With us?”

The other Vahalalians laugh, too, clapping their own axes, knives, and batons on the walls and benches. They find me irresistible with my ax and my grand delusions.

“I won't fight you.” I turn to Zelda. “She will.”

“Mm-mm!” agrees Zelda.

I close my eyes. We've been here before. Apples, marbles, or axes, it's all the same thing: Hit the target first, then throw and reverse time with your mind. It is basic psychophysics!

I throw the ax toward Zelda, aiming for a spot right beside her hand. The good news: I don't cut off any of her fingers. The bad news: I still throw like a Zokoplasm from planet Altar! The ax lands on the floor a good six feet away from her. Zelda looks up at me, shaking her head and moaning some inaudible harsh words. And the laughter gets louder.

“Entertaining,” says the mother, still laughing, and walks down the aisle to retrieve her darling ax. “If I weren't in such a good mood, I'd cut off one of your hands just on principle.”

“Cut
this
!” screams Malou, throwing herself on the ax and grabbing it first. She springs to her feet and—
slash!
—cuts the rope tying Zelda to the bench and—
ZAM
!—cuts the rope tying Zelda's hands. Zelda snatches the ax and walks down the aisle for a good, old-fashioned, one-on-one fight to the death.

Even the mother looks impressed. She draws the second ax, but instead of Space Splashing or charging, she turns to the girls holding me and gives them a small nod and a simple order. “Open the door.”

They grab me tighter, and before I can say “Hold on there, guys,” everything goes, like,
zooooooooooooooom
!

You know, I was supposed to spend a quiet summer with my dad in Normandy, a hundred miles from Paris. No one told me I'd be shooting away from our galaxy and traveling to the far reaches of our universe.

Not that it's such a big deal, per se. It's fast. Instantaneous, for that matter. Like you start to scream “omigod!” on Earth and you finish spitting out the last syllable on Vahalal.

When Tena, Lena, and Pela let go of me, I look around and I know for a fact that we're not in
gai Paris
anymore.

I've got three words for you:
gold, silver,
and
gigantic.

I can't focus my eyes on anything. The light's so intense it hurts.

There are a few things I know for sure:

1. We're surrounded by great columns of metal, rising all the way up into a deep, bright red sky.

2. Everywhere I look, I see girls clad in fancy silver swimsuits and gold jewelry.

3. They're squeaking up a storm.

When my eyes adjust to the strange light, I realize that the mother, queen of the exiles, is standing beside me, squeaking back at the girls in silver bikinis.

I don't speak dolphin, but I'd say disintegration is near.

A huge shadow is cast upon us. I look up. Holy spaghetti! A flying thing shaped like a prehistoric bird is floating right above our heads. Girls in shiny silver armor glide down from the sky and land all around us. Their helmets are shaped like human skulls. The minute they set foot on the metallic floor, they start to squeak at an intolerably high pitch.

The exiles who have magically appeared all around me don't look too perky anymore. The armored girls draw metal disks and point them toward me, and since everyone starts to gasp and cry and back away from me, I'd say it doesn't necessarily look like good news.

“So long, Earthling,” the mother says.

That's it! I want to go home.

“David!”

“Zelda? Where are you?”

I spin around, desperately searching for her. She stands right beside me. She drops the mother's ax on the floor and wraps her arms around me. “Close your eyes,” she says. “I'm taking you home.” The armored girls' disks are getting brighter. I think they're about to shoot. I close my eyes and hear a big sonic boom. Before I can start screaming, I feel this incredible pull dragging me back again:
mooooooooooZ.

We fall back on the stone floor of the Temple of Zook.

That's Temple of Zook, Paris, France, Earth, Galaxy zeta-7895.

I stare at the ceiling. The candles are making quite a show of light and shadow up there.

Malou's face appears above me. “Tadpole?” She pokes me. “Your girlfriend just…walked into the wall, and you…you fell out of it in her arms like a freaking ghost,” she whispers. “This is so totally creepy.”

I sit up and look around. All the Vahalalians have gone to the other side. There're only the three of us left on this side of the galaxy. I turn to Zelda. I still can't manage to focus my eyes on her face. I try to stand up, but my legs feel like two bags of jumbo marshmallows. I fall back on my ass.

“We're Space Flopped,” Zelda explains, struggling to stand up. “It will pass.” She dusts something off her arms…stardust, I suppose.

“That's where you want to drag Johnny Depp?” I ask, pointing to the painting of Zook. “He's not going to like it up there!”

She shakes her head. “He's never going to Vahalal. He's not my chosen one.” She helps me stand up, holding me tight. “I went to his movie premiere. The one you talked about. I was hiding in the
crowd waiting for him. I jumped out when he passed by, and I sampled him.”

“You did what?!” Imagining my very own spacegirl smooching Johnny Depp feels like swallowing bleach.

“He tastes wrong,” she says, ignoring my pained face. “Nearly as wrong as you, by the way, which proves once more that face recognition cannot be trusted.”

Malou gasps. “You kissed Johnny Depp? Really? What did he have to say about that?”

“He's a strange Earthling. He laughed and walked away when I told him he was worthless.”

“Do you know how many girls would have killed to be in your knee-high boots?” Malou shakes her head. “You're really a strange person, Zelda from the stars.”

“So if he's not your guy…?” I ask carefully.

And considering that you love me madly as proven by your attempt at saving my life and…giving me the key…and…

“My real chosen one is still out there, somewhere, and I will find him.”

Oh no!

“Here we go again!” Malou complains.

“But…” I show her the octopus thingy on my arm. “I have the key, right? How would you give it to your chosen one?” I shake my head warily. Because if she mentions transferring it to him through…
the usual way,
I'm going to scream.

“We can't transfer it anymore,” she admits, grabbing my arm and inspecting the tattoo. “It's locked on you forever, and only you can open that door for me. And you will, the day I find him.”

“No way!” I pull my arm away. “I'm never going back there to be pulverized by a bunch of bikini girls so you can live happily ever after with a guy you don't even know.”

“It's not your decision to make, Pudin. And if it makes you feel better about it, they will probably pulverize me too, for I have committed a deadly sin going back to Vahalal to save you. But I will plead for our lives and leave our fate to Zook.”

Space Flopped or not, she's still very annoying. I grab her sweater with both hands. “YOU ARE IMPOSSIBLE, ZELDA!”

“Behave, Pudin, or I will hurt you.”

“Guys!” Malou complains. “I know you have this cute S-and-M thing going on, but we better get away before the cops come to investigate those two buses parked outside.”

To be continued. I let go of Zelda and try to take a few steps. But my knees are still wobbly, and I end up falling back into her arms. She doesn't push me away. Or yell at me. Or tell me I'm just a clumsy useless key doomed to be pulverized by bikini girls.

It's my cue to try something new and daring. Something an intergalactic traveler like me shouldn't be scared of.