The Revolt of the Miniature Mutants, page 1
FOR CHRISTINE BOUCHAREINE, PLESKIT’S FAITHFUL FRIEND IN FRANCE
Dear Class,
We just want you to know it wasn’t our fault!
Signed,
Your faithful hamsters
Ronald Roundbutt
Hubert Hugecheeks
P.S. Please notice—Doris didn’t sign this!
P.P.S. Ronald wrote it.
CHAPTER 1 [PLESKIT]
HAMSTER HORROR
Sometimes I wake up screaming. Usually it’s because I’ve eaten too much febril gnurxis just before bedtime. But sometimes… sometimes it’s because I see the furious, furry face of a hamster in my dreams.
It’s been a rough year.
First the Fatherly One dragged me here to Earth. As if being so far from Hevi-Hevi (my beloved home planet) weren’t bad enough, I have had the usual problems of fitting into a new school. These were made more difficult by the fact that I am the only student in my class who is purple and has a sphen-gnut-ksher growing out of his head.
Even moving might not have been so bad, if we hadn’t also had to deal with several attempts to sabotage the Fatherly One’s mission. It was only recently that we discovered the reason for these attempts—a previously undiscovered Grand Urpelli so close to Earth that it falls within the Fatherly One’s trading franchise.
Urpelli are the shortcuts through space that make interstellar travel possible. Still, it can be a long way between urpelli, which is why a Grand Urpelli is so important. It links all the others into a sort of galaxywide Internet. Until the one near Earth was discovered, everyone thought there was only one Grand Urpelli in the entire galaxy.
Whoever controls this second Grand Urpelli (which is now being called “Gurp Two” for short) will become one of the richest beings in the galaxy.
It is still hard for me to imagine that. I mean, we have always had a good life. But if the Fatherly One can hold on to his claim, we will have more money than… well, than just about anyone!
It’s a little scary.
Anyway, given the value of Gurp Two, it’s no surprise that others want to get their hands on it. What has been a surprise is how badly they will behave to do so.
The greatest enemy we have faced in all this was Mikta-makta-mookta, the Fatherly One’s traitorous former secretary. She was never really a secretary, of course; just an evil genius disguising herself as one.
And since Mikta-makta-mookta looks a good deal like a five-foot-tall version of the Earthly creature called a hamster (or, to put it another way, a hamster looks the way Mikta-makta-mookta would if you shrank her), it should be no surprise that I have a genuine fear of hamsters, as cute and cuddly as they may seem to most people.
This was exactly what my demented and evil classmate, Jordan Lynch, was counting on when he began using them to torment me.
“Demented” and “evil” are strong words to apply to a fellow being, of course. In my opinion Jordan has earned them. He is the kind of person who… well, imagine that you and Jordan had just crawled across the desert and were dying of thirst, and you came to a place where there were two glasses of water. If Jordan got there first, he would save one of them for you—but he’d spit in it before he handed it to you, just to see if you’d still drink it.
Wakkam Akkim, the Fatherly One’s spiritual massage-master, says that Jordan must be a troubled soul, seeking answers for questions he cannot even name.
Wakkam Akkim would say that.
Tim Tompkins, my best friend here on Earth, has a simpler explanation. He says that the universe has a certain amount of evil, and sometimes it just comes together in one place and erupts, like a pimple.
“That’s Jordan,” says Tim. “A hot red pimple of evil festering on the face of the universe.”
Certainly that seems like a reasonable description of Jordan the day he slipped the cutest and cuddliest of the class hamsters—Doris the Delightful, to be precise—into my lunchbox.
I often bring my lunch to school, for two reasons. First, Shhh-foop, our Queen of the Kitchen, makes splendid food. Second, I have not been able to get used to the food served in the cafeteria.
“Don’t worry about it, Pleskit,” says Tim when we discuss this problem. “No reasonable being could ever get used to these mysterious substances.”
Tim also told me he used to believe that the school imported the food from outer space. But I told him that I knew of no other planet where people ate this kind of koobtiuk. In fact, I fear the phenomenon of cafeteria food offers uncomfortable proof of the Fatherly One’s claim that the people in our host country are secretly at war with their children.
(Even so, I have to admit that I have developed a deep fondness for ketchup, which is my favorite dessert.)
Anyway, on this particular day I had opened my lunchbox and was about to take out my squambul pod when Brad Kent called my name.
I should have known better than to answer.
Brad follows Jordan around like a gerton-farkus, so I should have guessed that he was simply doing Jordan’s dirty work. But, like fools, Tim and I turned in his direction.
“What is it, Brad?” I asked.
He smiled and waved. “Just wanted to see if you remembered my name!”
I sighed and turned back to talk to Tim. At the same time I reached into my lunchbox.
Instead of my squambul pod, I grabbed something furry—something that was wriggling.
I looked at my hand.
I began to scream.
CHAPTER 2 [TIM]
BAG O’ TRICKS
When Pleskit started to scream, I thought at first he had been attacked or had felt a sudden need to perform some alien ritual.
Then I realized it was just because he was holding a hamster.
His screams alerted Robert McNally, his official bodyguard (and my unofficial hero). Within seconds McNally was bounding across the cafeteria to see what was the matter.
Now, if McNally thinks Pleskit is in danger, he will not hesitate to do what is necessary. Which is why, when some kids got in his way, he simply jumped onto one of the tables—squashing numerous lunches in the process.
Some people seem to believe that if you cannot eat a piece of food, the only thing to do with it is throw it. Within seconds the air was filled with two things: the words “Food fight,” and people’s lunches.
Someone with a butterfly net could have fed a lot of starving children with what they snatched out of the air in that cafeteria.
Meanwhile, Pleskit was still screaming. He stopped when McNally got to our table and grabbed the hamster—it turned out to be Doris—out of his hand.
McNally looked at the squirming ball of fur and shook his head. “Pleskit,” he said, “you have got to get over this hamster thing.”
Pleskit’s answer was cut off by Principal Grand, who came storming into the cafeteria and bellowed, “Stop that this instant!”
Everyone stopped. You could hear food splatting to the floor all around us.
“All right,” said Mr. Grand. “What is going on here?”
Pleskit was still too discombobulated to speak. So I explained the situation.
Mr. Grand remained very not happy. “Jordan was completely out of line,” he said. “However, you really need to stop being so reactive, Pleskit. It was just a hamster, for heaven’s sake!” He turned to McNally. “As for you, sir… I would deeply appreciate it if you could refrain from walking on the tables and trampling pupils’ lunches.”
McNally nodded. “Request noted and logged, sir.”
What he didn’t say—but what I knew he was thinking—was that if he thought Pleskit was in danger, he’d be back on top of those tables in a heartbeat.
I’d like to be like McNally when I grow up.
* * *
When I got home from school that night, my mother was sitting at the dining room table, reading the National Scoop, one of those skeezy newspapers they sell at supermarket checkout counters. I used to think the Scoop was pretty cool, because it had stories like PRESIDENT’S WIFE GIVES BIRTH TO TWO-HEADED BULLDOG and things like that. Then I figured out they were just making it all up, which really bugged me.
What bugs me even more is that the paper is fiercely anti-alien. It’s always trying to whip up some scandal about Meenom’s peaceful trade mission.
“Mom!” I cried in disgust. “Why are you reading that thing?”
“It falls in the category of ‘know your enemy,’ ” she said. “They’re after Pleskit’s Fatherly One again.”
She put the paper down, acting as if she were handling a dirty diaper. Now I could see the full front of it. The headline, in huge letters, shrieked ALIEN AMBASSADOR’S LOVE SCANDAL! Under the headline was a picture of Ambassador Meenom standing next to Ms. Buttsman, the embassy’s Earthling protocol officer.
“They have got to be kidding,” I said. “The Butt is about as lovable as a tarantula.”
My mother used to object to my calling Ms. Buttsman “The Butt,” until she actually met her. Now she does it too.
“Unfortunately, they’re serious,” she said. “What’s even worse, a lot of idiots are going to take it as fact just because they read it.”
I sighed. “Can we move to another planet?”
“Have you finished your homework?” she replied.
This was her way of telling me to drop it.
I trudged into my room.
Rather than settling down to my homework, I took a cloth bag out of my dresser. It he
The body suit stands in my closet, looking for all the world as if it were a real human boy who had somehow just… stopped. I keep the closet door closed at night because the suit kind of weirds me out.
The tricks and puzzles would have been totally baffling, except Beebo had very kindly taken the time to translate the names and directions for me.
The puzzles were tough. I hadn’t managed to solve any, though I was getting close on the Sircassian Belly Knot. Right then I was more interested in the tricks. They included such gems as the Infinite Voice Generator (guaranteed to give you a new voice every time you use it), Never-Fail Hair Tonic (guaranteed to grow thick, luxuriant hair wherever it is applied, hair not to last more than seventy-two hours), and, the one that I found most intriguing, the Fabulous Fizzy Fart Bomb. (A thousand laughs! Highly embarrassing! Guaranteed completely safe for all organic creatures!)
Surely one of these would be appropriate to use on the kind of kid who would sneak a hamster into an alien’s lunchbox.
I called my friend Rafaella Martinez.
CHAPTER 3 [PLESKIT]
ADVICE FROM THE WAKKAM
When McNally and I returned to the embassy that afternoon, we went to the kitchen for a snack, as usual. Shhh-foop was sliding around, waving the tentacles that grow from the top of her head and gurgling happily to herself as she gathered the food.
Barvgis, the Fatherly One’s assistant, was there. This was not surprising; he is often in the kitchen, increasing his roundness. I was, however, surprised to see the Fatherly One, who has not been present much lately, despite his promises to spend more time with me. I could understand his absences-the pressures involved in trying to become the richest person in the galaxy are considerable.
Even so, I missed him.
He was looking particularly gloomy at the moment.
“What is the matter, O beloved parental unit?” I asked.
He emitted the smell of disgust. “My enemies have started another negative publicity campaign. Now they are claiming that I am obsessed with Earth women! They have even linked me romantically with… Ms. Buttsman!”
“This seems to be a particular fear of Earthlings,” said Barvgis.
“You mean Ms. Buttsman terrorizes the whole planet?” I asked.
Barvgis chuckled. “No, no. But for some reason, Earthlings seem to always believe that everyone wants their women. Hard to understand why, when they’re all so skinny!”
Barvgis does not believe in skinniness. In fact, he is the roundest being I have ever met. Also the slimiest. This makes it confusing to me when Earthlings use the word “slimeball” as an insult, since Barvgis is probably one of the nicest beings in the galaxy.
“How went your day?” asked the Fatherly One, turning to me.
“Another minor catastrophe,” I said gloomily.
Barvgis dug his hand into the bowl of squirmers sitting in front of him. “Why should this day be different from any other?” he asked, just before he tossed the little creatures into his mouth. The sound of their tiny screams was cut off by him clamping his lips shut.
“Perhaps Pleskit should seek counsel and advice from the esteemed wakkam,” sang Shhh-foop as she placed a bowl of febril gnurxis in front of me. “Some coffee for the heroic Just McNally?” she warbled.
McNally glanced at his watch. “Uh, not today, Shhh-foop,” he said, doing a heroic job of pretending to be distressed that he wouldn’t have time for a cup of coffee. “I have to go do some reports.”
McNally is a brave man, but he does seem to have become terrified by Shhh-foop’s repeated failures to properly brew this Earthly beverage.
As he left the room, I turned my mind to Shhh-foop’s suggestion that I ask advice of Wakkam Akkim. The wakkam does give good advice. The only problem is, it is not always easy to understand. I decided I would try anyway. So after my snack I went to the wall and burped a request to the embassy tracking system.
It informed me that the wakkam was in her room.
I took the elevator up-she lives on an upper floor, for the sake of privacy-then went to her door. When I signaled that I wanted to enter, the door slid right open. (I was surprised; I had expected to hear her voice, asking what I wanted.)
The room was dark. Strange blue smoke drifted through the air, rich with the scent of other worlds.
“Wakkam Akkim?” I called softly.
“Here,” she replied, her voice low and gentle. “In the next chamber.”
I was pleased. The second chamber is her sacred “inner sanctum,” and I had not yet seen it.
The room was draped with dark fabrics. Brightly colored pillows were strewn about the floor. Soft bezooti music played. The wakkam sat cross-legged on a feathery stool, her hands palms-up on her knees, her eyes closed.
I stood without speaking. She seemed to be deep in thought, and after a little while I began to wonder if I should go. But after another few moments, without even opening her eyes, she said, “How can I help you, Pleskit?”
I explained some of the trouble I was having in school.
“Ah,” she said, “I see.” (Which is sort of an odd thing to say when you have your eyes closed.) “Wait a minute, please.”
She mumbled and murmured to herself, then said in an eerie voice, “He who would conquer his fear must face it. He who would love his fear must nurture it.”
I stared at her in puzzlement. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She said nothing. Sometimes she does that—just makes a weird pronouncement, then goes all quiet. This basically means you’re supposed to figure it out for yourself.
If you manage to do that, things usually work out well.
Notice, I said “if.”
I thought about her words.
I had a fear of hamsters. Specifically, I was having a problem with Ronald, Doris, and Hubert. Did I want to conquer that fear, or love it?
Well, I didn’t actually want to conquer the hamsters, who were really just cute little rodents after all.
Did that mean I should try to learn to love them? The wakkam had said the way to do that was to nourish them.
Well, if that was the prescription, I was going to do it all the way. I would nourish them as they had never been nourished before. This problem had to be solved!
I went straight to the embassy’s laboratory and began working on a special nutritional supplement that would give those hamsters energy, strength, and vitality. I started by hooking into the master computer. I spent hours gathering data on nurturing small Earthly animals. Then I gathered chemicals, some of them quite rare. Finally I threw myself into the Hevi-Hevian creative trance state.
I cannot actually tell you what went on while I was in this state, since the creative trance is a hyper-focused blur of activity.
All I can say is that when I was done, the lab was a mess. But in my hand I had… hamster mega-vitamins!
CHAPTER 4 [TIM]
FFFB
The day after the hamster-in-the-lunchbox incident, two things happened.
First, I passed the FFFB (that’s short for “Fabulous Fizzy Fart Bomb”) to Rafaella, who was going to try to give it to Jordan.
The FFFB looked like a piece of candy. I knew that Jordan sometimes hung around with Misty Longacres and some of the other girls, including Rafaella, and that when he did, he always mooched candy off them.
Second-and this happened at about ten thirty-I noticed Pleskit standing at the hamster cage, feeding something to Doris, Ronald, and Hubert.
This was a totally un-Pleskit-like thing to do, since his usual response to the sight of the little furballs was to shudder. So when we went outside for our run-around later that morning (Ms. Weintraub had decided we were too old for “playtime” and “recess,” and had started referring to our time outdoors as “the run-around”), I pulled Pleskit aside and said, “Okay, what’s the deal?”
