Shock the Monkey, page 4
“Welcome to McGuffin Observatory,” the old man said. “Have you come to view the heavens or to peruse our gift shop?”
“I’m here to buy a star.”
The man smiled, revealing teeth that were best left undescribed. “Splendid!” he said, then turned and called out, “We have a customer!”
A woman stepped out of the shadows. She wasn’t old but was weary in some fundamental way, like a socialite who had seen everything, was impressed by nothing, and whose flesh was now succumbing to the gravity of her own disappointment. Ogden was quick to realize she was the source of the unpleasant under-smell. It reminded Ogden of the time a pigeon had fallen into the dryer vent and croaked. His clothes had smelled like the left armpit of death for weeks until they found the body of the tragic bird, and for years he insisted he could hear the mournful cooing of its ghost in the rumble of the spinning dryer drum. It made him wonder if she was not long for this world. Only much later he would realize how true that assessment was.
“Is the star for yourself or for someone else?” the woman asked, hefting a sizable document.
“It’s a gift.”
“And can you pay the price?”
Ogden held up his phone. “Do you take Apple Pay?” he asked. And although these didn’t seem like people prepared for digital exchange, she nodded and extended her hand, instructing him to tap his phone to her bracelet. New technology? thought Ogden. Perhaps he could get one for Claire next Christmas, once they were a couple.
The purchase went through without the slightest hitch. Fifty bucks on the emergency credit card account his father gave him. Easily done.
“Proceed this way,” she said.
Ogden followed her to a desk, where she spread out the pages of the registry document—two copies—then handed him a pen.
“Sign here, and here,” she said, indicating several different spots in the lengthy contract, “and initial here, here, and here.”
But Ogden hesitated. “I was told I’d be able to see the star in the night sky without a telescope,” he said. “Is that true?”
“Oh yes,” said the old man. “The star’s celestial position is noted on the certificate you’ll receive. Although its planet can only be ‘seen’ through spectral analysis.”
“Wait—it has a planet?”
The man nodded.
“Can I name that, too?”
“Of course!”
Ogden leaned over the document, signing and initialing where indicated, and then, in his best printing, he wrote in his chosen names. The star would be “Jensen.” The planet would be “Claire.”
When he was done, the woman handed Ogden his signed copy, keeping one for herself. Then she went to a small safe, unlocked it, and removed a fancy-looking scroll, which she then handed to the old man, who then handed it to Ogden with a ceremonious bow.
“Your star certificate!” the old man said.
Ogden spread the certificate out on the table. It was fine parchment, with lettering etched in gold. There was a signature line at the bottom, and Ogden moved to sign it. But the old man stayed Ogden’s hand.
“That’s not for you,” the old man explained. “That must be signed by the recipient of your gift. Her signature will make it official.”
And so, with the paperwork complete and his impatient Unter honking outside, Ogden said thank you, made a quick exit, and the strange couple closed the heavy door behind him with the resonant gong of a sealing crypt.
Ogden smiled as the car careened down the winding road back home. Tonight, he thought, will be a night to remember!
Meanwhile, back in Arbuckle, Noah strolled down the street, his suitcase/sister in tow, confident in his disguise. A passing woman gave him a double take, nearly tripping on a crack in the pavement. He didn’t give it much thought. At first.
He paused when he reached the local coffee house, Grounds Zero, noticing some high school kids sitting out front. There was a football player in an Arbuckle High letter jacket, and his girlfriend wearing a school baseball cap. But he realized the mascot was different. Arbuckle High had apparently abandoned their old dinosaur mascot. Now they were, for obvious reasons, the Roarin’ Volcanoes.
That’s when things started to get weird.
The high school couple, who had been enjoying their lattes, were now staring at him like a pair of deer in headlights.
“Uh… cool! So you’re the Volcanoes now,” Noah said.
And then the girl screamed at the top of her lungs.
Her scream made Noah flinch so powerfully, his entire fake skin went numb with pins and needles, like he had hit his funny bone, but all over his body.
Needless to say, the scream drew everyone’s attention on the street.
“Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!” the girl said. “You’re… You’re… You’re—”
It was her boyfriend who had enough wind left in his lungs to get the rest out.
“You’re Jaxon Youngblood!”
And suddenly people began to chatter and crowd around Noah.
“Jaxon Youngblood? The Jaxon Youngblood?”
“I heard he shows up in random places, but Arbuckle?”
“I love your music, Jaxon!”
“You’re so hot!”
“That was such a cool Grammy acceptance speech!”
“Can we get a selfie?”
“I want one, too!”
“So do I!”
“I saw him first!”
And that’s when Noah caught his reflection in the window. The million-dollar hair, the perfect teeth, the ridiculously long eyelashes, everything down to the ten-karat diamond in his nose—which explained that particular itch. He was, without a doubt, teenage heartthrob and pop superstar Jaxon Youngblood.
“Sing ‘My Love Is a Charging Rhino’ for us, Jaxon!”
Noah shook his head so hard, his brains hurt. “Nope. Not me. Wrong guy.”
He turned to Andi—but in little pink suitcase form, she was providing no help in this celebrity-spotting moment. So, grabbing Andi’s handle, he ran across the street feeling like maybe he actually was channeling a charging rhino, while Andi’s wheels were just as uncooperative as an actual rolling suitcase.
“Andi,” Noah said, when they reached the sidewalk, “what have you done?”
A digital read-out appeared on the handle of the suitcase, with the words, YOU ASKED FOR A SKIN, I GAVE YOU A SKIN.
“You do realize this is the very opposite of inconspicuous, don’t you?”
DEAL WITH IT appeared on the handle.
And now, not only were the girls from Grounds Zero tittering about him and snapping selfies with him from a distance, they were also watching him talk to a suitcase—which would draw even more attention to himself, even if he wasn’t one of the most recognizable celebrities on the planet. So he slipped into Arbuckle Fashions, quickly finding himself a Roarin’ Volcanoes baseball cap, which were everywhere, and a pair of oversized dark glasses to hide his famous Jaxon Youngblood eyes.
But he didn’t get the new disguise over his old disguise fast enough, because the cashier said, “Hey, aren’t you—”
“No!” said Noah. But it was too late. Word had already spread, and people had raced across the street from Grounds Zero as well as a few neighboring stores to peer in the window—some not even knowing what they were there to look for, except that something exciting was happening, and FOMO had taken over.
“Pleeeeeeze, Jaxon!” someone squealed. “Sing us ‘Love Me, Baby, Like a Tree Loves the Rain’!”
“Does this place have a back door?” Noah asked the cashier.
And luckily it did.
Arbuckle Middle School hadn’t changed much since the volcano incident. There were some kids and teachers who had yet to return and were still held within the Q-Zone, being re-educated and de-Kratzed, but other than that it was business as usual.
Avoiding the mob of starstruck fans searching for him took some time, so Noah ended up arriving after the end of the school day. Ogden, he figured, must have already left, but he knew exactly where Sahara would be. Gymnastics practice.
Noah pulled his hat as low as he could and entered the gym, taking a seat in the bleachers where some other kids and parents were hanging out, too focused on their own business to notice that a superstar in disguise had just entered the building. He spotted Sahara on the parallel bars, doing an elaborate routine. She was a wonder to watch. She dismounted and before she got back into it again, Noah picked up a crumpled piece of paper he found by his feet, compressed it in his hand with crab-claw strength, and hurled it in her direction. It landed right at her feet, which was intentional. He didn’t want to bean her with it.
It got Sahara’s attention, and she turned to the bleachers. He gave her a little wave, and she zeroed in on him, looking more suspicious of him than anything. Then she cautiously approached.
“Do I… know you?”
Noah pulled off his hat and removed the dark glasses.
“Don’t you recognize me?” he said with a signature Jaxon Youngblood smile.
“Not at all. Should I?”
It figured Sahara wouldn’t know Jaxon Youngblood. Pop culture was never her thing.
“Wait,” said Sahara. “Your voice sounds like…” Then she gasped. “Noah? Noah, is that you?”
“In the flesh,” he said. “Or at least someone else’s.”
Sahara rushed forward and threw her arms around him, almost knocking him off balance in more ways than one. Then she took a moment to look into his eyes. “I see you in there,” she told him. “That’s quite the pretty-boy skin you’re wearing.”
“Tell me about it.” Then he tapped Andi’s handle. “Blame it on my sister.”
Sahara grinned. “I like your real one better.” Then suddenly her expression darkened. “Wait—why are you here? What’s wrong? Is the world ending again? What’s going on, Noah?”
“No, nothing like that…,” he said, then shrugged. “I just kinda… really wanted to see you.” He could feel himself blushing—full-mandrill, red and blue—and wondered if it went all the way through his Jaxon Youngblood skin.
Then her coach called to her. “Sahara, this isn’t social time.”
“Sorry—my cousin’s here from out of town. He came by to surprise me!”
“Cousin?” said Noah.
“Well, she wouldn’t cut me any slack at all if I said boyfriend.”
He gave her another Jaxon Youngblood smile. “Boyfriend?”
“Semantics,” she said. “You’re a boy, and you’re a friend. Let’s leave it at that for now.”
“For now?”
“For now.” Then she relaxed a bit and smiled. “I’ve really missed you, Noah. The virtual visits were okay… but to be honest the VR makes me kind of nauseous.”
“So… is that why you’ve been avoiding them?”
“Yeah… I didn’t want to identify you with wanting to hurl.”
“That may be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
They hugged again, and the digital readout on Andi’s handle read UGH, SPARE ME.
Used to be Ogden spent his free afternoons hanging with Noah, but since Noah’s “death,” there was only one place he went after school.
“We’ll definitely find him at Merlin’s Games and Mischief,” Sahara told Noah and Andi, who had reverted to human form once they had left the school and was no longer in danger of being noticed. Andi, however, chose not to go with them to Merlin’s.
“I’m going to do some reconnaissance,” she told them. “I want to check with some local resident aliens to see if the Anusians or Fauxlites have shown their faces around here since Noah’s horrible death.”
“Aren’t you afraid you’ll get recognized?” Sahara asked.
Andi shrugged. “I’ll stay away from humans. And I’m sure the local aliens already know I got abandoned as scrap when the Fauxlites left. So me showing up alone just reinforces the narrative that my dear brother is dead.”
After Andi left, Noah offered to tree-swing Sahara to Merlin’s, but while that might work in the woodsy outskirts of town, Sahara pointed out that Jaxon Youngblood swinging through trees in populated areas would probably go viral on someone’s social media.
“I thought you didn’t know who he was,” Noah said.
“Of course I know who he is,” Sahara answered. “I even have ‘Kiss Me till I Turn Purple’ on a playlist—but if you tell anyone, you’re dead to me.”
That made Noah laugh.
“It’s just that pretty boys like him kinda all look alike to me,” Sahara said. “But at least your eyes shine through. Even though they’re trapped between those Venus-flytrap lashes.”
And so Noah and Sahara walked to the game shop, which was fine with both of them because it gave them more time together.
“I’ve gotten pretty good at a whole bunch of traits and defense mechanisms,” Noah told her. “Watch this!” He took off his dark glasses and looked at her.
Sahara gasped. “Noah, did the color of your eyes just change?”
“Yep! Brown to green.”
“And now they’re turning blue!”
“It’s a reindeer thing,” he said. “Just call me Rudolph.”
“Then your nose would have to shine.”
“I can do that, too.” Then he called some Atolla jellyfish luminescence to the tip of his nose. It glowed right through his Jaxon Youngblood skin.
Sahara smiled. “So now that you can control it, I guess there aren’t any more blubber-fests or penguin dances.”
Noah simultaneously winced and grinned, remembering that time he developed walrus blubber to keep them from freezing to death and had to wrap Sahara in it. And the time at the school dance when he began flapping his arms like an emperor penguin. And yet, as embarrassing as those moments were, there was something satisfying about them, too. Because they hadn’t scared Sahara off. In fact, those strange moments of animal weirdness actually brought them closer. Call it animal magnetism.
“Once in a while, when I get startled, something strange pops up,” Noah told her. “But it keeps life interesting, y’know?”
“I’ll bet.”
“Those were fun times, though, weren’t they?”
Sahara gave him a sideways look. “Fun? We nearly died like five or six times!”
“Yeah, well, sure, it wasn’t fun while it was happening—but afterward.”
The conversation lagged for a moment. Then, before it could become awkward, Sahara said, “So, why are you here, Noah?”
“I told you, I really wanted to see you.”
“And then?”
“And then to see Ogden.”
“That’s not what I mean.” She stopped walking for a moment and really looked at him. Suddenly, he felt like he wasn’t wearing a Jaxon Youngblood skin at all. No disguise, no hiding. He didn’t like the feeling, and he didn’t know why.
“So we see you, and it’s great,” said Sahara, “and we talk about all the wild stuff that happened. And then what?”
Then what? The question made Noah uncomfortable enough that he felt he might spike like a hedgehog—but that would rip right through his celebrity skin, so he quelled the urge. He remembered the conversation he and Andi had had back in their Latvian shack.
What if Ogden and Sahara are trying to get on with their lives?
Noah had forced the thought away, but now it came back like a boomerang, with enough force to make his whole brain ache.
What if they don’t want to see you anymore?
And finally, Noah realized the real reason why he had wanted to come back. As painful as that reason was.
“I came here…” He stopped and took a long breath. “I came here to say goodbye.”
Sahara nodded, and tears began to pool in her eyes. It took a moment before she could bring herself to speak.
“I know,” she said. “In a way I knew it from the second I saw you.” She took his hand and squeezed it. “I don’t want to say goodbye any more than you do… but it hurts too much. It hurts knowing that you can only be here an hour or two—and even then you can’t even be here as yourself.”
Noah felt his own eyes getting moist. He tried to stop it by blinking but only succeeded in batting those stupid long eyelashes, which gathered even more tears like morning dew on grass. “Running and hiding is not the way I want to live,” Noah told her. “It’s not who I am.”
“But it’s the only way you can save the rest of us,” Sahara pointed out. And she was right. He hated that she was right. “It’s… the most noble sacrifice I could ever imagine,” she told him. “And I… kinda love you for it.”
Then she held him like she would never, ever let him go. But he knew she would. Just as he had to let her go.
And although he knew it was selfish, he secretly wished that a whole world of brand-new awful things could happen. The kind of awful things that would keep them from having to say goodbye.
The foyer of Merlin’s Games and Mischief was lined with plaques, awards, and framed articles about heroic gamers, with headlines like “Gamer Saves Family and Xbox from Burning House” and “Gamer Solves Cold Case Through Role-Playing Campaign.”
In the entranceway of the store, under an intricately carved sign that snarkily read ABANDON SOAP ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE, stood Merlin himself, who greeted them with a hearty “Well met, fair maid and young bullyrook! How fare ye this fine day?”
Noah took off his dark glasses since the place was so dim. “Yeah, bullyrook and whatever to you, too. We’re looking for Ogden.”
The large man rubbed a hand across his bushy beard, as if he might pull Ogden out of it.
“Any friend of Ogden’s is a friend of mine,” he said. “Especially those of celebrity status!”
Noah sighed. “Let’s keep that between us.”
“Aye! Ixnay and mum’s the word,” Merlin whispered, although it still sounded a bit like shouting.
“So, is he here?” Sahara asked, looking around at the tables of gamers, eyes not yet adjusted to the half-light of the place.
