Shock the Monkey, page 6
Noah would have broken into that miserable murder of crows and pulled Ogden out before they got their claws into him, but just as the whole thing started, Sahara convinced him to let it play out.
“A few months ago, Ogden wouldn’t even have had the nerve to talk to a girl,” Sahara pointed out. “And now look at him! We owe him the chance to see this through.”
Noah had to admit she was right—they had come here to save him, but maybe that’s not what he needed.
“Claire’s changed since we were friends,” Sahara said, “but I can’t believe she’s as awful as people say. This might not end as badly as we think.”
So they lingered back and watched…
… and were both horrified when Claire began to laugh along with her brutal friends.
Now it was Sahara who wanted to rush in and rescue Ogden, but Noah stopped her.
“I have a better idea,” he said. And he pulled off his shades, flipped off his cap, and tossed his hair. Then he turned to the nearest girl and batted his eyes.
Word shot through the party faster than a trans-lunar portal that the rumors about the superstar being in town were true—and not only in town, but right here at Claire’s party!
“Wow, Claire,” one of her friends said. “I can’t believe your parents actually got Jaxon Youngblood to come sing you ‘Happy Birthday’!” And her parents were so befuddled, they didn’t deny it.
Of course, no singing had begun yet—because as sophisticated as alien skin technology was, it didn’t go all the way down to the vocal cords.
While the crowd surrounded the counterfeit superstar, Sahara went over to Ogden, who sat dejected by the pool, looking at the star certificate, which had gotten bent and dog-eared in the clumsy hands of Claire and her minions.
“Hey,” she said tentatively.
He looked up at her and was even more miserable. “Are you here to laugh at me, too?”
“No, never, Ogden.”
Ogden pursed his lips and shook his head. “You warned me. I should have listened to you.” He looked over at all the kids clamoring around the unexpected guest like pigeons at a crumb spill.
“Claire’s father is under-cooking the meat,” Ogden said. “I hope they all get the runs for a month.”
“You know what, Ogden? Claire doesn’t deserve that star.”
“Yeah,” agreed Ogden. “The way she blew the whole thing up, I should have gotten her a supernova.”
“Or a black hole,” suggested Sahara. “Then you could watch her collapse in on herself.”
Ogden gave a half-hearted chuckle at that.
“Listen, Ogden… people who are super popular like Claire made a choice. They chose to believe that what people think matters more than who people are. And in the end, it always comes back to bite them.”
“Why should that matter when you’re so popular that Jaxon Youngblood comes to your birthday party?”
Sahara smiled. “He didn’t,” she told him. “I’ll give you one guess who that really is.”
With so many people pressing around the famous singer, Claire had to practically claw her way through the autograph seekers and selfie-takers to get to him. He was here for her, why couldn’t her guests realize that? Finally, she managed to push everyone else out of the way and stood before him. She felt like she might faint and wondered if he’d catch her in his arms if she did.
“Jaxon!” she said. “I can’t believe you came all the way to Arbuckle to sing me ‘Happy Birthday.’”
He offered her his heart-melting smile. Then he said, “I didn’t. I’m here to hang with my friend, Ogden.”
“Wh-what?”
“The kid you and your friends just laughed at—and all because he bought you a gift that actually means something, instead of some waste of money that’ll end up in the back of a closet.”
Claire felt like her brain was short-circuiting. “I… I…”
“Let me finish that sentence,” Jaxon said. “You, you… are self-centered, self-important, egotistical—”
“Don’t forget over-accessorized,” suggested Jess, who was already sensing a popularity void that she could readily fill.
“Right, that too,” said Jaxon.
Claire’s lower lip began to quiver.
“But it is your birthday,” Jaxon said, “so I’ll forgive you just this once… if you apologize for what you did.”
“I’m so sorry, Jaxon!”
But he shook his head. “Don’t apologize to me.” He pointed behind her. “Apologize to my man Ogden.”
Ogden waved, a big smile plastered on his face. “Hey, ‘Jaxon.’ Good to see you.”
“Same here, Ogden, same here.”
Claire looked around to see that everyone at the party was staring at her. This was, by far, the most humiliating thing she had ever experienced.
“If you want me to sing, Claire, then you’ll accept Ogden’s gift, and you’ll never laugh at my friend again.” And then Jaxon crossed his arms, waiting.
Stunned, Claire toddled over to Ogden. The self-centered, self-important, over-accessorized part of her wanted to shout at him You’ve ruined everything! Now Jaxon Youngblood hates me because of you! But another part told her to do what she should have done in the first place and accept the gift graciously. Or at least as graciously as she could still manage.
“Give me that thing!”
She snatched the star certificate from Ogden, shared a glare with Sahara, then turned back to Jaxon, giving him her best fake smile, and a thumbs-up. “All good here!”
“It’s not official until you sign it,” Ogden reminded her.
“Fine! PEN!” she yelled. Three people came running with pens. She chose a pink sparkly one, and she signed her name on the signature line.
“There!” she said to Ogden. “Are you happy?”
And once the document was signed and official, that’s when the real party crashers arrived.
6
Rip, Tear, Rupture
THE PROBLEM WITH HAVING AN ANNUAL BIRTHDAY SPECTACLE IS that each year one had to top it. Such was the case with Claire Jensen’s birthdays. It began when she was young, with an appearance by SpongeBob SquarePants, and it only went uphill (or downhill, depending on your perspective) from there.
Last year her birthday featured a troupe of Polynesian fire dancers that nearly set the whole neighborhood on fire, and a flyover from one of the Blue Angels who owed her father a favor.
So, when the aliens showed up at her front door, no one batted an eye; all the attention was still on Noah and his highly recognizable skin, fending off the throng of adoring fans. Which meant he was at an immediate disadvantage when the attack came.
The aliens at the door were wearing humans. Not human skins, but actual humans. They were a species of puppet masters, and human beings were easy puppets to wield, dead or alive. The bony old man and foul-smelling woman at the door seemed a bit old for the party, and like Ogden, had cut the line. The party planner asked them if they were on the guest list, and the man responded by pulling out a pacifier. He said, “Don’t make me use this.”
“I’m sorry,” the party organizer said, “but I can’t let you in unless—”
The man cut her off by placing the pacifier in her mouth, and she instantly reverse-aged into a baby and crawled away, crying.
“The gate guard has been neutralized,” the anemic man said. “Proceed with the extraction.” And he stormed through the house to the backyard.
Claire turned away from Ogden and was racing back through the crowd to show Noah/Jaxon that she had indeed accepted the star, when the exceptionally unwell-looking couple came out into the backyard.
Ogden spotted them immediately. “Wait, I know those two,” he told Sahara. “They’re the ones who sold me the star.”
“What are they doing here?” asked Sahara. And then they watched as the couple pulled pacifiers out of their pockets and proceeded to turn anyone in their way into a baby.
“Uh-oh,” said Ogden. “That can’t be good.”
But so involved were the people fawning over Jaxon Youngblood, no one noticed until Claire’s father was pacified and the flow of food off the grill suddenly stopped.
“Hey,” somebody yelled, “what’s with all these babies? And where’s my burger?”
Sahara was the only one with the presence of mind to realize who they were after. “They’re here for Claire!” she said. “Something about that certificate she signed!”
Sahara raced to Claire and Noah. “Something weird’s happening,” Sahara told them. “Claire, you need to run!”
“Weird how?” Noah asked.
“Out of this world weird. Volcano in Arbuckle weird!”
“Cool,” said Thayne Smith, who was listening in. “Sounds like fun.” Then a pacifier got shoved into his mouth and he turned into a baby.
“Claire Jensen,” said the unwell woman. “You need to come with us.”
And, having just seen both of her parents turned into babies, Claire decided it was best to take Sahara’s advice. She turned, and she ran.
Sahara tried to hold the two party-crashers back, pressing her lips together so as not to be pacified as well, but they evaded her and Ogden much more nimbly than such unwell-looking people should.
Noah, who finally managed to escape from his throng of adoring fans, took in what was happening, but not enough to fully understand it.
“Use your powers!” Sahara shouted to Noah, less worried at exposing him than stopping whatever was going on here.
“To do what?” he asked.
“Anything!”
But then a girl with long nails grabbed his head to pull him close and squealed, “I’d do anything to have a kiss from Jaxon Youngblood.”
Noah resisted, she pulled a little too hard, and Jaxon Youngblood’s face ripped right off, leaving the girl screaming in the depths of what was now her own personal nightmare.
“My god! I killed Jaxon Youngblood!”
Leaving her behind, Noah moved closer to the action while using his golden-cheeked warbler vision to get a clearer view of the chaotic situation. In the commotion, someone bumped against him, and to steady himself, Noah accidentally put his hand on the hot grill, causing him to leap completely out of his Jaxon skin. He inflated like a puffer fish and landed in the pool, where he floated like a beach ball.
Ogden never took his eyes off of Claire as she ran across the expansive yard, so he was the only one to see the swirl of birthday napkins, cups, and plastic silverware beginning to rise. Not as if blown by a wind, but swept up by a soft blue ray of light—shining right in the spot that Claire was running toward.
“Claire! No!” he shouted, and took off toward her. “Stop!”
He was inches away from her, his hands just about to reach her and save her from the tractor beam, when he was suddenly tackled.
Raymond Balding-Stalker had been waiting for the perfect moment to make his move. Watching from the bushes, he had reveled in Ogden’s complete humiliation as he was rebuffed by Claire and her friends. And then Raymond suffered the misery of seeing Jaxon Youngblood redeem Ogden.
The jealousy of seeing Claire accept that star certificate was almost more than Raymond could bear. He didn’t notice the aliens. He didn’t notice the sudden abundance of babies. All he saw was Claire running, the wind in her hair, and Ogden running after her.
And that’s when he made his move.
Using his mostly imagined ninja skills, he launched from the edge of the treacherous bushes and hurled himself at Ogden just before Ogden reached Claire, taking him down to the ground and pinning him there.
“You don’t deserve her, Coggin-Criddle!” Raymond shouted, going all Ninja on Ogden.
The moment Claire hit the edge of the tractor beam, her stomach began to tingle and her hair began to swim around her face like she was underwater. She never actually felt herself leave the ground, but when she looked down she was already five feet in the air—and although she wanted to scream, the beam seemed to freeze her vocal cords, and made her limbs go limp. All she could do was hang there, in midair, rising higher and higher.
Her party guests didn’t know what to make of all this, and in the commotion, logically assumed that this skyward display was the show-stopping finale of another spectacular Claire Jensen birthday party. And as she ascended into the light, people began to applaud the quality of the special effect. Yay! The Jensens have done it again. Then someone began to sing:
“Happy birthday to you…”
And as herd instinct kicked in others joined along:
“Happy birthday to you…”
And soon, almost everyone not a baby was singing:
“Happy birthday, dear Cla-aire…”
And then they brought it home in the enthusiastic, painfully off-key manner of every birthday song sung since the very beginning of recorded time:
“Happy birthday… toooo… youuuuuuu.…”
Then the lights of the spaceship above them came fully on, shining in everyone’s eyes. They couldn’t see much of the ship, other than that it was massive and directly above them. Suddenly, it became clear to most, if not all, that this was not part of the planned festivities.
Noah, useless in swollen pufferfish form, finally managed to deflate himself and climb out of the pool. The unwell woman had leaped into the beam of light and was rising toward the ship beneath Claire—but the woman’s conspirator hadn’t made it to the tractor beam yet. Noah leaped at him with the full force of a pouncing panther and took him down, trying not to be overpowered by what must have been the man’s cheap cologne—a chemical stench not entirely unlike the mutant animals Mr. Kratz used to keep in jars in his classroom.
“Who are you?” Noah demanded. “What’s happening?”
“The deal is done!” the man said. “Whatever you do, you can’t change it!”
“What do you want with Claire?”
But instead of answering, the man opened his mouth and tilted his head back. “Ah… ah… ahhhh…”
The man was about to sneeze, and the thought of this unwell-looking man sneezing on him was such an unpleasant thought that Noah turned his face away, just as…
“Ahh… Ahhh… CHOOO!”
… the man let off a juicy sneeze, and a tiny green worm no longer than a fingernail blew out of his nose, missed Noah entirely, and sailed in an arc across the yard.
“Let me go!” yelled Ogden. “Get off me, Raymond!”
Ogden never considered himself a fighter, but Raymond’s sudden attack had prevented him from saving Claire—and that brought Ogden to a level of rage he had never before experienced. He hit back, giving as good as he got. They rolled and threw punches, only some of them connecting. Ogden imagined that his adrenaline might give him some of the animal strength that Noah had—and maybe it did, because he definitely delivered Raymond a black eye.
But still Raymond wouldn’t stop. He had not been expecting Ogden to fight back, and it just made him madder. Raymond was so focused on fighting his archrival that he never saw Claire rising skyward, never heard the misguided chants of “Happy Birthday,” never saw the spaceship above them…
… and Raymond never noticed the little green worm as it landed on his left eyebrow, then crawled down into his tear duct, squiggling its way deep into his sinuses.
But he did notice when the worm reached his brain. Because that’s when he stopped fighting and stood up without telling his legs to do so.
Stop, he told his legs. What are you doing?
But they didn’t listen or obey a single command he gave them. Because they weren’t his legs anymore. Now Raymond Balding-Stalker was nothing but a powerless passenger in his own body. A puppet for the little green worm to use.
Ogden stood up the instant Raymond let him go. “Yeah, you’d better run away!” Ogden yelled after him.
But Raymond spared a glance back, long enough to say, “Thank you, small, naive biped. You have been most helpful.”
Then Raymond leaped into the light, which lifted him to the ship, and then the ship powered away with such force it blew the windows out of the house and tore up half the trees in the yard.
Everyone was left stunned. Well, almost everyone.
“Wow,” said Luke Hooten, his hair pointing in all unearthly directions. “Best party ever!”
Noah instinctively took an elephant stance, and so he was the only one not blown over by the wake of the spaceship’s departure—and the only one who actually saw it distort the space around it as it engaged its warp drive, or whatever it was actually called by the beings that invented it. The craft seemed to expel itself from Earth as if by slingshot, disappearing into the heavens.
Ogden picked himself up off the ground. “Well, that’s not how I expected tonight would go,” he said. “But it’s great to see you, Noah.”
“Same here, Ogden.”
“Noah! Ogden!” Sahara called. “Could you guys help me?”
She was standing near the pool, trying to round up crawling babies, of which there were at least a dozen. “Keep them away from the pool!”
Ogden hesitated. “I’m not good with babies,” he said.
“You don’t have to be good with them—you just have to keep them from drowning!”
So they hurried over to Sahara and helped her gather more infants and deposit them in the arms of teenagers, who were already stunned and bewildered, and now were holding babies.
Ogden glanced at one he had picked up, noticed her abundance of eyeshadow, and came to the conclusion that this was Claire’s friend Jess, who was much less thoroughly obnoxious in infant form. Considering that they were all “pacified,” it only made sense that the way to return them to normal was to pull the plug. So he removed the binky from her mouth. But all that succeeded in doing was to make baby-Jess wail. So he reinserted the pacifier and decided this was an issue best resolved by an actual parent. Anyone’s parent.
