Aliens for Breakfast Read Free

So he is pulling a cheap Drane trick. He is rearranging your molecules. You are melting.”
    Richard stopped in his tracks. “Melting!”
    “Well, dissolving is more like it,” said Aric. “Your molecules are drifting apart. Slowly, of course.”
    They were outside the nurse’s office. “This is terrible!” moaned Richard. How had he ever thought getting to know an alien would be fun? He felt like throwing up.
    “It will not get much worse today or tomorrow,” said Aric. “But I hope you do not have big plans for the weekend.”
    Richard whimpered.
    “Once I remember the secret weapon, I can destroy Dorf. Then you will be fine,” said Aric.
    “But what if you
don’t
remember?”
    “If I do not remember,” said Aric, “Earth will be so deep in Dranes that dissolving will be fun.”

4 .
    Back in his own room after school, Richard looked at his bandaged fingers and tried to fight his panic. It wasn’t easy. The fact that his fingertips had started to ache made it even harder. He thought of Dorf and shuddered.
    “Listen, Aric,” he said as calmly as he could. “Don’t you think we should do some serious thinking about how to get Dorf? I mean, are you sure you don’t have some superpowerful weapon stashed away? How about a sub-ion warp disrupter?” That was what the Space Lords of Gygrax used to blow away
their
enemies.It always worked. At least in the comics.
    Aric jumped down off the stack of Yoda comics on Richard’s shelf. He came to rest on the shoulders of a plastic King Kong. “Fancy weapons are too expensive for us,Richard,” he said. “The Interspace Brigade works on a very tight budget. We have 47 million planets to look after. Our yearly allowance is 249 billion daktils. That comes to about sixty-seven cents a planet.”

    “Sixty-seven cents to save Earth?” shouted Richard. “That’s it?”
    “That is plenty,” said Aric. “We saved Zweeb for thirty-six cents two years ago. Dranes are a cheap menace. They can be fought with simple ingredients.”
    “Like WHAT??” yelled Richard.
    “It will come to me,” said Aric. “Just give me time.”
    “I can’t believe it,” said Richard. “My planet is being taken over by space hoodlums. I’m melting. And you, the
commander
of the Interspace Brigade, can’t remember a simple ingredient!” His toes began to throb. Were they bleeding, like his fingers? He was too scared to take off his high-tops and look.
    “I never said I was perfect!” snapped Aric. He slipped down off King Kong and started pacing. Then he stopped.
    “Perhaps I could look around your house.It might bring back my memory,” he said.
    “Sure. Where do you want to start? Garage? Kitchen? Bathroom?”
    “I seem to remember that the substance can be eaten,” said Aric. “Where do you store items of nourishment?”
    “In the kitchen!” cried Richard. He grabbed Aric and headed down the hall.
    Ten minutes later the Bickerstaff kitchen looked like a supermarket after an earth-quake. The floor was covered with the contents of the refrigerator. Now Richard was emptying all the shelves. As he did, he showed each item to Aric. “This is peanut butter. This is hot chocolate. This is rice. These are graham crackers. These are pickles. These are soft drinks—Tab for Mom, Dr Pepper for me. Salt. Sugar. Tuna. See anything that will kill a Drane?”
    “I do not think so,” said Aric. He was sitting on a bunch of grapes. “And I really thought I would remember it right away.”
    “Dorf hasn’t clouded your mind, has he?” asked Richard.
    “This is an easy mission,” said Aric. “I havewiped out Dranes on lots of other planets. Though I have never been freeze-dried before. It must have shaken me up.” He sighed. “We had better keep looking.”
    Richard got back to work. “How about these?” he asked. “Chocolate sprinkles for ice cream.”

    “Afraid not,” said Aric. “Is this all?” The floor, the counters, the kitchen table and chairs were now covered