Blast Off! Read Free Page B

kind of a long story.”

    â€œOkay,” she said lowering her periscope. “This was a bad idea.”
    â€œIt’s okay,” I said. “We’ll talk later,” I said, needing to end this conversation and deal with the mess in my room.
    I closed the curtains and looked at Amp. “We have some work to do.”
    â€œYou’re right, Zack,” he nodded crisply. “We need to fix my spaceship right away, starting with the launch system”
    â€œFix your spaceship? I have to go to school! I was talking about cleaning up my room before my parents see it. “
    â€œOh,” he said, looking around my room. “Good luck.”
    â€œâ€˜Good luck’?” I yelped, narrowing my eyes at him. “Oh, great, the alien who destroyed my room with a bad parking job doesn’t like cleaning up after himself.”
    He shrugged and smiled weakly. “That’s not really my thing.”
    It occurred to me then that having a wise guy alien around was going to be a lot harder than I thought.

06
    Frozen Waffles (Again)
    I plopped down for my breakfast with Amp hiding in my room upstairs. I felt sick, scared, tired, excited, smart, stupid, thrilled, horrified, hungry, stuffed, happy, sad, grumpy, dizzy, and halfway crazy—all at the same time.
    My mom kept feeling my forehead and neck as I nibbled at the edges of my frozen waffle. I had forgotten to toast it. She was pretty sure I was coming down with something.
    â€œZack, you look like you didn’t sleep a wink,” she said, taking the frozen waffle from me and dropping it into the toaster. “Somebody was snooping around last night, leaving footprints everywhere.” She gave me “the look.”
    â€œIt was Zack,” my dad said, giving me a glance over his coffee cup. “I caught him wandering around the house in his boxers last night.”

    â€œMaybe he’s in love,” my little brother Taylor said, stabbing his Pop-Tart with an annoying electric fork he had invented. “With Olivia.”
    My dad shook his bacon at me. “Remember, Zack, you promised to change your tune this year. Hit the books.”
    â€œHe hit the books, all right,” my brother said. “I peeked in his room last night and he was using his science book for a pillow. He’s a drooler.”
    â€œAnd you’re a snooper,” I growled.
    Dad cleared his throat. “Zack, fourth grade is going to be the year you turn things around, right? We talked about this.”
    â€œDancing around in his underwear doesn’t sound very focused to me,” Taylor said, staring at his stupid fork.
    â€œEnough,” Dad said to Taylor, who could never take a hint.
    â€œI can tutor Zack in science,” he offered sweetly. “Free of charge.”
    â€œAnd I can tutor your face. Free of charge,” I said. Taylor is a science geek and a show-off. He brags about liking science more than PE, which is clearly abnormal.
    Dad gave us his glare. “Can it,” he said.
    â€œZack, you look like a zombie,” Mom said. She handed me my toasted waffle and shoved her entire arm down the back of my shirt, searching desperately for any sign of a fever.
    â€œI just had some weird dreams,” I mumbled.
    â€œWhich explains why you were sleepwalking in your underwear,” Taylor teased.
    Normally, I would have threatened to pound him so hard his grandchildren would walk with a limp. But now, I just stared at him.
    My parents exchanged another look.
    I stuck a finger into my mango-orange-pineapple juice and stuck it in my mouth. I couldn’t taste a thing. It was becoming clear to me that keeping Amp a secret was going to be near impossible.
    I already felt strangely protective of Amp. I didn’t want him taken away forever by grown-ups. If the government swooped in, they’d take him away to some secret lab somewhere to do tests. I knew how things worked—my parents are