The True Meaning of Smekday Read online

  J.Lo was looking backward over the seat. “No,” he said. “Not away yet.”

  I checked the mirror. There were five ships rising up behind us. I threaded the car through cartoon streets, and the ships followed—past Hannibull Lee’s Paddleboat, through the cigarette trees around Big Rock Candy Mountain, straight toward the ruined castle of the Snow Queen, which jostled Slushious up and down like a huge speed bump as we passed. Then there was a low grinding noise, like the whole world was clearing its throat, and the ruins swiveled underground while the good castle snapped into place. Three Boov ships scattered while the remaining two smacked into the castle like pinballs—one fell to bits and the other plowed into a carousel.

  “Ha!” I shouted as we left the park. “Thanks, BOOB!”

  “Three still are chasing,” said J.Lo.

  They were each small, maybe the size of a city bus, if city buses were shaped like hamburgers. Otherwise, each was different. One had a beard of hoses like the big ships, and a tiny bubble hatch on top. Another had fins and little nubs sticking out every which way. The third had something like fenders with big headlights and a long hose in the back like a tail. And they were all gaining on us.

  “They’re faster than we are,” I said, steering onto a crumbling turnpike. “Way to build a floating car, J.Lo!”

  “Press the button,” he said.

  “What? What button?”

  The little Boov speeders were close now. Something like an enormous plastic claw was unfolding from underneath the ship in front.

  “The button. The button withto the snake on it.”

  “There’s no button with a snake—”

  “Neversmind,” said J.Lo. “I do it.”

  He pushed in the cigarette lighter, and Slushious took off like a maniac. I was pressed hard into my seat, and Pig rolled screeching into the back. If I’m not mistaken, there was pink flame belching out of the tailpipe at this point.

  “What is this?” I shouted, barely able to move my face. “Why didn’t you tell me about it before?”

  “Is for emergencities. Is not a toy.”

  We were putting some serious distance between Slushious and the Boov patrol.

  “I didn’t say it was a toy!”

  “The button will either to give thirty seconds of wicked fastness,” said J.Lo, “or blow us up.”

  I stared at him.

  “What?”

  Just then the car backfired once, twice. Thick blue smoke streamed from our exhaust like tail feathers.

  “Aaaah! You stupid Boov!”

  “No, it is okay. It is fine. We are only to running out of the superfuel.”

  It was true. The car was gradually slowing. Through a grainy haze I could still see the patrol behind us.

  “Maybe I can lose them in this smoke,” I said, and took the next exit ramp. I whipped Slushious halfway around and pulled beneath the overpass. But it was no good. Two of the three speeders appeared behind us again.

  We sailed through the city streets, and here at least we had some edge. The Boov vehicles were bigger and harder to maneuver in close quarters. I could keep them at bay, but I couldn’t shake them. And it had been a long time since we’d cloned some gas.

  “This is bad,” I said. “If you weren’t in the car with me I’d be shot dead already.”

  “No! It is okay!” J.Lo said, hopping in his seat as he watched the speeders. “They are backing off!”

  A glance at the mirror told me it was true. But there was something else, something shimmering in the air between us.

  “What is that?” I asked. “It’s like glitter.”

  We both figured it out at the same time.

  “Bluzzers!” said J.Lo.

  “Bees!” I said. And probably the exploding kind, too. They were gaining fast; the swarm of shining specks was very nearly on us.

  “What do we do? Is there…is there something in your toolbox?”

  J.Lo was ashen. “There is nothing,” he said.

  The Bees were so close they were all I could see in the mirror. Surely one had already touched down on the roof.

  “Wait,” I said. “Aspirin!”

  “Whatnow?”

  “Aspirin!” I said again, holding out my palm.

  “Is your head to hurting, or—”

  “Oh! I mean…one of those…forget it! Take the wheel!”

  I was already in the backseat, with the car fishtailing wildly, before J.Lo did as I asked. He hopped into the driver’s seat as I rummaged through his toolbox. Then I found one of the little white things at the bottom.

  “Whatfor are you—”

  “Keep it steady,” I said, and rolled down the back window. The wind batted furiously as I pulled myself half out of the car, facing backward. It was stronger than I expected, and I scratched at the door frame for a better grip while the drove of Bees stared at me with a thousand tiny eyes.

  Three of them were already perched on the top of the car, skittering forward, looking for some working part to destroy. The dense mass of followers were not far behind, but I realized I had to wait for the right moment. I had to wait until I could get them all.

  “What are you to doing?” said J.Lo, his voice faint and wispy to my ears.

  “Keep it steady!”

  And then the moment came. There were two, three dozen on the car, with a hundred more about to land, and I threw the aspirin. And the instant it left my hand I knew I’d made a mistake: there was no way I could throw something so small in so great a gale and expect to hit what I wanted. I was aiming for the top of the car, in the center of the swarm, but the pill turned and soared crazily in the air, and just as I thought it was lost, it struck a single Bee with a tiny tink.

  A fat ball of icy foam erupted outward from that single Bee, expanding its orbit until every one was trapped inside. They hissed and sputtered as their hot little bodies wiggled like live anchovies in a big scoop of the worst ice cream ever. Then the wiggling stopped, and I struck at the ball with my fist. The cold hurt my hand, but the foam unstuck from the roof of the car and hurled itself to the street. I pulled myself back inside.

  “Ha-ha!” said J.Lo. “Clever little human!”

  I felt good, and dizzy. I crawled back up to the front.

  “How are we doing?” I said.

  “Hm. Not so good. We are running out of city.”

  He was right. The roads were getting wider and the buildings smaller. The Boov ships would regain their lost ground soon. I looked backward, into the rising sun, and saw their silhouettes grow larger. I racked my brain to think of a new plan, but I was out of tricks.

  “Gratuity,” said J.Lo, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was watching in disbelief as the Boov seemed to come to an abrupt stop. They seemed to turn and fly away.

  “Gratuity…”

  “They’re leaving!” I cheered. “They’ve had enough!”

  I noticed Slushious was slowing down, so I looked at J.Lo, and then I looked where he was looking.

  We had passed all the buildings and skyscrapers, and now it was the only thing you noticed: there was an immense purple planetary sphere in the air, like a pimple on the nose of the sky. Just looking at it felt like losing.

  “Is that,” I said, “is that one of yours?” It didn’t look like a fishbowl. It looked like a purple moon.

  “No,” said J.Lo. “Not one of ours.”

  Slushious had come to a stop, and J.Lo got out. I followed him to the side of the road. Pig purred and rubbed up against us, but I was barely aware of her. I sat still in the grass, hypnotized by the thing.

  “Should…should we go?” I said. “Is it close?”

  J.Lo shook his head. “Is not close. Is very big, and very far away.”

  The surface of it seemed to move. It seemed to shudder and writhe. But I thought it might have been a trick of the air. A mirage.

  “You probably better tell me about this thing,” I said.

  “It is a Gorg ship,” said J.Lo. “It is the Gorg. They ha
ve come now to take Smekland for their own. The Boov will to fight them, but the Boov will lose. And…andit…it is alls my fault.”

  His skin was pale and blue.

  “This has something to do with the antenna farm?”

  J.Lo nodded. “I sent them a signal. I did not to means to. It was for an accident. But I sent them a signal when I was testing the antennas.”

  “That must have been a strong signal.”

  “Yes. Yes, too strong. Much too strong. Not pointed correctly. When I did saw where it went, to what part of the sky, I knew the Gorg could catch it. I was to hoping they would not catch it.”

  “What was in this signal?” I asked.

  “Does not matter. The Gorg would to have come no matters what. They would to have come as soon as they were learning that there is a good world here for taking.”

  The wind whistled by us. I had to stop myself shivering, though it was as hot as bathwater.

  “It’s so big.”

  “Mah,” J.Lo breathed. “This is the smallest kind.”

  “But really…what did you send? There weren’t any radio or television stations transmitting anymore.”

  “No. It was just a little song. I singed a little song to see if the antennas were able to be sending it back to my scooter.”

  “What kind of song?”

  “A kid song. A children’s play song.”

  “How did it go?”

  “Hm. It will not to rhyme in humanspeak.”

  “That’s okay.”

  J.Lo thought for a moment.

  “It goes…it goes, Gorg are dumb, dumb like soap, their wives are wider than they should be.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said, looking ahead at the big purple ball.

  “The funny part,” said J.Lo, “is that Gorg do not even have wives.”

  “You should have told me about this. You said the Boov were after you because you made a mistake. This is one hell of a mistake, pardon my language.”

  “Oh,” said J.Lo. “Oh yes, I am supposing I should have to told you all about it, liketo you were telling me about humans hiding in this Happy Mice themed park? Hm?”

  “That’s different. Those humans…I thought there were people plotting to get rid of the Boov! To kick them off our planet! You wouldn’t have understood. You would never have gone along with that.”

  The sun was higher in the east, and it lit up the big Gorg ship like a heat lamp on a meatball.

  “I mean…what is it with you people? It’s not enough you stole the whole earth and my mom and everything? You had to go and invite Planet Purple and the…Purple People, too?”

  “Gorg,” corrected J.Lo. “And their skins are colored mostly green—”

  “It doesn’t matter!” I said, standing. “Green or purple…it’s still the wrong color skin, and they aren’t welcome here!”

  I breathed heavily and thought.

  “Okay, that came out wrong,” I said, “but still—”

  “The Gorg, they might have anyways learned about this world. They might to have picked up the human televisions—”

  “But they hadn’t yet, so you thought, ‘Hm…maybe for I to give my Gorg friends a call, maybe they can to come for my Let’s Ruin Everything Jerk Party!’”

  “They are not my friends!” J.Lo shouted. His face was burning pink. “You may not say it! The Gorg are friends of no one! NO ONE!”

  “Okay, okay—”

  “They are monsters!”

  “Okay,” I said.

  I settled on the grass again, and we sat in silence for a minute. I was kind of dizzy, kind of light-headed, and I had what you might call a vision. Or you might not; that’s your thing. But I could see the Boov and humans and J.Lo and me and my mom and everybody all at once, and there were lines connecting us—a constellation. I only got it for a second, like it was a secret.

  “I am thinking we are alls in the same car now,” said J.Lo. “We should to have no more secretions.”

  “Secrets.”

  “Secrets. Yes.”

  I took a deep breath and nodded.

  “And…” said J.Lo, “and I might also have gone along with that.”

  I turned. “With what?”

  J.Lo looked at his little feet. “With your plotting humans hiding themed park boys. I am thinking maybe the Boov should not to have come to Smekland. To…Earthland.”

  I kept my mouth shut and listened.

  “Before we came, Captain Smek and the HighBoovs telled us that the humans needed us. That the humans were just like the animals, and that we could to make them better. Teach to them. We were told the humans were nasty and backwards. It…it is what we thought.”

  “And what do you think now?” I asked.

  J.Lo seemed about to speak, but nothing came. He opened his mouth, and closed it, and opened it once more. He clenched his hands and curled his legs up against his body.

  “I am thinking I am very sorry, Gratuity,” he said.

  And I said, “Call me Tip.”

  So anyway. You all know what happened next, or you think you do. You know what happened with the Gorg. As for what Smekday means to me, this is it: every year as Smekday—as Christmas—rolls around again, I remember that day in Florida, and what J.Lo said, and what I decided. How there was nothing to it when it happened. Lightning didn’t crash, I did not think, All right then, I’ll go to Hell, pardon my language. I just decided to stick by a friend.

  Most everyone thinks of Smekday as the day the Boov arrived, and as the day they left, one year later. But the longer they’ve been gone, the less I care about that. The Boov weren’t anything special. They were just people. They were too smart and too stupid to be anything else.

  The End

  THE NATIONAL TIME CAPSULE COMMITTEE

  124 F STREET, FOURTH FLOOR

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  September 6

  Miss Gratuity Tucci

  c/o Daniel Landry Middle School

  Dear Miss Tucci:

  It is my great pleasure to inform you that your essay has been selected from more than 15,000 entries to be included in the National Time Capsule. Your unique story and viewpoint made your composition a true standout and the favorite of many judges. Also, you wrote easily ten times more than any of your fellow students, and we believe that should count for something. Enclosed are your savings bond, worth two hundred dollars at maturity, and twenty shares of Taco Stocko, good for a free Taco Taco at any participating Wall Street Taco Exchange.

  We hope this experience inspires you to keep writing. You could well be an author one day! Many national newspapers will be printing portions of your winning essay, and I wouldn’t be surprised if people are curious about the rest of your story: Did you reunite with your mother? What became of J.Lo? What are your thoughts about the Gorg’s defeat at the hands of the heroic Daniel Landry? What is the moral to your story?

  I just know one day I’ll be buying your biography.

  Once again, congratulations!

  Bev Doogan

  Chairperson

  Gratuity Tucci

  Daniel Landry Middle School

  8th Grade

  THE TRUE MEANING OF SMEKDAY

  PART 3: Attack of the Clones

  That woman from the time capsule committee was right, sort of. I’m not so much “inspired” to write more as…compelled, I think you’d say. My brain won’t let me stop playing the rest of the story in my head like a movie, and I’m hoping that by writing it all down I can be finished with it.

  But I won’t be showing it to anyone. I have reasons. Maybe I’ll leave instructions that no one can read this journal until the time capsule is uncovered, and I’m already gone, and I won’t have to talk about it.

  No offense to you.

  I’m sure you’re all nice people.

  Anyway.

  We left Orlando under a cloud. I didn’t even check the atlas—I just drove away from the rising sun, fast, determined to put some distance between us and the Boov, in case
they should decide to give chase again. We slid through the streets and highways, following any signs that said “west,” setting out like Lewis and Clark into a wide frontier that had grown wild and unknown all over again.

  We passed a flock of flamingos flying low over the wet land like gaudy umbrellas carried by the wind. They barely registered then. Thinking about them now, I realize it was the first I’d ever known that flamingos flew at all. It didn’t suit them—they looked like sprinting drag queens. But at the time they were just another part of this new, haunted America, with its empty cities and huge, sweaty eye in the clouds, watching over it all.

  J.Lo was still a pale blue, curled up in his seat and staring at some point just behind the dashboard. Pig was happily dumb to the fact that the world had just ended for the second time in six months. She brushed back and forth against J.Lo and me, trying to get a reaction, then eventually gave up and went to sleep in the back.

  I couldn’t drive very far. I hadn’t had any sleep. I thought maybe J.Lo would be more alert, and I didn’t have anything against letting him drive anymore, but when I looked I saw him tipped to the side, fogging up the window with closed eyes. I made it to some little town called I-don’t-know-what and found a scrap metal yard by the highway. It seemed like the right place for the three of us. I pulled Slushious between two massive piles of discarded city and curled up next to Pig.

  I cautiously cracked the window for some air. I thought it would stink like every other dump, but the scrap yard just smelled like pennies. It smelled like the U.S. Mint probably smelled, back when it still made money. Back when pennies were pennies, and not little worthless copper medallions, like prizes at a Lincoln look-alike contest. Back when dollar bills were not just wallet-size pictures of Washington.

  It was about this time that all the metaphorical bad weather was replaced by the real thing, and the clouds cracked open and rained. I think it was the kind of rain that only Florida gets, the kind that makes you want to start gathering animals in twos, just in case. I looked out the window and saw nothing. The downpour made the world look like a cable channel you hadn’t paid for, all static with an occasional flash of something you thought you knew.