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  “No, it’s me, Doominator!”

  It’s true. It was Doominator, the robot clone Dr. Warsaw had created to duplicate himself. He looked and sounded identical to the real Dr. Warsaw.

  The walls continued closing in on the twins. The sides were less than ten feet apart now. Pep screamed.

  “I thought you drowned in the log flume pool!” Coke shouted. “I saw it with my own eyes!”

  “That robot did drown,” Doominator replied. “I’m an exact copy of him. I am . . . Doominator 2.”

  “You’re a clone of a clone?” Coke asked.

  “That’s right,” Doominator 2 said. “The beauty of digital information is that copies can be made at the touch of a button.”

  “I don’t care if you’re a clone!” shouted Aunt Judy/Evil Elvis. “I love you anyway.”

  “Yeah, well I don’t love you,” Doominator 2 said. “Leave those kids alone!”

  He ran over and the next thing anyone knew, the two of them were fighting at the top of the iron wall.

  “Don’t be cruel!” Aunt Judy/Evil Elvis shouted just before Doominator 2 caught her with a forearm to the face. She fell backward and out of sight.

  “Elvis has left the building!” said Doominator 2.

  With Aunt Judy/Evil Elvis dispatched, Doominator 2 jumped into the pit with the twins. They recoiled in horror, imagining the next unspeakable thing that was going to happen to them. But instead of raising an arm against them, Doominator 2 got down on the ground in the middle of the moving walls.

  “I’m made of iron,” Doominator 2 said. “These walls will not be able to crush me. It’s impossible.”

  Sure enough, when the walls reached his head and feet, they pressed against him with a huge amount of force, but the robot clone didn’t collapse. The moving walls abruptly stopped. The noisy gears ground to a halt.

  “You saved our lives!” Pep shouted.

  “Don’t mention it,” Doominator 2 grunted. “Run! Get away from here, as far as you can go. Climb on top of me to get out!”

  The twins were about to use Doominator 2 as a stepstool, but at that moment somebody climbed in and grabbed them roughly from behind.

  “Going somewhere?”

  “Dr. Warsaw!” Coke and Pep yelled simultaneously.

  Yes, it was Dr. Herman Warsaw. The real, human Dr. Herman Warsaw, who had created The Genius Files program and become psychotic as a result of 9/11. He had been trying to kill off the twins ever since they were home in California. As always, a cigarette dangled from his lips.

  “That just goes to show that if you want something done right, do it yourself,” Dr. Warsaw spat. “Enough incompetence! Why must I be surrounded by idiots?”

  “Coke! Do something!”

  But there was nothing anyone could do. Dr. Warsaw reached into his jacket and pulled out a pistol.

  “No more gimmicks,” he said. “From now on we do things the old-fashioned way.”

  “Please! Please!” Coke said. “We’ll do anything you ask.”

  “Stop begging,” Dr. Warsaw said. “You’re pathetic.”

  “No! Don’t!”

  He pulled the trigger.

  Chapter 6

  ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

  “Coke, wake up!” Pep shouted in her brother’s ear.

  “Huh? What?”

  Her brother bolted up and shook his head, as if that would erase the bad thoughts from his brain.

  “I was having a dream,” he said, still fuzzy. “A nightmare.”

  “About what?”

  “We were floating on rafts in a lake,” Coke recalled, “and then the bowler dudes tried to run us down with Jet Skis . . . but we were rescued by Mrs. Higgins . . . and then she tried to kill us with chloroform . . . but we were saved by Archie Clone . . . and then he tried to kill us in a giant car-crushing machine . . . and then Evil Elvis and Doominator showed up. And then Dr. Warsaw. They were all trying to do horrible things to us!”

  Pep motioned for her brother to look to the left, where the three aliens were staring at them intently. It didn’t take a genius to realize that the situation he was currently in was not a whole lot better than his nightmare. Coke flinched.

  “Flog slab,” said the alien across the room.

  “Stop saying that!” Coke shouted, getting up off the table he had been lying on. “Is that all you know how to say?”

  “Flog slab,” said the alien in the middle.

  The twins both had slight headaches, but didn’t realize it was because their brains had been probed. They glanced quickly around the room. All the screens and unusual equipment made it look like a hospital, or perhaps some kind of a laboratory.

  “Do you think they performed bizarre medical experiments on us while we were sleeping?” Pep asked. She examined her arms and legs for cuts, scars, or bruises, but found nothing.

  “I don’t know,” Coke replied. “Why don’t you ask Moe, Larry, and Curly over there?”

  “Flog slab,” said the alien on the right.

  “You know what?” Coke said. “I’ve had enough of you three.”

  “What did you do to us?” Pep begged the aliens. “Why are we here? When will you let us go? We want to go back to our parents.”

  “You’re wasting your breath,” her brother told her. “They’re not going to answer. All they know how to say is flog slab.”

  “Boolay,” said the one he’d called Moe. “Boolay wow boolay.”

  Coke and Pep looked at each other, then back at the three aliens. Pep’s jaw dropped open.

  “What did you say?” she asked.

  “Boolay wow boolay,” said Larry, nodding its head.

  “Boolay wow boolay,” said Curly.

  “Gurk quizzlibub,” said Moe. “Gurk quizzlibub good evening gurk quizzlibub.”

  “They’re talking!” Coke exclaimed. “They’re using words that sound something like our words. What do they mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Pep said, “but I’m going to figure it out.”

  Pep loved word games and she was excellent at solving puzzles of all kinds. To a large extent, her verbal skill was the reason why she and Coke were still alive. If she hadn’t been able to figure out all those ciphers along the road, there was no telling what would have happened to them.

  Pep faced the aliens and slowly asked, “What does boolay mean?”

  “Boolay wow boolay,” said Moe, who appeared to be the “spokesman” for the group. “Boolay wow boolay wow.”

  “Wait a minute. Does boolay mean ‘wow’?” Pep asked.

  “Boolay wow boolay wow,” all three aliens responded, nodding their heads vigorously. “Gurk quizzlibub good evening gurk quizzlibub.”

  “Boolay means ‘wow’ in their language!” Pep said, jumping up and down. “Boolay!”

  “Boolay wow boolay,” said Curly.

  “You don’t know that for sure,” Coke told his sister. “Maybe they’re just making random vocalizations, or imitating you. Like a parrot or something.”

  “Boolay boolay boolay,” said the aliens.

  “Gurk quizzlibub good evening gurk quizzlibub,” said the one the twins had dubbed Larry.

  “Do you think gurk quizzlibub means ‘good evening’?” Pep asked. “Maybe gurk means ‘good’ and quizzlibub means ‘evening.’”

  “Don’t look at me,” Coke said, “I don’t speak alien.”

  “Gurk quizzlibub good evening,” said Curly. “Good evening gurk quizzlibub.”

  “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Pep shouted, clapping her hands.

  “Yerp yes yerp yes yerp yes,” said Moe.

  “And yerp must mean ‘yes’!” Pep said. “Can you believe this? We’re communicating with them!”

  “It sounds as if we can say any English word and they’ll translate it,” Coke said.

  “Hand,” Pep said, holding up her hand for the aliens to see.

  “Blisky,” said the aliens. “Blisky hand. Hand blisky.”

  “Eyes,” Pep said, pointing to her eyes
.

  “Klimps,” said the aliens. “Klimps eyes. Eyes klimps.”

  “Nose,” Pep said, touching her nose.

  “Snorfle,” said the aliens. “Snorfle nose. Nose snorfle.”

  “Spy,” said Coke, wanting to get in on the conversation.

  “Snarg,” said the aliens. “Snarg spy. Spy snarg.”

  “Love,” Pep said, cradling her arms as if she was hugging herself.

  “Zurk,” said the aliens. “Zurk love. Love zurk.”

  Coke and Pep, excited at this breakthrough, moved closer to the three aliens. It was still a frightening situation, but the joy of communicating with beings from another planet had more than made up for any apprehension the twins had.

  After translating all the major body parts, they advanced to more difficult words and concepts. Up/Down. Bad/Good. In/Out. Take. Make. Went. Give. Like. Go. Be. Have. Do. Say. And so on. Soon full sentences and quotations were shooting back and forth.

  “To be or not to be, that is the question,” said Pep.

  “To zweek or blop to zweek, that is the snazzle wogger,” Moe replied.

  “Give me liberty or give me death,” said Coke.

  “Give me rendium or give me gogwatsfu,” Larry replied.

  “The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain,” said Coke.

  “The okletoxx in Purzly derps mortrab on the flamplant,” replied Moe.

  “I think they’ve got it!” exclaimed Coke.

  “I chukah fliff snix barble!” exclaimed Curly.

  In a short period of time, the aliens were able to understand simple English and the twins had a working knowledge of the alien language. Suddenly, they looked like they were all old friends.

  “Wait a minute,” Coke said. “What about flog slab? What does that mean?”

  “Flog slab golf balls flog slab golf balls flog slab golf balls,” chanted the aliens.

  “Wait a minute,” Pep said. “Flog slab means golf balls? None of your other words were spelled backward. That doesn’t make sense.”

  “English makes sense?” asked Moe. “Aren’t you the ones who drive on the parkway and park on the driveway?”

  “So, you understand English?” Pep finally asked the aliens.

  “Yerp,” replied Moe. “We do now. While the two of you were murkling—I mean sleeping—we examined your brains.”

  “You looked inside my sister’s brain?” Coke asked. “Did you find anything?”

  “Very funny, Coke,” Pep said. “On our planet, we would call it an invasion of privacy. They could have done anything to us while we were asleep. Did you do bizarre medical experiments on us?”

  “That depends on what you mean by bizarre,” said Moe. “We learned how your skrats, I mean brains, generate thoughts, dreams, memories, perceptions, and other mental images. And we learned your language.”

  “Golf balls golf balls golf balls!” chanted Larry and Curly.

  “Why do they keep saying golf balls?” Coke asked.

  “Oh, you’ll find out,” said Moe.

  “How long were we asleep?” Pep asked.

  “About five splinks, I mean minutes,” Moe said.

  “You mean to say that in just five minutes you analyzed our brains and learned the entire English language?”

  “No,” said Moe. “We also had some wergle. I mean, lunch.”

  Pep was flabbergasted. She had taken a full year of French at school during the fourth grade, and she barely remembered anything beyond bonjour and Où est la bibliothèque? (“Where is the library?”)

  Coke was equally impressed, and a little intimidated. He had never met anyone who came close to his level of intelligence, much less surpassed it. Coke’s IQ score, he knew, was in the mid-150 range, which qualified him as a genius. The Guinness Book of World Records, which he had memorized cover to cover, once listed a woman named Marilyn vos Savant with an IQ of 190, one of the highest ever recorded.

  “What’s your IQ?” Coke asked the aliens.

  “Using your primitive method of measuring intelligence,” said Moe, “our scores would be in the range of 650.”

  No longer fearful, Coke and Pep were fascinated by these strange, super-intelligent creatures from another world. What a unique opportunity to answer some of the questions mankind had been pondering for centuries. There were so many things to ask. So many things to know. How was the universe created? What is the purpose of life? But the most important question, of course, came first.

  “Where are you from?” Pep asked.

  “We are from the planet Kayaanga,” Moe replied.

  The twins were sitting among the aliens. Coke’s knees were mere inches from those of Curly, but he had no fear. Just the opposite, really. He and his sister had obviously been abducted by these aliens who were in a position to do anything they wanted, and yet a sense of calm had come over both of the twins. They knew they were experiencing something that few—maybe nobody—in our world had ever witnessed. They would have some story to tell when they got home. That is, if they ever made it home.

  It was quiet. Pep held her brother’s hand.

  “Well, it has been really great hanging out with you guys,” Coke said, stretching as he got to his feet. “But we need to be heading back—”

  “We have come to your planet for a reason,” Moe said.

  “Huh?” Pep asked. “I beg your pardon?”

  A low rumbling sound could be heard below them.

  “What’s that?” Coke asked, sitting back down quickly. “What’s happening?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing to worry about,” said Moe. “We are about to flumphus, I mean blast off.”

  “Blast off?” Pep asked, squeezing her brother’s hand tightly. “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll find out.”

  Chapter 7

  LIFTOFF

  The rumbling from below was accompanied by a loud humming noise, as if a billion cats were purring into microphones and the sound was being pumped out of speakers positioned all around. Gentle vibrations washed over Coke and Pep. They could feel the hair on their arms standing on end.

  “This is a joke, right?” asked Coke.

  “I suggest you strap into the seats over there, and quickly,” warned Moe.

  “But we have to leave!” Pep shouted. “Our parents are waiting for us back at the motel!”

  “Too late for that now,” Moe informed them. He and the other two aliens went off to busy themselves in preparation for liftoff.

  If you’ve ever watched old videos of the Apollo missions or the space shuttles rising up off the launch pad, it looks like everything is moving in slow motion. It takes an incredible amount of fuel—and a lot of time—to escape the grip of the earth’s gravity.

  But this was not like that at all. Using an advanced propulsion technology that human rocket scientists can only dream about, the spaceship seemed to lift almost effortlessly off the ground and rise to treetop level. If the nation’s sophisticated defense systems detected an unidentified flying object, nothing was done about it. No jets were scrambled. The president was not informed. Nobody in the area of Roswell, New Mexico, noticed anything unusual in the night sky.

  In seconds, the ship was gliding on a straight vertical path, pushing the earth’s atmosphere out of its way like it was strolling through a beaded curtain.

  Of course, the effect on the human body was not so smooth. Newton’s laws saw to that. As the ship went from zero to 17,500 miles per hour in less than four minutes, Coke and Pep felt themselves being pushed hard against the floor. Coke looked down to see the flesh on his legs pulling against the bones. If he could have seen the soft tissue of his cheeks flapping, he would have laughed.

  “We must be pulling four g’s,” Coke groaned to nobody in particular.

  It was five, actually.

  The twins felt pressure across their chests as the ship punched its way through the troposphere. They felt heavy. It was like they had doubled their weight instantly.

  There were t
wo seats that looked like dentist chairs in the corner, and a large window in front of them. The twins struggled to crawl over to the chairs and strap themselves in.

  “Look!” Coke said, pointing out the window.

  Earth was falling away before their eyes. Coke, of course, remembered learning about the layers of the atmosphere in school. At seven and a half miles up, the troposphere ends and the stratosphere begins. At twenty-one miles, the stratosphere ends and the mesosphere begins. At around forty-nine miles, they reached the thermosphere.

  Coke almost expected to see lines dividing the layers of air, the way they do in textbook graphs. But the real world was not so obvious. There were no borders separating each layer of the atmosphere. It just got progressively darker. By the time they reached the exosphere, outer space was inky black.

  The thing that struck Coke and Pep was how everything looked so clear. The stars didn’t look like faraway, sparkly dots. They were so much brighter, like planets. They didn’t twinkle; they glowed. There was no atmosphere to cloud one’s vision.

  “We’re . . . astronauts,” Pep said, marveling at the view of the earth from above.

  “It’s . . . beautiful,” Coke said, gazing at the enormous blue marble with white swirling around it.

  “So much water!” Pep said.

  Her brother pointed out that the white swirls were clouds, ice, and snow. They could see the larger rivers, continents, and the lights of big cities. The earth seemed to get smaller as they rocketed away from it.

  “Where’s the equator?” Pep asked.

  “The equator is an imaginary line, you dope,” Coke said, without taking his eyes from the window. “It’s not like there’s a giant rubber band around the middle of the planet.”

  Pep gasped for a moment when she suddenly realized they would need helmets and spacesuits to survive the airless world of outer space. But there were no helmets or spacesuits within sight. Since they had not dropped dead yet, the twins came to the logical conclusion that the aliens were capable of breathing oxygen just like we do, and had been pumping it into the ship.

  “Where do you think they’re taking us?” Pep asked.

  “To their home planet, I guess.”

  Pep’s eyes felt watery and a single tear rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away with her sleeve. It was extremely possible that she would never see her home planet again.