Chapter Three, "A Lesson In Confrontation"
Only Slightly Better Than the Last Book
Chapter 3, "A Lesson In Confrontation"
Xlormp did end up taking me to another galaxy. I forgave him for being a greedy car-eating jerk when I got to thinking how awesome it would be to not have to worry about Lou bursting in on us at random intervals. We spent a week out of town (way out), and it was kind of easy to pretend that everything was okay when I wasn't actively participating in much other than alien limb removal.
But then we got back home to Spatulas, Earth, and I remembered. I remembered that there were things Xlormp wasn't telling me, and that I was angry at him, and that I wanted to hang out with Christopher and Hector 2.0, and that we were still out of orange juice.
Lou had missed me, it turned out. I really didn't think that he would care about or even notice my absence, but as soon as I teleported back onto my front lawn, he came out the door (for he had previously been inside) and approached me.
"Did you forget your cello lessons?" he asked, his face a mask of concern, only it wasn't a very good mask, because he still looked like Lou, just a little more concerned.
I took his concern, while not one-hundred percent coherent, as a sign that even Lou knew something was amiss.
School happened as usual the very next day, and Xlormp carried me there in his spaceship, because I no longer had a means of transport and I'll be danged if I was walking the whole block and a half to school. We beamed, as usual when Xlormp carried me to school, in front of the main hall.
But there were people waiting there for us. Two people. One was a pretty robotic person. In fact, he may have been a robot instead of a person. In fact, he was.
Christopher (the one who wasn't a robot) stood, arms crossed, in front of Xlormp. Her eyes were like tiny balls of capsulized anger, and they flashed and raged with rage and flashiness. I could see this situation turning pretty nasty. I hoped Xlormp had worked on his anger enough to not vaporize Christopher or Hector 2.0 (the one who was a robot).
"Christopher," Xlormp stated, as if almost nothing was wrong at all. He patted my friend sweetly on the head and said, "Move aside, I have classes to attend at this juncture."
"I will not," Christopher seethed. "There are things Frig needs to know that you are not telling her. There are also things Frig needs to do, and that is visit me, and you are not letting her. You are lucky, Xlormp, that I did not bring any weaponry with me to school today. You are also lucky that I will have to go home to wash this nasty slime out of my hair, because I was planning on following you around today and throwing spitballs at you or something."
Xlormp still seemed amused (I guess amused was better than killingly angry), but I had also been listening to Christopher's words, and I heard something in them that bothered me.
"Things? Telling? Me? Not? Xlormp," I asked gingerly, tapping him gently in his shoulder place, "are there things you are not telling me?"
Xlormp let out a guffaw so hearty it could have been packaged and sold as steak. "Frig, has there ever been a time I haven't told you things?"
I thought about that with every single one of my brain cells. I devised an answer which I proceeded to respond to the question with. "There was that time you didn't tell me you were an alien. And there was that time when you didn't tell me why you were leaving me. There was last week, when you wouldn't tell me what you and Klaxie were talking about-"
He raised a single flipper to my lips, and I tried not to shudder out of my pants from the slight yet intense physical contact.
"Shush, my most darling human being. You are young and have no need for such information."
I tried to protest that I actually knew most of that information except for the very last thing, but number one, the flipper was pretty firmly suctioned to my mouth, and number two, Christopher started talking again.
"You know, Xlormp, you can't keep us apart forever. If you don't tell Frig what's going on, I will. Tell him, Hector."
Hector 2.0 pressed a button on his stomach, and a card ejected from his chest. He held it in his robotic claw and read from it. "Data File 429 regarding intergalactic safety includes several paragraphs relevant to the human Friggen' Gorgeous. She is to be CC'ed in on all further announcements. Please destroy this message after reading." He then crammed the card into his metallic jaws and chewed with vigorous fervor.
"Xlormp!" I all but shrieked. "What's going on intergalatically that Hector's files think I should know?"
This conversation probably would have ended in an ugly way if Mr. Shothelberg hadn't emerged from his teacher-like cocoon and told us we were being far to noisy for a school hallway, and asked could we please go to our first classes in silence. Nobody ever ignores what teachers say.
But before we parted ways, and after Christopher shot one last super angry look at Xlormp, she slipped a piece of paper into my hand. She did this secretly, so that Xlormp would not see it happen. Then she and Hector 2.0 left the school grounds to go home and wash their hair. Seriously, this place has the crappiest attendance restrictions.
Xlormp grasped my arm firmly as we walked (well, he slithered) to our next class. He always did this, as a way of telling every potentially interested male that they had no chance and should probably just back off right now. I was used to it.
When we sat down, I unfolded the paper Christopher had given me, and read it serenely. It had words on it, words Christopher had written. These words said:
"The Tallybonkers are organized. And pissed. At you."
I had to read the words a few times to be sure I was reading them correctly. Not because I was dumb or anything, but because Christopher had kind of wonky handwriting, and at first it looked like she'd written "The Tallybonkers are Orangutans." Which just didn't make any sense.
I held the note out for Xlormp. "Is this true?" I whispered pissily. He took the note from me and examined it, then chuckled solidly.
"Certainly not, Frig. The Tallybonkers are not pianists."
"Pissed!" I whispered shriekingly, as I snatched the note back from him. "The Tallybonkers are pissed!" I wiped the slime from the paper and placed it delicately in my pocket.
It looked like Xlormp was preparing to tell some horrible lie to me, but I held up a hand. "Listen, Xlormpmuffin. If you really love me and don't just fake-love me, you will tell me the truth about this."
His face did a crumply thing. "Of course I don't just fake-love you."
"So tell me the truth."
He seemed torn between his desire to prove he didn't just fake-love me and his hardwired habit to lie when he thought I shouldn't know something. Finally, after almost a billion really long seconds, he moved his head up and down in a nodding way.
"Yes," he forced out of his face hole, tears threatening to ooze out of his slime generators. "The Tallybonkers are coming for your brain."
Chapter List
That's it for the first week of chapters! I hope it surpassed all of your wildest dreams and fantasies! If it didn't, what do you want from me, I am only one woman, GEEZ LOUISE.
Chapter 3, "A Lesson In Confrontation"
Xlormp did end up taking me to another galaxy. I forgave him for being a greedy car-eating jerk when I got to thinking how awesome it would be to not have to worry about Lou bursting in on us at random intervals. We spent a week out of town (way out), and it was kind of easy to pretend that everything was okay when I wasn't actively participating in much other than alien limb removal.
But then we got back home to Spatulas, Earth, and I remembered. I remembered that there were things Xlormp wasn't telling me, and that I was angry at him, and that I wanted to hang out with Christopher and Hector 2.0, and that we were still out of orange juice.
Lou had missed me, it turned out. I really didn't think that he would care about or even notice my absence, but as soon as I teleported back onto my front lawn, he came out the door (for he had previously been inside) and approached me.
"Did you forget your cello lessons?" he asked, his face a mask of concern, only it wasn't a very good mask, because he still looked like Lou, just a little more concerned.
I took his concern, while not one-hundred percent coherent, as a sign that even Lou knew something was amiss.
School happened as usual the very next day, and Xlormp carried me there in his spaceship, because I no longer had a means of transport and I'll be danged if I was walking the whole block and a half to school. We beamed, as usual when Xlormp carried me to school, in front of the main hall.
But there were people waiting there for us. Two people. One was a pretty robotic person. In fact, he may have been a robot instead of a person. In fact, he was.
Christopher (the one who wasn't a robot) stood, arms crossed, in front of Xlormp. Her eyes were like tiny balls of capsulized anger, and they flashed and raged with rage and flashiness. I could see this situation turning pretty nasty. I hoped Xlormp had worked on his anger enough to not vaporize Christopher or Hector 2.0 (the one who was a robot).
"Christopher," Xlormp stated, as if almost nothing was wrong at all. He patted my friend sweetly on the head and said, "Move aside, I have classes to attend at this juncture."
"I will not," Christopher seethed. "There are things Frig needs to know that you are not telling her. There are also things Frig needs to do, and that is visit me, and you are not letting her. You are lucky, Xlormp, that I did not bring any weaponry with me to school today. You are also lucky that I will have to go home to wash this nasty slime out of my hair, because I was planning on following you around today and throwing spitballs at you or something."
Xlormp still seemed amused (I guess amused was better than killingly angry), but I had also been listening to Christopher's words, and I heard something in them that bothered me.
"Things? Telling? Me? Not? Xlormp," I asked gingerly, tapping him gently in his shoulder place, "are there things you are not telling me?"
Xlormp let out a guffaw so hearty it could have been packaged and sold as steak. "Frig, has there ever been a time I haven't told you things?"
I thought about that with every single one of my brain cells. I devised an answer which I proceeded to respond to the question with. "There was that time you didn't tell me you were an alien. And there was that time when you didn't tell me why you were leaving me. There was last week, when you wouldn't tell me what you and Klaxie were talking about-"
He raised a single flipper to my lips, and I tried not to shudder out of my pants from the slight yet intense physical contact.
"Shush, my most darling human being. You are young and have no need for such information."
I tried to protest that I actually knew most of that information except for the very last thing, but number one, the flipper was pretty firmly suctioned to my mouth, and number two, Christopher started talking again.
"You know, Xlormp, you can't keep us apart forever. If you don't tell Frig what's going on, I will. Tell him, Hector."
Hector 2.0 pressed a button on his stomach, and a card ejected from his chest. He held it in his robotic claw and read from it. "Data File 429 regarding intergalactic safety includes several paragraphs relevant to the human Friggen' Gorgeous. She is to be CC'ed in on all further announcements. Please destroy this message after reading." He then crammed the card into his metallic jaws and chewed with vigorous fervor.
"Xlormp!" I all but shrieked. "What's going on intergalatically that Hector's files think I should know?"
This conversation probably would have ended in an ugly way if Mr. Shothelberg hadn't emerged from his teacher-like cocoon and told us we were being far to noisy for a school hallway, and asked could we please go to our first classes in silence. Nobody ever ignores what teachers say.
But before we parted ways, and after Christopher shot one last super angry look at Xlormp, she slipped a piece of paper into my hand. She did this secretly, so that Xlormp would not see it happen. Then she and Hector 2.0 left the school grounds to go home and wash their hair. Seriously, this place has the crappiest attendance restrictions.
Xlormp grasped my arm firmly as we walked (well, he slithered) to our next class. He always did this, as a way of telling every potentially interested male that they had no chance and should probably just back off right now. I was used to it.
When we sat down, I unfolded the paper Christopher had given me, and read it serenely. It had words on it, words Christopher had written. These words said:
"The Tallybonkers are organized. And pissed. At you."
I had to read the words a few times to be sure I was reading them correctly. Not because I was dumb or anything, but because Christopher had kind of wonky handwriting, and at first it looked like she'd written "The Tallybonkers are Orangutans." Which just didn't make any sense.
I held the note out for Xlormp. "Is this true?" I whispered pissily. He took the note from me and examined it, then chuckled solidly.
"Certainly not, Frig. The Tallybonkers are not pianists."
"Pissed!" I whispered shriekingly, as I snatched the note back from him. "The Tallybonkers are pissed!" I wiped the slime from the paper and placed it delicately in my pocket.
It looked like Xlormp was preparing to tell some horrible lie to me, but I held up a hand. "Listen, Xlormpmuffin. If you really love me and don't just fake-love me, you will tell me the truth about this."
His face did a crumply thing. "Of course I don't just fake-love you."
"So tell me the truth."
He seemed torn between his desire to prove he didn't just fake-love me and his hardwired habit to lie when he thought I shouldn't know something. Finally, after almost a billion really long seconds, he moved his head up and down in a nodding way.
"Yes," he forced out of his face hole, tears threatening to ooze out of his slime generators. "The Tallybonkers are coming for your brain."
Chapter List
That's it for the first week of chapters! I hope it surpassed all of your wildest dreams and fantasies! If it didn't, what do you want from me, I am only one woman, GEEZ LOUISE.