He'd decided that when you boiled it right down, all that Number 21 had done to me was seize the advantage by using the element of surprise.

If there is a kryptonite for me, then there you have it: because my powers are directly linked to my imagination, I have to be thinking clearly in order to make the best use of them.

By hitting me with that concussion-inducing shockwave, Number 21 had been able to keep me disoriented and unable, for instance, to visualize any weapons-or summon my alien-b.u.t.t-kicking friends.

"Hey, Mom," I yelled. She was sitting on the back porch reading a book, The Elephant-Keeper's Secret Kite, The Elephant-Keeper's Secret Kite, that I'd picked up for her. Have I mentioned that I love elephants and that it's a little-known fact that they originated on my home planet? that I'd picked up for her. Have I mentioned that I love elephants and that it's a little-known fact that they originated on my home planet?

"What's for dinner?" I asked.

"I have no idea," she replied. "All we have here is a tin of caviar I found in the mailbox along with a lot of other old junk mail."

"Caviar?" I asked. "As in fish eggs?"

"A lot of people consider it a delicacy, Daniel," she reminded me, holding out the package. It was still in its clear plastic mailer, addressed to "Female Resident."

I tore open the bag and read the note that came with the can: A gift to the women of Holliswood from the KHAW news team, in grat.i.tude for your kindness to visiting film producers. Bon appet.i.t!

Caviar from the local news station? Well go ahead and chalk up mystery number 112 for me to solve already. And, while you're at the board, why don't you put me down for what is really only my second bad pun ever-although in this case I think you'll agree it's completely unavoidable-because there was something very fishy very fishy going on in this town. going on in this town.

Chapter 13.

SINCE I REALLY did not want caviar for dinner-or ever-I sent Mr. Gout out for some KFC original recipe. I knew my friends, especially Joe, would never forgive me if I didn't summon them for the Colonel Sanders gorge fest. Joe nearly cried with happiness when he saw Mr. Gout come in the door with the big red-and-white buckets.

Then Dana, w.i.l.l.y, Joe, and Emma and I said good night to my parents and hopped into the Ferrari. The only problem was the five of us couldn't fit in a two-seater sports car.

"Leave Dana here," said Joe.

"No way," said Dana, "You're the one who smells like Colonel Sanders's gym shorts."

"I'll stay behind if you guys want," said the ever-sacrificing Emma. "Even though all I I smell like is smell like is coleslaw coleslaw because n.o.body ever asks what because n.o.body ever asks what I I want to eat for dinner." want to eat for dinner."

Emma always serves us a generous helping of grief for eating meat.

"Hey, you kids," said Dad, who was standing on the front lawn, laughing at us along with Pork Chop. "Take the minivan," he suggested. "I made some modifications that will help quite a bit with your, um, errands tonight."

w.i.l.l.y had already clambered out of the overstuffed Ferrari and was sliding open the minivan's side-panel door.

"Dudes. You gotta come check this out!"

Chapter 14.

DAD HAD CONVERTED the minivan into a cross between s...o...b.. Doo's Mystery Machine and a NASA command center.

The s.p.a.cious, now s.h.a.g-carpeted interior was blinking, pulsing, and humming with sensor displays, joysticks, trackb.a.l.l.s, touchpads, data visors, relay panels, heads-up displays, sampling hoods, and holographic imagers.

"This is great, Dad," I said. "So how's everything work?"

"I'm sure a genius like you can figure it out in no time," said Pork Chop, snapping her bubblegum.

"It's all very user-friendly," said Dad. "I don't think any of you will have any trouble getting the hang of it."

"Actually, it's my four copilots who'll be getting the hang of it," I said. "I'm driving."

They groaned but settled into the back of the van without another note of complaint as I drove toward the outskirts of town. They're good friends like that.

As we made our way down the quaint residential streets, you couldn't help noticing the windows of nearly every house glowing with the eerie blue flicker of TV and computer screens. This thing called Contemporary America-and its obsession with televisions, game systems, and computers-has gone a little far if you ask me. Some call it the Information Age, but I'd tend to say it's more the Sitting-on-one's-b.u.t.t-and-letting-other-people-do-the-thinking-for-you Age.

"You guys find anything useful back there?" I asked, turning onto Mulberry from Larch.

"Yes, I think I have our first target!" said Joe. "There's a whole mess of 'em in a building about a half mile from us. Hang a left here and then a right at the next stoplight."

"How many are there?" asked w.i.l.l.y, practicing some jujitsu moves in the middle of the van.

"Can't tell yet. Hang on, okay?" Joe remained intent on his data feed. I turned at the light onto a commercial street lined with stores and shopping plazas.

"Okay, it's up there on the right," said Joe. "Should say 'White Castle' on it... and it's absolutely infested with... hamburgers! hamburgers!"

We pelted him with food wrappers, empty soda cans, a couple of dirty sneakers. I should've remembered that no no mission is more important to Joe than filling his supersize-me stomach. mission is more important to Joe than filling his supersize-me stomach.

Chapter 15.

JOE PRACTICALLY HAD to be held down to be kept from leaping out of the van as we pa.s.sed the White Castle.

I steered back to our original route, but we didn't get very far. A man, covered from head to toe in mud, staggered out of the bushes and into the middle of the road.

I swerved and hit the brakes.

"Hey," I yelled out the window. "You need some help?"

He ignored me and staggered up the lawn of a house whose windows-like all the others we'd seen-were flickering blue from TV and computer displays.

"Yo," yelled w.i.l.l.y, climbing out of the van after him. "You okay?"

The man must have heard him-unless he was deaf or had mud in his ears-but he just walked up to the house and right smack into the closed front door. After a minute or two, the door opened, and we caught a glimpse of a pregnant woman as he pushed his way through and disappeared inside.

"Rough day at work, I guess," said Dana.

"Maybe he's an alligator wrestler," suggested Joe.

"Alligators don't live this far north, stupid," said Emma. "But clearly he was coming from someplace muddy."

"The closest body of water is two point one miles south-southeast of here," said Dana, clicking away on a computer in the back of the minivan. "That roughly lines up with the direction he was coming from."

"Step on it, driver!" said w.i.l.l.y.

"Hey, I'm in charge around here," I said and added, "as should be obvious to a bunch of people who depend on my imagination for their very existence."

"Sorry, your highness," said Joe, returning the flurry of food wrappers, soda cans, and sneakers that had nailed him earlier.

We'd just turned onto County Road 23 when Emma suddenly shrieked like a banshee.

A dog had run into the street just feet away from our car.

Chapter 16.

I BRAKED SO hard that everybody in the backseats ended up in the front seats.

"What's with all the jaywalking delays?" I grumbled. I had an investigation to conduct here.

"Aw," said Emma, sitting up and looking at the poor animal shivering in the van's headlights.

"Somebody tried to burn burn him," she exclaimed as we got out of the van. She gathered the medium-sized brown dog in her arms. him," she exclaimed as we got out of the van. She gathered the medium-sized brown dog in her arms.

"Are you sure you want to pick him up like that?" asked Joe. "He's, like, really muddy."

Emma shot him a reproachful glance.

"Judging from the shape of the burn marks," said w.i.l.l.y, petting the dog's head, "I'd say an alien firearm did this. He's a lucky pup to have escaped with only some singed fur."

"He doesn't have a collar," Dana observed.

"Which is just one more reason why we're taking him with us," said Emma. "We'll check with the animal shelter to see if anybody's missing a dog, and, if not, we'll adopt him. And, for now, his name will be Lucky, just like w.i.l.l.y said."

I thought about this for a moment. Unlike the rest of them, Lucky wouldn't just disappear when I needed to be alone. So if Emma adopted him and then Emma wasn't around for a bit, the dog would be my my responsibility. I felt like a parent having an awkward moment at PetSmart. responsibility. I felt like a parent having an awkward moment at PetSmart.

"Um, I think we better leave him here. I mean, he was probably going someplace -" I broke off. Emma looked like she was deciding exactly how to conduct my public execution.

"Right," I said. "Bring him into the van already." I'd figure this out later. He was was a pretty sweet-looking dog, at least under the burned fur and inch-thick mud. a pretty sweet-looking dog, at least under the burned fur and inch-thick mud.

Hey, I may be an alien, but I still have a heart.

Chapter 17.

WE TRAVELED ABOUT a quarter mile down an unpainted, heavily potholed strip of asphalt that saw more traffic from combines and livestock trailers than pa.s.senger vehicles. I knew we'd hit the boondocks when we saw something far stranger than a farm animal emerge about twenty feet in front of the van.

It was an alien picnic. Right there in the middle of the road was a cl.u.s.ter of Number 5's henchbeasts.

"Um..." wondered Joe. "Why aren't they attacking us?"

"It worked!" said Dana. "See, I put us in stealth stealth mode. We can see them, but they mode. We can see them, but they can't can't see us. Or hear us, for that matter. A mile or so back I turned on a cloaking device that renders the van invisible." see us. Or hear us, for that matter. A mile or so back I turned on a cloaking device that renders the van invisible."

"Go ahead," she continued, "test it out. Drive up closer."

As we slowly approached, we could see some of them were munching on chicken wings. Not buffalo- or BBQ-style, though... they were the kind with feathers still on them and blood still in them. They guzzled cans of motor motor oil to wash them down and tossed the empties to the ground and stomped on them like they were at a fraternity party. oil to wash them down and tossed the empties to the ground and stomped on them like they were at a fraternity party.

And then we noticed one henchbeast had something that looked suspiciously like a cat's tail hanging out of its mouth.

"That's so so disgusting," said Joe. "I mean people say they could eat a horse when they're hungry, but that's just an expression. What kind of monster would actually eat a poor little kitty?" disgusting," said Joe. "I mean people say they could eat a horse when they're hungry, but that's just an expression. What kind of monster would actually eat a poor little kitty?"

"Stay here, Lucky," said Emma, and before the rest of us could stop her, she'd jumped out of the van and was sprinting toward the aliens.

Chapter 18.

I'VE GOT TO hand it to Emma-for a peacenik, she really knows how to lay down some hurt. That first alien she decked must have thought it had been teleported back up into s.p.a.ce for all the stars and blackness it was suddenly seeing.

Still, this was a case of seven versus one, and, though she managed to knock down a henchbeast and had delivered some serious facial rearrangement to another, she was soon at the uncomfortable center of an alien pileup.

w.i.l.l.y was the first to reach her side. He grabbed the nearest henchbeast and threw him a dozen yards straight into a tree. The young maple shook and dropped a lot of sticks and leaves but fared better than the alien-which shook and dropped most of its legs.

Joe, Emma, and I managed to take out another two, but the other aliens had remembered their guns by this point and were laying down some heavy fire that kept us playing far more defense than offense.

That is, until it occurred to me that I could turn their high-powered plasma guns into Super Soakers.