AAAARGH!!! (4 page)

TRANSLATION:
Things might get a little weird.

She waved the book report at them. “I found this on my desk this morning.”

“You don’t say,” Tuna said, pretending to be surprised.

TJ simply looked at him. He was as bad an actor as he was a time traveler.

“Any idea where it came from?” she asked.

Herby floated to her other side and looked. “Cool. Maybe it was, like, the book report fairy.”

She blew the hair out of her eyes in frustration. “Which one of you wrote this?”

“Perhaps you typed it yourself,” Tuna said.

“In my sleep?”

“You’ve never heard of sleep typing?” Herby asked. “It can be a terrible thing.”

“Guys?!”

“Your Dude-ness,” Herby said, “didn’t you say you had a gargantuan book report due today?”

“Right, but—”

“And with all the distractions Tuna caused last night, we figured—”

“Excuse me,” Tuna interrupted. “I was not the one responsible for last evening’s distractions.”

“You were too.”

“Was not.”

“Were too.”

“Was—”

“Guys!”

“—not.”

“Were—”

“GUYS!”

They came to a stop.

Once again she raised the paper. “I can’t hand this in.”

“Why not?” Herby asked. “Is it too short?”

“I can’t hand it in because I didn’t write it.”

“So?”

“So that’s cheating.”

The boys looked at each other, puzzled.

“Even if it’s well typed?” Herby asked.

“Even if it’s well typed,” TJ sighed.

“Even if Robert Louis Stevenson wrote it for you?” Tuna asked.

“Even if Robert Louis . . . Wait a minute. Robert Louis Stevenson, the author, wrote this?”

The boys grinned in pride.

Tuna explained, “We time-ported him up to our attic last night.”

TJ could barely speak. “Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of
Treasure Island
, wrote a book report on his own book . . .
for me
?”

“Correct,” Tuna said. “We bribed him with food items unavailable in his era—a Big Mac and a strawberry shake.”

“And a Happy Meal toy, dude. Don’t forget the Happy Meal toy.”

Before TJ could respond, her backpack started to move.

“Excuse me, Your Dude-ness, but is your backpack alive?”

“Don’t be torked,” Tuna scoffed. “Living backpacks were not invented until the year 2104.”

Next, the backpack started to wiggle.

(Remember that weirdness that’s supposed to be happening? Well, buckle up.)

Actually, the wiggling backpack wasn’t as weird as the way it started screaming,

“Shiver me timbers! Shiver me timbers!”

Not to be outdone, TJ let out her own scream. She slipped off the pack as fast as she could and dropped it to the floor, where it kept right on wiggling.

To make matters worse, her cute little sister, Dorie, called from downstairs in her cute little sister voice. “TJ, you okay?”

“Pieces of eight!”
the backpack cried.
“Pieces of eight! Squawk!”

“TJ?”

TJ would have loved to answer, but it’s hard answering when you’re busy having a nervous breakdown.

“Open it,” Tuna whispered to Herby. “Open the backpack!”

“You open it,” Herby whispered back.

“TJ?” Cute little sister Dorie started up the stairs. “Is everything okay?”

TJ stared at the moving backpack, then looked to the stairs, her panic growing. This was the last thing her sister needed to see.

“TJ?”

“Do something!” she hissed. “Guys?!”

Without a word, Tuna reached into his pocket for his Swiss Army Knife. Before TJ could stop him (things never seemed to go right with that contraption), he opened the Time Freezer Blade and

Dorie and everything around her turned to slow motion.

“T . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J . . . . . . . . . . .”

Dorie was still climbing the stairs, but by the time she arrived, TJ would either:

A)
Be an old lady

B)
Be eaten alive by the alien backpack

C)
Find the courage to reach down and open the backpack herself.

It was a tough call, but TJ chose C.

She reached down, quickly unzipped the pack, and was suddenly hit with a faceful of feathers. Last night’s parrot flew out squawking and shrieking. (Though it was hard to hear over TJ’s own squawking and shrieking. Something about a parrot appearing in your backpack at 7:40 in the morning will do that to a person.)

The bird began flying around their heads, crying,
“Shiver me timbers! Shiver me timbers!”

Meanwhile, Dorie continued up the stairs. “Whaaa aat’ssssss . . . . . . . . . . . . . goooooooooo . . . . . . . . . .”

“Guys, do something!” TJ shouted.

“. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . iiiiiiiing . . . . . . . . . . . . .”

The good news was Tuna had already pulled open another blade on his Swiss Army Knife. Once again it started making all those cool

noises.

The bad news was

“Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!”

nothing happened. (Well, except that Dorie finally appeared at the top of the stairs.)

“. . . . . . . . . . onnnn . . . . . . . . . . . . . .”

“Give it a
thwack
!” Herby shouted. “Give it a
thwack
!”

“I’m
thwack-
ing; I’m
thwack-
ing!” Tuna shouted as he

it against the side of the wall.

“Guys!”

“. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . uuuuuuuup . . . . . . . . . . .”

Finally, after one last
thwack
, the parrot

disappeared.

That was the good news. But as TJ had already learned, with these guys there would always be some bad. This time it came in the form of a

flying pterodactyl.

“A pterodactyl?” she shouted. “You turned the parrot into a pterodactyl?”

“Please,” Tuna said, “there’s no reason to shout.”

“THERE’S A FLYING DINOSAUR IN MY HALLWAY!”

“Well, all right, perhaps there is a small reason.”

“. . . . . . . . . . . . .heeeeeeeeeeerrrre . . . . . . . . . . ?”

Slowly, Dorie began turning her head. Any minute she would see what was going on. Although Tuna and Herby would be invisible to her, the pterodactyl would not. And although Dorie was pretty easygoing, something about a flying dinosaur in the house could send her into a screaming fit . . . which could cause older sister Violet to appear and do the same. . . . which could bring Dad upstairs to have a major heart attack (since dads are even less fond of flying dinosaurs than screaming sisters).

“Shiver me timbers! Shiver me timbers! SQUAWK!”

Once again Tuna
thwack
ed the blade and once again it:

This time the pterodactyl disappeared. So did the parrot. Finally everything was back to normal . . . well, except for a handful of colorful feathers floating down to the floor. Oh, and cute little Dorie still moving at about
1/390,234
miles per hour.

TJ spun back to Tuna and Herby. “What was that about?” she demanded. “And how come the bird came back?”

Tuna answered, “Apparently the time-space continuum was juxtaposed in such a nonlinear fashion that—”

TJ held up her hand. “English, please.”

“Oh yes, certainly.” He cleared his throat and carefully explained, “You’ve got me.”

TJ gave him a look.

He gave her a shrug. Then, opening the Time Freezer Blade, he pointed it at her sister and