How I Stole Johnny Depp's Alien Girlfriend (7 page)

M
alou is right. By the time we stumble out of her studio, we can hear people running up the seven floors.

Zelda looks up to the skylight and decides in a flash. “To the roof!”

Malou: “No, there's nothing on the roof!”

Me: “Think about what Mom's going to do to us!”

Malou (after a short pause): “To the roof!”

Zelda is already climbing the ladder. She glances back at us. “Faster, Earthlings!”

I climb up the ladder second, Malou behind me. I pop my head outside. Malou's absolutely right. There's nothing up here—just a collection of slopes leading to certain death. But there's no stopping Zelda. She's already gliding toward the next building.

Malou and I walk carefully step by step, hugging each other and cursing profusely. Zelda is doing the gazelle thing again, hopping and flying from one roof to the next as if she has wings, calling back to us and complaining about the unbearable slowness of all Earthlings.

“Hey! Kids! Stop!”

We turn back. The bald policeman from Cornouaille pops his head through the skylight. “You're going to kill yourselves!”

I couldn't agree more.

Step, step. Oops. Step, step. Sliiiide. Omigod!

“How did they find us? Did you tell them Zelda was with me?” Malou asks.

“No, I didn't tell them
anything.
”

Step, step. Oops.

“Do you have a cell phone? Something they could track?”

“No. No cell phone.” I gave up my cell phone ages ago. No one ever called, which just reminded me how unpopular I am.

Sliiiiide.

“Stop talking,” I beg her. “You're going to kill us.”

“Kids! Come back,” the bald man calls after us as he climbs onto the roof. “We're here to help you.”

“Where did you phone me from this morning?”

“From home.”

“Frog! What were you thinking?”

Step, ste…sliiiide. Aaaah!

I grab Malou's sleeve right before she falls ten floors down. When she's done screaming, she offers this piece of advice: “Next time you're hiding a fugitive in your bedroom closet, use a pay phone!”

The good news: We're still alive.

The bad news: Malou looks like she just swallowed a live bug, and we're trapped.

“I can't do it!” she shouts.

I understand. It's a killer. It's a gap between two buildings. Zelda jumped over it like it was nothing; I
just
made it and nearly fell. Malou's still on the other side, refusing to move, even though the bald man chasing us is closing the distance fast. I don't blame Malou. When you look down, all you can see is a guaranteed splash headfirst onto the cobblestones of a tiny, dark courtyard.

“Think of the money!” I shout. “Jump!”

“Keep your money! Leave me alone!”

“I will get her,” Zelda says, getting ready for another gazelle hop.

Too late for that. Malou's cooked. The bald man slides down the last tiny piece of roof behind her and grabs her by the top layer of her clothes.

“Don't you move, now,” he says, his voice shaking.

Zelda sighs. “Damn Earthlings.” Then she…she…
what
?

She disappeared from my side. I mean…she was there. And then—
POOF,
MAGIC!—she's gone. Then—
POW!
—she reappears beside Malou and the guy.

“You must be kidding me,” the man says, right before she smashes the broken Starck vase in his face. He drops onto the roof like a wet mop.

Malou wanted space kung fu, and space kung fu she got. And now she's screaming bloody murder as Zelda grabs her around the waist and forces her to jump over the gap with her.

They land at my feet and Malou collapses like a package of soft spaghetti. I squat in front of her. “Are you…?” I shrug. I'm sort of at a loss for words since Zelda did her magic trick.

“Your girlfriend”—Malou nods toward Zelda—“she's not normal.”

“Was that…?” I forget what she called that thing.

“Space Splash!” Zelda confirms proudly. “I am no longer Space Flopped.” She's nearly smiling, like,
Come on, Earthlings, bring it on now!

We're hiding inside a pirate's boat on a small playground near Canal Saint-Martin, a few blocks from Malou's place. She hasn't completely recovered yet. She's eyeing Zelda sideways, waiting for something else weird to happen, like an alien bursting out of her chest or something.

“Did you kill him?”

“I don't think so.”

“You disappeared,” Malou whispers. “Like, you can be invisible and stuff.”

“It's called Space Splashing,” I explain, like I'm a freaking Vahalalian expert now.

Malou slaps her forehead. “Omigod! She's really from outer space, isn't she, Frog?”

I shrug. Apparently so.

“This is sooo totally great. A real Spacegirl! Get out of here!” She opens her arms and gives Zelda a big, friendly hug. “I've always dreamed that something like this would happen to me.”

Zelda pushes her away. “Physical contact is not required by protocol, Earthling.”

“Ha. Listen to her talk ET. ‘Physical contact is not required by protocol.' I love it.” Suddenly, Malou loses some of that smile. “Wait a second, guys. Why would an extraterrestrial want to meet someone like Johnny Depp?”

“Zelda, please,” I beg, “you do not need to explain this to her.”

“A planet of girls!” Malou screams after Zelda's done explaining absolutely everything about her mission. “I'd be totally into that.”

“Can you be quieter?” I ask, since we're now walking down the street, completely exposed, on our way to retrieve Malou's car before any good citizens spot us.

“I love the Tower of Tor thingy. I'd love to lock up some of my ex-boyfriends. The scumbags!”

She fishes her car keys out of her back pocket.

“No more men, no more trouble, huh? It's so totally obvious! You girls up there have it all figured out.” She nods toward the street corner. “I'm parked just around here.”

Dead right. The second we turn the corner, we see her smashed-up car and four uniformed policemen inspecting it. One of them immediately points at us.

“I think this is our cue to RUN!” I shout, and—
zooof
—we take off.

Malou takes the lead. Not a great idea, if you ask me. “This way. No, that way. No! Sorry, this other way. Oh God. Faster, Frog!” One thing everyone should know about Malou: She runs away from the police like she lives—going in all directions at the same time and never choosing one path and sticking to it.

She stops suddenly. “Sorry, guys, I—”

“She screwed up again!” I yell.

Zelda slaps the wall right in front of us. Malou has led us straight into a dead end. We're so busted; the cops behind us even slow down to catch their breath.

“We're going to do this nice 'n' easy,” one of them shouts from the other side of the street. He holds his rib cage. I guess running isn't his thing, either.

“Can you do some more of your space kung fu?” Malou demonstrates by doing some random arm and leg movements. She adds sound effects: “Kai! Kai! Kai!”

“I sure will,” Zelda says, taking a combat stance and getting ready to Space Splash them to hell.

“Hey! I said nice 'n' easy,” the cop repeats. “No kung-fu shit.”

Bing bang boom!

The policemen turn around.

“What the f—,” one of them starts.

It's not Zelda. She's still beside me. But three girls have just appeared right behind the policemen—like, freaking
poof
! They're very much like Zelda, same age, same size, and same mean expression that says “I'm going to get you, you male scum.” Otherwise, they have many more facial tattoos, piercings, and dreadlocks for hair. And their choice of outfit is like worn-out paramilitary clothing, put together in an urban-squadron-from-hell fashion.

Before the policemen can understand the nightmare they're in for, the girls draw batons and—
chaching badabing boom
—the four men are lying on the ground, moaning.

“Are those your friends?” I ask carefully.

They don't even put away their batons as they approach us.

“Somehow I preferred the cops,” Malou says, backing up all the way to the wall.

One of the girls pushes up her sleeve and shows the inside of her arm as she approaches. She has the exact same tattoo as Zelda, the one saying she's a Vahalalian, only it's been covered by a completely new tattoo—a green snake, the same snake that was on that letter Dad received.

“Valk exiles,” Zelda says grimly.

I want to ask Zelda what they want from us, but they don't give me the chance. The three girls start singing a weird whale song, and I immediately feel terribly sleepy.

I bet they're doctors, too.

T
he first thing I see when I open my eyes is Malou and Zelda looking down at me. And then just Zelda slapping me across the face.

“Oooouch! Aren't we on the same team?!”

“Keep those eyes open!” Malou lifts me off the floor and shakes me hard. “Come on! Wakey, wakey!”

“Ask him his name,” Zelda says, getting ready for another good whack.

“What's your name, Frog?”

“I wish you'd stop calling me that.”

“He's fine,” Malou says, dropping me back on the floor.

“Where are we?” I sit up and look around. We're in a small room with no windows. An old projector is lying on the floor, and the wall in front of me is covered with large maps of Europe. Zelda and Malou are sitting against the wall beside me.

“We don't know. It's like a cell.”

I stand up groggily. “And the good news is?”

Zelda shrugs. “There is no good news, Pudin. Exiles are Vahalalian outcasts. Failures. War criminals. Mass murderers.”

“Great! I love meeting new people.” My legs feel soft like marshmallow. I lean against a map of Europe. “By the way, what do they want with us, besides murder?”

“Quiz us on geography?” Malou suggests.

“Hope so. I'm an ace at geography.” Thanks to my addiction to atlases and hours of planning imaginary travels around the globe.

“I don't know what they want.” Zelda stands up, readjusting the Starck vase on her arm. “We will soon find out.”

She's right. Someone is unlocking the door. And—
zaam!
—we're standing in front of three angry-looking girls.

“Whatever happens, don't look them in the eye,” Zelda says. “Looking a Valk in the eye is a deadly sin.”

One of the girls says something, and whatever it is, it's not French. It sounds like the dolphin talk Zelda used to make me her Pudin.
Squikitikiki.

“They are taking us to the mother,” Zelda translates.

“Who's the mother?” Malou and I ask at the same time, hiding behind Zelda and doing our best not to look those girls in the eye.

“Their leader, the eldest exile.”

A grandma in dreads!

The girls push us out of the cell and escort us down a long corridor. It's dark and damp and dirty. There are windows, but they've been painted over or covered by newspapers.

Here is a thing about Vahalalian exiles: They hate daylight and cleaning up things.

“This is a school,” Malou says as we walk past rows of coat hangers and pass in front of classrooms piled high with trash.

“Look.” Malou points at a group of girls ahead in the corridor,
about a dozen of them, with different tattoos, piercings, and weird haircuts and identical hateful looks on their faces.

“No, don't look at them,” Zelda says as we walk toward them. “See the markings on their faces?”

Yes, I can see them now. Their faces are covered in dark green tribal tattoos, just like the three girls escorting us. It looks cool, in a terrifying sort of way.

“Only Valks register their killings on their faces. Keep walking and look away, Pudin.”

I try to keep looking away while walking toward their group. Not an easy thing, since:

1. They're painfully beautiful.

2. They're fighting and Space Splashing like it's nothing.
Poof,
disappear,
poof,
reappear, jab, jab, cross, baton, and kick,
poof,
redisappear.

“I'm never going to get used to this Space-Splashy-thingy,” Malou says.

“And you won't have to if you keep looking at them, Earthlings. They will include you in their practice routine and destroy you.”

I look at my sneakers as we pass by. Being destroyed by a dozen gorgeous girls armed with batons only sounds good on paper.

“Are they all looking for their chosen ones, like you?”

“Valks remain virgin and childless. They focus on fighting, killing, and praying to Zook.”

I guess it takes all kinds.

“Why are they here?” I ask.

“They've been punished and exiled. Most of them for murders that were not directly dictated by Zook. War crimes. Unjustified massacres. I SAID DON'T LOOK AT THEM, PUDIN!”

“Oops. Sorry!” Couldn't resist glancing back.

Zelda pushes me forward.

“Why do they all look so angry?” I ask. It's like someone just stomped on their combat boots or confiscated their favorite weapons.

“They've been away from Vahalal for too long.”

“How long is long?”

“Hundreds of years for some. Thousands for others.”

Wait a second. “A thousand years?!”

“We live much longer than you Earthlings.”

“But…they all look about the same age.” Just like Zelda, about sixteen.

“We perfected our DNA. We do not age. We can potentially live forever.”

That
is
long.

“Those are Travelers, like me,” Zelda says, pointing at another group of girls farther down the corridor. “It is okay to look at them.”

“What's wrong with them?” Malou asks. “They're like—”

“Insane,” confirms Zelda.

They're dressed in old rags, pieces of clothing and material randomly tied around their bodies, like sexy young hoboes. Some of them rock back and forth, lunatic style. Others walk on all fours, picking up bits of crap from the floor and throwing them into their mouths, performing gustative biochemistry on dust balls like mad scientists.

“When a Traveler fails to find her chosen one, she loses all purpose in life,” Zelda says. “She ends up like her.” She nods toward a Vahalalian hobo who has just found an old piece of gum. She throws it in her mouth and chews it enthusiastically. No wonder Zelda is so eager to find Johnny Depp.

The Valks drag us into a school gym packed with about a hundred more girls like them. They stare at us with enough intensity to set my hair on fire.

They make us sit on three exercise balls in front of another angry teenager. “Don't look her in the eye,” Zelda says. “This is the mother, and she's a Valk.”

I knew that! There's not an inch of her face that's not covered with the green tribal markings. And holy Armani! She's really into strong fashion statements, too: She wears a black vinyl outfit with a long black cape. Snake tattoos twist around her neck, wrists, and ankles and all around her face, framing the markings that sum up a lifetime of murders. Her gray blue eyes are so intense I don't need Zelda to tell me not to look into them for too long. She stands exactly in the middle of the basketball court, where you'd expect to find your PE teacher, only I'm pretty sure she's not about to tell us to drop and give her twenty. She speaks, and it's immediately obvious this isn't going to be a French class, either.

Zelda answers with the very same sort of tongue-clicking dolphin gibberish:
Quikidizikzik quikidizokzok.

“Are we in trouble?” I ask when they're done squeaking.

“Yes. We're in trouble.”

Good, that's one thing clarified. “What do they want?”

“They want what every Vahalalian desires most.”

“We want to return to Vahalal,” the mother says with a dry, dusty, creaking, mummy-type voice. “And Zelda will give us the key.”

“Mother,” Zelda says, falling to her knees to address her, “Zook forbids us to open the door or return without our chosen one.”

“CHOSEN ONES DON'T EXIST!” the mother shouts, as if Zelda hit her in the gut. “Three thousand years I've been on this planet! I've seen hundreds of Travelers come here and fail. So we Valks say
chosen ones are nothing but a myth. Travelers are wrong. All men are RATS!”

“Scumbags!”

“Liars!”

“Cowards!”

“Pigs!”

The girls in that gym have a pretty definite opinion of male Earthlings.

“We Valk exiles,” the mother declares, “challenge the Book of Zook and the obsolete beliefs of Travelers and declare there is no good man on this testosterone-infested planet.” There: heretic and proud of it. “Don't force us to torture or kill you or the two Earthlings. Just transfer the key to me while it's still valid, and let us go home.”

What did she just say?

TORTURE?! KILL?!

“Frog!” Malou shouts. “Nine hundred fifty-two euros is, like, way underpaid!”

“You are the one who is wrong!” Zelda shoots to her feet as if she's done with diplomacy. “The Book of Zook warns us that finding our chosen one is an almost impossible task. Zook tells us of the doubts and failures. But Zook also tells us that being a Vahalalian is to keep fighting and searching. So you can torture me. You can kill these Earthlings. It won't change a thing. I won't disobey our laws and pass you the key, for I have already found my chosen one.”

Ooooh, aaaah!
A chosen one! A chosen one!
It sends a shock wave through the school gym. Even the failed Travelers stop chewing on dust balls to listen to what Zelda has to say.

“Did you sample him?” the mother asks.

“Not yet.”

They all shake their heads. False alarm! No sampling, no deal.

“I will sample him soon. His name is Johnny Depp.”

“THE ACTOR?”

“Yes, the actor.” And the crowd goes wild, like no matter what planet you're from, if you're a girl, Johnny's big news.

“SILENCE!” orders the mother. She sits down on her exercise ball once the initial Johnny Depp shock has passed. “So be it, Traveler,” she says softly. “Tena! Lena! Pela!”

The three girls who reduced the cops to mumbling goo rise up from the assembly and step forward. “Get me Brad Pitt. Lock him in a safe location. Wait for my instructions. We will exchange him against Zelda's goodwill.”

“She said Johnny Depp, your highness.”

“Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Robert freaking Pattinson! I don't care. We will abduct every single Hollywood stud if it will bring us back to Vahalal. GET HIM!”

And off they go with lethal looks on their faces and batons under their belts. I tell you, if I were Johnny, I'd start running in the other direction.

“What are you going to do to him?” Zelda cries in anger.

“Nothing, if you give me the key. But if you don't…” She slaps the palm of her hand with a closed fist, like…
squash
! Good-bye, Johnny. “No more chosen one for you, my girl.”

“You cannot do that! It is heresy! Valks are supposed to help Travelers in their holy quest.”

“Believe me, Zelda. After you have spent more than a hundred years on this pathetic little planet, you'll eat your own tongue just for a chance to get away.”

The mother waves her hand, talks dolphin, and Malou and Zelda are led from the room. “Bring me the boy,” she says, and a Valk pushes me toward her.

“Interesting,” she breathes, grabbing my face and squeezing. The snakes on her wrist look like they could bite. “Zelda must find you fascinating.”

Ha! “Trust me, I'm the last thing to fascinate Zelda in the entire universe.”

Ouch! She squeezes harder. I get it:
Do not
contradict a Valk either. “The first young male she sees. And you're cute like a box of ducklings.” She turns my face east and west, then pulls me toward her by the neck. Now it's the snakes around her face that seem to want a piece of me. “So young, so innocent,” she purrs in my ear. “Pity you all turn into pigs as you get older.” And with that, she pushes me back into the hands of her disciples.

“Zelda is not used to emotions,” the mother calls after me as they drag me back to our cell. “I envy her. Nothing's more beautiful than a first feeling.”