Klawde--Evil Alien Warlord Cat--Enemies #2 Page 5

  “I fail to see the connection,” Klawde said.

  “But don’t you—”

  “Silence!” Klawde said. “Enough of your tiresome drivel. I must speak to my troops.” Then he sat up and looked around wildly. “Where are my troops?”

  “Your troops?” I said. “You mean the kittens?”

  But Klawde only hissed and ran out of the room.

  CHAPTER 26

  From the moment Ffangg left, I felt disquiet. He had turned tail and run, true, but not before exposing my kitten commandos to his lying propaganda. During the day’s final battle exercises, I could swear that they were eyeing me suspiciously.

  He must not be allowed to sweep my troops out from under me. Not again!

  I ordered them to nap without rations and set myself to stew over the situation.

  To assuage my fury, I shredded a large cardboard box and dismembered the jagged plant the father-Human had “decorated” the bunker with. Didn’t the fool know plants belonged outdoors?

  And then—to make matters worse—the boy-Human came down the stairs, whining over his petty problems. He droned on about how some other child-Human from his home city had arrived here. The poor ignoramus really had no idea how tiny his planet was! It was inevitable that these ogres would cross paths.

  Then he had the audacity to link his situation to mine. It was absurd. Did he have an army at stake?

  And that was when I noticed—the kittens! They were gone! Maybe Ffangg’s words had infected them.

  Hissss!

  I raced into the combat room and scanned the piles of laundry. At first I didn’t see them, but I could hear a small, hushed voice—the voice of the calico.

  When our eyes met, she went silent.

  A look of guilt fell over the faces of the gray boys. The face of the she-cat, on the other paw, betrayed nothing but cunning. She was planning something. Something evil.

  I felt that mixture of pride and murderous rage that only a parent can feel.

  CHAPTER 27

  “Good morning, y’all! A little birdie told me that there’s a new student at Elba Middle School,” said Miss Emmy Jo in homeroom. “And I hear he’s a bit of a celebrity.”

  “Americaman!” came a high-pitched voice. Then a little boy appeared onscreen, wearing a Starsey Stripes costume that was two sizes too small. “Americaman!”

  “Isn’t that just the most precious thing y’all have ever seen?” Miss Emmy Jo said. “Willy Lee wore that for Halloween last year, and he’s barely taken it off since!”

  The other kids laughed, but not me.

  All I could think about was running into our new “celebrity.”

  I didn’t see Cam that morning, but I felt like he was everywhere. All anyone was talking about was “the Americaman kid.”

  And then I got to the cafeteria.

  The spot where I usually sat—the one next to Brody—was occupied. By Cameron. He was telling a story, and everyone was laughing. Then some kid in a Starsey Stripes T-shirt came over and took a selfie with his arm around Cam.

  I got a pair of celery sticks with brown spots on them and sat on the floor with the other kids who couldn’t find a table, which was uncomfortably close to where the cool kids sat.

  Where I used to sit.

  I could hear Cam talking about how when Americaman was just a web comic, he had told his mom that he should be Americaman’s sidekick, and that was why she created Starsey Stripes.

  “And I also gave her the idea for Americaman’s Fist of Freedom.”

  Americaman’s greatest weapon, the Fist of Freedom? That was not Cameron’s idea—and I knew it, because I’d been there when his mom thought of it. I wanted to stand up and shout LIES! But I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.

  I was relieved when the bell finally rang and I could get out of there. But Max spotted me as I was leaving.

  “Oh, hey, Raj,” he said. “I didn’t even realize you were here.”

  Yeah, no kidding, I thought.

  CHAPTER 28

  “ . . . and so the fearsome and ferocious Father of the Feline Gods, KroMus, ate all of his offspring, so that none would betray him. The end.”

  Every naptime, I settled the kittens to sleep in the bunker with tales of Lyttyrboks lore. As with all young kits, they preferred stories filled with havoc and mayhem.

  Youth is so precious.

  When the cadets awoke, they were clear-eyed and ready to wreak havoc and mayhem of their own.

  Today, however, they did not seem as sharp as usual. Even the calico was slouching her way through Hammer Claw. So I stopped the practice and berated her as weak and stupid, as all good teachers must do when they see their students failing.

  That done, I addressed the three of them.

  “Do you not want to become great warriors? Do you want to become this?” I pointed to Flabby Tabby, who was inhaling kibble six pellets at a time.

  “Mrow?” he said, lifting his head.

  “This! This pathetic excuse of a feline is your fate. Your only escape is to do precisely what I demand!”

  At that moment, my inspirational speech was interrupted by a voice.

  We were not alone!

  “A lord stood before a vast assembly of soldiers.

  Gazing upon them, he judged them inferior.

  But he stood in a hall of mirrors,

  For the only one substandard was himself.”

  Ffangg! He was here! In the bunker!

  “I do love the ancient poets,” he said, coming out from under the stairs. “So much wisdom in their verses.”

  “Stop with your nonsense!” I demanded. “How did you infiltrate my war room?!”

  Ffangg licked his paw calmly. “True warriors guard their secrets like glittering jewels.” He glanced around the basement. “So this is the place where the once-mighty warlord has chosen to retire. A dank underground bunker that smells”—and here he raised his nose and sniffed—“like the stinking breath of furless ogres.”

  My tail puffed in indignation. “It is not dank, and it smells like the pine-scented sand of my litter.”

  Ffangg shook his head. “It is even worse than I thought.”

  “What’s worse?”

  “You!” he said. “You have become one of them.”

  “Nonsense!” I said, snarling.

  “Look at you,” he said with pretend pity. “You have grown fat and weak—you have forgotten how to forage off the land, how to steal from your enemies. You are petted and coddled. You have become . . . an Earth cat.”

  An Earth cat? This was the one insult I could not bear! I lunged at the traitor, but he dodged my attack. He leaped to the windowsill and gazed down at me mockingly.

  “The old Wyss-Kuzz would never have missed,” he said. Then he turned his attention to the kittens. “I daresay you have already learned all that this one has to teach you. Besides, I can offer you more than this dismal cavern. I have an entire citadel requisitioned for my purposes. A place free of ogres.” He smiled slyly. “Perhaps, young warriors, you would like to visit.”

  The grays looked to their sister for guidance, while the calico in turn looked to Ffangg, and then to me. I had to display my power.

  “Enough!” I shouted. “You have insulted me in my own bunker, in front of my troops! For these transgressions and others, I challenge you to . . . the Duel of the Branch!”

  Ffangg smiled his smug, wide-whiskered grin and purred. “Oh, Wyss-Kuzz,” he said, “I happily accept.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Less than two weeks had passed, and Cameron had already made groupies of half the kids at school. Brody was the worst. For days, he’d been following Cam around like some kind of paparazzo, snapping pictures on his phone while Cam signed this or that kid’s copy of Americaman.

  What was even more sicke
ning, though, was that Cameron had taken Scorpion and Newt’s stupid Ro-butt and was in the process of turning it into something that looked like it could fly to Mars.

  I wanted to win the robot competition so badly I could taste it, and Cam was going to ruin that, too!

  “What do you think their drone’s gonna do?” Steve said, unable to keep from staring at them.

  “Who cares?” Cedar said. “We have to get the Aqua-Bot’s water dispensers working by tomorrow for the big demo or Miss Natasha will tear us apart.”

  “We need more time,” Steve said.

  We decided we would take the Aqua-Bot back to my house to work on it when the lab closed.

  “Hey! Maybe we should ask Cameron to help us,” Steve said.

  “No!” I shouted, and Cedar gave me a funny look. “I just . . . want to work on it with you guys,” I added.

  Steve shrugged. “Fine, but he seems to know a lot about robots. And he is cool. Look,” he said, reaching into his book bag and pulling out a stack of books. “He signed my entire series of Americaman.”

  “Why does everyone love Americaman so much, anyway?” Cedar said. She picked up Americaman #4 with scorn. “Look at this one! Attack of the Alien Hamsters! Like aliens look like pets.”

  “Actually . . . ,” I said.

  “Yeah, we know, Raj,” Steve said, rolling his eyes. “It’s like you told us at camp. Your cat’s an ALIEN!”

  “Ugh, I’m sorry I mentioned it,” Cedar said. “Look, we have to focus on the Aqua-Bot. There’s still a whole list of stuff to fix.”

  “But the fart sounds are perfect now,” Steve pointed out.

  So we had that much going for us.

  CHAPTER 30

  The kitten commandos trotted after me in the glorious sunset of the cool evening, their tails like tiny flags of victory. And somewhere behind them, no doubt, lumbered Flabby Tabby and the dim-witted Ginger. Soon they would all witness Ffangg’s final Downfall.

  Ah, the Downfall! The fate of he who loses the Duel of the Branch.

  The rules for the Duel of the Branch were scratched in stone in the year 28-962-D, and for millennia they had been held sacred by all cats. This ritualistic battle was an ancient and honorable means to settle an argument—and a way to bring an enemy to ruin and humiliation.

  Purr.

  We arrived at Ffangg’s fortress. To give the traitor his due, it did indeed warrant the term citadel. It was enormous, and it had a FOR SALE sign erected upon its front lawn. (Another curiosity of Human life: They considered themselves to be the owners of their possessions. Didn’t they realize that all property belonged to their supreme warlord? But I digress.)

  I called the traitor out to battle.

  He was already in the yard, waiting for me in the shade of a rosebush. He was eating something. “The small rodents of this planet are as slow and stupid as its cats,” Ffangg mused. “Catching my dinner was no effort at all.”

  My enemy finished slurping up the innards of whatever creature he had captured, and crunched its bones between his teeth.

  It was a nice touch.

  “I am not here to make conversation,” I declared. “I am here to fight.”

  Ffangg bowed his head. “And with great pleasure shall I defeat you.”

  We walked to the rear of the citadel, where a tall tree grew. As the ancient protocols demanded, we circled its base, scratched at its trunk, and chanted the Oath of the Duel:

  “Two climb up!

  One will stay! One will fall!

  He who remains

  Is the leader of us all!”

  The kittens watched intently. I trusted they would learn something from my inevitable victory. Ginger, too, was paying close attention, but Flabby had already fallen asleep.

  With a final flick of our tails, we ascended the tree. The rules were simple: Whoever knocked the other from the branch claimed victory. No claws were allowed, and each contestant could use only one paw at a time to bat his foe.

  I turned to Ffangg. “Are you ready, traitor?”

  He answered with three quick swipes of his left paw.

  I easily dodged his blows. “Can’t even wait for the customary count of two, Ffangg?”

  “Strike fast, strike first!” Ffangg crowed.

  I cuffed him on his cheek as an answer to his insolence. Then I reached with my other paw to strike at his shoulder. I ducked his next swing, and at the same time used my right hind leg as a surprise cudgel, jackhammering him with a blurred series of blows.

  “Mrow mrow MROW!” Ginger cheered me on. The boys were cheering for me as well, but the calico had no loyalty. She only applauded violence.

  As Ffangg tried to defend himself against my furious flurry, I surprised him with a fast left paw to the shoulder. I caught him! He wobbled. He was on the cusp of falling!

  I went for the death blow!

  And . . .

  CHAPTER 31

  Cedar and Steve worked with me on the Aqua-Bot until they had to go home for dinner. I was still cleaning up when the doorbell rang. As much as I wanted it to be the other space kitty, it was probably just Steve. He was always forgetting stuff.

  But it wasn’t Steve. It was Cameron.

  I didn’t even have time to open my mouth before he started talking.

  “I can’t believe we moved here,” Cam said, brushing past me into the house. “I mean, how could we leave Brooklyn for this?”

  It was like he was already in the middle of a conversation. Which was kind of appropriate, because the only conversation Cam found interesting these days was with himself.

  “The kids here, they follow me around like puppies! They think I’m so cool because I’m from New York and my mom writes Americaman. And I’m like, no, I’m not that cool.”

  “Well—”

  “But they don’t believe me. They’re like, no, you really are that cool.”

  “Um, yeah—”

  Cam sighed. “It’s hard when everyone wants to be your friend. How do you know who to pick?”

  It sounded like a question, but Cameron wasn’t looking for me to answer. He wouldn’t even let me finish a sentence.

  “But do I really want to be friends with any of these dorks? They won’t leave me alone. They even follow me into the bathroom! ‘Hey, Cameron, is Americaman going to defeat the Space Squids?’ ‘Hey, Cameron, will your mom put me in a comic?’”

  As hard as it was to believe, Cam had gotten to be even more of a bigheaded jerk than before. He started going on about how there was an Americaman movie in production, and Americaman this, and Americaman that, and I just couldn’t take it anymore!

  “Maybe if you quit talking about Americaman for five seconds, they would leave you alone,” I blurted out.

  Cameron turned to me, his face full of shock and disgust. “I knew it! You’re jealous!”

  “I am not jealous.”

  “Oh, yeah?” he said with a sneer. “Then how come you told all the kids around here that you were my friend just so you would be popular?”

  I could feel myself shrink.

  “And I guess you told everybody we’re not best friends anymore,” I said. “To humiliate me.”

  “Why would I want to humiliate you?” Cameron asked. “I think it’s cute the way you idolize me. I mean, it’s pathetic, but I totally don’t mind.”

  “I do not idolize you! You were ten times dorkier than me before your mom got famous! And why would I idolize someone who acts like a big JERK all the time?”

  Cameron glared at me. “Yeah, go ahead and put me down. I’m cool and you’re not. Your dad is a dentist, and my mom is the GREATEST COMIC BOOK WRITER IN THE WORLD!”

  That was it! He couldn’t drag my dad into this!

  “Yeah, well, I have excellent oral hygiene, and my mom is your dad’s boss!” I said. “An
d just because your mom does something awesome, it doesn’t make you awesome! Not that it’s even that awesome anymore. Americaman was WAY BETTER when it was a web comic!”

  I had just crossed a line and I knew it. But so had he!

  Cam looked like Starsey Stripes when he was just about to deliver a star-spangled roundhouse. But instead, he turned to leave.

  “You’ll be sorry for what you said, Banerjee,” Cameron said. “I’m going to get you for this!”

  He slammed the door so hard the windowpanes rattled.

  CHAPTER 32

  The force of the would-be death blow unbalanced me. I wobbled, trying desperately to keep my clawhold, but I had left myself too exposed.

  All Ffangg had to do was reach out his paw . . . and push.

  Suddenly I was falling through the air. Wind rushed through my fur as I plunged downward.

  This could not be happening! This was a nightmare! I was in such a state of shock, I failed to execute the proper in-flight rotation before I hit the ground.

  And so I landed—not on all fours—but on my back.

  Oof!

  Ffangg jumped gracefully down from the tree. I didn’t need to see his face to know the look of his gloating.

  “I would say you gave it a good try, Wyss-Kuzz,” he said, “but you did not.” He paused to draw out his triumph. “You know what comes next, don’t you,” he said.

  I did.

  It was written that he who suffers the Downfall must . . . must . . .

  Oh, I could not bear to even think about it!

  “Behold, young warriors, what comes to he who falls and fails.” Ffangg bowed his head. “Go ahead, oh great warrior. Lick.”

  For this was written in the ancient rules: The loser of the Duel of the Branch must groom the head of the winner.