The Dirrillill switched off the shimmering force field around the castle. He flew the car into a parking space on the roof. The force field snapped back on, a glowing carpet of energy that was draped over the whole fortress. There were several other old, ruined ships sitting on the roof.
The hulking Dirrillill heaved himself toward the door and clambered down. “Let’s go in and get you some ray guns. Jasper, I’ll draw up a quick plan for how you can create a larger teleportation booth. It shouldn’t take you long. We’ll be on Earth in the twitch of a mufftagreeb.”
Jasper said, “How long is that?”
Some shoulders shrugged. One mouth said, “We’ll be there in a couple of hours,” but another one corrected, “I mean, a couple of hours in our time, ha ha.” A third mouth explained, “Only a few bare little minutes will have passed on Earth. Sorry for the old force field. Since I am the last of the Dirrillillim, everything is kind of run-down around here.”
The old force field around the building was droopy and heavy like a big tarp. It hung all over everything. They had to lift it up and hold it over their heads while they walked across the roof toward a door. When they got to the door, which slid aside, the Dirrillill very politely propped the force field up with several elbows so they all could get inside.
The inside of the tower was a weird mixture of ramps and open spaces and bulbs and globes. The kids followed as the creature waddled through huge hangars of alien weaponry.
Jasper said, “Sir—sir, I just am so happy to meet you. And, well, I hope it’s okay if I say that I’m very proud to be going on this adventure with you.”
Lily and Katie exchanged a glance. They could both hear that Jasper was trying to talk in a lower, more manly voice than normal. He was almost shivering with excitement.
Shyly, the Boy Technonaut admitted, “I’ve always dreamed of, um, meeting you, sir, and . . . well . . . defeating invaders. Together.”
“Sure, sure,” said the Dirrillill carelessly. “It’s grand. Grand! So, when we get to Earth, what sights will you show me?”
“Gee,” said Jasper, “I don’t know where to start. First, after we save her, you’ll have to meet my mother. Her name is Dolores.”
“I shall be delighted.” (In fact, Katie thought that the Dirrillill looked kind of bored on most of his face-parts—like what Jasper said didn’t really matter.)
Jasper continued, “Then maybe we’ll all go out for ice cream at Persible Dairy. Then we could go on a world tour. We could fly to the Eiffel Tower in France. Or to Ayers Rock, in Australia. It’s a big rock, and—”
“A big rock,” said the Dirrillill, swaying along on his several legs. “Fascinating, fascinating. I am really looking forward to this visit. Ice cream is . . . ?”
As they passed through a hall of missiles and bombs, Jasper tried to explain about ice cream. He talked about the cow and the milk and the udders.
The Dirrillill listened and said, “So, to welcome me to your world, you offer me a fluid that drips from the bottom side of an animal, but cold.”
“Why, when you say it like that, it doesn’t sound so good, sir, but let me tell you, ice cream is a swell treat.”
“Lovely.”
“Just one bite, and it’s not just ice cream you can taste: It’s also summer, and vacation, and green, growing things, and sitting on the porch, licking your spoon, and the bees.”
“Stinging insects?”
“I’m trying to paint a picture, sir.”
“Green . . . On your world, it is the color of growth?”
“Yes, sir,” said Jasper. “It’s beautiful. All the trees and the grass are green. It’s the color of chlorophyll.”
“I don’t know her, but she sounds adorable. Here, green is the color of decay. For the Dirrillillim, green means death and putrefaction.”
They had come to a large kitchen. There were weird appliances all over. The kids had no idea how any of them actually produced food.
The creature said, “First, why not a little bite to eat, hm? Chompy chompy?”
Lily, who was getting concerned, said, “Do we have time? Shouldn’t we be—”
“Don’t worry about it, Lilah. Always time for a square meal, or, in my case, several octagonal ones.” The Dirrillill opened a drawer and pawed through a bunch of pamphlets while another couple of hands fiddled with gadgets. “I have some take-out menus here. I don’t cook much myself.” He shoved the menus at the kids. “Take your pick. The cuisine of any world in this arm of the galaxy. From back in the days when this world was full of people from all over our empire.”
Katie said suspiciously, “Why are there restaurants? I thought you were the only Dirrillill.”
“I am. I keep the restaurants in business. I have a lot of mouths to feed.”
“Who runs the restaurants?”
“Machines, nowadays,” answered one mouth, and another suggested Dludge food, and a third recommended, “Don’t try the Skraxflange menu. The Skraxflanges were a silicon-based life-form, and they mainly ate dry clay with a gravel garnish. Very embarrassing when you order a dish at their restaurant and you literally get a dish. Ceramic. Crunchy but tasteless.”—“Ah. Here’s an Earth menu. There you go.”
Katie looked over the entrées. “Ankylosaurus stew?”
“Their idea of Earth cuisine may be a little out of date.”
“You’re fifteen hundred light-years from home. You take what you can get.”
“I guess I’ll get the buffalo allosaurus fingers.”
“Sure. Appetizer portion or meal?”
“The salad.”
Lily said she just wanted the butter-fried ferns.
“That’s it?” said the Dirrillill.
“I’ve been thinking of becoming a vegetarian anyway,” Lily said. “And I guess I don’t want to eat anything that’s already extinct.”
Jasper said he wanted the fritters. The Dirrillill called in their orders. He himself was getting several different meals for different mouths.
With other hands, he had done a little sketch of what Jasper would have to do to expand the teleportation booth back on Earth. “You see?” the Dirrillill said. “I can give you the parts. You’ll have to put them together on the other side. You think you can do that for your old pal the last Dirrillill?”
Jasper looked over the plans. Lily could see he was bursting with pride. The Boy Technonaut was obviously thrilled that the Dirrillill was asking him for help. “Sure, sir,” he said. “I’d be honored.”
“Honored. That’s swell, ha ha.” Another mouth said, “It’s a pleasure,” and another one said, “Let’s get working after dinner. The sooner you can fix your teleporter up, the sooner you and I and your mother and your little friends here will be relaxing, dreaming of stinging insects, and eating a big, delicious vat of cold cream.”
“Ice cream.”
“You can understand my error. Let me go up and gather the spare parts.”—“Hit this button when the food arrives. It will let the food robot through the force field. Got it, kids?”
He was about to walk out when Jasper said to him: “Sir? . . . Mr. Dirrillill? Will you . . . will you stay on Earth for a while? With my mom and me? We have room in our house of the future. And that’s where the teleporter is. You know, why, you can go back and forth from this planet as often as you want.” The hope in Jasper’s voice was raw and awful.
“Aren’t you a nice guy to invite me?” The mouths smiled sweetly. “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll be spending a lot of time on Earth.” With that, he gave an evil grin—but it was only with one mouth, very low down on his body, and facing the other direction. No one could see it.
But Katie’s eyes still scrunched up with distrust. She glared at the Dirrillill. He lumbered away, humming to himself with many voices.
Katie turned around, muttering to Lily, “Wonder if he wants a hand with anything. . . . Don’t worry—we can just keep an eye on things down here. . . .”
Lily gave her a warning look and said to Jasper, “Are you, um, having a good time, Jasper?”
Jasper grinned. “Just about the best day ever, chums!” He gazed happily out the window at the tiger-striped sky. “Who would’ve thought that later today I’d be off to save my mother with a death ray supplied by my own father-like thing.”
Katie cleared her throat loudly. She tapped her finger angrily on the counter. “There is something fishy.”
“What’s fishy?” asked Lily.
“I don’t know. But everything on this planet is fishier than a stingray in a grouper in a killer whale. I don’t trust that Dirrillill!”
Jasper said, “Ever since you’ve met him, Katie, you’ve been very rude.”
“Because I’m sure he’s evil. Where are all the other last Dirrillillim? Nowhere! He got rid of them all! He’s the winner of their war! He killed them and won a dead planet.”
Jasper’s cheeks turned red. “I will thank you not to say things like that about my father. Like. Creature. Thing. And I might mention that the killer whale is not a fish. It is a mammal.”
“Katie,” said Lily, “you haven’t given the Dirrillill a chance. Just because he has so many teeth.”
“So many teeth!”
Jasper crossed his arms. “You are being terrible, Katie. I would like you to apologize to the Dirrillill.”
“He’s planning to take over the Earth! You can tell!”
“That’s balderdash.”
“How do you know he’s nice?” Katie argued. “You don’t know him. You haven’t been on this planet much longer than us!”
“Six hours longer. And I know my aliens.”
Katie rolled her eyes.
“Katie,” said Jasper seriously, “I no longer feel at home on the Earth. And it was always my friends who made me feel at home. You. So now that I have the chance to have a family—a real, honest-to-gosh family—I wish you wouldn’t ruin it.”
“What about your mom? You have your mom! You don’t need some monster!”
“He is not a monster!” Jasper was almost in tears.
They would have kept arguing, except that the doorbell rang.
A little screen appeared in midair. It showed the foot of the tower. A robotic vehicle with several bags of take-out food waited to be let in through the force field. The force field shimmered and buzzed.
“Delivery,” said the robot.
Jasper and Katie both went for the button and paused over it, giving each other a dirty look. Then they both pressed it at the same time.
The force field lifted up. There was a click and a whir. Down seventy levels, a little door opened, and the robot placed the food in a little elevator, then crawled away. The force field dropped.
A second later Lily saw a door on the counter open. Up popped several stapled paper bags with different restaurants’ logos on them.
Katie opened the bag from the Blue Marble Bistro (“Earth to Go!”) and lifted out the kids’ Jurassic meals.
Jasper crossed his arms and said to Lily, “You might tell Katie that I am not going to start eating until our host comes back. Because I am polite.”
“Oh,” Lily pleaded. “Please don’t do that thing where you don’t talk to each—”
“Jasper may be interested to know that I was actually just getting out the food to see whose was whose.”
“Katie might wish to hear that I’m getting out the silverware.”
“Lily, could you tell Jasper that he’ll need a bunch of extra sets of knives and forks for his evil, all-devouring new best friend?”
“Lily, could you remind Katie that the Dirrillill just very kindly bought us dinner?”
“Lily, could you tell Jasper that I can’t find any napkins, so we’re going to have to use paper towels?”
“Lily, could you—”
“Ah—eh!” said Katie. “Look what the Dirrillill’s eating. . . .”
The others glanced over at the containers she’d popped open. Some of the meals were curled and hairy, baked in syrup. Lily was not entirely sure that when they were alive, they wouldn’t have been able to talk.
Lily backed away from the take-out containers.
“What?” said Jasper uncomfortably. “It’s just food.”
Katie was looking in horror at Dirrillill’s feast. And then, weirdly, she said, “Jasper . . . Did you say you’d been on the planet for six hours before you met us?”
“Lily, you can tell Katie that yes, I—”
“Just answer the question, Jas,” said Katie. “Because if that’s true, then—”
The door slid open and the Dirrillill waddled in on his several legs, pushing a cart of machines, spare parts, and ray guns in front of him.
“Dinner, dinner, dinny-poo, ha ha!” the Dirrillill exclaimed, rubbing some of his hands together. “Aren’t you thoughtful to set the table?” The alien hobbled over and squatted near the plates. He picked up knives and forks and began to serve himself his hideous meal. He encouraged the kids, “Dig in!”
Jasper held up Katie’s Styrofoam box of dinner and said, “Lily, you might inform Katie that apparently allosauruses have two fingers. And that they are served with a dipping sauce.”
No one else spoke.
The Dirrillill asked, “Why the long faces?”
Katie said, “We could ask you the same question.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Jasper said to the Dirrillill. “She doesn’t mean to be rude.”
“Yes, I do,” said Katie. “I mean to be very rude. Because what time did you leave Earth, Jasper?”
He shrugged. “It was about three in the morning.”
Katie said, “Well, at seven o’clock in the morning—four hours later—your mom discovered you were missing. And she freaked out and picked Lily and me up at seven thirty. And we teleported here at about eight o’clock. And then Lily and me looked around for you and waited for an hour.”
The Dirrillill pointed at Katie’s food and sang out, “Someone’s letting her dino diner dinner get cold!”
“SO,” Katie insisted, “that’s about six hours. Six hours on this planet, six hours on Earth! In other words, there is no difference between how time goes here and at home. In other words, WE ARE SITTING HERE MESSING AROUND WITH TAKE-OUT FOOD WHILE YOUR MOM IS FIGHTING SOME MONSTER BACK ON EARTH!”
She shoved the Styrofoam box away from her, and it toppled off the table. She pointed at the Dirrillill. “He tricked us! He doesn’t care about your mom! He’s just trying to get you to go back and fix up the teleporter so he can go through and invade! You see? That space monster fooled us all!”
“Oh, ah, ha ha,” said the Dirrillill. He dabbed at a mouth with a paper towel. He stepped toward the three kids. “Please,” he said. “Call me Uncle Dirrillill.”
His hands grabbed knives and forks, and, swinging them, he growled and screamed and laughed all at once, lunging at the children.