CHAPTER 2
You’re probably wondering how eight super-athletic kids, a group of random aliens, and a guy who has never intentionally played competitive sports in his life (that would be me) ended up playing football to decide who owns Earth.
It all started a long, long time ago.
Not that long ago.
Seriously?
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t that long in human history, but it was before I was born, which is a really long time for a kid.
Back then, some supersmart scientists figured out how to fly to distant planets in the time it takes to go to 7-Eleven for a Slurpee and a pack of Pokémon cards.
Sounds awesome, right?
At first it was.
Zipping across galaxies like space shoppers in the universe’s biggest Walmart, astronauts brought back all kinds of amazing stuff.
When I was five, Mom showed me space videos of a two-headed chicken that could speak any language, a worm that cured insomnia, and a bunch of new minerals the astronauts named after old TV shows, including my favorite, Phineas-and-Ferb-acite.
One team even brought back a supersmart houseplant named FERN that could calculate faster than any computer. FERN was on a bunch of TV shows answering questions before ending up at MIT, where she solved a hundred unsolvable math problems before her first cup of fertilizer.
Scientists experimented with the things the astronauts found, and tech started taking off like crazy. By the time I was ten, my school had three hover buses, food zappers turned the dirt from our garden into spaghetti and meatballs, and my fifth-grade class got to communicate with blue whales—who it turns out are super hilarious but also pretty full of themselves.
Everyone said we were living at the best time in human history…right up until the day after my twelfth birthday when Earth’s skies filled up with flying saucers, rockets, starships, space skimmers, and a bunch of other outer-space vehicles. It was like all the great space movies and TV shows got together for a party. Except, instead of cake and balloon animals, the visitors brought lasers and atom zappers.
It turns out the trillions of dollars of stuff the astronauts brought back from space belonged to the aliens. And man, were they mad! They threatened to destroy our planet if we didn’t pay for all the loot we’d swiped. A few species were willing to accept Oreos and frozen dinners instead—which we had tons of because everyone was making their food by zapping it—but most wanted to be paid immediately. Only the space creatures didn’t take credit cards, or dollars, or euros, or rubles, or any other Earth money.
Lots of countries ordered their citizens to stay in their houses in case the aliens decided to start blasting us with their cosmic gamma rays, and the schools closed while we waited to see if the politicians could work something out.
I spent the lockdown stocking my room with candy bars and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos while using the food zapper to invent a soda I call W00t!.
It has twice the caffeine of any cola and tastes like sour gummy worms, cotton candy, and cinnamon with just a hint of Reese’s Pieces.
My dad took one taste of my drink, spit it out on his shoes, and told me to get back to doing my homework. But personally, I think it’s going to be bigger than Mountain Dew once other kids try it.
Instead of turning us all into space toast, the aliens discovered Earth sports and went crazy for them. The Octoctalons, who have eight legs and bidirectional feet, flipped out over soccer. The Lafritti, who look like yetis with really big mouths on the backs of their heads, ate up basketball—literally. The Quirm, broad-shouldered metal robots with a serious violent streak, loved rugby. None of them understood the point of golf. But American football was what sent them all totally through the roof. The first time they saw players smashing, bashing, and mauling each other, the aliens were all over it.
Some of them even moved to Earth, opening up shops like Tennis Tentacles R Us, which caters to tennis players with more than two arms; the Athlete’s Antenna Emporium, which sells hats, caps, and helmets to aliens with antennae; and something that, loosely translated, meant Gloopy Gus’s House of Crushing Apparel.
I’d never liked sports, but when the aliens added their own twists, like high-tech equipment, flame shooters in random spots, lasers, and exploding goalposts, even I started to pay attention.
Six months later, my mom and I watched TV as a group of Earth leaders joined more aliens than I’d ever seen. Together, they announced the Quantum Interstellar Sports League, made up of teams from across the universe competing in all kinds of different sports.
To kick off the new league, a head-to-head space football competition would be held between fifteen alien teams and Earth. If Earth won the championship, which seemed like a pretty strong bet considering we invented the sport, all our debts to the aliens would be paid off.
As the crowd roared, clapping hands, claws, tentacles, and hooves, a football quarterback known by pretty much everybody on Earth stepped up to the microphone.
He was the GOAT—the record holder for games won, passing yardage, completion percentage, and dozens of other statistics.
He also happened to be…my dad.
