Room 501-B hummed with the excitement of

1. two minutes left in the last period of the day

2. only one more half day before Winter Break

3. the Spaceheadz saving the world

“I’m gonna sleep in every morning and watch cartoons all day,” said Joey.

“I am going to make special holiday cards with my family,” said Lisa.

“You are a loser,” said Joey.

Venus and Michael K. put on their coats and packed up their books.

“What are you going to do, now that you don’t have to save the world anymore?” said Venus.

Michael K. sat down at his desk and leaned back with his hands behind his head.

“Michael K. can do anything,” said Bob.

“Weeek eeek,” said Major Fluffy.

Jennifer put on her new NASCAR jacket. “He is RAM TOUGH 

“I don’t know,” said Michael K. “I think I might just do nothing. It’s kind of a good feeling. And that was a very cool countdown screen you designed for the three point one four million plus one Brainwave.”

Venus pulled out her phone and admired the blinking Spaceheadz screen. “Thanks. I thought we deserved something flashy.”

But Michael K. and Venus had hardly a minute to enjoy their success.

“Oh, no,” said Bob. “Look!”

Michael K. jumped to his feet. “What? What?”

Bob pointed out the window. “Your Earth clouds are falling down.”

“Oh, man,” said Michael K. “Don’t freak us out like that. It’s called snow. Remember we talked about that? You scared me. For a second there I thought you were going to tell us some terrible Spaceheadz surprise.”

“Oh, no,” said Jennifer. “Look!”

“Snow,” said Bob, now that he was an expert.

But Jennifer was not pointing out the window. She was pointing at the Spaceheadz counter on Venus’s phone.

Everyone looked.

“Why are the numbers going backward?” said TJ.

Venus tapped the screen and tried to reload the page. “I don’t know. I didn’t program anything like this.”

“This is probably just some kind of Spaceheadz thing, right, Jennifer?” said Michael K. “Like maybe once the Brainwave is complete, it gets downloaded by General Accounting? And then we all get a medal or a prize or something?”

Jennifer wired her GI Joe into Venus’s phone and tried to stop the dwindling numbers. “No. Something bad is happening. Someone is taking the Brainwave.”

The first dismissal bell rang.

Most of 501-B headed out the door and happily down the stairs. Three nervous Earth persons and three nervous Spaceheadz stayed, staring at a small screen.

Jennifer’s GI Joe buzzed. Jennifer replied, “Beep?”

GI Joe responded, “Beez beep beep boop.”

Jennifer twisted GI Joe’s head. GI Joe spoke in computer-accented English.

“Best greetings to you human persons and SPHDZ. This is General Accounting. Thanks you for collecting the three point one four million plus one Brainwave. I am now stealing it for one very evil plan to bllrrp the planet Gonf. Ha, ha, ha.”

“What?” said Michael K. “No way! This is our Brainwave. We are using it to keep Earth from getting turned off! And what is ‘bllrrp the planet Gonf,’ anyway?”

Jennifer shook her head. “It means destroy every living thing on Gonf and make it into . . . your word, I think is–parking lot.”

The numbers on the Spaceheadz counter whizzed backward faster and faster.

“My Wave Collector is on your planet,” continued GI Joe/General Accounting. “We could not do it without your help. Thanks you, SPHDZ. Thanks you, Michael K.”

“What?” said Michael K. “This is crazy. This is terrible. You can’t use our Brainwave to destroy a planet and make it a . . . a . . . parking lot!”

“They can’t do this,” said Venus.

Everyone stared at the Spaceheadz counter as it clicked to zero and broke in half.

“Ha, ha, ha,” said GI Joe, and he clicked off.

“This can’t be happening,” said Venus. “Wait! I’ll check our admin recording.” Venus clicked SPHDZ ADMIN at the bottom right corner of the spaceheadz.com page. She entered her VENUS password. They all gathered around Venus’s phone and re-watched the sight of the 3.14 + 1 celebration . . . and the awful draining to zero. “This is happening,” said Venus. “It happened.”

Michael K. turned to Bob and Jennifer and Major Fluffy. “What did you do? You were just using me to collect your Spaceheadz Brainwave. And now it’s going to be used to do something really terrible!”

The final dismissal bell rang.

“No!” said Bob.

“We did not know this!” said Jennifer.

“Week eek!” said Major Fluffy.

“We must stop General Accounting,” said Bob. “He is SPHDZ gone bad. You must help us get back the Brainwave, Michael K.”

Michael K. grabbed his backpack.

“That sounds a lot like something I heard before. I’m not going to get fooled again.”

Michael K. walked out the door. In five seconds his world had gone from the best day ever to the worst day in the whole universe.

And now he had had enough. He had been tricked. And then he had helped trick 3.14 million other suckers!

He was done fixing other people’s messes.

Done.