“Nah,” I say. “Something came up yesterday that kind of made me forget about the unforgettable thing for a while.”

“What?” Spotch says. “I thought that was the top priority. Job number one. What could be more important than that?”

I lay it on him. “My dad has the Zorb in his lab.”

“What? THE Zorb? That’s impossible. We’d all be goo by now.”

Although he doesn’t sound like it, Spotch must really be upset with this news. I actually saw one of his eyebrows move.

“He’s got it in some kind of special container so he can study it. He says not to worry, that it’s completely safe.”

Spotch isn’t any more convinced than I was. “That’s what the scientists always say right before something unexpected happens and everyone grows an extra head and turns into a zombie.”

Wow. Movies must be the same everywhere.

“Kelvin, we have to do something! You have to convince your dad to destroy that Zorb! Doesn’t he realize how close we came to disaster once already?”

This time an eyelid rises a tiny bit. I think Spotch is starting to lose it.

“I tried,” I tell him. “But he isn’t going to listen to me. He says it’s too important.”

Spotch pauses for a second. Then he looks straight at me. “Well,” he says, “then we’ll just have to figure out some way to get rid of it ourselves.”

Us?! Destroy the Zorb?! I’d be grounded forever! But if we don’t, somebody like that wacko in the giant robot could get ahold of it, and I’d be stuck mining grismak crystals or floobin ore twenty hours a day for the rest of my life.

Spotch is right.

“You’re right,” I tell him. “But how would we do that?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “But we both know somebody who might.”

Brian Stem! Smartest kid in the school… unless he gets nervous and his brain shrivels up like a raisin.

What’s this? A dance? All thoughts of the Zorb disappear as I picture myself gliding around the dance floor with Luna. But that thought starts to fade when I remember I can’t dance. Then it totally disappears when I realize there’s no way she’d agree to dance with the school’s resident nongenius genius anyway.

Okay, so now it looks like I have three things on my to-do list:

1. Do something really memorable so I’m popular again and Luna will be impressed enough to dance with me.

2. Learn some actual moves so she doesn’t run away after four seconds.

3. Destroy the Zorb.

And it’s pretty obvious which one is most important right now.