When I got back home after the field trip, I started feeling a little guilty about my sponge idea for Mom’s birthday present. Especially since I got her the same thing last year. I couldn’t waste the opportunity to grab Luna’s attention with the glowing stone, though, so I invited Rand-El over to help me with another idea.
“Cottage cheese? You fed Lightyear cottage cheese?”
“Sure, Rand-El. I figured, what mom wouldn’t be moved to tears by having her son give her a barfed-up ball of cottage cheese for her birthday? Jeez. He must have eaten that before I brought him in here.”
“Well, how was I supposed to know? Besides, maybe your mom loves barfed-up cottage cheese balls. You Earth folks can be a little strange, you know.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so. And I don’t think she’d be too thrilled with any of these other ones we tried, either.”
“Actually, the glass one isn’t half bad.”
“I guess. But it’s not glowing. None of them are glowing like the real one.”
I’m getting desperate enough that I’m about to let Lightyear chow down on my original participation trophy, the one he made all the copies from. It’s gold with a marble base, so I figure it might make a cool barfed-up stone, even if it is only plastic. But just as I’m about to make the ultimate athletic sacrifice, there’s a knock on my bedroom door.
“Hey, what are you guys doing here?”
“We’re here to teach you how to dance, remember?” Zot’s smile is even wider than usual. And her braces are brighter than any of the duplicate stones Lightyear has been… producing. Maybe I should ask Zot to sacrifice her mouthware for the sake of my mom’s happiness.
Rand-El looks disgusted. Even more so than usual. “Dance? Why would you want to do something dumb like that? Are you trying to impress somebody, or what?”
“You do know the school dance is in three days, right?” I tell him. “And Principal Ort said he expects to see everybody there. What are you going to do, stand in the corner the whole time and pick your nose?”
“Maybe. I just might scratch my butt, too. It would be a heck of a lot more fun than dancing. Who wants to do that?”
“Me,” Grimnee says as she turns on my music pod and lumbers toward the middle of the room.
“What’s going on in there?” It’s Dad. “Did you accidentally teleport a herd of pole-vaulting bison into your room, or what? HAR!!”
Zot, Rand-El, and even Grimnee laugh out loud. Nope. I’ll never understand.
“Sorry, Dad. We’ll try to keep it down.”
“Okay,” I say to Zot, “how do you want to do this?”
She grabs my hands and leads me to a spot free of Grimnee dance debris.
“There’s nothing to it, really. The key is to not be self-conscious and just have fun.”
“Hey, this is great! I hope Luna is as good a dancer as you are, Zot.”