“Ugh. Those security bots don’t have odor sensors, do they? That definitely doesn’t smell like your dad.”
“You haven’t been around him after an hour of ‘boogying down’ in the living room. But no, the sensors are visual only. And Zot’s here to make sure we’ve got that covered.”
“Whatever.”
“She’s going to use her mom’s makeup kit to get Cheese Dad’s face to look a little less… cheesy.”
“Whatever.”
Zot digs into her case and gets to work on the Dad duplicate. She’s got lipstick and eyebrow pencils and hair dye and lots of other junk in there. Boy, I’m glad I’m not a girl.
“By the way, Rand-El, where the heck is the Shrink Ray?”
“You mean the Growth Ray.”
I’m thinking maybe I could be the kid who shoves Rand-El out of an air lock into space. That could be my one big thing.
“Relax, Kelvin. It should be here in a few minutes.”
Brian seems pretty confident. If he wasn’t, his brain would be the size of a grape right now.
“Here you go, go, go. One Growth Shrink Ray, at your service. Just make sure I get it back by next weekend. We’re going to a shindig, and my wife needs to use it to fit, fit, fit into her party dress. Oh, hey there, Professor Klosmo. How’s it going?”
“How the heck did you guys manage that?”
“We just asked if your dad could borrow it. Growth wasn’t too keen on the idea, so Brian started to stress out, went all small-brain on me, and started talking about how much he likes pickles again. And, wouldn’t you know it, ever since Growth shrank his head, he likes pickles, too. Brian offered him one and voilà! We’ve got a Growth Ray… er… Shrink Ray.”
“Hey, look. There’s a note attached to it.”
“I don’t know about you guys, but I can’t hang around here for twelve hours! My curfew is nine o’clock!”
“I guess we’ll just have to come back tomorrow night, after the dance. Let’s hide everything inside the lab until then.”
I pull out the copy of my dad’s key card that Lightyear made from Rand-El’s retainer two months ago and slide it into the door lock. The door slides open and we can see the Zorb containment vault and the security bots on the far side of the lab. We hide Cheese Dad and the Shrink Ray behind a supply cabinet near the door, connect the ray’s cord to a nearby power source, and head back out into the corridor.
I look over at Zot before she leaves. “Thanks a lot for your help, Zot.”
“Whatever.”
We all head back to our LIV spaces. We have a big day tomorrow, what with the dance and saving the universe again and everything. And when I get back to my room and hop into my zero-gravity pod for the night, there’s one thought that I can’t get out of my head—Cheese Dad and Shrink Ray would be a great name for a buddy cartoon.