The next day, Gabby strutted down the school hallway in white flowered shorts, a cropped goldenrod jacket, and matching goldenrod high-tops. She had a new bounce in her step. She’d gotten her groove back, plus some. Maybe Havensburg wasn’t so loathsome after all. She, the one and only Gabby Duran, had been tapped by Principal Swift to babysit aliens. It didn’t get more dope than that.

She spotted Wesley at his locker. “Wesley!” she shouted, saluting her friend. Friend—Gabby liked the sound of that.

“Oh, hey! Look who didn’t get kicked out of school!” Wesley replied.

“Yep. I guess I’m here to stay,” said Gabby, realizing she was actually happy about that. “Speaking of which, does that club of yours ever talk about, like…aliens?”

Wesley’s face lit up. “Um, only all the time. I’ve never actually been able to prove alien existence in Havensburg, though. If they are here, they are super good at blending in.”

Gabby smiled to herself. If Wes had seen Swift and Jeremy attempting to eat shrimp, he’d revise that statement.

Wes looked at Gabby, his eyes filled with optimism. “So does this mean you wanna join?”

“Sure,” said Gabby cheerfully. “Why not?”

“Wait, really?” he said with a giant grin, hardly able to control his excitement.

“Yeah. You seem cool.” Gabby gave his arm a little punch. “And I’m starting to feel like this club is really something I should be a part of.”

“Yes! You are not gonna regret this!” Wesley cheered. He wrapped Gabby in a huge bear hug.

Gabby reported to Principal Swift’s house directly after school. Getting to babysit an alien was basically the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her, and she didn’t want to be late. Standing in Swift’s living room, she riffled through some magazines, then held up a piece of his mail. It was addressed to Mr. Principal Swift. Huh . . .

“‘Mr. Principal Swift,’” Gabby read aloud. She wanted to make sure she was seeing that correctly. “So your first name is just Principal?” She gawked, eyebrows raised.

“Yes,” said Swift, as if stating the obvious.

“Your name is just Principal Swift?” Gabby asked again.

“Yes, Gabby. Obviously. How else would people know that I’m a principal?” Swift grabbed a file folder that had been sitting on a leather chair. He couldn’t understand where this silly question was going. He’d selected an appropriate Earthling alias that clearly identified his profession. What was the issue?

“So you go to a dentist, and he says—”

“Gabby, please! We need to finish going through the rules.” He tucked the file into his briefcase and clipped it shut. “Rule number seventy-four: Absolutely no soda pop of any sort.”

Gabby glanced down at her tote bag, which was crammed with two-liter soda bottles and boxes of frozen taquitos. They were the two key ingredients in her secret recipe for a highly successful babysitting session. “No soda? Why not?”

Principal Swift glanced at her dubiously. “That was covered extensively in the orientation materials I gave you. Now, you did read the orientation materials I gave you?”

If by “read,” Principal Principal Swift meant “dumped them in the kitchen trash without bothering to look at them,” then…“Of course. I mean, who doesn’t love long, boring binders of instructions?”

“Exactly!” said Swift, pleased to find someone who loved rules as much as he did.

“Now, I’m holding a mandatory safety seminar for the teachers and I should be back in a couple of hours,” said Swift. “Oh, and you’ll need this.” He pulled an outdated razor-style flip phone from his pocket and gave it to her.

Gabby stared at the hinged device in her hand. She was pretty sure her abuela had the same one. “Cool. One super-old phone,” she said smugly.

“No. One incredibly powerful piece of alien technology to aid in your babysitting duties,” Swift corrected her. “As you can see, I’ve disguised it to seamlessly blend in with Earth culture.”

That was true, if they were talking about Earth culture circa 2004. Gabby flipped open the phone and a high-tech alien interface sprang to life. The glowing symbols and bleeping configurations were like nothing Gabby had ever encountered. Was she supposed to tap them or swipe them? Did this thing have a data plan? Could she text Mars?

“I won’t waste time explaining how to use it,” noted Swift, “since that was also covered extensively in the orientation materials. Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .” He walked with purpose toward the front door.

Ugh, again with the orientation materials. Rule book, schmule book. Gabby’s babysitting game was on point. Did she really need to waste her time sifting through an encyclopedia of orientation materials?

With Swift’s back still to her, Gabby eagerly thumbed at random symbols on the flip phone’s interface. A potent pulse of blue energy rushed out from the phone and rippled across the room, where it disintegrated an expensive-looking vase. Gabby was startled. Maybe she shouldn’t have pushed the button without reading the instructions. Oh well, too late. She desperately jabbed at the phone’s interface again. Didn’t the thing have a reverse button? Before she could locate one, she heard Swift say, “Gabby . . .”

He turned around to look at her intensely. “You are now responsible for the future leader of an entire planet. I’m placing a lot of trust in you,” he said.

Gabby flashed her megawatt smile. “Swifty, come on! I got this. Everything is gonna be fine,” she assured him, shifting her weight from one foot to the other in an attempt to block Swift’s view of the empty spot formerly occupied by a valuable vase.

Swift gave Gabby a curt nod good-bye, then left the future of Gor-Monia under her responsible watch.

As soon as Swift shut the door, Gabby reached for her secret stash of soda and taquitos. If Jeremy was going to learn to blend in with Earth culture, he might as well start by learning to eat like a human.

A dozen spicy taquitos and three two-liter bottles of root beer later, Gabby and Jeremy were having a blast. Gabby was thoroughly impressed by how quickly the alien kid adopted the sloth-like qualities of an Earthling tween. He was splayed out on the couch, not a care in the galaxy.

“Buuuuuuuurp. You were right,” Jeremy said after a huge swig of soda. “Taquitos rule.” He chugged the rest of the bottle, then tossed it aside with attitude.

“I told ya, kid. I got mad wisdom,” said Gabby, tapping away at random buttons on the alien flip phone. To her surprise, the phone projected a 3-D hologram of the universe. It twinkled and rotated and emitted a slightly tinny sound.

“Whoa,” said Gabby, stunned. There was so much to learn about alien life. She could not wait.

Jeremy tossed a taquito in the air and tried to catch it in his mouth. The taquito ricocheted off his face and into his lap. He threw it toward his mouth again. This time, the taquito flew over the back of the couch he was lounging on.

Gabby chuckled. He’d master it eventually. In the meantime, she had about a zillion questions for the Gor-Monite kid. She started with the most obvious. “So what’s up with your shape-shifting, huh? Can you just change into whatever you want?” she asked, tucking her straight brown hair behind her ears.

“I wish,” Jeremy said dreamily. “Gor-Mons are digestive shape-shifters, which means I can only change into things I eat.”

Gabby stared at Jeremy’s pint-sized human form. “So…you, like, ate a kid?”

“The hair of one,” said Jeremy with pride.

“Cool, cool,” said Gabby, a little grossed out and a lot fascinated. She keyed another arbitrary sequence into Swift’s fancy phone and the hologram disappeared.

Jeremy eyed the flip phone with envy. “I can’t believe Principal let you use that. He never lets me do anything, because he thinks I’ll mess up and let everyone know we’re aliens. You know, I’ve never even been bowling. Or to the movies. Or a drive-through.”

Gabby gasped at the injustice. What kind of cruel alien species didn’t believe in the greatest human invention ever? “Seriously? You’ve never been to a drive-through? That’s messed up, man. Drive-throughs rule.”

“I bet they do!” Jeremy kicked one foot against the other, frustrated. He knew this stupid planet had a lot more to offer than just this dumb old house. If only his lame uncle would let him get out and explore it. “Sometimes I wish he trusted me more, you know.”

Gabby felt for the kid. “Yeah, I know how that goes. My mom doesn’t really trust me, either. Even though I’m pretty much the most responsible person I know.”

Just then, a disturbingly loud gurgling sound interrupted their conversation. It was coming from Jeremy’s human-form stomach. He pulled aside his navy button-down shirt and slowly lifted his striped tee. His stomach was bubbling and rolling in an unnatural way. He was almost 100 percent positive his Earthling body wasn’t supposed to be doing that. “Um . . .” He looked at Gabby quizzically. “What’s happening to me?” His voice trembled slightly with fear.

“Probably nothing,” said Gabby, who was freaking out a little on the inside. Jeremy’s stomach was sloshing and churning in a grotesque way. “But still . . .” She grabbed her personal cell and quickly dialed Principal Principal.

He picked up immediately. “Yes, Gabby . . . ?” She’d caught Swift in the middle of explaining CPR to the teachers.

“Hey, Swifty, quick question.” Gabby did her best to sound casual and nonchalant, as if what she was about to ask was no biggie. “Hypothetically, if Jeremy’s stomach was, like, uh, bubbling a little, what would that be all about?”

Jeremy’s stomach grumbled and snarled loudly, as if he’d eaten a monster.

“Well, Jeremy assimilates the molecular structure of anything he ingests,” explained Swift. “So if you gave him soda pop, for example, it would mean that his body had absorbed the volatile, carbonated qualities of the drink, effectively turning him into a time bomb that would explode in approximately one hour, destroying him and anything else within a hundred-foot radius. But you definitely did not give him soda pop, correct?”

Gabby eyed the empty root beer bottles that littered the couch. Jeremy had guzzled down four of them. “You think I’d do something that irresponsible?” Gabby guffawed. “Honestly, it’s like you don’t even know me at all.”

“Very well, then. I have to go. Bye-bye,” said Swift, returning to his safety seminar.

Gabby was mortified as she turned to face Jeremy. She had no clue how to break the news to him gently. “So,” she said, waving her hands around nervously, “don’t make a whole big thing of it, but it looks like you’re gonna blow up.”

Jeremy sprang from the couch. His panicked little face said it all. He did not want to explode.