Alien in My Pocket #3 by Nate Ball Page B

“Is Amp’s gas cloud getting to you?”
    â€œHow did he know I had SweeTarts? I didn’t tell him, and you didn’t tell him, so how did he know?”
    The three of us stared at each other.
    Without looking down, Olivia unclipped the walkie-talkie from her pocket. She held it up and stared at it. “That little sneak is listening in on our walkie-talkie conversations.”
    â€œWhat a clever idea,” Amp whispered.
    I looked at them both. I was pretty sure steam was coming out of my ears. “A clever idea that the little worm is gonna pay for.”

03
    Let’s Talk
    A s Amp studied the walkie-talkie on my desk, Olivia and I discussed ways to get back at Taylor.
    Olivia lives with her grandfather in the house next to ours. He has a line he always says: “Turnabout is fair play.” I always just thought he was weird, but for the first time, I understood what he meant. If Taylor was going to listen in on our conversations, we were going to make sure he heard what we wanted him to hear.
    â€œWe could have walkie-talkie conversations that convince Taylor that an evil spirit named Amp has taken over your body,” Olivia suggested. “You could pretend to have a split personality.”
    â€œOr that I have an evil, secret twin brother who lives under my bed,” I said. “So at breakfast he won’t know if he’s sitting across from me or my evil twin.”
    â€œWhat would your twin’s name be?” Olivia asked. “Amp simply won’t do.”
    â€œHow about Herm?” I suggested.
    â€œHerm is so good,” she agreed. “Perfect.”
    We were both watching Amp check out my walkie-talkie. He often studied human technology with great interest; it seemed to amuse him half the time and puzzle him the other half.

    He stroked his chin and walked around the thing like it was the most fascinating thing ever made on this planet.
    â€œMaybe my twin’s name could be Cooper,” I said.
    â€œThat’s a terrible name. Everyone would call him Pooper,” she told me.
    â€œAh, man, I always liked that name.”
    â€œWait, wait. Maybe we could say Amp is your secret pet tarantula!” Olivia said, clapping with excitement. “Taylor hates spiders.”
    â€œThey make him turn as white as cream cheese,” I agreed.
    â€œMaybe it’s one of those goliath bird-eater tarantulas from South America.”
    â€œThat I ordered off the internet with six months of my allowance money!”
    â€œYeah! Oh, he’ll look it up on the internet and freak out completely. That tarantula is seriously the size of your catcher’s mitt.”
    â€œThat’ll serve him right,” I said, nodding slowly as the plan took shape in my head. “And my tarantula will go missing. I won’t be able to find him.”
    Olivia laughed. “You could say on the walkie-talkie that you think it may have escaped into Taylor’s room, but you’re afraid to tell him or your parents. Wait till he hears that. Don’t you wish you could see his face?”
    We high-fived. It was a great plan.
    But, as always happened in our meetings, we had not moved the ball forward one inch in terms of helping Amp repair his space-and-time-skipping ship.
    I noticed Amp suddenly turn his back to us and speak in a quiet voice into the contraption he wore on his wrist.
    â€œNote to Erdian Council: Humans utilize simple two-way radio transceivers they call walkie-talkies. They appear to utilize a range of between four and five hundred megahertz on what they call the ultrahigh frequency spectrum, or UHF for short.”
    â€œAmp, you’re being rude,” I said. “We can totally hear you.” Taking verbal notes for his alien bosses on that thing was just one of his many annoying habits.
    Amp continued:
    â€œPrimitive but effective construction. Limited range and poor battery life. But efficient. One of the earthlings’