Alien in My Pocket #5: Ohm vs. Amp by Nate Ball Page A

what’s happening?”
    He began looking around in a panic. His face turned a paler shade of blue.
    â€œIs that sound coming from you? Are you going to explode or something?”
    He shot me a look. “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t beep. Or explode.”
    â€œAt first I thought you were farting,” I half-joked, but it wasn’t funny. The far-off beeping alarm grew louder.

    â€œIt’s an Erdian alarm.”
    â€œSeriously?” I yelped, jumping off my bed. I dropped down to the floor and looked under the bed. I looked in my laundry basket. I opened all the drawers of my desk as fast as I could, but I seemed to get no closer to the sound. I noticed he was still standing on the laptop. “Are you just going to stand there?” I snapped.
    â€œYou can search faster than me,” he said.
    â€œIs the thing I’m looking for going to blow up in my face when I find it?!”
    â€œWhy do you always assume things are going to blow up?”
    â€œThat’s the kind of noise things that blow up make!”
    â€œTry the window,” he said, pointing urgently.
    I pulled up my window and looked out to the dark backyard. “Crickets,” I said. “Only crickets outside. No alarm.”
    When I turned back around Amp was staring at the closet with a horrified expression on his face. We kept his spaceship in my closet!
    Amp and I exchanged a glance.
    I tiptoed over to my closet door, opened itslowly, and gently pulled the wool blanket off his football-size spaceship. The alarm become louder as it fell away, and I noticed two small blinking purple lights.
    My mind spun. “Do you need to change the oil or something?”
    Amp appeared next to my foot. He grabbed the ample skin of his belly and began to nervously knead it like bread dough. “That is a proximity alarm,” Amp said in a trembly, tight voice.
    â€œThat’s terrible,” I whispered, staring at the blinking light. “What exactly does proximity mean?”
    â€œIt means someone is coming,” he said.

Party Crasher
    â€œW hat do you mean, somebody is coming?” I asked.
    Amp pulled on his antennas. “What do you think I mean? I mean what it sounds like I mean!”
    I picked him up and held him just inches from my nose. “Don’t get tricky, Short Pants.”
    â€œI don’t wear pants! You know that.”
    â€œDon’t get snarky, either. Just tell me what’s happening.”
    He released his antennas, closed his eyes, and pulled down his lower lip. “I don’t know.”
    â€œThey’re attacking Earth, aren’t they?” I yelped, shaking him.
    â€œWho is?”
    â€œYour creepy Erdian friends! They’re arrivingon Earth right now. The invasion is beginning, and I never warned anybody!”
    â€œWhoa, whoa, whoa!” he wheezed, struggling in my grip. “Not so fast.”
    â€œWas this whole thing a trick? Were you just stalling? Faking me out about your broken ship until your army of blue buddies arrived?”
    He pushed on my fingers. “You’re squeezing me too tight,” he gasped. “My head is going to pop!”
    â€œSorry,” I said and opened up my hand. He took several deep breaths and began to pace in circles on my palm, just inches from my face.
    â€œThat, Zack, is not an invasion alarm,” he said, pointing at his ship. “Invasion alarms are yellow.”
    â€œWhy yellow?”
    â€œIt would take too long to explain,” he said, waving off my question. “The point is that alarm just means that someone is coming.”
    â€œSomeone? Or a million Erdian someones?”
    He stared at the buzzing, flashing light and it stopped suddenly. He looked back at me. “They’re probably trying to find me. Like a rescue mission of some kind. But because my ship is damaged,they’ll never actually find me. The odds are a million to one.”
    I looked at him