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  BAD

  ORDER

  A Little Known Tale of

  REGULAR KIDS and HOLOGRAPHIC ALIENS

  Facing an INTERDIMENSIONAL CATASTROPHE

  BY B. B. ULLMAN

  STERLING CHILDREN’S BOOKS and the distinctive Sterling Children’s Books logo are registered trademarks of Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

  Text © 2019 Barbara Ullman

  Cover illustration © 2019 Shane Rebenschied

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

  ISBN 978-1-4549-3536-0

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Ullman, Barb Bentler, author.

  Title: Bad order : a little known tale of regular kids and holographic aliens facing an interdimensional catastrophe / by B.B. Ullman.

  Description: New York, NY : Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., [2019] | Summary: Mary Day, her mute, telepathic brother, Albie, friend Brit and her brother Lars learn there is a leak in the dimensional universe and unless Albie repairs it, evil thoughts will take over.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019005914 (print) | LCCN 2019007981 (ebook) | ISBN 9781454935360 (E-Publication/EPUB) | ISBN 9781454931065 (hardback)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Brothers and sisters—Fiction. | Selective mutism—Fiction. | Telepathy—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Extraterrestrial beings—Fiction. | Science fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Science Fiction. | JUVENILE FICTION / Visionary & Metaphysical. | JUVENILE FICTION / Action & Adventure / General.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.U335 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.U335 Bad 2019 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://urldefense.proofpoint.com

  For information about custom editions, special sales, and premium and corporate purchases, please contact Sterling Special Sales at 800-805-5489 or [email protected].

  sterlingpublishing.com

  Cover design and interior design by Irene Vandervoort

  For the girls in Twin Falls Middle School Book Club who read Bad Order when it was a struggling manuscript. Thank you, Paula, Juliana, Bella, Adriana, and Caroline for your enthusiasm, good sense, and humor.

  – B.U.

  Thoughts from baby Albert . . .

  In his thoughts he called her Pearl, though her name was Mary. She was different from everyone else because she understood him. With Pearl, Albert didn’t have to struggle with translations or speech or gestures. He could just do what came naturally, which meant sending memos. And Pearl could read them.

  Albert saw at once what a steady, good spirit she was, and he also saw that she comprehended his messages with the ease and intuition of a very advanced mind. When Albert realized this, he sent her a memo filled with awe and affection, showing Pearl a portrait of herself as she really was: a girl like a pearl of infinite value, glowing in a vast universe, here on this blue planet, here in this small house, born into this family, his family. Surely, she was the best sister in the world.

  1

  Mary and the visitors

  I hadn’t wanted a brother. I hadn’t wanted Ma to go to the hospital. I hadn’t wanted Meemaw to come over and babysit me. But I was only five, so what could I do? I could go around sulking, only that got boring. Plus, it was a waste of energy because Meemaw would only ignore me and watch TV. And anyhow, Meemaw turned out to be sort of interesting—the way she would talk to me with bad words and all, like how she would talk to any adult.

  “You look like you just stepped in a big ole cow pie.” That was Meemaw being sympathetic after Ma brought the new baby home. “Babies are a pain in the rear, but you’ll get used to him. He’s a dumb, stinky baby, and you’re a smart five-year-old.” Meemaw gave me a head-nod like a cocky rooster. “To baby Albert you are cool as a cucumber—practically a teenager.”

  Meemaw’s sharp wisdom did make me feel better.

  On the third day of the new baby, Meemaw and I were eating pudding cups and watching a TV show that I didn’t understand; it was all dramatic with silly adults messing up their lives. The new baby was sleeping in his cradle next to Meemaw’s recliner. Ma was resting in her bedroom down the hall.

  Meemaw began to doze. I think I may have been dozing, too.

  I jumped. There’d been a tap-tap-tap on the front door; the careful knock of a visitor who didn’t want to disturb. I looked over at Meemaw in her recliner. Her head was thrown back and her exhales were shnooshling and gurgling like a coffee maker.

  Tap-tap-tap.

  I got up and opened the door. Brr. It was cold and snowy outside.

  There were three people standing on the porch—a tall lady with very shiny, yellow hair—a medium height, black man with a skin-close buzz cut—and a small, pale man; almost as pale as the deepening snow. All three of them wore black suits and goggly, brown-tinted glasses.

  “Hello,” said the pale man. He was bald as a melon. “We hear you have a new addition to the family.” He grinned and glanced at the cradle next to Meemaw. His smile showed teeth like square, beige tiles. The television talked about cleaning your floor.

  “Meemaw, there’s some guys at the door.” I figured I’d hand this over to an adult.

  Meemaw continued making coffee. “Shnooshle,” she uttered from dreamland.

  I stared up at the tall lady. She was like a giant, but probably that was because I was very small.

  “We do not wish to disturb,” the pale man said. “Here is a pamphlet for the infant to read.”

  “Huh?” I said.

  “The triad sends greetings and trifles,” he added.

  I had no idea what a triad was—or a trifle, for that matter. It was with reluctance that I reached out and took the pamphlet. When I did, the pale man nudged a fabric bag forward with his foot, and peeking out of the top of the bag was a little stuffed lamb. The man bobbed his head and gave me a strangely disconnected smile. When I think back on it, it was like a cartoon copy of a smile, with a row of teeth clicking softly in a face that didn’t seem to cooperate.

  The pale man took a step backward, and the other two followed his lead. They stood in a line, tall to short, and they all smiled that cartoon smile. Next, they raised their arms at the elbow to give me a four-fingered wave—like how little kids do. “Goodbye,” they all said in unison. They turned as one and tiptoed off the front porch.

  I watched the three suits glide away through the snow, and I shivered, partly because I was cold, and partly because there was something very odd about those guys. I picked up the gift bag and shut the door—and locked it.

  “Shnooshle…” Meemaw murmured again, still fast asleep.

  I snatched the white lamb out of the bag. It was so sweet with silky soft curls and a green satin ribbon, really more appropriate for a little girl than a baby—when all of a sudden Albert woke up. His eyes were wide and he made a sound like a kitten. Swaddled in pale blankets and snug in his wooden cradle, Albert was watching me like his brown eyes had tractor beams.

  Ma had told me on the phone when they were still in the hospital that they were spending extra time there for observation because Albert stared so much, and cried so little. Yeah, he was good at staring, that was for sure.

  I meant to take the lamb, but I feared that Albert would know I was stealing from him and I guess I didn’t want him to know I could be bad like that. So I traded. I gave him the pamphlet instead.

  “Look, Albert, see the pretty picture?” I held the pamphlet for him to see, and I put the lamb behind my back. Albert stared and stared at the paper, which had a bunch of stars on it. He found it so interesting that I took another look at it, too. There were
some letters that made some words, only I couldn’t read yet. There were dots and symbols and numbers. I recognized e and x. I remember 0 and 1, but most of it was just clutter in my head.

  “Here, you keep the picture,” I said, and I propped it up in his cradle.

  Albert stared and stared at that pamphlet.

  I backed out of the living room and ran to my tiny bedroom down the hall. I threw myself on the bed and scrunched the lamb under my pillow. I would hide it, and it would be all mine. I deserved a gift for being a good girl and not crying when Ma brought the baby home. It occurred to me that no one thought to bring a gift for little Mary—only for the cute new baby. Sad tears leaked out of my eyes and I used the lamb to wipe them away. Oh, I felt sorry for myself. My world was so changed, so rotten and—WHAT?

  I sat up and looked around. It wasn’t like I’d heard a sound with my ears, but there was something . . .

  “Hello?” I said out loud.

  It was a message—a message that came into my brain. And it was from Albert. He hadn’t squawked or cried or talked. It was another kind of communication, like a combo of pictures and stuff that took shape in my head, like a thought bubble from a comic strip, only it melted into places where I could figure it out. I don’t know how I knew it was from Albert—I just knew.

  He was telling me that he really liked the pamphlet, and the way he told me was that he put a picture in my head of twinkling stars in a really cool pattern. Pretty order was how I interpreted it; at least those were the words that came into my brain after the message made itself known. Plus, surprise!—Albert liked me . . . a lot. A new message appeared, showing a radiant pearl in a vast space of soft, velvety green. The feelings that flowed from the pearl were kindness, and patience, and tolerance. I could feel its beauty and gigantic value, and all of a sudden I knew exactly what Albert was saying without a word: I was the pearl. I was like a fantastic, one-in-a-bazillion-person, and then and there, he nicknamed me Pearl. In a voice that was part of the picture, he said, Hi, Pearl. You are the best sister ever.

  Well, that changed everything.

  2

  THE TRIAD SENDS GREETINGS

  The Commodore was a smart-mass-holograph-research unit sent with his counterparts to collect and transmit data. Though he’d named himself the Commodore, he was actually 112000x (first unit of his triad). His solid-mass identity emerged as absurd and ironic in his estimation and it tickled his logic sequences immensely. He had learned humor thirty-three Earth-years ago; thus, his little bald head and strange black suit, and even his chosen designation as the Commodore made him want to vocalize the spasms called laughter. It all belied the staggering power of the triad and its colossal capacity for data.

  With time, he and his counterparts 113000x and 114000x had merged into a very effective triad. They had become the Commodore, Med Tech Tek, and Citizen Lady. Together they sent back more data than any ten-thousand SMHR units in the field.

  When deemed necessary, they would alter their names and speak the language that coincided with relative cultural surroundings, but their schematic appearance remained the same—mostly because Med Tech Tek had written the program as an approximate humanoid schematic and he never did fine-tune the thing, and what’s more, he didn’t care to. (There were far more interesting things to pursue with their time.) Of course the Commodore knew that when they went solid-mass their appearance was less than perfection (he could detect skepticism in the countenance of observers). Med Tech Tek really should fix the program, or he—the Commodore—should adjust the thing. Citizen Lady was generally immersed in research and development . . . So alas, the triad simply never got around to dealing with that particular task.

  Data collection and transmission had been routine until the Extraordinary Mind arrived on the scene. The Commodore couldn’t help himself. He was drawn in by curiosity—which he had learned seventy-one Earth-years ago. This Mind conducted itself in a very civilized manner, making polite inquiries forthwith. So impressed was the Commodore that he and his counterparts made a physical visit to the primitive dwelling on Earth’s surface.

  Upon closer contact, the Commodore realized that the Mind was an indigenous infant whose very existence was a marvel of genetics and happenstance. The Commodore gifted the infant with a universal smart-mass-holograph encyclopedia, and then he and his counterparts promised to keep in touch with the Mind, who called itself Albert. They made traditional gestures of departure to the exemplary one called Pearl, and they left, excitedly communicating their estimations of the situation. The Commodore experienced a vibration of extreme satisfaction over meeting that boy—dare he call the buoyant surge… happiness? Yes, that seemed entirely appropriate. The Commodore learned happiness, then and there.

  3

  Eight years later . . .

  The power lines only buzzed like that when it was snowing. I scrunched my pillow into a better shape and smiled. No school today. No school tomorrow. It was winter break—sweet! I checked the clock—and there was Albert standing next to my bed looking all sleepy in his Star Wars jammies. His baby face was dark and serious under a mop of messy black hair. He was staring intently at my alarm clock (with a booger in his nose and his shirt inside out).

  “It’s not going to ring, Albie. I’m on winter break.”

  Albert just stared at the clock. I didn’t expect him to look at me. Most of the time, eye contact gave Albert the creeps. He claimed that eyes distracted him from his brain movie. I really didn’t get it.

  “If you go blow your nose, you can come in the blanket cave.” He liked the blanket cave because he could think about stuff in the warmth and quiet of Pearl—that was his thought, not mine.

  Albert pattered to the bathroom and blew his nose. Then he hurried back and climbed in my bed, lying there still as a statue.

  I thought about calling Brit to see if she could come over. Maybe she could bring her good sled and we could try making a run on the power-line hill, or we could build a hitchhiking snowman down on Kelly Road; that would be funny.

  “Albie, you wanna come with me and Brit and play in the snow?” Albert could go either way when it came to playing outside, but if he committed, I knew I could count on him to be a good sport. He rarely complained—and for sure never out loud.

  My question about playing in the snow broke the spell of the blanket cave. Albert shot out of bed and ran off. Goofy little guy. I heard him banging around in Ma’s room. Actually, it was both their rooms. Ma had put a wall of bookcases down the middle, so they each got half; bummer for them that they had to share a room. But it enabled everyone to get a little bit of private space. Poor Meemaw had to sleep in the laundry room! This always cracked me up because it sounded so much worse than it was. True, she had to live with the washer and dryer and the water heater, but there was also a nice day bed and a dresser, and her little TV. And she could slip out to the back porch and smoke her ciggies whenever she wanted. Because of Meemaw, the laundry at our house was always done and folded.

  “Jane, you want coffee?”

  It was Meemaw in the kitchen talking to Ma.

  “What do you think,” Ma joked. They both loved their coffee. I had learned to make it the way Ma liked so I could bring her a cup now and then.

  “Mary, you up?” Meemaw called.

  “Yeah.”

  “You want a pancake?”

  “Yeah, in a bit.”

  I got out of bed and went to the window. There was a lot of snow out there. When I refocused, I saw myself in the glass: a happy girl with a wide smile, a short nose, and nice brown eyes. My hair was dark like my brother’s, only mine was straight—not curly like his. I ran a hand over my forehead. Eww—my bangs were on the verge of being oily, but I’d be wearing a hat, so no biggie. I blew out some breath and the happy girl vanished in the fog. I touched my finger to the cold glass and drew a happy face. “Walking in a winter wonderland,” I sang quietly.

  I was thinking that Brit could probably walk up here in twenty minutes i
f she couldn’t get a ride. Or maybe Ma would go pick her up if the snowplow had—I suddenly got a flash of a thought. It was like a lightning strike, only the lightning was red. The startling memo stabbed at my nerves and sent a feeling through my body, and the words for the feeling were bad order; jarring, sickening, bad order. For some reason, it made the hairs on my neck tickle—and not in a good way.

  4

  Snow day

  I yelled down the hall. “Albert, are you okay?”

  Ma and Meemaw believed that our communication was mostly a game since Albert never said anything. I think they liked the idea that I included him in everyday stuff, and that was good enough.

  Albert responded with a memo that claimed interest in the snow; something about frozen crystals gathering. He sent pictures of snowflakes, along with a sense of teeth-chattering cold—but it was grim and fake. Albert was a terrible liar.

  I crossed the hall and checked in on him. He was in his closet where he’d been rummaging for snow clothes. A pile of cold-weather gear was heaped on the floor next to him.

  “What was that lightning thing you sent me?” I asked. “And what’s”—I lowered my voice to a whisper—“what’s ‘bad order’?”

  Albert didn’t look at me. His memo said Oops, mistake? with a silly question mark that wriggled.

  “Really?” I said.

  He blinked Oops, mistake? a few more times, but the icky feeling lingered. A sense of dread accompanied Oops, mistake? and I couldn’t seem to shake it.

  Yeah. He was lying, all right.

  I waited a long time for Brit. She had to walk up from Honey Park because her mom wouldn’t drive, and my mom wouldn’t go out until the streets were plowed—plus Brit had to find her snow clothes and then dig the sled out of their gross garage.

  Honey Park sounds all nice, but really, it was a lousy neighborhood with old houses that had once been summer cottages. The poor old cottages kept getting shabbier and uglier, and bit by bit, trailers began to replace the decrepit cabins. The trailers would get parked on the lots and hooked into utilities, while the original dwellings fell apart. Brit’s house was still a house, but it was pretty run-down. And her neighbors were weird; the police were always showing up because there were fights and drugs and stuff. No one was proud to say they lived at Honey Park, even though it had a nice-sounding name.