Chapter 3

“BATTLE!” Luke and the Voice exclaimed at the same time. Luke looked at Blossom, “What kind of battle are we going to have with them?”

“Don’t ask me! I’m just translating,” Blossom backed away with her hands held up in front of her.

Yogi looked at the duck and turned to Luke and Blossom and opened his mouth to talk, but closed it again with an almost confused expression on his face. He took a closer look at the duck and finally informed Luke and Blossom, “We should ask the Llama. Llamas are very intelligent in the matters of how ducks’ brains work and I happen to know a llama rancher who knows where the cousin of the brother of the girlfriend of the brother of the Great Knowledgeable Llama lives. If we can find him he can make the future clear.”

“The future clear to what? That I’m destined to meet every crazy being that lives?” Luke muttered. The Voice laughed, but didn’t say anything.

“Might as well take advice from bald goat boy over here than going through that line of llamas. After all llamas aren’t the smartest creatures around. The Great Idiot Llama might not even be as smart as baldie,” Blossom replied letting her voice drip with sarcasm.

The duck rolled her eyes and fluttered up into Blossom’s face, “QUACK! QUack, Quack, quack!”

“Alright, alright. I’ll get some. Only--why do we need cards for a battle?” Blossom asked after fending off the dismayed duck.

The duck ignored her last question and resettled herself back on the ground to doze off.

“Now we need to get cards?” Luke asked uncertain and tired of the weird things that kept happening to him ever since he switched that teacher’s Koolaide for Prune juice. The chill from the night breeze was beginning to get to him as he had no fur to protect himself.

“I have some cards,” Yogi said pulling some out of his sleeves. Cards flew everywhere.

“Hey, look,” the Voice laughed, “there goes a Joker.” Luke wasn’t quite sure if the Voice was referring to Yogi, who was running after his cards in a desperate attempt to catch them all, or a card that had flown by his head at that moment, but it didn’t matter which, because Luke figured either way would work. Just then one of the little green men landed smack on Luke’s nose and pointed one of their funning looking tube-wire thingamabobs at him.

“We challenge you to a game of Battle!” the Guk squeaked.

“Battle the card game?” Luke asked looking cross-eyed down his nose at the little green guy.

“Of course, a really battle would be totally unfair. I mean, look how much bigger you all are compared to us. Y’all would win without trying,” the Guk replied as if it should’ve been obvious to anyone.

“So what’s the point of this game?” the Voice wondered, just at the same time, the Guk began to explain that the winner took all the ice cream. Yogi and Blossom, meanwhile, were arguing over whether the Great Knowledgeable Llama was any good at cards. “But we don’t have any ice-cream,” Luke was trying to explain to the aliens.

“Shut up, kid,” the Voice advised him. “Better if he thinks we have something they want. That way they won’t find it too convenient to blow us all up.”

Luke shrugged off this piece of advice (“What makes you think they could blow us up?”) and went back to arguing with the alien, but he didn’t seem to be getting through to it. “Look, do you see any ice cream around here anywhere?” he demanded of the alien.

“Ice cream…” was the implacable reply.

“What do you think we are--Dairy Queen?”

Oblivious to him, the little green man’s eyes glazed over and he began to chant, “Ice cream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.” Before the Earthlings knew what was going on, the whole little band had assembled and joined the chant.

Luke tried to clap a hand to his forehead, but remembered he was a goat. “Oh, great,” he mumbled instead.

“A few crumbs short of a cookie, wouldn’t you say?” the Voice asked softly.

“Oh, brother, you’ve been around Yogi too long,” Luke muttered.

For once the Voice was defensive. “Hey, he doesn’t have a copyright on that!”

Putting the Voice on the defensive (for the first time he could remember) made Luke feel smug. But he couldn’t think of anything to say to fully express the sentiment, so he just shut his mouth and smiled widely his smuggest, hoping the Voice could somehow feel the expression on his face.

During this little interlude, Yogi and Blossom had come up to watch the green men chant, and make several remarks that Luke missed, being occupied inwardly. Now, he belatedly realized Yogi had asked him a question, and then, before he could do anything about it, he caught the tail end of Blossom’s explanation: “…he’s talking to himself again.”

“Yes, I have noticed him doing that,” was Yogi’s soft reply. A faint frown creased the bear’s forehead, and he looked troubled.

Opening his mouth yet again, Luke stopped when the green men ceased their chanting, relaxed, and returned to normal (well, normal for a little green man, perhaps--though it was anybody’s guess what that was!).

“Look, they’ve stopped,” Blossom remarked to Yogi.

The leader, who had been addressing Luke earlier, now approached him again. “So. When do we start?”

Luke blinked. “Start what?”

“The games, mizrah,” the alien replied patiently.

“Why’re you asking me?”

“Because--as recipients of our challenge, you Earthlings get to pick the time and place. And, as for the matter of asking you personally, you are obviously the one in charge…”

“Wait a minute, now!” Blossom interrupted. “The one in charge--!”

“Yes, I am afraid you are mistaken…” began Yogi.

But the green man waved away their objections, “Nonsense! Everyone knows the four-legged ones are smarter than the two legs. And they smell much nicer, too.” Blossom had a lot to say on the subject of smells regarding Luke and goats in general, but the green man only ignored her.

“Hmm,” remarked the Voice. “Looks like you’re in charge, kid. What’s it gonna be?”

“Uhhh…” Luke said nervously. He glanced around at the others, at a loss. “Why don’t we get this over with?” he said, more asking than telling. “Here and now?” The others nodded, conceding, and he turned back to the green dudes.

“Very well,” the alien replied. “You and I will play for the fates of the planets.” He made the statement very casually, in contrast to the melodramatic sound of the words.

“Uh…okay,” Luke gulped nervously. “No pressure.”

The Voice laughed at this last remark and Luke stepped forward to sit across from the green man on a splotch of green grass miraculously bereft of glue. The others gathered in a circle around them, and, with a squawk-not wanting to be left out-the duck flapped into the air and settled herself on Luke’s head, between his two horns. “Beat it, duck,” the Voice muttered, but the duck couldn’t hear him and he left it at that.

“Hey, it’s my head--I’ll decide who sits on it--and the duck stays,” Luke answered, surprised to find himself taking up for the feisty little thing.

Blossom looked at him strangely, but didn’t say anything.

“I have no objection to the two-wings,” the green leader told him calmly.

Luke flushed, but opted against explaining who he was talking to, while the Voice snickered to itself, “’Two-wings.’ As opposed to ‘one-wing?’”

“Or ‘no-brain,’” Luke answered the Voice rather sharply, silencing it.

Blossom gasped and looked appalled that Luke would say such a thing to the leader of an alien force trying to take over their world.

Luckily, the alien misunderstood him again. “What’s a ‘no-brain?’” he asked curiously.

Luke shook his head, “Never mind.”

“How ‘bout the one sitting right in front of you?” Blossom muttered in a voice so low that only Luke (and therefore the Voice) caught it.

He shot her a dark look as the Voice murmured, “Oooh. Good one.”

Luke almost returned a nasty remark, but caught himself before he spoke out loud. Instead, he shut his mouth and tried thinking it: She was talking about you. No response. Luke gave it up, wondering if the Voice honestly couldn’t hear him, or if he just wanted him to think he couldn’t hear him.

“Let’s play.” The alien remarked finally, impatient with the long silence.

Luke nodded, and Yogi began dealing the cards. It took only a moment for Luke’s teacher to deal the cards out in a few deft movements, and then they were ready. “Begin!” A forest green alien to the left of the leader barked out rather unnecessarily, Luke thought, and a good deal portentously, and they began the game.

Luke and the alien laid down their first two cards. Ten of hearts and a three of clubs. Luke, owner of the ten, picked up the two cards, and they laid down the next two. Queen against a seven. This time the alien picked up the cards.

“Hey, what kind of game is this?” the Voice asked, seemingly roused from his disinterest. Watching as the two laid down their cards and determined who won them, he began to grow mildly excited, offering comments and suggestions to Luke. Luke tried his best to ignore him, but occasionally couldn’t resist a comment under his breath. Occasionally, he got a few strange looks, but that was all. “Hey, put down an Ace next time and you’ll get him for sure,” the Voice advised.

Luke sighed. “That’s not how the game works,” he muttered.

“A five! Put down a five!” the Voice exclaimed excitedly when the alien laid down a four; while Luke was still reaching for his own card.

Luke grimaced and laid down his card.

It was a six. The Voice crowed with glee. “You got ‘im! You got ‘im! Way to go!”

Luke sighed and shook his head.

When they hit the first battle, the Voice was confused. “Wait a minute. Who gets that one?”

Six against six. The two opponents began the battle chant, laying down each successive card: “I-de-clare-war.” The alien’s Jack beat Luke’s three, and the green invader sweeped up the pile of cards with a satisfied smile. He was a quiet opponent-calm, patient, biding his time, with a good poker face, even if it was green. Luke watched him, the Voice’s cries of dismay wailing in the background.

Though luck shifts this way and that, and rarely stays with one person for long, Luke could see that the tide of the game was gradually turning against him. His stack was now a third of the size of the alien’s. He needed to win a few battles to catch up fast.

A stack of cards later, Luke was in more trouble. His stack was even skinnier when they both laid down queens. “I-de-clare-war.” The alien laid down an Ace. Luke put down his last card half a beat later and looked down. It was an Ace.