Chapter 1: Crash! “Ow! That hurt!” Zeke Zander rubbed his head. He straightened his bent antenna.
“Is everyone okay?” Zeke’s mom asked.
“I think so,” Zeke’s dad said. “That was a hard landing.”
“What happened?” Zeke asked.
“We lost power,” Zeus, the spaceship commander, explained. “We got pulled through space Then we crashed here.”
“Where’s here?” Zeke asked.
Zeus scratched behind his ear with his sharp claws. “I’m not sure,” he purred. “But it’s not Planet Z.”
“Do you think we can breathe out there?” Zeke’s dad wondered.
“Only one way to find out,” Zeus said. “You go out and try.”
“Why m . . . m . . . me?.” Zeke’s dad asked the cat. “You’re the leader.”
“I can’t go out there,” Zeus said. “What if I get hurt? I’m the smart one. We need me.”
Zeke frowned. There was no arguing with Zeus when he said things like that. His dad was going to have to be the one to go.
Zeke’s dad forced the door of the spaceship open.
Zeke ran his fingers nervously up and down his antenna. He was worried.
“It’s fine,” Zeke’s dad called back finally. “I can breathe.”
Phew! That meant this planet had oxygen in its air. Just like on Planet Z.
Slowly the rest of the Zander family crawled out of the ship.
Zeke looked down. Something furry and green was growing there. Strange.
Zeke looked up. The sky was lit by a bright full moon. Even stranger.
“What kind of planet has only one moon?” Zeke asked. “Where are the other five?”
Zeus licked his paws. “Earth has only one moon.” He looked around. “Yep.
This looks like the pictures I studied in college. We have landed on Earth.”
Zeus was the only Zander who had gone to Intergalactic College. That was why he was in charge.
Just then something cold and wet began to fall.
“What is this?” Zeke’s mother asked. She used her arms to shield her head.
Zeus sniffed at the cold wet stuff.
“It’s called water,” Zeus said. He shook his fur. III don’t like it.”
“Let’s get back in the spaceship,” Zeke’s dad said.
Zeus shook his head. “We don’t know how badly the ship was damaged when we crashed. It could blow up at any minute. We are safer out here for now.”
The water was coming down harder. It felt slippery on Zeke’s skin.
“What’s that?” Zeke’s dad asked. He pointed to a big wooden thing nearby.
“An Earth house,” Zeus purred.
A house? Zeke couldn’t believe it. It didn’t look anything like any house he had ever seen on Planet Z.
That house wasn’t protected by a giant glass meteor shield. What would happen if a space rock hit it?
And that house didn’t have a floating garage above its roof, either. Zeke wondered where earthlings parked their spaceships.
“That house could be a good place to stay while we are here,” Zeus suggested.
“Won’t the earthlings in there mind?” Zeke’s mother asked. “Are earthlings good sharers?”
“Not the best,” Zeus told her. “But the house looks empty.”
“How can you tell?” Zeke’s dad
“That FOR RENT sign,” Zeus said, pointing with his paw. “The owners are looking for someone else to move in.”
“Someone like us,” Zeke’s mom said.
“Exactly;” Zeus answered.
“How long do we have to live in that thing?” Zeke asked.
“Until the spaceship is fixed,” Zeus told him.
Zeke’s mom smiled. “Don’t worry;” she said. “It will feel like home in no time.”
Zeke scratched the spot where the furry green stuff touched his leg.
He wiped cold wet stuff from his nose.
He looked up at the one moon in the sky.
Feel like home? Zeke didn’t think so.
Copyright © 2017 by Nancy Krulik; illustrated by Louis Thomas. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
