Free Gabby Duran and the Unsittables by Elise Allen Page A

you eat, that’ll be fine. Anything should do. Just remember, she is gloogen-free.”
    “And right after school I have my concert with my possible solo and—Did you mean gluten-free?”
    “Gloogen,” Edwina affirmed. “Nasty little buggers from Sector 358.7. Pulverized for cheap protein by the laziest alien chefs.”
    Edwina shuddered, but Gabby laughed. “Don’t worry,” she told Edwina. “Chef Ernie might be lazy, but he’s not an alien.”
    Edwina looked at Gabby meaningfully.
    “Is he?” Gabby asked.
    “Gloogen-free,” Edwina reiterated. “And don’t let her anywhere near broccolini. All that vitamin J. You know how it is. Hy-per.”
    “Vitamin…J?” Gabby asked. “Is that real?”
    “Now I don’t expect you to have any problems,” Edwina continued, “but if you do, just keep in mind that Wutt is tenth in line to the throne of Flarknartia, a stunningly
peaceful planet that has kept its harmonious place in the galaxy by following the old adage, ‘If they knock down our tree, we knock down their forest. If they take over our city, we take over
their continent. If they harm a hair on the head of the tenth in line to the throne, we explode their planet into tiny bits.’”
    “I’m sorry—what?” Gabby gawped.
    “Wutt?” the alien girl looked up in response.
    “Exactly,” Edwina said. “So that’s that, then.” She returned her tablet to her bag.
    “When you say ‘explode their planet into tiny bits,’” Gabby asked, “that’s a euphemism, right?”
    “Absolutely,” Edwina replied. “We’d be blown into something far more like intergalactic dust. Out you go, then. I’ll see you at midnight. Ready to go with Gabby,
Wutt?”
    Wutt looked up at Edwina as if the woman had just offered her a giant ice-cream sundae, perhaps one topped with broccolini. She squealed with delight, then leaped up and threw herself onto
Gabby, attaching herself to the front of Gabby’s fancy white blouse like a small baby gorilla.
    “Wait, Edwina,” Gabby said, “I’ve been trying to tell you. I have school today. I have a concert this afternoon. I’m not free.”
    “I hardly expect you to work for free, Gabby. I thought we’d established that.”
    “That’s not what I mean. Even if I could keep Wutt with me, how could I keep her a secret?” Gabby put her hands over the little girl’s ears. Or at least, she covered the
spots on the sides of her head where her ears would be if they were oriented like a human being’s. “She’s wonderful, but she doesn’t exactly blend in.”
    “You’d be surprised,” Edwina said.
    The back door of the limousine opened of its own volition.
    “Go,” Edwina said. “I have complete faith in you. And lovely homes on several outlying galaxies if things go terribly awry.”
    Gabby sighed heavily, then climbed out of the limousine, Wutt still clinging to her front. Yet the minute Gabby stood, she felt the girl release her grip. Instinctively, Gabby reached out to
catch her…but what landed in her hands was a brown paper bag–covered textbook. The word MATH was inked on the front in big curlicue letters. Surrounding that, also in multicolored swirls,
were a myriad of designs, inside jokes, and craftily hidden initials of particularly adorable middle school boys.
    In short, it looked like any other sixth-grade girl’s schoolbook.
    “Wutt?” Gabby asked the book.
    In answer, it lifted its cover several times and riffled its own pages. Gabby almost thought she could hear Wutt’s giggle, though it might have just been the
fwit-fwit-fwit
of the
paper.
    Edwina was right. Gabby
was
surprised. She looked up to tell her so and was far less surprised to discover that the limousine had already disappeared.

G abby walked back toward the school slowly, staring down at the apparent math book in her hands.
    “Normally, I put books in my knapsack,” she mused to Wutt, “but with you that kind of feels wrong. Could you even breathe in there? Or maybe when you