This time, Yogi the Wolf Dog was ready.

When the Big Green Eye reappeared from under Carmella’s bed, Yogi pounced, and the Eye was hit with the canine version of a particle accelerator. In the excitement, Yogi dragged the slimy, green tether an additional five feet into the room. The two cats sitting high up on Carmella’s dresser yawned.

“Carmellllllaaaaa…,” they all heard coming from the Eye.

“What?!?” Carmella called out urgently, raising both her hands in the air.

Yogi paused the demolition. The cats looked momentarily engaged.

“Carmella?” said the Big Green Eye again.

Yogi angled the discombobulated Eye so it could see Carmella.

“Trusty? Is that you?”

“Carmella! It’s me!” said Trusty’s voice from the Big Green Eye.

“Where are you?” she cried out, getting down on her hands and knees to stare into the eye. There was nothing to see but deep, black pupil. “Trusty, I am soo sorry….”

“I’m in space!” Trusty said, his excitement pretty much gushing from the eyeball.

Carmella sat back on her knees. “What? You’re where? You just disappeared!”

Now it was Trusty’s turn to be surprised. “What are you talking about? It’s been hours since I saw you.”

“It’s been minutes,” replied Carmella, who was still in her red pajamas, tennis racquet only just set aside, Yogi nodding, Trusty’s view jiggling.

“That’s… not… possible,” Trusty uttered. He thought for a moment. “Unless things are somehow happening more slowly down there than they are up here. But we’re in the same timespace when we talk. The alien tech must compensate. Cool.”

“Up where?” Carmella interjected.

“Right. Well, here’s what I’ve figured out,” Trusty started to explain. He told of the digital fish and the stars and the spaceship and the beach ball-capped broomsticks with lobster claws and bike horns and the fishbowl monitor and the beagle and the Big Green Eye that had been his ticket into space in the first place.

“Uh oh,” he said suddenly. “I’ll be right back.”

Then, as quickly as it appeared, the Big Green Eye yanked itself from Yogi’s now-slack jaws, withdrew back under the bed, and vanished. Before Carmella and Yogi could even look at one another in surprise (the cats were playing with a hairbrush), the Big Green Eye cautiously peeked back out from under the bed.

“It’s me,” said Trusty’s voice.

“Écrevisse! What’s going on?!?” Carmella cried.

“The lobster broomsticks stuck me back in the pink fish tank,” said Trusty. “They keep doing it, over and over, and I keep escaping the same way. They’re really not thinking this through.”

“Are you okay?” asked Carmella.

“Yeah, I’m good,” came the reply. The Big Green Eye inched out a few feet from beneath the bed and looked up at Carmella and Yogi. Yogi considered it with a simmering growl. “But things up here are starting to worry me.”

“Worry?”

“There’s something going on,” Trusty continued, “and it has to do with some kind of plan for Earth, and I don’t think it’s a good plan.”

Yogi sat down and tilted his head, considering Carmella.

“Okay,” she said, “what can you tell us?”

“On my last escape, which, by the way, I’ve got down to about two hours total turnaround time at my end, I realized I could plug into the brain of the spaceship through the cut the fish made in my belly.”

“Gross. Explain?”

“I have a sideways eight mark on my belly where the fish keeps thwacking me. I noticed that all the slimy cables hanging from the control panels around the ship have figure eight connectors at their ends. My belly and that connector were pretty happy to see each other. Like long lost magnet buddies. I plugged in, and I was inside the spaceship’s computer.”

Carmella and Yogi were crinkling their respective noses.

“That’s when I discovered a file named Honk Honk Honk Honk Honk Honk Honk Honk.”

“Traffic jam?”

“No, loosely translated: Enslave.”

“Sinister,” said Carmella.

“Sinister,” repeated Trusty.

“Ruff,” said Yogi, louder than the other two.

“Everything okay?” called up Carmella’s father, Frank Jones.

Then Trusty and the Eye disappeared. Then Trusty and the Eye reappeared.

“Occupational hazard,” he explained.

“You okay?” Carmella asked again.

“So far, yeah.” After a pause, Trusty said: “I found something else since we last spoke.”

“Seconds ago…,” Carmella pointed out.

“Yeah, hours ago to me,” Trusty said with a smile that the Eye, again, managed to communicate. “The Honk Plan seems to be focused on a town named Udachny.”

“Where’s that?”

“Siberia.”

“What’s happening there?”

“I can’t say yet, but the entire ship is fixating on that town.”

“What does the Enslave file say about it?”

“I haven’t been able to open the file yet.”

“Okay,” said Carmella, “we’re going to Udachny.”

Yogi tilted his head again.

“That’s badass,” said Trusty.

“Trusty, can you figure out how to get us there?”

“I actually have an idea,” replied Trusty. “Hang on and I’ll be back in a sec.”

A sec, this time, was ten full minutes during which time Carmella and Yogi prepared. A quick search suggested that Udachny was a cold place right now, so boots, a hat, and a coat were in order. Not certain of the passenger amenities available on whatever mode of transportation Trusty was planning, goggles also seemed advisable: ski for Carmella, swim for Yogi.

“Ready?” asked Trusty on his return.

“How’s it work?” asked Carmella.

“I wrap you up in slimy tendrils, and I transport you anywhere.”

“Sounds fuel-efficient. You sure it works?”

“I practiced sending a beagle home.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

“What about your parents?”

“What about them?”

“Right.”

With that, the Big Green Eye slithered under Carmella’s arms and wound around Yogi’s chest and with a whoosh, they both disappeared under the bed.

The only recollection of travel that Carmella had, both at both ends of the very quick journey, was the feeling you get on a roller coaster when your stomach, not really invested in the sudden relocation, tries to exit through your mouth.

Carmella Dellabella and Yogi the Wolfdog found themselves, slightly out of breath, standing on the side of a well-snowplowed road, next to a four-foot snowbank. About twenty feet in from either side of the road were hundreds of humbled twelve-foot pine trees, bent by the weight of the snow that smothered every branch and every needle. Above was a spectacular dome of blue sky – deeper blue where the North Star might be twelve hours from now, and lighter blue as it swept down and touched the horizon where the weary conifer army was frozen in its tracks. Beside them, sticking out of the snowbank, was the Big Green Eye on three or four feet of slimy tether.

“So, here we are, this is Siberia!” announced Trusty with a touch too much enthusiasm.