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there.”
    “Is it on your property?”
    “No. Our neighbor’s. But they don’t mind. I swim there all the time.”
    Do not stray outside the secure perimeter
, said a small voice inside my head, and this time it wasn’t Xanthos, although he did chime in with a
Yah, mon. Very, very badidea. Do not go looking for trouble. You will find it soon enough.
    I had to agree with Dr. X, which is what I had decided to call Xanthos since he was quickly becoming my built-in Dr. Phil, constantly dispensing pearls of wisdom and loads of tough love. I knew that Number 2 and his hench-thugs from the bat cave were still out there, still passing around my WANTED poster, still gunning for me. And if Mel happened to be with me when some alien bounty hunter finally tracked me down, the creep would not discriminate. It would blast her to smithereens, too.
    Yes, I needed to rest and restore my powers.
    But I did not need to be stupid.
    “I have a better idea,” I said.
    “What?”
    “You ever ride an elephant?”

Chapter 17
    “THAT. WAS. SO.
Amazing!
”
    With Dr. X’s permission, I had just transformed both of our horses into giant pachyderms.
    “How did you do that?”
    I gave Mel the standard magician’s answer: “Quite well, don’t you think?”
    “No, really, Daniel. Where did these elephants come from?”
    I shrugged. “My imagination.”
    “Wow. Einstein was so totally right!”
    “Huh?”
    “Albert Einstein. Frizzy hair? Genius? E equals mc squared?”
    I nodded. I knew the guy. I had even proven several of his theories, like that one where he said, “The separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one.” That was
so
true.
    “Oh, by the way,” said Mel, “was Einstein an alien, too?”
    “Sorry,” I said with a grin. “I am not at liberty to divulge that information.”
    “Well, anyway, Einstein said, ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge.’ ”
    I went ahead and finished the rest of the quote: “ ‘For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.’ ”
    “Exactly,” said Mel. “So, can you create anything you dream up?”
    “I guess. But I have to grok it first.”
    “Oh, like in
Stranger in a Strange Land
?” said Mel.
    “You’ve read Robert A. Heinlein’s book?”
    “Well, duh,” said Mel. “Hasn’t everybody?”
    “Well…”
    “To grok is to understand something so thoroughly that the observer becomes part of the observed! It’s like you totally drink it in!”
    We continued our discussion of grokking, and Alpar Nok, and whether Justin Bieber was an alien as we plodded across the rolling fields, swaying in the basket seats on the backs of our giant elephants (I had supersized our mastodons because they’re even cooler to ride when they’re the size of massive woolly mammoths). Even Dr. X was enjoying the ride.
    I have always wanted to walk a mile in my brudda’s hooves
, he said in my head.
Thank you, Daniel, for making it possible.
    You’re welcome, brudda
, I thought back, aping his reggaeslang for “brother.”
But are you a hundred percent certain this is what I need to be doing right now? I’m extremely worried about Number 2.
    What are you so worried about?
    That I won’t be ready to take him down when this battle you keep talking about finally takes place. I don’t even know who or what I’m up against. The List draws a total blank on his powers, his planet of origin, his—
    Worry is wasted energy, Daniel. It is like praying for things you don’t really want.
    But…
    This is very important, your time with Mel.
    How?
    You are experiencing humanity at its best. Joy. Friendship. Perhaps even the first inklings of love, yah?
    Whoa, ease up, Dr. X. Hold your horses. This is our first date and, technically, it’s not even a date. It’s just a horse ride that, you know, turned into an elephant ride.
    Heh, heh, heh.