Mojo looked up at me.

Reluctantly, I snapped my pistol back into its holster.

“What’s up, space jock?” Mojo the Monkeyboy grinned inanely.

Is everything all right back there? I “heard” Professor Xavier mentally calling to me from the cockpit.

“Yeah, it’s OK!” I yelled back. “It’s just Mojo.”

Mojo the fat, extra dimensional villain or Mojo the Monkeyboy sidekick-wanna be? he inquired telepathically.

“The monkeyboy one, unfortunately,” I sighed.

“Say pal, have we met before?” the creature cackled. “What brings you here?”

“The question is what brings you here?” I returned.

“Oh, I have a perfectly reasonable explanation for that,” he assured me. “See, I was hopping off to your office to take care of your goldfish when I suddenly thought of something: How many goldfish am I taking care of? Then I thought Where does Jon keep the fish food. Then I thought how much should I feed these fish. Then I thought how much is too much. Then I thought what if I feed the fish too much and they die, would Jon want to know or would he want me to just secretly replace them just like in all those TV shows. Then I thought if I kill them, can I eat them? Then I thought—”

“OK OK,” I interrupted. “So how did you get here?”

“Oh, I bounced back to ask you and then I saw you throw that grumpity-lookin’ fellow off and then you stepped away from the hatch and then I hopped in to ask you but then you closed the hatch and went to the front of the ship and then I was going to follow you but then the ship shot up really, really fast and I fell back into all this stuff,” he answered. “And here I am, ta da!”

I rubbed my eyes with my fingers.

“Alright, alright,” I said. “I don’t want to hear anything else.”

“You mean I get to come along?” he batted his eyelashes. “Chum?”

“Yes,” I answered exasperatedly. “We’re on a tight schedule and can’t go back but this mission’s too important to be goofing around. You can stay, but you need to stay right here at all times. Got it?”

“Got it caught it dot it slap shot it and squat on it, my pally-o-pal!” he answered gleefully. “I’m going to stay right here and – whulp!”

I don’t know how he managed to do it, but somehow he went tumbling off to the side and crashed into a mop and bucket. I didn’t even realize that I had a mop and bucket on board the Danger Sled.

“Ooops!” his chortle echoed through the bucket on his head. “Did I do that?”

I rubbed my eyes with my fingers again.

“Stay right there, Mojo,” I ordered. “Don’t move. Don’t say a word.”

“But I—”

“Shhh!” I hissed with my finger to my lips. I spun on my heel and stalked off back to the cockpit with my fists balled.

“Is everything all right, Jon?” Professor Xavier asked.

“No.” I tried to contain my frustration. “I have a monkeyboy who snuck onboard just as we were taking off and is now crashing around the back of my ship.”

“Relax, Jon,” Xavier tried to soothe me. “It isn’t that bad. He probably won’t even bother us on this mission.”

“Oh don’t count on it,” I said. “You don’t know what it’s like to have an obnoxious thing like that bouncing around you all the time.”

“You may be surprised to hear this, but I do,” he answered. “All heroes at one time or another must face a trial such as this. Don’t let him bother you and it will be all over before you know it.”

“You may be right,” then I paused. Something dawned on me. “Say Professor, If you’re a telepath, how come you didn’t detect his presence when he hopped on board?”

“Jon, have you ever tried reading a book that had absolutely nothing written on the pages?”