Earthling Ambassador (18 page)

“Speaking of unfreezing ...” The princess pointed with her chin out the window. The first Arth-Creatures they'd frozen were starting to twitch and the big one the princess had knocked out was sitting up and shaking its huge head. “You'd better hurry up.”

“Esteemedpassengerspreparefortakeoff!” garbled Tyler. He slammed the red button and once again they hurtled across a star-spangled sky, leaving the Arth-Creatures a million light years behind them.

“Ah, spaceship travel.” Sean stuck his feet out and tipped his head back comfortably against the seats. “This is starting to seem as normal as catching the school bus.”

“No chewing gum under the seats,” said Katie.

“I can soon fix that,” said Sean.

I hope we get the right planet this time
, thought Nicola as she closed her eyes, just for a second.
I'm too tired to battle any more creatures.

“WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?! WHY CAN'T I MOVE? WHY AM I LYING ON THE FLOOR?
WHY AM I ALL WET
...
AND MUDDY . . . AND ITCHY, ITCHY, ITCHY!”

Nicola's eyes flew open.What a pity, Greta's mouth was starting to thaw before the rest of her.

“NICOLA BERRY! This is all your fault!”

“Told you,” said Tyler quietly.

“Actually, Greta,” said Shimlara. “It's all
your
fault for dropping the freeze-grenade. I think you have a word on your planet, is it Butterfingers? Well, Butterfingers, it's just lucky that Katie stepped in and saved the day, otherwise some Arth-Creature would be eating Tyler on Toast right now.”

Sean snorted.

“I'M ITCHY!” moaned Greta.

“Don't worry, Greta,” said Nicola. “I'm getting Tyler to take us to Buddy Beach, so we can all have a swim and wash off the mud.”

“Pfff! Tyler will probably land us on a snowfield on Mars!”

“Well, Earthling, I'm sure he'll do a better job flying the spaceship than you did throwing that freeze-grenade,” said Princess Petronella. “Your mistake nearly cost your friend his life.”

Tyler and Nicola exchanged surprised glances at this unexpected show of support. Greta seemed to be struck dumb.

Tyler cleared his throat. “Right! Well, esteemed passengers, please fasten your seat belts for landing. I'm pretty sure this time we're heading down toward Earth. If you look to your left, you'll see our beautiful planet just beneath us.”

Nicola craned her head and caught her breath.

There was Earth—silent and majestic, round as a marble, floating in space like an exquisite Christmas tree decoration.
That's my planet
, thought Nicola, and she was filled with a strange, teary, proud feeling. It was interesting how she'd felt proud of her family before (when they weren't embarrassing her) and proud of her friends. She'd felt proud of her soccer team when it scored a goal and proud of her country when it won Olympic medals—but she'd never ever thought to feel proud of her planet. Katie spoke up, and Nicola was surprised at how strong and confident her friend sounded. “Princess Petronella,” she said. “See those patches of blue? Those are oceans.That's what we'll be swimming in.”

“That's an ocean?” said the princess. “It's not like I imagined!”

“Wait till you see an ocean up close,” said Nicola. She tried to think of the right words to describe it. “It's so huge and beautiful, and when the sun shines on the water, it's like a carpet of glittering diamonds stretching out as far as you can see.”

“Really?”The princess sounded excited and bubbly, like a normal girl on vacation.

“YIKES!” Suddenly Tyler swerved the spaceship to one side as a tiny silver pellet streaked toward them like a bullet. “We only just missed it!”

“What was it?” asked Nicola.

“I think it was space junk!”Tyler looked delighted. “It's all this stuff left over from old space missions, like nuts, bolts, and old satellites from fifty years ago! It might even have been an astronaut's old glove! I've read there are over
one hundred thousand
pieces of space junk. It's like a huge orbiting piece of garb—oh.” Tyler bit his lip and stopped talking. He obviously didn't want to say the word “garbage” in front of the princess and remind her of her plans for Earth.There was silence on the spaceship as everybody tried to think of a new, safer topic of conversation.

The princess spoke again and this time she didn't sound bubbly at all. “Don't think I've forgotten that this is a KIDNAPPING. I've been reading all your minds, and I know you think once I see your pathetic little excuse of a planet, I'll have a change of heart about using it for an intergalactic garbage can. But you might be interested to know, I have never changed my mind about anything in my whole life. Never have, never will.”

With a few deft twists of the controls and a slight frown between his eyes,Tyler landed the spaceship as gently as a bird gliding to the ground.

“I think you're just as good a pilot as Plum now!” said Shimlara.

“Let's see which planet we're on first,” said Tyler modestly.

Sean unbuckled his seat belt and leaped to his feet. He pulled the lever on the door.

“Welcome to the planet of ... ORTH!”

“Ha, ha, very funny.” Nicola shoved him aside so she could see out.

Golden sunlight flooded the spaceship.This time, the smell that filled her nostrils was something delicious and familiar. It was a mixture of salty ocean, French fries, and sunscreen. It was the smell of the beach.

“Check it out, Nic.” Sean pointed at a familiar old battered wooden sign in the distance. It had a picture of a smiling lobster with a speech bubble saying:

WELCOME to buddy BEACH!

The Berry family had spent every vacation at Buddy Beach since Sean and Nicola were very little.They slept in a trailer that they kept permanently on a grassy patch of land right at the end of the beach. Nicola had always said it was her favorite place in the world. Now, after the horror of Arth, she thought it might be her favorite place in the galaxy.

“What's the plan?” Sean asked Nicola quietly.

“I don't know.” Nicola brushed some dried Arth mud from her face and lowered her voice so the others couldn't hear. “I just thought we could give the princess a typical Earth experience.Take her swimming, toast marshmallows for her, that sort of thing.Then I'll ask her one more time. I don't know what else to do. Mully said I needed to become friends with the princess, but I don't know if that's possible.”

“You're doing a great job, Nic,” said Sean.

“Um ... thank you.”Wow. Even if they didn't save the world, one good thing to come out of this was that her big brother actually seemed to
respect
her now.

“Oh no, look over there!” Sean grabbed Nicola's shoulder. “It's the guards from the palace and a pack of Arth-Creatures!”

Nicola spun in the direction he was pointing, banging her elbow against the side of the spaceship.

Sean fell about laughing. “Ha! Made you look, made you look!”

Hmmm. Maybe not much had changed after all.

“Come on, everybody,” she said. “Let's go have a swim and wash off this mud.”

Everybody unbuckled their seat belts and stood up.

“Actually,” said Nicola carefully. “I think the princess should go first.”

“Hmmmph,” sniffed the princess. She tucked a curl of limp, muddy hair behind her ear, straightened her dirty tiara, and even though she was wearing muddy pj's she walked regally to the door as if she were at a ball.

This is it
, thought Nicola.
This is our last chance to save the planet.

She stood back and gestured toward the open door.

“Princess Petronella ...” She spoke in a loud, formal voice. “Welcome to our planet.Welcome to Earth.”

The sun was warm on their clammy, muddy skin. They could hear waves gently thumping on the sand and the shrieks of seagulls.The sea was a giant glittery curve stretching out to the horizon. It was
perfect.
Nobody could resist Buddy Beach.

The princess walked slowly down the stairs of the spaceship and onto the rippled gold sand.

“I bet she loves it!” whispered Katie behind Nicola. “This was such a good—”

“AAAAAAAUUUGGH!”

The princess jumped madly from foot to foot. “Hot, burning, hot, hot, hot! What is this horrible yellow dirt?”

Oh great, the sand was boiling hot, and of course, the princess was the only one of them with bare feet. Couldn't things go right for just a second?

“Stand on this!” Greta, who was still half frozen but had thawed enough to walk, stiffly pulled a raincoat from her schoolbag and threw it down onto the sand in front of the princess, who jumped on it, her face screwed up in pain.

“That
hurt
! Did you do that on purpose? After I saved all your pathetic little lives? I'm going to get the palace torturers to add special foot-torture to your treatments!”

This was not going well at all.

“We didn't do it on purpose,” said Nicola as the rest of the Space Brigade joined her on the beach. “I'm sorry. I just forgot the sand would be hot. See, it happens to everybody!”

She pointed to a surfer in the distance who was dashing along the beach on his tiptoes.

“Well, even if you didn't do it on purpose, what sort of planet has a ground so hot you can't walk on it?”

“It's only the sand,” said Nicola. “Grass is fine to walk on.”

“Unless there are bindi-eyes,” said Greta.

“What are bindi-eyes?” asked the princess.

“They're sharp things that stick in your feet. Like glass.”

“Thanks very much, Greta,” said Nicola.

“I'm just being truthful. Gosh, I'm so
itchy
!”

A little boy's voice piped up in the distance.

“Mommy, Mommy, I just saw a spaceship land on the beach over there! Come and see!”

A woman's voice answered, “Very imaginative, darling.”

“No, no, I
saw
it!”

“Oh dear,” said Nicola. “I don't want us attracting huge crowds of people.”

“That's okay,” said Shimlara. “The mini spaceships are great because they're portable. Look.”

She went to the side of the spaceship and pressed a row of buttons.The spaceship began whirling slowly around in circles. It spun faster and faster until it was just a blur of color, like a cake mixer on full blast.Then suddenly it stopped and seemed to disappear completely. Sitting on the sand was an unassuming silver briefcase with the words MINI EASY-RIDE SPACESHIP written discreetly on the side. Shimlara picked up the briefcase in one hand. “See?”

“Fabulous!” said Tyler.

“Yes, fabulous, a run-of-the-mill cheap-brand mini spaceship,” said the princess. “So am I stuck on this raincoat forever?”

“You can borrow my shoes,” offered Shimlara. “I think we're about the same size.”

“I won't be borrowing them. I'll be confiscating them! Hand them over, now!”

Shimlara snapped, “Not if you ask like that! May I remind you that
we're
the kidnappers and
you're
the hostage, and by the way, that mini spaceship was a present from my mom and dad!”

“Who are no doubt being captured by my guards right now!” said the princess.

There was silence for a moment and everybody looked at Nicola expectantly.

Sometimes, when Nicola's dad was trying to cook dinner and everything was burning and he kept running out of ingredients, he said that he felt like his head was going to explode. For the first time, Nicola understood exactly what he meant.

“Ummmm,” she began. “Ahhh.”

She really had no idea what to do or say next. It was all getting to be too much.What she really wanted to say was, “Can I have a break from being the boss now?”

Luckily, everybody began to speak at once.

“Well, I'll run over to the trailer and get some spare flip-flops for the princess,” said Sean.

“I'll come with you and collect swimsuits and towels for everybody,” said Katie.

“I'll get boogie boards,” said Tyler. “The surf looks great!”

“I'll come and help you,” said Shimlara. “I've never seen a trailer, or a boogie board. Can you fly them?”

“Well, I'm just going to sit here and
thaw
and
itch.
” Greta plonked herself down on the sand in a puddle of water.

The princess sat down on Greta's raincoat and rubbed her feet. “I'm going to enjoy planning individual torture treatments for each of you.”

“Take your time,” said Nicola.

For the first time in ages, she looked at her countdown watch.

Hooray! This is it! Your last day before the DREADED DEADLINE!

Now is the time for any last minute finishing touches!

Finishing touches!
She was trying to save the world, not prepare for a dinner party!

“You've got no idea how hard this is,” she hissed at her watch.

“Talking to yourself, are you?” sneered the princess. “That's the first sign of insanity.”

Nicola sighed. Making friends with this girl was going to be about as easy as making friends with Mrs. Zucchini.

Twenty minutes later, everyone was standing on the hard, cool sand at the edge of the surf.

Luckily there were plenty of spare old bathing suits in the Berry family trailer, and Greta had packed her Honeyville Primary swim-team uniform in her schoolbag. Shimlara and the princess were wearing suits belonging to Nicola's mom because they were both about her height. Katie had helped Shimlara wrap a plastic bag around her cast, using an elastic band to hold it in place.