Earthling Ambassador (7 page)

“Let's not waste any more time with all that,” said Georgio. “The Committee is dying to hear from you, Nicola.We have a ladder here, since you are somewhat . . . vertically challenged.”

He indicated a small ladder leaning against the podium and looked at her expectantly. Nicola felt an overwhelming urge to turn around and run as fast as she could, but that would be embarrassing for Earth, and besides, they could easily catch her.

She lifted her skirt and carefully climbed the ladder. It wouldn't be a good look if the Earthling Ambassador fell flat on her face.

She tapped the microphone and cleared her throat. What could she say? She looked down at the eager, kind expressions on the faces below.These people might be a little loopy, but they'd all been working so hard to help save Earth.They deserved a nice speech.

She opened her arms wide like she'd seen politicians do on TV.

“Speaking on behalf of my planet,” she began, “I would like to express our, ummm, most sincere and humble gratitude for all the fine work of the Save the Little Earthlings Committee. I am . . . overwhelmed.”

That sounded pretty good
, thought Nicola, feeling quite proud of the “overwhelmed” part. She could see the lady who liked purple actually wiping a tear from her eye with a purple-painted fingernail.

“So, ah, erm, thank you.”

Not quite so good.

“I am ummm, honored to be chosen by you as the Earthling Ambassador and tomorrow morning I will do my . . .
utmost
to convince Princess Petronella not to go ahead with this, this most . . .
preposterous
and
petrifying
plan!”

The Save the Little Earthlings Committee erupted into rapturous applause.
Oh dear,
thought Nicola as she inclined her head graciously. If only she actually felt as confident as she sounded.

“Don't stare!”

“But Mom,
look
at her! Why is she so short? What's
wrong
with her?”

“Shhhh!”

Nicola was walking with Georgio from the community hall to his house and she knew that people, especially children, were staring at her as they walked by, but it didn't matter because she was staring goggle-eyed up at the people herself. It had been strange enough seeing just one person of Georgio's height back on Earth. Here, everywhere she looked she could see giant-size people casually going about their business.There was a distracted-looking mother, as tall as a lamppost, hurrying down the street with a baby on her hip.Two men, as tall as small trees, had stopped to laugh heartily over something. A hunched-up old lady as tall as Nicola's wardrobe sat on a bench enjoying the sunset.

Actually, there wasn't just one sunset.There were
two
. Twin cherry-colored suns shone cherry-colored rays as they simultaneously sank on the horizon, giving everything a rosy glow.The houses were lofty dazzling buildings of gold, silver, or copper.Their front gardens were crammed with giant tropical flowers with heavy, fragrant scents.

“We live just around the corner,” explained Georgio. “Obviously, there's no need to use the spaceship for such a short journey and I thought you might enjoy seeing our local neighborhood.What do you think?”

“It's very—” Nicola searched for the right word. “Impressive.”

Globagaskar was so big, so colorful, and so
confident.
It made Nicola feel about as significant as a mosquito.

“Here we are.” Georgio stopped in front of a silver house, slightly smaller than the ones on either side, with a profusion of pale pink roses as big as cauliflowers lining the footpath.

“Gorgioskio family!” shouted Georgio as he bounded up to the front door and swiped a card across a screen. “Your lord and master has returned!” He winked at Nicola. “My little joke. I'm not really their lord and master.”

“Ha ha,” said Nicola politely. It seemed that dads all across the galaxy made similar terrible jokes.

The door sprang open and Nicola followed Georgio into a circular room with brightly colored murals painted on the walls and a strangely springy floor that seemed to make her do a cheerful little bounce with each step.

“It's an Easy-Walk floor,” explained Georgio. “It puts a spring in your step. Or so the advertisements say.”

One whole wall of the room was taken up by a giant movie screen. Lying on the floor in front of it was a boy sucking his thumb.

“That's my son, Squid,” said Georgio proudly. “Come and say hello to the Earthling Ambassador, Squid!”

The boy bounced to his feet and ran to his father. He was probably only about two or three years old, but he was exactly the same height as Nicola.

“Earthling!” Squid pointed at Nicola. “I want an Earthling!”

“Earthlings are not toys, Squid,” said Georgio firmly.

“Well, hello! I've been wondering when you'd get home!”

A woman walked into the room. She was just a little shorter than Georgio, with apple-red cheeks and short, curly blond hair. She could have been any one of the moms from Nicola's school, except that she was as tall as a stilt-walker.

“Nicola, I'd like you to meet my wife, Mully,” said Georgio. “Mully, this is Nicola Berry, the Earthling Ambassador. I've had a terrible time tracking her down but she's definitely the one for the job!”

“Lovely!” Mully squatted down to shake Nicola's hand. “Congratulations! You must be starved.”

“Well,
I'm
starved, if anyone is interested! Hey, Dad, guess what, we won the play-off!”

A girl wearing a sports uniform walked into the room. Her thick black hair was tied back in a ponytail and she had sparkling blue eyes just like Georgio. She was about the same height as Nicola's dad, but Nicola guessed she was probably about her own age.

“This is my daughter, Shimlara,” said Georgio.

“Hi!” Shimlara gave Nicola a big smile. “Wow! You sure are short!”

“
Shim
lara!” said her mother crossly. “Manners! You know perfectly well that Nicola is an Earthling!”

“I'm sorry,” said Shimlara to Nicola. “Sometimes I just say the first thing that comes into my head. It's always getting me into trouble. I didn't mean you were short in a bad way. I just meant you were, ummm, short.”

“It's okay,” said Nicola. “Actually, I'm the shortest one in my class. I always have to sit right in the front row for school photos.”

“Me too!” said Shimlara. “So I guess you don't like zucchini, hey? That was my question. I told Dad that anybody who liked zucchini could not possibly be the Earthling Ambassador. Mom's question was whether you were good at writing stories, which I didn't think was at all relevant.”

Mully said, “I felt the Earthling Ambassador needed to be someone with a good imagination.You've got quite a challenging task ahead of you, Nicola!”

“Dad's question was pretty good,” said Shimlara. “The one about whether you'd ever convinced somebody to change their mind if it was already made up! So you must be pretty good at making people change their minds, hey?”

“Well, actually—” began Nicola uncertainly.

“Actually, I sort of changed that question at the last minute,” said Georgio. “Just slightly. So when's dinner?”

“You changed the last question?” Mully looked shocked.

“Well, my instincts were telling me that Nicola was the right person for the job, and the last thing you said before I left Globagaskar was to follow my instincts,” said Georgio. “So I happened to notice something red in Nicola's hair and I thought to myself,
Now that's a good question: Are you wearing something red in your hair?
and by golly she was! Ha ha!”

Nobody laughed.

“You told Dad to follow
his
instincts?” said Shimlara to her mother. “What about when the king and queen first went away and Dad said he had a ‘good feeling' about Princess Petronella?”

“Well, I hadn't actually
met
the princess,” said Georgio defensively. “I thought she looked like a nice girl on television.That was obviously before we heard the news about Earth.”

“And whenever we watch a movie you always get the good guys mixed up with the bad guys.Your instincts are terrible!”

“That's enough, Shimlara!” said Mully sharply. “You're being very rude to your father, and even more so to Nicola.”

Shimlara looked apologetically at Nicola. “Sorry! I didn't mean you weren't the right Earthling for the job. I bet you'll be great! I just meant Dad doesn't have very good instincts—umm, but I'm sure you're the
exception
! Oh boy, I keep making things worse.”

“That's okay.” Nicola felt very panicky.This was terrible. She didn't trust Georgio's instincts, either. There was probably some persuasive, brave, clever child in a school in Mongolia who would make the perfect Earthling Ambassador.

She started to pull the sash off over her head. “I don't think I'm the right Earthling, either. Is there time to go back and find somebody else to meet the princess?”

“Nicola.” Mully bent right down and placed a gentle hand on Nicola's shoulder. “As soon as you walked in the door, I knew you would make a wonderful Earthling Ambassador. Georgio has picked
exactly
the right person. I have complete confidence in you.”

There was something both soothing and compelling about Mully's voice. If Mully thought she could do it, then maybe she could.

Maybe.

“You really think I can do it?” asked Nicola.

“Really,” said Mully.

“I think so, too,” said Shimlara.

“Well, that's that then!” Georgio clapped his hands together. “Have I ever been wrong? Don't answer that, Shimlara. Now, is anybody else as hungry as me?”

“ME!” Squid came running.

Georgio scooped him up. “I hope you're going to be good in front of our guest.”

“Nope,” said Squid, and Nicola laughed. She pulled the same funny face at Squid that she did for her three-year-old cousin, Sam. Squid started laughing hysterically. It didn't seem to matter what part of the galaxy you were in; if you bulged your eyes, puffed out your cheeks, and wobbled your head, little kids would laugh at you.

The dinner table turned out to be a simple metallic oval, without any plates or silverware. In the middle of the table was a strange sort of gold hutch, with a large red button.

“Right, Nicola,” said Georgio. “Have you ever used a Telepathy Chef before?”

“Dad!”
said Shimlara. “Don't be so embarrassing. Of course she has!”

“Um, sorry,” said Nicola. “But I don't think I have.”

Shimlara slapped the side of her head. “Oops.”

“They still cook food on Earth,” explained Georgio.

“What's ‘cooking'?” asked Shimlara.

“Well, if you paid attention in your Galactic History classes, you'd know!” said Georgio.

“Probably something boring,” muttered Shimlara.

“Using the Telepathy Chef is very easy,” Mully said to Nicola. “You just use mental telepathy to order what you'd like for dinner. For example, I love mandarins, mussels, and macadamia nuts. So I just concentrate on those foods. See?”

Nicola watched carefully as Mully closed her eyes and licked her lips. After a couple of seconds, she opened her eyes and pressed the red button on the gold hutch. A tray slid out from the hutch with a plate containing a rather strange but elegant-looking concoction of steaming mussels and juicy orange pieces topped with a scattering of macadamia nuts.

“Now you try,” said Mully. “Just close your eyes and think very hard about whatever you'd most like to eat.”

“I'm not very good at mental telepathy,” said Nicola hesitantly. “I tried today with my teacher and it didn't work at all.”

“Oh, don't worry, it never works with teachers!” said Shimlara. “Give it a try! It's easy!”

“Think of something extra nice,” advised Mully. “You'll need your strength for seeing Princess Petronella tomorrow.”

“Well, okay,” said Nicola. She closed her eyes tight and tried to think as hard as she could about her favorite dinner, which was All Day Lasagna. It was called All Day Lasagna because Dad always said it was a good thing everyone liked it so much because it took him ALL DAY to cook it.Whenever he made it, everyone had to clap and shout things like,
Yay! Go, Super Dad!
as he served up each plate.Then he did a big bow from the waist. He made quite a fuss about it.

Nicola imagined All Day Lasagna as hard as she could: the bubbling lid of cheese, the paper-thin layers of pastry, and the tasty tomato-y sauce.The problem was that other thoughts kept coming into her mind. She thought about how she was in charge of saving the planet and wished she wasn't. She thought about how much fun cloud-swimming had been that day. She thought about the expression on Mrs. Zucchini's face when Georgio first came into the classroom.

She heard Mully cough and say politely, “Okay, Nicola, I'm sure it's got the message now.You can press the red button.”

Nicola opened her eyes and nervously pressed the red button.

A tray slid out.

“Oh yuck!” cried Shimlara.

“My goodness,” said Georgio. “Is that
really
what you'd like for dinner?'

Nicola looked with horror at the tray.There was an enormous plate of mashed-up bright green zucchini mixed with something that looked at first like ice cream, but which Nicola recognized as cloud. Next to it was a large tall glass of black goopy liquid. A label on the glass read: 100 PERCENT PURE WORRY.The only sign of anything remotely resembling lasagna was a single tomato sitting sadly on a saucer.