Earthling Ambassador (8 page)

“The Earthling has to eat her dinner!” crowed Squid, banging his spoon on the table. “Eat it, Earthling! Eat it!”

“Quiet now, Squid,” said Mully. “Don't worry, Nicola. The Telepathy Chef has been messing up recently. I think it's time we got a new one. Shimlara, why don't you order your own favorite dinner for Nicola and give her a taste of Globagaskarian food?”

“Okay,” said Shimlara cheerfully. She opened and shut her eyes so fast it practically counted as a blink and then banged her fist on the red button.

“No need to show off, Shimlara,” scolded Georgio.

Nicola's gasped when she saw the plate.

It was her dad's All Day Lasagna. Actually it was an even better version because, to be honest, her dad's All Day Lasagna was always just a little burned on top.This was because her dad always treated himself to a “little rest” after he'd been cooking all day and would go off and read one of his big fat library books until he would lift his head, twitch his nostrils, and go running wildly through the house, yelling “FRIZZLE!” But this lasagna was perfectly cooked and next to it was a thick chocolate shake, which Nicola was never allowed to have with lasagna, because her mom said the thought of the two things combined made her sick, a fact Nicola didn't consider to be all that relevant.

“But this is my favorite dinner, too!” she said to Shimlara.

“What a coincidence!” said Shimlara.

“Oh, Shimlara-Anne,” said Mully in a disappointed tone.

Nicola saw that Georgio and Mully were both looking at Shimlara with exactly the same expression on their faces that her own parents got when she was trying to explain why she hadn't got around to unloading the dishwasher, or why it really hadn't been her fault when she threw her basketball in the hallway and shattered Mom's favorite vase.

“You know better than that,” said Georgio. “Reading people's minds without their permission is the height of rudeness!”

“Rude dude! Rude dude! Shimlara was being a rude dude!” sang Squid.

“Be quiet, Squid!” snapped Georgio. Squid dropped his voice but kept singing the song under his breath.

Shimlara hung her head. “But Mom, I just wanted to give her the dinner I knew she really wanted!”

“Darling, I understand you wanted to make Nicola happy,” said Mully. “But you should have just asked her! You can't go poking around in somebody's mind all willy-nilly, you
know
that!”

“I'm afraid you'll have to go to your room,” said Georgio. He was talking in the same deep, serious voice that Nicola's own dad used when he was angry, as if he were an anchorman on the evening news. It really irritated Nicola and she could tell Shimlara had the same feeling by the way she scratched hard at her arm.

“Can you read people's minds on this planet?” asked Nicola. She turned to Georgio. “Is that how you knew I was wondering if it mattered how well I could Rollerblade backward and about everyone teasing me for not being able to do a cartwheel?”

There was a sudden, very uncomfortable silence at the dinner table.

“AHA!” cried Shimlara. “Dad has been reading Nicola's mind all day, but now when I do it, it's rude! Well, you know what that is? That's
hypocritical,
Dad!”

“Daddy has a red face. Like a tomato!” Squid looked very interested as he peered over at Georgio.

“Shimlara, you mustn't talk to your father in that tone of voice,” began Mully.

Shimlara was outraged. “Mom! This is about
justice
!”

“Georgio, you really shouldn't have been reading her mind,” said Mully. “It's not setting a very good example.”

“It was for the good of the mission, Mully,” snapped Georgio. Nicola could tell he was feeling sheepish. “Sometimes I have to make difficult decisions.”

“Oh, that's just a whole lot of garbage!” said Mully.

“Yes, garbage,” said Georgio. “May I remind you all that that's what this whole mission is about? Nicola's planet could be covered in garbage! Earthling lives are at stake!”

“Well, I was just trying to help the mission, too!” said Shimlara.

“That's different,” said Georgio.

“How?” asked Shimlara.

“Yes, how?” asked Mully.

“Hungry,” announced Squid, who was obviously bored by the whole discussion. “I'm a hungry Squid!”

He began to chant over and over. “Mom, where's my dinner? Mom, where's my dinner? Mom, where's my dinner?”

“BE QUIET, SQUID!” roared Shimlara, Mully, and Georgio in unison.

Realizing that nobody was taking much notice of her, Nicola picked up her knife and fork and began to eat her delicious lasagna.

Aside from the fact that she was on another planet with remarkably tall people who could read minds and cook by mental telepathy, this was just like any normal family dinner at home in Honeyville, Sydney, Australia, Earth.

Oh no, Mrs. Zucchini's math test,
thought Nicola before she opened her eyes the next day.
That means sardines
.

Every time she had a test or an exam, Nicola's mother tried to give her sardines for breakfast. She'd read somewhere that sardines were “brain food” and she was convinced if she could just get Nicola to eat them before she took the test, then she'd be guaranteed to get better grades. Nicola hated sardines, so her mom always tried to sneak them into her breakfast. She would smear them on toast hidden under peanut butter, or she'd chop them up into tiny pieces and put them in scrambled eggs and serve them to Nicola with an innocent expression on her face. If she managed to trick Nicola into eating just one mouthful of sardines, she'd run around the kitchen with her arms over her head as if she'd won the Olympics.

Yuck. Sardines and math. Not a good day.

But then she heard a strange voice. “Good morning. How did you sleep?”

Nicola opened her eyes and the first thing she saw was the yellow countdown watch on her wrist. It said:

Good morning! Only TWO days to go! Out of bed, sleepy-head.

Everything that had happened yesterday flooded through Nicola's head. Oh, that's right. She didn't have a math test today. She just had a mission to save the world.

Shimlara was sitting up in her bed on the opposite side of the room, stretching and yawning. Her black hair was sticking up all over the place. She was wearing a bright orange fluffy button-up suit. Nicola decided not to tell Shimlara that, on Earth, only tiny babies wore pajamas like that.

“I slept really well,” said Nicola, surprised. When she had seen her bed last night she'd been sure that she wouldn't sleep a wink. Instead of a normal mattress, it was just a long box filled with hundreds of tiny colored balls, like soft foam golf balls.

“It's weird.These little balls were really comfortable to lie on.” Nicola picked one up and squished it between her fingers.

“It's just a normal bed,” yawned Shimlara. She sighed. “I've got a galactic geography test today.”

“I should be taking a math test,” said Nicola. “I'm so nervous about meeting Princess Petronella, I almost wish I was back on Earth taking the test.”

Last night, after dinner, Nicola had picked the present for the princess (a globe of the Earth—she hoped it wouldn't be too obvious of a hint) and Georgio and Mully had explained exactly what would be happening the next day. Georgio would drive her to the Rainbow Palace, but he wouldn't be able to come past the palace gates, because the appointment was only for Nicola.There would be lots of people waiting to see the princess, so when it was time for her appointment, she would need to talk fast.

“You'll need to be firm and authoritative, but at the same time polite and humble,” said Georgio as if that was perfectly easy.

“Just be yourself,” Mully had advised. “Speak from the heart.”

Nicola still had no idea exactly what she was going to say to the Princess. She'd stayed up late jotting down notes, but all she'd finished up with was a long list of words, phrases, and crossed-out ideas, like:

Eventually, she'd given up and gone to bed. Anyway, Mully had said it was better not to read from a script because otherwise she'd sound too stiff and formal. Nicola hoped she was right.

Then she and Shimlara stayed up for hours talking. Soon they were in fits of giggles. Shimlara told her all about the time she'd gotten lost while cloud-surfing and had floated off to the other side of Globagaskar where she'd finally crashed into the side of a mountain in the middle of a thunderstorm. “They had to send a rescue party to find me. It was pretty embarrassing.”

Nicola told Shimlara about the time she and Sean had been jumping on the trampoline and bumped their heads together so hard, they both had to go to the hospital with blood streaming down their faces. “My dad fainted when he saw us and hit his own head,” said Nicola. “So Mom had to take all three of us to the hospital.” By the time they'd finally drifted off to sleep, it felt like she and Shimlara had been friends forever.

Now Shimlara was bouncing excitedly up and down on her bed so that the little balls flew in all directions. “No way would you rather be taking a test! I'd swap places in a second. I'm so jealous of you I could die. I'd love to see what it's like inside the palace. And your whole planet is depending on you! You'll be a hero!”

“But what if I can't convince the princess to change her mind?”

Shimlara's face changed and became very serious.“Well, that could be pretty bad. Once everyone on your planet finds out, they'll be really, really mad at you. Some of them might even want to kill you! You'll have to go into hiding, I expect. But that might be fun! I could come with you!”

“Shim
lara!
” Mully stood at the door with her arms folded. “How do you think that makes Nicola feel?”

“Sorry,” said Shimlara guiltily. “I'm sure no one will mind if you fail and all the Earthlings have to go and live on the Planet of Bore. It won't be
that
boring.”

“Oh, for heaven's sake,” said Mully. “Now you're just making it worse. Nicola, don't listen to a word she says. Sometimes she's far too much like her father. Now, come with me, Nicola, I've got your parents on the phone calling long-distance from Earth!”

Nicola followed Mully down the hallway, wondering what her parents were going to say. She could imagine her mother saying, “You get off that planet right now, young lady, and come back home and get ready for school.” Her father would probably make a bad joke.

“You'll have to stand on this chair like Squid does,” said Mully. “Otherwise you won't be able to see the screen.”

Nicola climbed onto the chair and there on a flat screen on the wall were her parents, sitting at the kitchen table back home. It was strange seeing the familiar old kitchen table. It gave Nicola a funny nostalgic feeling to see the old china bowl filled with elastic bands, bits of paper, coins, paper clips, and one wrinkly old apple.

“NICOLA! NICOLA! CAN YOU SEE US?”

Her dad bounded to his feet and waved his arms back and forth as if he was on a mountaintop.

“Hi, Dad,” said Nicola. “I can see you.”

“Oh, okay.” He sat back down and drummed his fingers on the kitchen table. “Hi there, Nic. How are you? Bit of an adventure for you, eh?”

“Are you
warm
enough, darling?” asked her mother anxiously.

“Now don't be nervous, Nic.” Her dad looked terrified. “The prime minister explained to us that you've been specially chosen for a top secret mission to save the world. We're very proud of you.Well done!”