The Hairball of Horror! (3 page)

‘We’ve already told you that we behave badly on purpose to stop people taking us home,’ said Butch, and drooled on the floor. ‘Except for the dribbling. That’s all
me.’

‘Ah, yes. I almost forgot,’ Montague sighed sarcastically. ‘You’re the amazing Astrodogs.’

‘Spacemutts,’ sighed Poppy.

‘Spacemutts, that’s right,’ chuckled the poodle. ‘You climb into your spaceship and fly all over the galaxy saving the world from invading hamsters.’

‘Cats!’ growled Butch. ‘And you’d know we were telling the truth if you had accepted our invitations to join us. But you always go to bed as soon as the night warden
locks up.’

‘I need my beauty sleep,’ sniffed the poodle, looking his three kennel mates up and down with a critical eye. ‘And so do you lot by the looks of it. When was the last time any
of you had a bath?’

‘There’s no need to be rude,’ said Rocket, pricking his ears at a distant sound of squeaky boots and doors being locked. ‘Anyway, the night warden has arrived, which
means it’s time for us to get going.’

‘And time for me to sleep,’ said Montague, pulling on his frilly eye-mask and stuffing cotton wool in his ears. The poodle circled his blanket several times before flopping down for
the night. ‘Give my regards to the space rabbits!’

‘Cats!’ Poppy and Butch growled together.

‘Take no notice,’ said Rocket, clearing away chew toys to make room in the centre of his kennel. He waited for his friends to do the same before swiping his collar, which made the
stud lights blink around his neck.

‘This is Rocket calling the
Dogstar
. Come in, WOOF?’

‘Hello, Captain,’ said the female voice of WOOF, the
Dogstar
’s onboard computer. ‘I am in orbit above your location. Can I confirm only three teleports again this
evening?’

Rocket glanced at Poppy and Butch who were both grinning mischievously, and then he looked at the puffy white poodle lying neatly in the centre of his kennel, directly beneath the domed
light.

‘Lets make that
four
teleports,’ he whispered.

Moments later the domed lights flickered on and off and bright beams shot down from the ceiling. The four dogs sparkled and shimmered in the brilliant light, and then vanished one by one in the
transport beams until all of the kennels were empty.

At the very edge of our solar system, on a planet named Pluto, Lady Fluffkins was overseeing the rapid construction of a supersonic space-cannon from the observation deck of her
Mouseship
. The colossal weapon was nearly as big as the small planet it was built on, and when it was finally completed, the empress sent out a green flare to signal the waiting fleet.

From the darkness of deep space, hundreds of feline ships came into view, hauling giant cargo-holds and freight-nets behind them. The cats had travelled in a convoy from far and wide across the
Catnip Nebula to load the barrel of the cannon with their mysterious cargo.

The evil empress watched with wide green eyes as each precious payload was dumped into the open mouth of the weapon. The sticky substance had been collected from every occupied planet in the
galaxy over many years and was now being compacted, crushed into a single massive missile.

‘This is your most clever and cunning plan yet, Mistress,’ snivelled Baldy, quickly plumping up the satin cushion before Lady Fluffkins sank into her throne. ‘Earth will soon
be yours for the taking . . .’

‘No, it won’t!’ spat the empress.

‘Huh?’ gasped the servant, whose main job, aside from grovelling and generous outpourings of flattery, was to praise his mistress and make positive predictions for each invasion
attempt on planet Earth.

‘There has been a last-minute change of plan,’ Fluffkins grinned.

‘You’ve found another planet you like more than the elusive blue one, my lady?’ Baldy enquired, carefully.

‘I’ve already conquered all of the others, you hairless freak,’ growled the white Persian. ‘Earth is the only planet that has managed to resist my rule, thanks to those
fleabag Spacemutts.’

‘Then what do you plan to do?’ whispered the servant, seeing red lights flashing on the control panel. ‘The cannon is fully loaded and charged for the supersonic
blast.’

‘I’ve changed the flight path so the missile will gather asteroids along the way,’ hissed the empress, tapping in her authorization code to arm the secret weapon. ‘Which
means it will be a thousand times bigger and faster when it enters the Earth’s atmosphere.’

‘But that would m-m-mean . . .’ stammered the servant.

‘Yes!’ said Lady Fluffkins, plunging her paw on the big red button. ‘If I cannot rule planet Earth, I will destroy it instead!’ she said, laughing wildly as the sonic
boom created a blinding flash in the starry sky, blasting the mysterious missile out into the solar system.