The Astounding Broccoli Boy

by Frank Cottrell Boyce

The penguin jumped into his arms like a puppy.

  I can never get over how penguins rocket out of the water.

  ‘How did he get out of secret HQ?’ said Koko. ‘Did he use the lift?’ Peter raised his beak as if he was deliberately ignoring the question.

  ‘I’ve got a feeling he can fly,’ said Tommy-Lee. ‘I think he’s got penguin superpowers.’ He put the penguin down on the bench next to him and tried to act like it was normal to bring a penguin on a school trip. Surprisingly this seemed like it was going to work, but then two more penguins shot over the side and stood around Tommy-Lee with their little wings dangling like dripping-wet coat hangers.

  ‘This must be his wife and kid,’ said Tommy-Lee. ‘Fancy Peter being a dad.’

  ‘You have no reason to suppose that this is a family,’ said Koko. ‘For all you know, this is a penguin boy band, or a gang of penguin desperadoes. They might all be girls. It could be a penguin hen night.’

  But by now the penguins were all clicking beaks and wobbling their heads. Whatever they were, they were pleased to see each other.

  And they were attracting attention.

  A big lad in a Pirates of the Caribbean costume came over with two even bigger lads dressed as Ninjas and said, ‘What’s this?’

  ‘It’s not penguins,’ I said quickly. ‘It’s kids dressed up as penguins.’ The penguins pulled their necks in and folded their wings into their sides.

  ‘They must be very small kids,’ said one of the Ninjas – obviously the one with the powers of observation.

  ‘They are. Really small.’

  ‘You’re not from our school,’ said the pirate. ‘You don’t go to Hackney Free. Who are you?’

  ‘You talking to me? Or to the penguins?’ Tommy-Lee asked. We laughed.

  ‘You laughing at us?’ said the second Ninja. ‘This is our school trip. Who said you could come on our school trip?’

  No one is allowed to speak to Tommy-Lee like that unless they actually gave birth to him. That Ninja, I thought, will be floating in the Thames any minute, and there’s probably nothing I can do about it. By now everyone – Yoda, pirates, Stormtroopers – was staring at us. Short Darth Vader turned out to be a teacher. He took his helmet off and peered at the penguins, then at us. He asked who it was hiding under the face paint.

  ‘I don’t think we know each other,’ I admitted, ‘unless you used to teach in Birmingham?’

  ‘But you’re from Hackney Free School, Year 8, right? From the Thames History Project?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘But . . . you must be. I mean . . . we counted everyone on. How did you get on here? This is a dreadful mix-up. Mrs Catermole! We’ve got a problem.’

  I have to admit that it was funny watching Darth Vader lose it over three Year 7s.

  ‘Mrs Catermole, we appear to have accidentally taken three extra children.’

  Mrs Catermole turned out to be the one dressed as Professor Umbridge. ‘I definitely counted thirteen children,’ she said.

  ‘But three of those children aren’t ours. That must mean . . .’

  They stared at each other and both said at once, ‘We’ve left three children behind.’

  Darth Vader sounded out of breath. ‘The legal implications . . . the health-and-safety issues. Who ARE you, children?’ He didn’t wait for an answer, just carried on panicking. ‘We’re going to have to turn the boat around and get back to the pier. Your parents or your school must be worried about you.’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Nevertheless, we can’t be held responsible for you, can we, Mrs Catermole?’

  Mrs Catermole agreed that they definitely had to turn the boat around. I tried to explain that this was no good for us. I said, ‘We’re on kind of a mission. We’re looking for something and we haven’t found it yet. We’ve got to keep on up the river.’

  ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible. We can’t be responsible for you. We have to take you back to wherever it is you came from.’

  Tommy-Lee said that the whole conversation was stressing him out and went to find the toilet. Professor Umbridge had decided she wanted a proper look at our faces. She pulled a packet of wet wipes out of her handbag and tried to scrub off my face paint.

  ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ warned Koko.

  ‘How dare you talk to me like that?’

  ‘How dare you talk to us like that!’ growled Koko. ‘We don’t go to your school. We’re outside your jurisdiction.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Professor Umbridge. ‘That’s why you’re going right back where you belong.’

  ‘Why are you picking on us anyway?’ said Koko. ‘Why don’t you tell THEM to take off their costumes?!’ She jabbed a finger at the penguins. Mrs Catermole looked really confused. ‘But surely they’re real penguins?’ she said.

  ‘Oh,’ said Koko. ‘So I suppose they’re outside your jurisdiction too! I suppose you’re going to take them all the way back to the South Pole!’

  Before she had time to explain . . .

  BANG . . . A door smashed open behind her.

  THUMP . . . Something massive stomped on to the deck.

  ‘Oh. My. Days.’ Teacher Darth Vader looked Tommy-Lee in the face. The face was no longer painted. The face was Angry. And green.

  ‘Get. Away. From. My. Penguins!’ roared Tommy-Lee, rushing towards them.

  The Pirates of the Caribbean kid more or less jumped over the side of the boat. It was only his lack of jumping skills that saved him from ending up in the river.

  ‘What is it?’ yelled Professor Umbridge, dropping her handbag so she could point at Tommy-Lee more angrily. The penguins went for her handbag, which made everything worse.

  I did try to calm everyone down. I said that there was nothing to be scared of, but no one seemed to take any notice. Some people screamed about Tommy-Lee’s face. Some people screamed about the penguins. Then they all screamed about Koko’s face because she had scrubbed the paint off her cheeks with one of Professor Umbridge’s wet wipes. It seemed daft for me to carry on being Spider-Man in the circumstances, so I washed off my face paint. Then everyone screamed at my face too.

  ‘Do not be afraid,’ I said, trying to make them feel better. ‘We’re not sick,’ I shouted.

  But Koko shouted louder. And she shouted something different. ‘Mrs Catermole is right. Turn this boat around right now,’ she shouted, ‘and no one will get hurt. You heard me. Turn the boat around. I’m counting . . .’

  ‘What are you doing?’ I hissed. ‘You can’t hijack a school trip.’

  ‘They’re scared already,’ she said with a shrug. ‘We might as well give them something to be scared about. Trust me. I know where we’re going – they’ll cheer up once we’ve saved London.’

  Batman Drops In!

  Everyone slid down in their seats as though the boat had made an emergency stop. But it hadn’t stopped. It lurched forward, then rocked sideways. All around us the water was churning and boiling as though some massive deep-sea creature was about to surface. The school party – pupils and teachers – screamed in terror. The penguins ran around in circles, bumped into each other, fell over and rolled around the deck.

  ‘This is it!’ whooped Tommy-Lee. ‘Green. Is. For. Gooooo!’

  We gripped the sides of the boat and looked down into the waves. We should have looked up into the sky.

  A pair of police helicopters was thundering towards us, flying so low that the wind from their rotor blades whipped the water into foam. So that’s why the boat was rocking. And that’s why the penguins were scared.

  A helicopter dangled over our heads like a massive metal insect. A voice boomed like a bomb, ‘Cut your engines.’ The boat’s engine coughed and died. The helicopter sounded louder than ever. One of its doors opened, quick as a sting. A bright yellow cable tumbled out, attached to the helicopter door at the top. The other end clunked on to the deck. A dark figure slid down the cable towards us wearing a belt that bristled with gadgets.

/>   ‘Batman!’ whooped Tommy-Lee.

  ‘Police!’ yelled the figure – who turned out to be the Policewoman with the Loudest Voice in the World – as her massive boots hit the deck. By now other cables had been thrown from the helicopter. Police were dropping on to the deck like water bombs in a water fight.

  ‘Police!’ cried Koko, clapping her hands. ‘Exactly who we wanted to talk to. They’ll be really pleased to meet us.’

  I wasn’t sure she was right about that.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They’ve got guns and they’re pointing them at us.’

  Also they had us surrounded.

  Tommy-Lee grabbed my elbow and whispered, ‘Are they going to shoot us?’ I tried to put his mind at ease. I reminded him this was England. ‘The police don’t shoot people in England.’

  ‘One move,’ said the Policewoman with the Loudest Voice in the World, ‘and we’ll shoot.’

  Surrounded and Outgunned, Will the Little Green Men Surrender?

  All that stood between us and a dozen police pistols was a trio of nervous penguins. Gun barrels were poised like snakes about to strike. It took them forever to take aim. During that forever my 200-per-cent brain filled up with pictures again . . .

  I saw Teacher Darth Vader and Professor Umbridge sneaking all their pupils around the back of the wheelhouse. We hadn’t noticed it at the time because we were all so excited about the police swinging down on their ropes.

  The three of us stood alone with the police at the back of the boat, while they were all herded together out of sight at the front.

  I saw the strange, frightening stuff that had been happening – helicopters, guns, police, crowds and London in a state of panic as wild animals rampaged and Chaos ruled the streets. Pictures of people swearing they’d seen alien creatures . . . Little Green Men . . . just like in a comic.

  Other people laughing at these people and saying they must have been drunk.

  Drunk people sobering up, looking on their phones, and finding PHOTOGRAPHS of themselves posing with Little Green Men!!!

  A news report saying that the Little Green Men have broken into BUCKINGHAM PALACE!!!! And tried to steal the royal baby!!!!

  In all these pictures I could clearly see the Little Green Men.

  And the Little Green Men were us.

  We were little (well, I was little).

  We were wearing weird clothes (hypoallergenic pyjamas).

  And we were green.

  Suddenly everything made sense . . .

  ‘Get back!’ bawled Loud Policewoman. Koko was coming towards her. ‘Keep your hands out of your pockets!’ Koko was trying to find a Green Knights business card to give to her.

  ‘OK, OK!’ soothed Koko, backing towards me and Tommy-Lee. ‘What’s the matter with them? What are they scared of?’

  ‘Aliens,’ I whispered. ‘They’re scared of aliens.’

  ‘Yeah, but we can help with that.’

  ‘They think we ARE the aliens.’

  ‘What?! Why?! We’re . . .’

  ‘We’re green, we have superpowers and we have kidnapped the Hackney Free Year 8 Thames History Project.’

  In every story there are Heroes and Villains. If you don’t decide which you are, someone else will decide for you. London had decided that we were the villains. And now London was out to get us.

  ‘Can’t we just explain?’

  ‘Explain that we kidnapped a school and set hippos and wolves loose all over London?’ My 200-per-cent brain had already figured out that right now it would be safer to let them carry on thinking we were aliens.

  I said, very slowly, ‘We. Come. In. Peace.’

  ‘What?! No, we don’t,’ hissed Tommy-Lee. ‘We come here for a fight. Don’t you remember?’

  The Loudest Policewoman in the World pulled back the safety catch on her gun.

  ‘We honestly do come in peace,’ I said, ‘but we also have an invisible deadly weapon against which your puny guns are useless. If you fire, we might well annihilate all of London.’

  ‘You’re lying,’ said the Policewoman.

  ‘Maybe,’ I admitted, ‘but then again, maybe not.’

  A policeman with a moustache the size of a small dog came over and said, ‘We need a risk assessment.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We can’t put London at risk. No matter how remote that risk may seem to be.’ He looked us in the eye and spoke very slowly, which made his small-dog moustache look like it was barking. ‘What. Is. It. You. Want. With. Us?’

  Before my 200-per-cent brain could think of exactly the right words, Tommy-Lee said, ‘Snack a Jacks.’

  ‘I told you to let me do the talking,’ I hissed.

  But before I could say anything else, Koko said, ‘Take us to your leader!’

  On Tower Bridge Thousands of Onlookers Hold Their Breath as the Little Boat Turns Around . . .

  The police made the captain turn the boat around and head upriver towards a long wooden jetty. We could see the blue, swirling lights of police cars and ambulances. The helicopter was circling overhead.

  ‘Hey,’ whooped Tommy-Lee, ‘look! It’s snowing!’ Flurries of flakes whirled into the choppy brown water. ‘Is it going to stick?’

  ‘We’re not here to talk about the weather,’ snarled the loud policewoman. Even her snarl was louder than the boat’s engines.

  The boat chugged up alongside the jetty. I was going to climb off but the loud policewoman yelled, ‘Freeze!’ so loud that I almost fell into the river. ‘You don’t move until we’ve got these kids off. That goes for you too!’ She pointed her pistol at Peter the Penguin, who was waddling towards her.

  ‘He’s a penguin,’ I explained. ‘He doesn’t speak English.’

  He was standing right up against her now, with his head in the air and his beak wide open.

  ‘Keep him under control or he gets it!’

  ‘He thinks your gun is a fish,’ explained Tommy-Lee. ‘He thinks you’re offering it to him because you’re holding it out. You could try putting it away.’

  She lowered the gun and started putting it away, but then suddenly jerked it back up again. ‘Oh no!’ she snapped. ‘You don’t fool me that easily!’

  The other police were helping the schoolchildren off the front end of the boat. Some of them were crying. Which was a bit much really. All we’d done is given them an extra-long trip on the river and shown them some penguins. The last one off the boat was a lanky girl in a Disney princess dress. When she got on the jetty she looked back at Tower Bridge, jumped up and down, waved to all the people there and swished her princess skirts. The sound of applause came at us over the water like a flock of seagulls. Then there was cheering and car horns. People were so happy that these kids had been saved from our clutches. Honestly, you’d think we’d been planning to eat them.

  The police kept us at the very end of the jetty while the Hackney Free Year 8 Thames History Project got on the bus and drove away. ‘Won’t be long now and we’ll get this sorted,’ said Officer Small-Dog Moustache. The moustache was sort of twitching, which I think meant he was smiling underneath it. ‘Do you need anything in the meantime?’

  ‘Snack a Jacks,’ repeated Tommy-Lee.

  ‘Salt & Vinegar,’ specified Koko.

  ‘Yes, yes. I’ve already called Downing Street. The Snack a Jacks will be waiting for you. Though I’m not sure I stipulated the flavour.’ He took out his phone and walked around for a while, trying to find a signal.

  The Loud Policewoman took a step closer to us. Koko had found a business card by now and offered her one. ‘If we can help you any time,’ she said, ‘just give us a call.’

  ‘Get back.’

  ‘I’ll just tuck it in your pocket,’ said Koko, and did.

  ‘I’ll take one,’ said the man next to her, without lowering his pistol. So she ducked under the barrel of his gun and popped one in his pocket too.

  ‘You know,’ snarled the Policewoman with the Loudest Voice, ‘you kids ar
e in a lot of trouble. A. Lot. Of trouble.’

  Tommy-Lee shuddered and moved closer to me. He hated being in trouble. I sat up straight and puffed out my chest. I tried to make it look like I was taking charge. Just to make Tommy-Lee feel a bit safer. ‘Trouble,’ I said, ‘is our best subject.’

  ‘Where did you hear that?’ sniffed the loudest policewoman. ‘One of your kids’ comics?’

  ‘What makes you think we’re kids? We’re aliens. Little Green Men.’

  ‘Sound like kids to me.’

  ‘That could be because we’re projecting a reality-distortion force field that makes you think we sound like kids even though we’re not,’ said Koko.

  ‘Could be. But I don’t think so. I think the Prime Minister is going to take one look at you and put you all in jail.’

  She’d hardly finished speaking when the first splash came.

  ‘What?! What’s that?’

  She looked up to see the penguins jumping into the river. First one. Then another. Then the third, and then Tommy-Lee. He stepped backwards off the jetty, tucked his knees up to his chest and bombed into the Thames.

  ‘Tommy-Lee!’ I called. And . . .

  My teeth rattled in my head.

  Incredible pain blazed through my chest.

  Everything went black.

  Ban Wrong-Flavour Snack a Jacks!!!

  I must have more than slightly teleported, because when I woke up I was lying on a big black leather couch in a room with dark wood panels and a window looking out into a garden. There was a massive polished table with a bowl of roses in the middle of it. Chairs with gold on. A huge flat-screen TV was fixed to the wall. Apart from the telly, everything was old-fashioned – proper old-fashioned light switches, and instead of a number pad, a proper lock on the door with a key sticking out of it. If they’d locked the isolation ward with one of those, I thought, we’d never have got out.

  A man in a suit was sitting at the table, checking his phone. He was wearing a rubber gloves and a white mask over his mouth and nose. He hadn’t noticed I was awake. Then someone groaned just beside me and he looked up. Koko was curled up in a massive armchair. ‘Where are we?’ she groaned again.