Holly Farb and the Princess of the Galaxy

by Gareth Wronski

  “I wish I’d never left home,” she said under her breath. “We never should’ve gone to the Archives. . . .”

  “It was your idea!” said Jalya.

  “No it wasn’t. I only agreed to it because you couldn’t do it on your own. I have a test on Friday.” Holly shook her head and muttered, “Not everyone can just run away from their responsibilities.”

  When the words had left Holly’s mouth, she simply stood there, frowning. They didn’t sound like her words, even though she had said them.

  Jalya’s eyes widened. A look of hurt flashed across her face. She mumbled something to herself, grabbed Toshiro’s gun, stormed to the door, opened it, and with several crackles of energy, proceeded to dust the pirates waiting outside.

  “If you want to go home,” she said coolly, “then let’s go.”

  Holly, Mr. Mendez, and Toshiro stared at her. AsTRO beeped. Holly wanted to respond but couldn’t find the words. Why is it so hard to find words when you actually want them?

  They descended the ramp and stood in the landing bay of the Kraven. Thick metal beams ran up the curved walls like a rib cage. The floor was singed with burn marks, and the air smelled of fuel. Everything was made of dark metal and had a light sheen as if it had recently been polished. The soles of Holly’s shoes dragged across the floor and squealed.

  AsTRO remained in the doorway of the Gadabout, not moving.

  “Are you coming?” said Holly, trying not to look at Jalya.

  “Fact: No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Fact: I am not programmed for dangerous expeditions.”

  “Stop lying,” said Holly. “You came to the library.”

  “Fact: I am not lying. I am not programmed for dangerous expeditions.” He whirred, turned, and waddled back inside the ship. The door closed behind him.

  Toshiro’s eyes swept across the hangar. “This is great. Finally somewhere we can’t talk our way out of. Let’s shut that tractor beam off and then get sailin’.”

  Jalya stood up straight and thrust out her chin. “I think we should negotiate with the Pirates Guild.”

  “The pirates don’t seem that reasonable,” said Holly. When she saw Jalya’s expression, she added: “But maybe, as Princess, I could petition the Pirates Union.”

  “Or the Pirates Guild,” added Jalya, walking away.

  Mr. Mendez stooped down and picked up some of the fallen equipment and clothes that had been dropped by the dusted pirates. “Perhaps,” he said, placing a top hat over his wild hair, “we can blend in and locate the tractor beam.”

  Jalya nodded and let out a small sigh. “All right.”

  “I agree,” said Holly.

  Toshiro scooped up another top hat off the ground and put it on. “How do I look?”

  * * *

  They snuck through the ship, all dressed as pirates. The dark metal corridors seemed infinite. Holly’s huge top hat kept slipping down her head and covering her eyes, so she held it up with one hand and peered out from under the brim. A group of red-eyed pirates passed by, completely ignoring Holly and the fake pirates. They wound through the hallway, glancing over their shoulders as they went, and eventually came to a door that read PIRATES UNION MEETING. Across the hall from it was another door that read PIRATES GUILD MEETING.

  Holly took a step toward the Pirates Union room as Jalya stepped toward the Pirates Guild. They both froze, staring at each other. Holly knew it was stupid, but she didn’t want to budge. The Pirates Union was clearly the best choice. She refused to admit she was wrong. She felt like this was important somehow.

  “As Princess,” she said, “I say we go with the Pirates Union.”

  Jalya crossed her arms. “As the real Princess,” she said slowly, “I demand we talk to the Pirates Guild.”

  Holly frowned. She had pretended to be a princess for so long she had forgotten she actually wasn’t one. “I . . . ,” she said, then stopped. She grit her teeth so hard it would have taken a team of dentists to pry them open. “We agreed I was the Princess. You can’t be the Princess sometimes and not other times—that’s ridiculous. We should go with the Pirates Union.”

  “Who cares?” said Toshiro. “They’re the same thing.”

  He brushed past Jalya and opened the Pirates Guild door. “Avast, mateys!” he roared, stepping into the room.

  It was empty.

  “Ha!” said Holly, immediately regretting it. Jalya shot her a stern look, and Mr. Mendez shook his head.

  “Fine,” said Jalya, “let’s talk to the Pirates Union.”

  They crossed the hall and Toshiro opened the door, stepping into the room. “Avast, mateys!” he roared.

  The room was full of pirates seated around a circular table. Loud voices were arguing in a variety of languages. Pirates of all shapes and sizes sat at the table, while others paced around the room. Pink smoke wafted overhead. As Holly took in the features of the various aliens, something occurred to her.

  “Why don’t these ones have red eyes like the others?” she whispered to Mr. Mendez.

  Before he could answer, a huge, bulbous pirate seated at the center of the table pounded his fist. “Sisters!” he shouted. “Brothers! Thanatorians! Heed you my words of might!”

  “Hear, hear, Brother Pubbleworf!” a few pirates shouted in return.

  “Avast!” roared Toshiro, pumping his fist in the air.

  A small green alien tugged on Toshiro’s sleeve. “We don’t use that word anymore,” it muttered, then cartwheeled away.

  Brother Pubbleworf rose from his chair. “Folks! You know me, folks. I’m just a regular, hardworking pubble from the planet Yackledore VI—a planet full of regular, hardworking folks. Folks who are decent! Folks who are hardworking! Folks who like to relax with a cold glass of tixore blood and a fun game of cannibal smoog. Folks like you and me, folks. Folks?”

  The crowd cheered.

  Brother Pubbleworf bowed his head solemnly. “That’s why it’s time, folks, to bring our grievances to the Pirate Lord. We’re hardworking folks, but we’re also folks who have grievances!”

  “Tell him, Brother Pubbleworf!”

  “Grievances!”

  “The work conditions,” continued Pubbleworf, “have gotten worse and worse. Invading planets isn’t easy. Building a huge pirate ship isn’t easy. Finding that princess isn’t easy. We were promised our jobs would be taken over by robots, but where are the robots? Folks, I ask you—where are the robots?”

  “Nowhere!”

  “Not here!”

  “That’s right,” said Brother Pubbleworf, pointing his finger at the ceiling. “And while the Pirate Lord sits in his castle—”

  A thin gray alien raised a hand and said, “Where is this castle?”

  “Metaphorically, Brother Literal Pirate—while the Pirate Lord sits in his castle, we build ships for him. But who builds ships for us? When we lost that ship on Desolate, who had to replace it? Us. Us, folks. What does the Pirate Lord do? We don’t even see him, folks. He doesn’t even have the decency to come out of his castle—metaphorically—and tell us we did well.”

  Holly sensed an opportunity to solve things, make amends with Jalya, and look smart doing it. All she had to do was do everything herself, as always. “Yeah!” she shouted. “Why doesn’t the Pirate Lord appreciate us?”

  Pubbleworf frowned at her. His many eyes narrowed. “Sister. I’ve not seen you before. What is your name and home world?”

  The pirates all turned to look at her.

  “Nice going,” muttered Toshiro, inching away. Jalya joined him.

  “My name?” said Holly, swallowing down nerves at the many pirates staring at her. “I’m Sister Farby, from the planet Earth.”

  “Planet Earth!” roared Pubbleworf. “Folks, that’s the planet that started this whole mess. That’s the planet that got the whole Pirates Guild put in the Forge—all because of one little innocent mistake of asking for some nibbles. Sister Farby, come tell us about Earth.”

 
Brother Pubbleworf sat down and motioned for Holly to join him at the table. She hesitated, glancing at her friends. Mr. Mendez nodded toward the empty seat. Jalya watched her coolly, tapping her foot. Toshiro glanced around eagerly.

  Holly sat down. Her throat was dry. “Well,” she said, trying to remain as piratey as possible. “Earth is a real . . . jumble dumb of a planet, let me tell you.”

  “Is that an Earth term?” someone shouted.

  “Yeah!” roared Holly. “The most offensive term you can use.”

  Pirates laughed in approval. “That whole planet is full of jumble dumbs!” said a cube with top hats on all six sides.

  Holly nodded. She inhaled a deep breath and fumbled around for the Earth ball in her pocket. She squeezed it. “Earth is full of jumble dumbs. Everyone on that planet is mean and . . . mean-spirited. If you live on Earth . . .” She grit her teeth. Her eyes swept across the aliens at the table. It was like being back in the auditorium, waiting for the election results. “If you live on Earth, traffic is terrible. Everyone is grumpy all the time. The weather is always unseasonably hot or cold. If you live on Earth . . . no one cares about you. You try your best to make people like you and it doesn’t work. It just does the opposite. If you live on Earth, people make fun of you, and throw things at you, or they ignore you. And you have no idea why. You have no idea how to fix it—fix whatever people don’t like about you.” She hesitated, chewing on her lip. “If you live on Earth, you’re always stressed out, and you don’t even want to think about your future. The future seems like a really lonely place. And—and no one will vote for you, and it’s humiliating, and you have no one to talk to about how you feel about anything, you once tried keeping a diary but you lost it, and now you keep everything locked up inside and start chewing your nails without noticing, and the debate team picks Jessica to be captain, and then your dad ignores you during Passover to make googly eyes at his girlfriend, and it’s your favorite holiday, and your mom didn’t make enough macaroons, and Jessica of all people, and—and it’s all really hard. It’s really hard living on Earth.” She glanced down at her shoes, catching her breath. One lace was loose and something about it made the back of her neck burn. “But I left. I left to join you . . . folks.”

  She stopped talking. It was like her lungs were empty. She had no idea where this had come from, but it felt like something bottled up just had its cork pop and go flying through a window. Her eyes stayed focused on the aliens. She was too embarrassed to look at her friends, especially Jalya.

  Brother Pubbleworf clapped his hands. “A fine decision that was!” He stood up, clearly deciding Holly had spoken long enough. Her cheeks felt like they were on fire. “Or it would’ve been, folks. But things are out of control. We need to be in control of our own destiny. Am I right, folks?”

  “I see no lies, Brother!”

  “Scanning for lies. No lies found!”

  A giant slug in the corner coughed up a wad of orange phlegm and shouted, “LIES BAD.”

  “That’s right, Sister 7887734.” Pubbleworf placed his palms on the table and leaned forward. His face took on a serious expression. “Our humble Pirates Union is the last of the freethinkers around here! Today I am going to the Pirate Lord with our grievances, folks. I’m going to march into his castle”—Brother Literal Pirate frowned—“again, not an actual castle—and give him a list of our grievances. So let’s get it straight, folks. Some straight talk from hardworking folks. What are our grievances?”

  Holly forced herself to look at Jalya. She had a frosty expression that made Holly’s stomach sink. It was the familiar expression of kids at school when they saw her in the hallway. She knew she was losing her. Like she lost everyone.

  An orange arm beamed her in the head and she stumbled sideways. “We want more loot-sharing from our raids!” shouted an excited alien next to her that was flailing its many arms. A small head protruding from its chest nodded in agreement.

  “And an extra day off per cycle!” shouted a blue woman with no eyes.

  “More food rations!”

  “And food that isn’t stew with strange types of meat!”

  “Better access to dental care!” shouted an alien with six mouths and long, tusklike teeth sticking out of each one.

  “And would it kill the Pirate Lord to say something nice about us?”

  “The odd compliment would be lovely!”

  “I’d like to hear I look good!”

  “Sports!”

  “Different sports!”

  Brother Pubbleworf furiously took notes. When people were done shouting grievances, he looked up. “Okay, folks. Are there any more grievances?”

  Jalya opened her mouth to speak but Holly stepped in front of her, cutting her off. She knew this was all falling to her to get them out of this mess. She could fix it—and get everyone to like her. She had to fix it. “We want the tractor beam turned off!” she shouted.

  Everyone stared at her.

  Pubbleworf leaned forward. “What was that, Sister Farby? The tractor beam? This is a nonjudgement zone, but I gotta say, that’s a suspicious thing to demand. Like, on a scale of one to ten, with one being not suspicious and ten being very suspicious, that’s at least a seven, maybe seven and a half.”

  Holly swallowed. Her eyes darted to her friends. “I . . .”

  Jalya stepped forward. “What Sister Farby is trying to say, if she’ll let someone else speak, is that we’re tired of the tractor beam. It takes too much effort to use. There’s no reward. And I hear according to some leading scientists, being near it long causes puggle pox.”

  Pubbleworf’s mouth fell open. “Pug . . . gle . . . pox . . . But I’ve been operating the tractor beam ten hours a cycle!” His eyes widened. “What if I have puggle pox? Folks! Panic!” He shrieked and ran out of the room.

  The other pirates murmured. “We need to do something about this,” said a little alien with four legs. Another responded: “Let’s go kill the tractor beam.” A tall, bent-over alien growled, “Kill it with our fists!”

  The pirates roared, jumped to their feet, and raced out of the room.

  Holly stood in silence. She adjusted her top hat, wiping sweat from her brow. That had gone better than she expected. Except for one thing . . .

  Jalya walked up beside her, arms crossed. “Pretending to be important doesn’t mean you are.” She brushed past her and, without looking back, said, “And for the record, doing exactly what’s expected of you is just another type of running away.”

  Holly watched her leave, saying nothing.

  * * *

  Many esteemed scientists and medical officials agree that human friendship is a disease on par with Paxtronian Hives or the Windlewomp Shrieking Eyeball Illness. Humans, who are accustomed to the symptoms of human friendship and often not aware of how strange it seems to species that do not form friendships, will no doubt object to learning this truth. However, humans object to so many things—a key reason for why human friendships rarely work—that it is best to simply ignore them. Many esteemed scientists and medical officials agree that human objections should be ignored as much as possible.

  Human friendships often bring to mind the famous parable of “The Squid on the Moon.” In the tale, there is a Hunjian squid living on an unspecified moon. One day the squid finds a cave. Inside the cave is another Hunjian squid. The first squid greets the second squid and says, “Hello. It is good to meet another squid. What are you doing here?”

  “I am waiting for you,” says the second squid. It then eats the first squid, because Hunjian squids are a species of cannibals who can never have a good time together in an unspecified moon cave.

  [PAUSE FOR THOUGHTFUL REFLECTION + BOOK REPORT]

  A human reader might look at this fascinating tale and realize the moral is that forming relationships with other life-forms only opens you up to pain, suffering, or being eaten, and therefore should be avoided at all cost. But superior nonhuman readers will realize this story has no moral, as H
unjian squids could never survive outside of water for so long, and therefore the entire tale I just told you is ridiculous and should be ignored. In fact, most things you are told are ridiculous and should be ignored. Now, that is a moral humans could stand to learn.

  * * *

  They retraced their steps through the winding halls of the Kraven, walking in silence back to the hangar where the Gadabout was docked. Holly felt terrible. She wasn’t sure what had happened, but she had clearly upset Jalya. Worse, Holly was pretty sure it was her fault. This was exactly like school, where she always had to prove she was better than everyone else. It was Jake Carlson and fourth grade all over again. She was surprised Jalya hadn’t thrown anything at her yet. Her cheeks burned. This was why she had no friends. No one could stand to be around her for more than ten minutes. Fifteen minutes? Unlikely. Twenty? Definitely not.

  Approaching the hangar, Holly’s footsteps dragged along the floor. She wanted to apologize to Jalya, but she couldn’t find the words. The drawer where her brain kept words was empty and full of cobwebs. Why could she talk to the pirates but not Jalya? It was ridiculous. Just as she was about to say something, the hangar doors opened with a hiss and Holly gasped.

  Standing by the Gadabout was a group of red-eyed aliens in crooked top hats.

  The missing Pirates Guild had been found.

  Jalya frowned and let out a long sigh. “I’m starting to wish I’d gone to Earth too.”

  13

  THE PIRATE LORD

  The hangar was teeming with pirates. Holly whirled around. More pirates shuffled in behind, blocking the door. The Gadabout was at the far end of the hangar, and the only thing standing between them and it was . . . a whole lot of pirates. The many red eyes in the room gazed at Holly and her group.

  “Great galaxies,” muttered Mr. Mendez.

  The pirates laughed and cackled and emitted strange strangled noises and bleeps and boops, noises Holly assumed were forms of laughter for whatever species some of the pirates were. One purple alien exploded, turned into a cloud of dust, then returned to its original form.

  Holly glanced at Toshiro, who placed his hands on his hips and simply stared ahead. Mr. Mendez didn’t seem to know what to do either—his eyes were darting around the room, taking in all the various pirates. Jalya’s face was full of determination. She looked different than Holly had ever seen before.