The Shocking Trouble on the Planet of Shobble

by L. M. Moriarty

  ‘Drivel!’ exploded Shimlara. ‘But it’s all true!’

  Your second mistake was revealing to one of my undercover Thugs that you have no intention of fulfilling your mission. Your exact words, I believe, were, ‘Don’t worry, we would never hurt Topaz.’

  ‘Who was the undercover Thug?’ asked Sean. ‘Was it Horatio? I knew we shouldn’t have shared so much food with that guy! He didn’t look that hungry.’

  ‘It wasn’t Horatio. That’s what you said to the man who sold us the Shock-Sticks,’ said Greta.

  ‘But he had the little “t” on his forehead,’ protested Nicola. ‘I thought he was a Topaz supporter.’

  ‘Enrico must know about the secret “t” sign,’ said Shimlara.

  Nicola felt sick. It wasn’t like making a mistake on a maths test. It was a mistake that could cost her friend’s life.

  She continued reading:

  Let me be clear, Nicola. I require the Space Brigade to eliminate Topaz Silverbell. If I do not receive evidence that this task has been completed within the next forty-eight hours, I shall cut off your friend’s food supply, followed by her water supply, followed by her air supply. I am extremely softhearted and it will pain me to do this, but I am prepared to make these sorts of sacrifices for my planet.

  I look forward to seeing this matter reach a satisfactory conclusion ASAP. I’m sure you don’t want word getting out around the galaxy that the Space Brigade is incapable of completing the simplest mission.

  My wife and children send their fondest regards.

  Yours,

  Enrico,

  COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF,

  PLANET OF SHOBBLE

  Nicola threw back the covers and climbed out of bed. Her legs felt wobbly and strange.

  ‘We have to get out of here right now,’ she said. ‘We have to get to Topaz fast and get her help.’ Nicola imagined Katie starving, thirsty and gasping for air.

  ‘Barbie said you should be resting,’ said Shimlara. ‘Maybe you should stay here while the rest of us go on and find Topaz.’

  Nicola just looked at her until Shimlara held up her palms and said, ‘Just a suggestion. It’s up to you.’

  ‘Where are the ShobGobbles?’ snapped Nicola.

  ‘They’re in the stables,’ answered Tyler.

  ‘Right,’ said Nicola. ‘We’ll meet at the stables in five minutes.’

  ‘Um, what should we do with Katie’s hair?’ asked Greta nervously, holding up the hair in one hand so it looked like someone’s fancy-dress wig.

  For a moment Nicola felt like she might burst into tears.

  ‘Why don’t I braid it?’ asked Greta. ‘That way it will be easier to carry without getting tangled and then Katie can keep it if she wants to keep it.’

  Nicola nodded, unable to speak.

  With deft fingers Greta turned the hair into a single, neat, chunky plait and presented it to Nicola. Nicola’s eyes blurred. That was the way Katie wore it for gym.

  Nicola took a shaky breath and carefully packed the plait into her backpack along with Enrico’s venomous letter.

  She looked up at the others and saw they were all watching her, their faces tense with worry. If she fell apart, the whole Space Brigade might fall apart, and that wouldn’t help Katie at all.

  ‘I bet Katie looks great with short hair!’ she said. ‘Anyway, what are you all just standing there for? I’ll see you at the stables.’

  They all smiled with relief. Shimlara’s voice came silently into her head: You’re the best, Nic.

  Thanks, Shimlara, replied Nicola without speaking. Now please get out of my head!

  Everyone left and Nicola quickly began to dress. Her arm ached and she looked longingly back at the bed before lifting her backpack and leaving the room.

  Downstairs a plump, smiling woman sat at reception. She put down a magazine she’d been reading called the Shobble Woman’s Daily, the pages of which appeared to be filled with pictures of beautiful women, all caressing their long, brown hair. ‘How are you? You look much better than when they brought you in last night.’

  ‘I am much better, thank you,’ said Nicola.

  ‘Well, I guess our great Commander-in-Chief must have had a very good reason for taking down all the protective glass on the Safe Hands Bridge,’ sighed the woman. ‘But it’s terrible to see people like you with such awful wounds from the Biters.’

  Mmmmm. Nicola was pretty sure that Enrico didn’t have a good reason at all.

  ‘It’s a pity you have to rush off so soon,’ said the woman. ‘We were excited to have guests from other planets staying with us. Where are you off to now?’

  The woman’s face was so friendly, it was impossible to imagine her being a spy for Enrico, but this time Nicola wasn’t taking any chances.

  ‘We’re on an important mission for the Commander-in-Chief,’ she said. ‘And we – um – we’re definitely going to do it! Absolutely! We sure are!’

  ‘Oh, well that’s good, dear,’ said the woman absent-mindedly, before returning to her magazine.

  Just then, the front door of the inn swung open and Tyler appeared from outside.

  ‘We’ve got a problem.’

  25

  The ShobGobbles were lying on their sides snoring gently.

  ‘They won’t wake up,’ said Shimlara despairingly. She was standing over her own ShobGobble with her hands on her hips. ‘No matter what we try.’

  Nicola knelt beside Quicksilver and yelled in his ear, ‘WAKE UP!’

  Quicksilver didn’t even twitch.

  ‘They’re going to be asleep for at least a week,’ said Greta.

  ‘What?’ Nicola turned to look at her. ‘How do you know that?’

  Greta handed her a single sheet of paper. ‘It was pinned to the stable wall.’

  ATTENTION: SPACE BRIGADE

  WE KNOW THE MISSION THAT ENRICO HAS SET FOR YOU. WE WILL DEFEND TOPAZ SILVERBELL WITH OUR LIVES! WE KINDLY SUGGEST YOU IGNORE HIS DASTARDLY REQUEST AND RETURN TO YOUR OWN PLANET. ALTERNATIVELY, FEEL FREE TO ENJOY A RELAXING CHOCOLATE-TASTING HOLIDAY – WE WELCOME TOURISTS. HOWEVER, IF YOU COME ANYWHERE NEAR TOPAZ SILVERBELL THE CONSEQUENCES WILL BE SERIOUS.

  YOURS,

  THE TOPAZ SUPPORTERS COMMITTEE

  PS YOUR SHOBGOBBLES HAVE NOT BEEN HARMED IN ANY WAY. THEY WILL SIMPLY ENJOY A REFRESHING COMA FOR THE NEXT SEVEN DAYS. WE DO APOLOGISE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE BUT WE MUST DEFEND OUR LEADER. IN SPITE OF THE LIES ENRICO MIGHT HAVE TOLD YOU, TOPAZ IS TRYING TO DO THE BEST THING FOR THE PEOPLE OF SHOBBLE.

  ‘Well, this is just great,’ said Sean. ‘Don’t these stupid Topaz supporters know we’re on their side? What are we meant to do? The bad guys hate us and the good guys hate us too!’

  He turned away from them, his face red, his fists clenched. Suddenly, to Nicola’s shock, he punched the stable wall. Nicola had never seen him so angry.

  ‘Ow!’ said Sean miserably, cradling his grazed knuckle in the other hand.

  For some reason, Sean’s anger made Nicola feel calm and mature. Punching walls wasn’t going to help the situation.

  ‘We’re just going to have to find Topaz and explain what’s happened,’ said Nicola.

  ‘But how?’ said Tyler. ‘It will take us forever to get to the Cloud-Capped Mountain on foot.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ admitted Nicola.

  They sat on the stable floor next to their snoring ShobGobbles. Sean sucked his knuckle and looked embarrassed.

  Shimlara, meanwhile, had wandered over to a noticeboard plastered with brochures that were obviously meant to appeal to visitors to the inn. They were advertising things like ‘Biter-sighting’ trips on the Raging River and tours of a marshmallow mine.

  ‘Hey!’ said Shimlara. She snatched a leaflet off the board and held it out for them.

  It said, HOT-AIR BALLOON TRIPS TO THE CLOUD-CAPPED MOUNTAIN.

  ‘Perfect!’ said Nicola excitedly.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ said Greta. ‘Look what it says at the bottom.’

  �
�Picnic lunch provided,’ read out Sean. ‘What’s the problem with that?’

  ‘Further down.’

  ‘Oh,’ said everybody at the same time.

  At the bottom of the brochure it said: BOOKINGS ACCEPTED FROM HAIRITIES ONLY.

  ‘We’d be fine if we had Katie,’ said Shimlara.

  ‘Katie isn’t a hairity anymore,’ said Greta. ‘No more special treatment for her.’ She sounded far too pleased about it. Nicola wanted to slap her.

  Shimlara dropped the brochure and joined the others on the ground.

  Nobody said anything for a while.

  Finally Tyler lifted his head. ‘I might have an idea,’ he said slowly. ‘I don’t know if it’s stupid or not. It involves Shimlara.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Nicola.

  Tyler’s eyes were fixed on Shimlara. ‘Well, if Shimlara’s hair was straight, wouldn’t that make her a hairity?’

  Everyone looked at Shimlara’s long, dark brown, curly hair.

  ‘So what?’ said Sean. ‘If my hair was long, I’d be a hairity too.’

  ‘Well, what if we made Shimlara’s hair straight?’

  ‘How would we do that?’

  Tyler didn’t answer. He took off his glasses and polished them with the edge of his jumper. He put them back on and raised his eyebrows at them.

  Everyone stared at him. Nicola wondered if he’d just lost his mind.

  And then suddenly they all got it.

  ‘YOUR MUM’S STRAIGHTENING IRON!’ everyone yelled at once.

  26

  ‘I don’t know if it’s working,’ whispered Shimlara to Nicola. ‘Nobody is taking any notice of me.’

  The Space Brigade was walking down the main street of the village near the Why Not Drop Inn on their way to the hot-air balloon booking office. Shimlara’s hair was now dead straight. It was about a foot longer than when it was curly and a curtain of glossy dark brown hair fell down past her waist.

  ‘Just wait,’ said Nicola.

  At that moment a little girl walking nearby tugged at her mother’s arm and pointed at Shimlara.

  ‘Here we go,’ said Nicola. ‘Get ready to be famous.’

  The mother and the daughter came shyly over to Shimlara, their faces flushed with excitement.

  ‘Excuse me,’ stammered the little girl to Shimlara. ‘Could I have your signograph? I think you’re the most beautiful hairity I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Shimlara grandly. She flicked back her hair and signed the little girl’s book with a flourish.

  ‘What’s it like?’ asked the girl’s mother, her eyes bright. ‘What’s it like being a hairity?’

  ‘Well, I know it seems glamorous,’ said Shimlara, ‘but honestly, I’m just an ordinary, down-to-Globagaskar, I mean down-to-Earth, I mean down-to-Shobble person like you.’

  ‘Oh!’ The woman clasped her hands together as if she couldn’t think of anything more wonderful than to be Shimlara.

  As they walked off, Nicola noticed that Shimlara was already developing a different way of walking: a rather arrogant sort of saunter.

  As they walked on, there was a sudden blinding flash of a camera and a voice cried out, ‘Shimlara! Shimlara! Over here!’ An eager photographer was already dancing alongside them. He must have read the little girl’s signograph book to get Shimlara’s name so quickly. It was extraordinary.

  Shimlara tossed her hair over one shoulder, put a hand on her hip and posed for the photo.

  ‘Gorgeous! Fabulous! You’re wonderful!’ cried the photographer and blew her a kiss. Shimlara blew one back.

  Either Shimlara was an excellent actress, or being famous had gone straight to her head.

  ‘Here’s the balloon hire place,’ said Greta, who had been looking for the address on the brochure.

  ‘Maybe I should go in on my own,’ said Shimlara.

  ‘Good idea, Your Highness,’ muttered Greta.

  They all waited outside while Shimlara swept into the shop. A moment later she was back again, holding five tickets fanned out in her hand.

  ‘No problemo,’ she said. ‘We leave in twenty minutes. We meet the balloon and the pilot down at the edge of the Sweet Dream Swamplands. Our pilot’s name is Philippe.’

  ‘Did they mind taking non-hairities?’ asked Nicola.

  ‘They thought it was unusual,’ said Shimlara. ‘But I just acted like an eccentric celebrity. Actually, I could get used to this.’

  Luckily the Swamplands were within walking distance. On the way there, Shimlara was stopped every five minutes to sign another signograph or pose for a photograph. Her saunter became a swagger.

  The others lagged behind.

  ‘Look at the back of Shimlara’s head,’ whispered Tyler. ‘The curls are coming back.’

  ‘It must be the humidity. At least that’s what my mum says whenever her straightened hair begins to curl. Let’s hope she doesn’t have curly hair by the time we get to the balloon,’ said Nicola, ‘or the pilot won’t let us on.’

  ‘That would take her down a peg or two,’ grumbled Greta.

  ‘Speaking of the pilot,’ said Sean. ‘Don’t you think it would be a good idea if we got rid of him?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Nicola. ‘You don’t mean kill him?’

  ‘Yeah, and I’ve changed my name to Enrico,’ said Sean. ‘No! I mean it might be a good idea if we somehow took off without him. Otherwise we’re going to have to convince him to wait around while we talk to Topaz. It might be useful to have the hot-air balloon to fly back to Enrico’s mansion.’

  ‘So we’d be stealing it,’ said Nicola.

  ‘No, we’d be borrowing it,’ said Sean. ‘Just for a little while. For an excellent cause.’

  ‘So how would we get rid of the pilot?’

  ‘I don’t know. We’d have to wait and see if there was an opportunity. Do you think you could fly it, Tyler?’

  There was no question Tyler was the only one who would have a hope of flying a hot-air balloon.

  Tyler adjusted his glasses nervously. ‘We took my sister on a hot-air balloon ride for her birthday,’ he said. ‘So I was asking the pilot lots of questions. All my sister did was take photos and scream. Typical. Anyway, you can’t actually steer a balloon. You only control whether the balloon goes up or down by adjusting the heat in the burner. So you have to find the layer of wind going where you want to go. I guess I could give it a try.’

  Nicola saw that Tyler had that same half-exhilarated, half-petrified expression on his face as when he’d first flown a spaceship.

  ‘Okay,’ said Nicola. ‘Well, if we get a chance I guess we should try and take off without him.’

  Shimlara called out, ‘The swamplands are just ahead!’ A group of eager fans were now trotting along beside her, hanging on her every word.

  They came to a soggy swamp that stretched as far as the eye could see. Even with the rainbows overhead, it was depressing. Nicola was glad that Quicksilver was sleeping peacefully. She wouldn’t have liked making him trudge through all that mud.

  ‘Look!’ Tyler said. They’re about to inflate the balloon! That’s the best part!’

  Nicola could see a big brown wicker basket lying on its side. It was attached to a massive piece of shiny fabric that was obviously the balloon. As they got closer there was a whoosh sound and a flame burst alight in the basket.

  ‘They’ve turned the burner on,’ explained Tyler. ‘They’re going to fill the balloon with hot air.’

  ‘Because hot air rises, right?’ asked Sean.

  ‘Exactly.’

  Slowly the huge balloon began to puff out with air until it hovered above them, as tall as a building. The basket was anchored to the ground with a series of ropes and pegs.

  A man with red hair and a matching moustache approached Shimlara. Nicola glanced over at Shimlara and saw more curls popping up at the back of her head. None of her fans seemed to have noticed yet. They were too busy gazing at her adoringly.

  ‘Shimlara, maybe you sh
ould wear your baseball cap,’ hissed Nicola. ‘So you don’t get sunburned.’

  ‘Oh, I quite like a tan,’ said Shimlara.

  ‘No, I really think you should,’ said Nicola meaningfully.

  Shimlara blinked. She was obviously reading Nicola’s mind. She said, ‘Oh yes! Good idea!’ She grabbed her cap from her backpack and put it on so that only the smooth tresses falling over her shoulders were visible.

  The red-haired man came up to Shimlara and bowed low. ‘I am Philippe. It will be my pleasure to be your pilot for today. They’ve forecast a minor hurricane so it might be a bit bumpy at times, but don’t worry, I have plenty of experience. Now, I believe you also have some guests?’ He looked around for the guests as if the rest of the Space Brigade was invisible.

  ‘Yes,’ said Shimlara. ‘These are my friends, Nicola, Sean, Tyler and Greta.’

  ‘These are your friends?’ said Philippe disbelievingly. Then he smiled as if he’d worked it out. ‘So you’re a charity worker! How inspiring! Well, if you and your “friends” would like to climb aboard, we’ll be off in a jiffy.’

  He helped Shimlara climb into the basket, holding her elbow as if she was a delicate old lady.

  ‘How are we going to get rid of him?’ whispered Sean as they crowded in behind Shimlara. Not surprisingly, Philippe didn’t bother to help the non-hairities.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ Shimlara replied under her breath. She grabbed her ear and looked panic-stricken. ‘Oh, no! I’ve lost a very expensive, irreplaceable diamond earring with sentimental value! Philippe, will you see if I’ve dropped it on the ground over there?’

  Philippe had been just about to climb into the basket with them.

  ‘Of course,’ he said immediately.

  ‘I think I dropped it way, way over there.’ Shimlara pointed vaguely into the distance.

  Philippe obediently scurried off in the direction she was pointing.

  ‘Hey!’ called out someone in the crowd. ‘What’s happening to the hairity’s hair?’

  Nicola saw that Shimlara’s tresses were fast becoming curls and tendrils. The heat from the balloon must have been making her sweat. And sweat, Nicola knew from her mother, was the enemy of straightened hair.