Over the Rainbow with Googol and Googolplex
Page 1
Over the Rainbow with Googol and Googolplex
Nelly Kazenbroot
Text copyright © 2006 Nelly Kazenbroot
Interior illustrations copyright © 2006 Nelly Kazenbroot
Cover illustration copyright © 2006 Laura Watson
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Kazenbroot, Nelly, 1960-
Over the rainbow with Googol and Googolplex / Nelly Kazenbroot.
(Orca echoes)
ISBN 1-55143-469-5
1. Human-alien encounters--Juvenile fiction. 2. Robots--Juvenile fiction.
I. Title. II. Series.
PS8571.A965O94 2006 jC813’.54 C2006-902706-4
First published in the United States: 2006
Library of Congress Control Number: 2006927098
Summary: Two little aliens have come back to earth to continue their scavenger hunt in the third book in the Googol and Googolplex series. As always, Pippa and Troy are ready to help.
Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.
Design and typesetting: Doug McCaffry
Cover illustration by Laura Watson
Interior illustrations by Nelly Kazenbroot
Orca Book Publishers
PO Box 5626, Stn. B
Victoria, BC Canada
V8R 6S4
Orca Book Publishers
PO Box 468
Custer, WA USA
98240-0468
www.orcabook.com
Printed and bound in Canada.
Printed on recycled paper, 60% PCW
09 08 07 06 • 4 3 2 1
To Jane, my own rainy-day friend
who lives too far away. —N.K.
Chapter One
Rainy-Day Friends
The third time Googol and Googolplex fly to earth, water is dropping out of the sky. Little rivers run down the windows of their invisible spaceship. The robots can barely see where they are going.
“Pippa and Troy’s house must be around here somewhere,” Googol tells Googolplex.
“Yes, but where?” Googolplex asks.
They fly two times above the town where Pippa and Troy Sinclair live. The second time they fly very low. Now it is easier for them to see all the nice square houses with the triangular roofs.
“Look!” Googol says. His head spins around three times. “Isn’t that Troy and Pippa?”
Their invisible spaceship hovers like a big umbrella above the heads of two children in bright yellow raincoats. The children are standing behind a log cabin at the far edge of town.
Troy frowns up into the sky.
“Why isn’t it raining on us anymore?” he asks. “It’s still raining on the house and the trees.”
Pippa smiles. “I think I know why.”
She can’t see the robots’ spaceship, but she can hear it buzzing softly. It always reminds her of a big bumblebee.
Googol and Googolplex park their spaceship on the grass and roll down the ramp on their super-retractable, self-adhesive wheels.
“Googol!” Pippa says.
“Googolplex!” Troy yells.
They run across the soggy lawn to greet the robots.
Googol and Googolplex are almost twins. They both have square yellow toes, silver bodies and red heads. The children can only tell them apart by their different color wrist blocks. Googol has red ones and Googolplex has blue ones.
“How ever did you find us here?” Pippa asks.
“The water coming out of your sky helped us,” Googolplex says.
“It made us fly lower,” Googol says.
Googol looks over at the log cabin. “Has the father-who-is-not king moved you to a new house?” he asks.
Troy smiles. The robots used to think that all humans had kings. But all Troy and Pippa have is a father.
“No,” Troy says. “This is my Aunt Sara’s house. She’s my dad’s sister.”
“We’re going to be staying with Aunt Sara for the rest of the week,” Pippa tells the robots. “We stay with her for a week every summer.”
Troy looks at the log cabin to make sure his aunt isn’t near a window. The robots are a secret. Only Troy and Pippa know about them. They think it’s best if it stays that way because adults scare so easily.
The lights on the robots’ stomachs blink in alarm.
“Is this aunt the type of person to lock us in her basement?” Googol asks.
“Will she take us apart to see how we work?” Googolplex asks.
Pippa shakes her head. “She’s an artist. She’s a lot like our dad.”
“She does great craft projects with us in the morning,” Troy adds. “In the afternoon she paints in her studio. That’s when we have to play by ourselves.”
“Perfect!” Googol says.
“Perfect!” Googolplex says. “Then you can help us with our scavenger hunt in the afternoons!”
Troy smiles at his sister. “We were hoping you’d say that.”
Googol and Googolplex come from one of the Sunships that move around the universe like shooting stars. The robots who live on them go on scavenger hunts to study the planets. Googol and Googolplex have been to earth twice before. Each time, Pippa and Troy helped the robots collect some items from their list.
“Well there’s a rainbow behind you. That’s one of the things on your list,” Pippa tells them. She points up into the sky.
The rain has almost stopped. The sun shines through a gap in the clouds. A large rainbow arches down to the ground in the distance.
Googol’s head spins around three times. “It’s so beautiful!”
“And it’s the very next thing on our list,” Googolplex says.
A whirring sound comes from inside Googolplex, and a long sheet of paper slides out of his mouth.
Troy grabs the list. He runs his finger down to the seventh item on the page and begins to read. “All the colors of a rainbow, two coconuts, a ball of wool, the milk from a cow...”
“Well the colors of the rainbow are right in front of us,” Googol says, “so let’s get them first.”
Troy and Pippa look at each other. They used to run after rainbows when they were little. Now that Pippa is six and Troy is eight, they both know that it’s not so easy to catch a rainbow.
“We can try,” Pippa says. “But first we’ll have to tell our Aunt Sara.”
Troy and Pippa run up to a large open window on the other side of the log cabin. Aunt Sara is standing at an easel behind this window. She is painting a picture of a sunflower.
“Aunt Sara,” Troy says, “there’s a rainbow over Farmer Ben’s fields. Pippa and I are going to run down to it.”
Aunt Sara keeps putting yellow paint on her sunflower.
“All right, dear,” she says. “Don’t forget to bring back the pot of gold.”
Troy and Pippa roll their eyes. They know that finding a pot of gold is about as likely as catching a rainbow.
Chapter Two
Rainbows and Robots
The inside of the robots’ spaceship is not invisible. After Troy and Pippa run up the ramp, they can see all the walls and windows
perfectly. The robots flip down two seats behind their cockpit for Pippa and Troy to sit on.
Pippa and Troy do up their seat belts before the spaceship lifts off.
Whoosh! Suddenly they are way up in the sky. Pippa and Troy grin. It feels as if they are getting a ride in a really fast elevator.
The robots steer the spaceship toward the rainbow.
“Which side should we land at?” Googol asks.
One end of the rainbow disappears into a forest of trees. The other end lands at the edge of Farmer Ben’s field.
“That side,” Pippa says, pointing at Farmer Ben’s field.
Googol steers them in that direction. But as they get closer to the long grass, the end of the rainbow keeps moving farther away.
Googolplex spins his head around three times.
“Oh dear,” he says. “The rainbow is running away from us.”
Pippa and Troy laugh.
“Yes, I’m afraid they all do that,” Pippa says.
When they get too close to the rainbow, it disappears and reappears behind them.
The robots try again. They fly right. They fly left. They fly up. They fly down. Nothing brings them any closer to the rainbow. After a while, all its lovely bright colors start to fade.
Googol gives three sad beeps. “I think we must have scared it.”
“Maybe if we stay in one spot, it will come back,” Googolplex suggests.
The robots land their spaceship in the long grass on Farmer Ben’s field. The rainbow keeps getting paler and paler as the sun gets brighter. It doesn’t come back.
Soon the rainbow has disappeared altogether.
“We haven’t scared the rainbow away,” Troy tells them. “The sun has.”
The robots roll out of the spaceship. Pippa and Troy follow them into the long damp grass.
Troy points up into the sky.
“The sun bounces off the rain and mist in the sky and makes a rainbow of colors,” he says.
“When all the water in the sky evaporates, rainbows disappear,” Pippa explains. “There can’t be another rainbow until the sun shines on another rainy day.”
“Perfect!” Googol says.
“Perfect!” Googolplex says. “We’ll wait for another rainy day!”
Troy shakes his head. “It’s no use. Rainbows always disappear when you get close to them. We need to find another way to get you all the colors of a rainbow.”
“But first, I think we’d better find a way to get back to the spaceship,” Pippa says as she looks behind them.
“Oh, no! The cows!” Troy exclaims.
Farmer Ben has about twenty-five brown Jersey cows. They spend most of their time eating grass in the fields. Three of them have come to eat the grass right in front of the spaceship.
All the lights on the robots’ bodies flash in alarm.
“Oh dear!” Googol squeaks.
“Oh dear, dear, dear, dear, dear!” Googolplex adds. His head spins around three times.
Pippa puts a hand on Googolplex’s square head to help it stop spinning.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “Cows are really quite nice.”
She walks up to one of the large animals and strokes its side. It lifts its huge brown eyes to look at her. Then it goes back to eating the grass.
“See! They won’t hurt you.”
Googol and Googolplex go up to the other cows and pat them.
“Oh, I think I might like cows,” Googol says.
“Yes, they’re nice,” Googolplex says. “As nice as peacocks.”
Last time the robots came to earth, Troy and Pippa flew halfway round the world with them to find peacock feathers.
“Is that the cow’s feathers?” Googol asks after the cow beside him swishes her long tail.
Troy laughs. “No. That’s her tail. Cows don’t have feathers.”
“But they do have special stomachs that make lovely milk,” Pippa says.
Googol’s eyes brighten. “Cow’s milk? Like on our list?”
“Yup,” Troy says. “We’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. Aunt Sara’s head is poking out of the cabin window. We better head back.”
“We’ll stay here and talk to the cows,” Googolplex tells them.
Pippa laughs. “Just say moooo! It’s the only word they know!”
Googol and Googolplex begin mooing right away, and the cows moo right back.
Chapter Three
Black Harry
Aunt Sara spends the next morning teaching Pippa and Troy how to knit. Troy isn’t very fast at it, but he likes the idea of making his own scarf. Pippa knits faster, but she keeps dropping stitches.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get better at it if you keep practicing,” Aunt Sara tells them. But after a few more minutes they all put down their knitting to make pictures out of leftover yarn.
Troy makes a picture of a rainbow. Pippa does one of cows.
Aunt Sara laughs. “Well, I guess I know what’s on your minds, don’t I?”
She feeds them lunch and sends them outside to play. Pippa brings along a ball of thick red yarn from Aunt Sara’s bag of leftovers.
“Watch out for Farmer Ben’s bull,” Aunt Sara warns before she disappears into her art studio. “He’s up in the top field this morning. He doesn’t care much for company.”
Pippa and Troy look at each other in alarm. They left the robots and their spaceship in the top field.
They run to the top field just as fast as they can. By the time they get to the fence, they can see the black bull snorting around in the long grass. Googol and Googolplex are nowhere to be seen.
“Thank goodness!” Pippa cries.
But Troy doesn’t look happy. “Googol and Googolplex must have seen us from their spaceship windows.”
He points at a small square of color in the sky. It appears above the bull’s head as the robots drop down their spaceship’s ramp. Googolplex waves at them through the doorway.
“Close it! Close it!” Pippa yells.
The bull turns his big black head to look at the robots. He snorts angrily and charges toward them. The ramp closes up again quickly, but the bull keeps charging.
Crunch! The bull’s head hits the invisible spaceship. Troy and Pippa hear a big thump as if the spaceship has fallen over.
The bull jumps back, shaking his head. He gives another loud snort and charges again. This time he runs just as fast as he can in the other direction.
Troy climbs over the fence.
“Come on, Pippa. He won’t be coming back any time soon.”
Pippa isn’t as sure about this as Troy, but she knows they have no choice. Googol and Googolplex might need help.
They run to the spot where they last saw the spaceship. Then they stop and inch forward with their arms stretched out.
“I found it!” Troy calls. He slides his hands along the body of the spaceship. “I think it’s upside down, Pippa!”
“Oh, no!” Pippa cries. “Googol! Googolplex! Can you hear us?”
There is a faint clicking sound.
A small crack appears in the blue sky as the ramp opens upside down. Both robots tumble out and end up on their backs at Troy’s and Pippa’s feet.
Chapter Four
Farmer Ben’s Orders
Googol and Googolplex are too dizzy to stand up. Their eyes keep spinning around in their heads.
“Oh, my!” Googol says in a wobbly voice.
“I don’t think I want to get any milk from that cow,” Googolplex says.
“You won’t get any. It isn’t a cow,” Troy tells them.
“It’s a bull with very bad manners,” Pippa says.
The children crouch down and help the robots onto their feet.
“We better get your spaceship sorted out before that bull comes back,” Troy says.
Luckily, the spaceship doesn’t weigh much. Googol lends Pippa and Troy the special green glasses that let humans see their invisible spaceship. Then they all push against the spaceship and roll it over l
ike a big beach ball. There is an imprint of the bull’s head on the side of the spaceship.
“Oh dear,” Googol says. “I think that bull might have a headache.”
Troy laughs. “Good. Maybe old cement-head will leave us alone from now on.”
Pippa looks around to make sure that the bull isn’t coming back.
“Oh, no! Farmer Ben is walking up the hill!” she says.
Googol and Googolplex quickly take back the green glasses and disappear into their spaceship.
Farmer Ben’s face is very red by the time he reaches Troy and Pippa.
“What did you two do to Black Harry?” the old farmer asks them. “He’s standing in the bottom field with his knees knocking.”
“Nothing,” Troy says. “Honest.”
Farmer Ben grunts and mops his face with a large blue handkerchief.
“Well, I want you kids out of my fields. Do you hear? Black Harry is big enough to squash you flat. And I don’t want you scaring the cows.”
“Oh, but the cows like it when we visit them,” Pippa says.
“Well, they can like it from the other side of the fence from now on.” Farmer Ben shakes a finger at them. “If I see you over here again, I’ll have to have a word with your aunt.”
Pippa hangs her head as Farmer Ben marches back down the hill.
“Now how are we going to get any cow’s milk?” she cries.
Aunt Sara doesn’t keep cow’s milk in the house because it bothers her stomach. She makes everything with soy milk.
The robots wait until Farmer Ben is gone before they open the spaceship and let Pippa and Troy inside.
“You better move your spaceship,” Troy tells them.
Googol gives three sad beeps after re-parking their spaceship outside Farmer Ben’s fields.
“We aren’t doing very well on our scavenger hunt,” Googol says. “First we lose the rainbow and then we lose our cows.”
“The other robots on our Sunship are going to be disappointed in us,” Googolplex says.
“No they won’t!” Pippa says. “Look!”
Pippa reaches into her pocket and pulls out the ball of wool that she found in the bag of leftover yarns. It is the same nice red as Googol and Googolplex’s square heads.