‘That’s not exactly good news.’ He jabbed Bumface with a level 71C.
It made her lips vibrate so quickly she made an odd humming noise. That at least amused Xanax.
‘Anything else?’ he poised his finger over the button again.
‘If there is a majority of girls, they are likely to access the ship’s computer to discover the location most likely to reveal the identity of their home planets.’
Now Xanax was interested. He sat up in his chair.
‘A cross-reference with planets in their sector reveals…’
‘Libris!’ Xanax leapt up and kissed Bumface on her tight little lips.
‘You’re a genius, Bumface… well, I’m a genius, you’re very intelligent. You may skip your performance appraisal.’
Bumface jumped off the chair before he changed his mind, but she was still worried.
‘Professor, I’m almost afraid to point out that there is a majority of boys in the group.’
‘Don’t worry my ugly, clever little friend. I’ve no doubt the girls will soon be in control.’
‘Come, Bumface, Typetor, it’s time we returned some books to the library! And Typetor, your screen is filthy, clean it.’
Chapter 16
A Change of Plans
‘By Bose Dith Thaw,’ Jay spoke and the exhausted Lab Rats looked puzzled. Jay’s nose was bright red after so much furious blowing and it seemed bigger than ever.
‘His nose is sore!’ Emm worked out what Jay had tried to say.
‘I’m not surprised. That was awesome,’ said Zed. ‘You were a snot-hurling zorbat-killing machine!’
‘Yeah!’ Despite their sore hands and blistered trigger fingers, all the others clapped and cheered.
There was still one major problem to overcome.
‘How do we get rid of a zillion dead zorbats?’ asked Dee. They were standing knee-deep in dead space beast. The gym floor was piled high as were the corridors they’d fought their way down.
‘We’ll never clear all these! We should ask the computer if there’s an automatic cleaning system,’ KT suggested.
‘Good idea!’ Dee was impressed that KT had actually suggested asking for help. Normally he just liked to charge off and do things.
They waded through the piles of dead zorbats to the control deck.
XL was ahead of them. He was upset he hadn’t been with the gang to share their victory but he’d watched it all on the monitors. When it was over, he’d accessed the computer’s databanks to figure out a way of removing the dead zorbats.
When the zorbats had burned a hole through the side of the ship, the computer had automatically generated an energy field across the hole to stop air from escaping the ship. It couldn’t stop the zorbats passing in and out but it meant they did not lose the atmosphere on the ship.
‘If the energy field is removed,’ he explained to the kids through the computer, ‘everything that isn’t fixed down will be sucked out of the hole into space.’
The children were relieved that all they had to do was remove loose items from the walls of the corridor and the gym, seal off those sections of the ship and then watch from the control deck as the bodies were sucked out into space.
‘That’s the zorbats sorted!’ Zed said and brushed his hands, all three of them. ‘Reckon Xanax may have done us a favour,’ he said. ‘Without Jay’s nose, Dee’s hammer and my extra arm, we’d probably be dead by now!’
‘Thanks Xanax!’ Dee held up her hammer arm.
They all laughed except for KT who just swallowed hard and stared ahead. He clenched his lips shut and tried to stop himself from bursting into tears, but he couldn’t, they sprang out of his eyes.
As soon as he realised he was crying, KT turned and ran from the control deck.
‘What was that for?’ Zed was amazed. They stared at the door as it slid shut behind KT. Nobody moved.
‘For goodness sake, he’s your mate, go after him!’ Dee prodded Zed.
‘No… he’s crying… he would’t want me to see that!’ Zed didn’t really like the idea of comforting KT. It was a bit weird.
‘Boys!’ Emm and Dee shook their heads and went after KT. Zed thought they were wrong. The last thing he would have wanted if he was upset was girls coming and asking him about his feelings. He stayed in the control deck. Jay went off to find something soothing for his nose.
An hour later there still had been no word from anyone. Zed couldn’t think of what they might have been talking about all that time. He realised that KT probably needed rescuing from the girls. They would have been talking emotions and soppy stuff at him for an hour.
He suddenly felt guilty. KT would be going mad, wondering where Zed was and why he’d abandoned him to the girls. He ran to their room.
When Zed shot through their door, KT looked up from his bed. Emm and Dee were sitting on either side of him.
‘Thanks so much,’ he said to them, dabbing his last tears away with a hankie. ‘I feel so much better for talking, I really do.’
‘What?!’ said Zed, amazed to find KT with the girls hugging pillows like they’d been having a slumber party. And they’d all been crying. KT even looked different, sort of softer.
‘What have they done to you?’ he asked.
The girls stood up and started to leave.
‘It’s not us that’s done anything,’ Dee said.
‘D’you want us to stay, KT?’ asked Emm.
‘No, thanks, we’ll be fine.’
‘Sure?’ said Emm.
‘Yeah,’ smiled KT, ‘thanks.’
‘OK, but we’ll be in our room if you need us,’ Dee smiled. They all smiled at each other. Zed thought perhaps the zorbat fluids had sent KT mad.
‘Enough with the lovey dovey stuff!’
Dee turned sharply.
‘Just don’t be horrible, Zed, this is very serious and KT needs all our support.’
The girls left.
‘Thank goodness for that!’ said Zed when the door closed behind them.
He sat down on his own bed. There were way too many pillows, tissues and girl germs on KT’s bed.
‘What’s up?’
‘I don’t know how to tell you… you know how we all thought that I was still waiting for Xanax to experiment on me…’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, I reckon now he did… and it’s pretty weird.’
‘You look normal except…’ Zed was about to say his friend looked a bit softer but realised it wasn’t a good idea, ‘…except you look knackered right now, like we all do.’
‘Thanks… but it’s not in my face… it’s down here.’ KT pointed to his pants.
‘What, another leg’s growing?’ Zed joked. KT smiled awkwardly.
‘No… kind of the opposite… when I woke up this morning, I could tell there was something different.’
‘That’s right, you stayed in bed after we went to training.’
‘Right. Well I got up and went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror…’
‘And?’
‘Mmm, well, something was missing and there was something else there.’
‘What do you mean?’ Zed was getting frustrated.
‘My tiddler’s gone!’
‘Huh?’ Zed still didn’t understand.
‘I know what Xanax did to me. He fixed it so that after some time…’
KT gulped and then just said the words, ‘I became a girl.’
Zed’s jaw dropped open and his rear hand slapped the back of his head in disbelief.
‘You’re a girl!’
KT nodded.
‘That explains the tears then!’
KT rolled his eyes. ‘Boys cry as well you know. Jay cries and you probably will.’
‘I’ve never cried.’
‘Well, I’ll make you cry.’
KT rolled his fist as if they were about to practise fighting again.
‘Go on then!’ Zed smiled, he saw KT was still his friend even if he was a girl now.
‘Plen
ty of time for that. I’m still me, I’m just a bit different… a lot different, but still me.’
‘That evil… wait till I get…’
‘Guess I really am a Lab Rat now.’
After the girls left they found Jay and explained what had happened. He was speechless. His sore and swollen nose meant he couldn’t say anything understandable, so it was just as well.
When they all got together again in the control deck, KT felt really relieved that his friends seemed to be OK with him being a girl. So relieved he started crying again.
‘You really are a girl!’ Zed handed him a tissue and patted him on the shoulder. He wanted KT to know they were still friends.
‘So where’s he going to sleep now?’ Zed asked.
‘It’s up to her I think,’ said Dee.
‘Do we say him or her?’ Zed asked KT.
KT shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well I guess it’s her now, but I’m not wearing any dresses.’
‘Good, ’cos I don’t have any to lend you,’ said Dee. ‘You’d have to go to Emm for that.’
‘No thanks,’ said KT. She wasn’t ready to be that much of a girl yet.
‘Dwe can dall you datee!’ Jay was trying to speak.
They all frowned.
‘Dot Day T, but DaayTeee.’
‘Yes!’ Emm got it first. ‘He’s saying we should call you Katy not KT.’
‘It sounds the same!’ said Zed.
‘Perfect… you gave me the right name Zed, it doesn’t matter if I’m a boy or a girl, I’m still called the same. Katy it is… but no dresses!’
It took them all a few days to adjust to Katy… particularly Katy. She kept trying to go to the toilet standing up and then remembering she had to sit down. To begin with she wanted to stay in the boys’ room. She was used to sleeping with them; Jay’s snoring and Zed’s hand waving in the air while he dreamed.
As she adjusted to her new body, she found she thought a bit differently as well. She wasn’t quite so obsessed with combat training anymore. She also began to wonder if just striking out for any planet and seeing what ‘adventures’ they had was really the best plan. Just a few days ago it felt like exactly what she wanted to do, but now Dee’s idea of asking for help seemed a lot less boring than it had before.
Katy raised the idea of going to the planet Libris to find out where their home planets were when they were all together in the control deck.
‘What? I thought we’d agreed not to do that,’ Zed was surprised that Katy was thinking about it.
‘I just think we should talk about it some more,’ said Katy, ‘perhaps Dee has a point.’
Katy knew Zed would feel he was being betrayed. She could tell he was upset.
‘We made a decision and we’ve got to stick to it,’ Zed stood with his hands on his hips.
‘There’s no harm in talking about it,’ said Dee.
‘Well I’m not!’ Zed stormed away to the boys’ room and threw himself down on his bed.
He started doing one-handed push-ups with each of his hands, right to left to rear, going round and round, trying to make himself dizzy. He was confused. Katy was still the same person but she was different, she thought differently.
‘She’s… she’s,’ he repeated to himself trying to find the right word, ‘she’s… a real girl.’
He stopped the push-ups, dizzy and tired. It was like he’d lost his best friend and now he couldn’t rely on her. He started doing push-ups again, getting angry. Round and round he went, but the more he did, the more annoyed he got. When he had exhausted himself he lay on the ground panting. He was upset and angry, but the thought that annoyed him most was the fact that the girls were probably right.
The zorbats proved space was a dangerous place. They could wander for years before they found their homes, if they didn’t get killed before then. Just as he thought that, Katy turned up.
‘Oh it’s you… traitor, come to get your things and move into the girls’ room have you?’
Katy had thought it would be easier if she did sleep with the girls now, but that wasn’t the reason she was there.
‘I’m still your friend,’ she said.
Zed shrugged his shoulders.
‘It’s not the same.’
‘I know. It’s hard for me too. I’ve got a whole new body. I keep surprising myself and thinking I look really weird and then other times I’m OK with it and then I wish I was a boy again and then…’
Katy started crying.
Zed felt bad. However hard it was for him, it must have been ten times worse for Katy.
He put his arm around her.
‘You’ll be OK, we’re still friends.’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t help it. I think it’s part of the change. Dee reckons I’ll settle down and stop crying so much. She and Emm don’t cry this much. What’s wrong with me?’
Zed didn’t have a hankie so he pulled out a corner of the sheet from his bed so Katy could wipe her eyes.
‘See,’ Katy smiled at him, ‘we couldn’t do this before.’
‘Too right!’
‘But I think it’s best if I do move into the girls’ room, you know, it’s sort of, more comfortable.’
‘Great, leave me with the deafening nose every night.’
Katy laughed. ‘And leave your arm thrashing around in the air.’
They sat still for a moment.
‘About Libris…’ Zed started to speak.
‘We don’t have to talk about that now.’
‘It’s a good idea. You’re right, Dee’s right. We should go to the planet Libris.’
Chapter 17
Books R Us
‘What’s that lovely scent?’ Emm smelled something she found very pleasant. It vanished quickly.
‘Yuck!’ Jay screwed his eyes up. All he got was a blast up his nose of something very pongy.
The ship was coming in to land on Libris. XL had signalled ahead and received permission to land. The Lab Rats thought their ship was clever. All they had to say was, ‘Take us to Libris’ and it did just that.
As they approached the landing bay, expertly guided by XL, a face flashed up on the screen. It was a small woman in a black suit with pointy glasses. Her hair was neatly pulled back from her face and behind her head was the most enormous ball of perfectly combed hair, like a massive bun.
‘Welcome to Libris, I am Miss Tennet, Assistant Head Librarian, Information Requests Section. In order to optimise your time on Libris, could you please state the nature of your enquiry?’
‘Good morning Miss Tennet,’ the children all said together without thinking.
‘Good morning,’ she smiled, ‘and your enquiry?’
Zed introduced himself. ‘We want to know where we come from?’
‘Surely you know that for yourselves?’ Miss Tennet was perplexed.
‘No, prof…’ Jay was about to mention Professor Xanax, when Dee interrupted him. She didn’t think it was a good idea to let Miss Tennet know that one of the most ruthless and powerful men in the galaxy was chasing them.
‘We had our memories wiped during a weird electrical storm,’ Dee said, ‘and we can’t remember which planets we’re from.’
‘How unfortunate. But we have all known life forms scanned into our databanks so we should be able to resolve your issue satisfactorily. I shall meet your ship.’
With that, the image of Miss Tennet disappeared.
‘What did she mean?’ asked Katy. ‘Resolve our issue?’
‘I think it means she can help us,’ answered Emm, ‘…ooh nice.’
Another smell wafted over her. Noone else could smell anything except for Jay.
‘Who farted?’ he asked, pressing both hands to either side of his nose to block his nostrils.
The ship set down on what looked like the page of a giant book. The writing on the page was different to anything the Lab Rats had seen before. It was Oopan— the oldest known written language in the galaxy. It was there to remind everyone who landed o
n Libris that writing was the basis of everything, ‘the launch pad for all libraries’.
A giant bookmark extended from the landing pad to the main building. As the children walked along the bookmark they could see buildings in the distance, which all looked like books on a bookcase, of different heights with different coloured edges.
At the end of the bookmark was a wide corridor. On either side of the corridor, shelves of books reached as high as they could see and far into the distance.
‘What do we do now?’ Katy asked, looking for Miss Tennet.
As the Rats waited, the first thing they noticed was how quiet Libris was. They had been so used to the hum of the ship and their own noise that the silence unnerved them.
Emm stood with XL under her arm, stroking him gently. On board the ship XL had been too busy running everything to enjoy any physical contact with the others. Now he realised he actually enjoyed being touched.
They could see something moving towards them in the distance. It shot along at high speed, growing bigger and bigger. Soon Zed could make out Miss Tennet’s huge bun of hair. She was standing on a ladder which ran along a rail in front of one of the bookcases. The top of the ladder touched a rail twelve shelves up. She hurtled towards them and the ladder stopped.
‘Welcome to Libris!’ she stretched her arm out and quietly replaced the one strand of hair which had strayed from her head.
‘I apologise for being late, I had an emergency cross-reference enquiry.’
She looked at them all and smiled without a hint of shock, even when she saw Dee’s arm. Dee liked her immediately. She was so neat and friendly. Dee wished she could be that neat.
‘Thank you for helping us, Miss Tennet,’ she said.
‘Now I better take you to Arrivals so we can log you in and go from there. Jump up.’
They crammed onto the ladder.
‘How marvellous you’d be at stacking shelves,’ Miss Tennet looked at Zed’s third arm. ‘Have you thought about a career in libraries young man?’
‘No,’ replied Zed.
‘I suppose he wants to shoot around the universe being exciting, doesn’t he?’ she asked Emm, who giggled and nodded.
‘Everybody ready? Hold on tight,’ she advised them and then said the words, ‘Why can’t a woman be more like a man.’
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