Earthling Ambassador (21 page)

The queen said soothingly, “Well, we'll only torture them the
teeniest
bit, and keep their jail sentences to twenty years! That's more than generous.”

“Generous?” muttered Sean.

“But I don't want them locked away in jail. I want to keep them in my room!”

It seemed that the princess still had a bit to learn about friendship.

“Excuse me,” said Greta. “We may be your friends, but we're not your
toys
.”

“See, they're not even friendly!” pointed out the king. “They must go straight to jail.What sort of example would it be to the rest of the galaxy if we just let anybody kidnap us when they don't like our decisions? Guards, bring out the other prisoners—we'll handcuff them all together for convenience!”

Other prisoners?

They all looked toward the spaceship as the guards roughly pulled out two handcuffed people.

It was Shimlara who recognized them first.

“MOM and DAD! Hey! Stop pushing my parents around like that, you big bullies!”

Georgio and Mully shuffled down the walkway, both still wearing their pajamas, their ankles chained and their hands cuffed in front of them.

“Ahoy there!” cried Georgio cheerfully. “What a superb Earth beach! Have you been swimming in an Earth ocean, Shimlara?! I'm very envious!”

“Oh dear, all of you are
drenched
!
”
said Mully. “You'll catch colds!”

Mully sounded just like an ordinary mom, but Nicola noticed her eyes sharply darting back and forth, looking for possible escape routes, just like a soldier.

Mully's voice popped into Nicola's head.
Don't worry, Nicola.There's always hope. Even when it seems hopeless. Oh! And my sincere apologies for so rudely talking in your head like this.

“Right,” said the king. “Handcuff them all together, please. Hurry up! We must get them tortured and jailed lickety-split, so the queen and I can get back to our vacation!”

A huge guard seized Nicola's wrist and cuffed her.

Meanwhile the princess was having a tantrum. Sand flew as she stomped her feet. “I was having FUN! For the first time ever in my WHOLE life I was having fun and now you have to RUIN it, just because they kidnapped me! Who cares if they kidnapped me?”

Suddenly Nicola had an idea. “But remember, Princess Petronella, we
didn't
actually kidnap you, did we?”

Sean caught on fast. “That's right. I was innocently dropping off a friendly invitation to a pool party when you woke up and asked if you could come to Earth with us! We said, sure, why not?!”

The princess stopped crying and stomping and looked at them carefully.

“Ah! A perfectly understandable misunderstanding,Your Most Royal Highnesses!” cried Georgio. “Kids, eh?!”

The king and queen didn't look impressed.

“Is that true, Nelly?” he said. “Because if it is, you'll have to be punished quite severely!”

“Yes, that's right,” the queen put her hands on her hips. “You can't go running off with strange Earthlings in the middle of the night whenever it suits you! If this is true, you're in very BIG trouble, young lady! You'll have to ... you'll have to ...”

The queen seemed to be casting about her mind for a suitable punishment. She finished triumphantly, “You'll have to make your own bed for an entire YEAR!”

“Make my own bed?
Myself?
For a whole
year
?”The princess looked quite faint.

“So, which is it?” snapped the king. “Did they kidnap you or not? Because if they did, we're taking them off right now for torture.”

Everybody looked at the princess.

Nicola spun the handcuff—which was sized for a Globagaskarian adult, not an Earthling child—back and forth like a bracelet.Would the princess make such a big sacrifice for her new friends? It was a real test of friendship and Nicola suspected that the princess would fail it.

Finally the princess spoke up. “I'll tell you the truth.”

“They didn't kidnap me,” said the princess. “As if they could kidnap me! Look at them! They're so tiny, they barely reach my knees! Even Shimlara is short! I was bored and lonely and I felt like going with them on a trip to Earth. Actually, I
ran
straight into their helicopter.”

Well, that part is true
, thought Nicola,
even though we were tickling her at the time
. In fact, it was easier getting her on to the helicopter than they'd expected. Maybe it really
was
true?

There was silence.

“Uncuff the prisoners,” ordered the king.

Nicola slid off her handcuff and handed it back to the guard.

“You were
lonely
,” the queen pressed a hand dramatically to her heart. “Our Nelly was
lonely
! Oh, dear, that's a
tragedy
! Darling, you must come with us right now on the rest of our vacations!”

“She can't have a vacation! She's being punished!” boomed the king.

“Actually, I'd rather stay here on the beach for the night,” said the princess.

“We'll make sure
Nelly
makes her bed in the morning,” said Sean. “We'll even give her some extra chores if you like. Make her work extra hard.”

“Well, I guess you can stay here for one night, Nelly,” said the queen, looking around the beach doubtfully. “Shall we arrange for a few dozen servants to stay with you?”

“That's okay,” said Nicola firmly. “We don't need servants here.”

“Fancy living without servants!”The queen ruffled Nicola's hair playfully.

“Speaking of which,” Georgio rubbed his wrists where the handcuffs had been. “May I respectfully suggest you call off the garbage dumping, due to begin tomorrow morning? Otherwise, your daughter may wake up in a pile of garbage!”

“Yes, good thinking.”The king flicked his hand at the chief guard. “You there, take care of that.”

The guard rushed off.

“Work, work, work,” said the king. “I never get a moment's rest. I think as soon as we get back home, it will be high time we treated ourselves to a nice, restful vacation, don't you agree, dear?”

“Oh yes,” said the queen. “I'm
exhausted.
Shall we give you people a lift back to Globagaskar?”

“That would be very kind,” said Mully.

“Unless, of course, you'd like us to stay with the Space Brigade here on the beach?” Georgio looked at Nicola brightly. “I wouldn't mind trying one of those mershmullows. Squid is staying with his grandma, so we've got the night free now we're not going to jail!”

Nicola thought for a second.There were times when you wanted adults around.There were other times when you just wanted to be alone.

Then she saw the hopeful look in Georgio's eyes and thought about all he and Mully had done to help save Earth.They'd spent hours collecting signatures for their petitions.They'd risked their lives for Earthlings! She knew there was only one answer.

“Of course you can,” she said, and Georgio immediately launched into a celebratory chicken dance, while Shimlara covered her embarrassed face with both hands.

The early morning sun was warm on Nicola's face. A gentle salty breeze lifted her hair from her forehead. Some nice person was already up and frying bacon. It smelled delicious.

She stretched out luxuriously in her sleeping bag without opening her eyes.There were two things to be happy about today. It was her birthday, and best of all the mission was complete.

Last night, after the king and queen had left in their giant spaceship, Greta had made another huge, crackling fire, which dried their clothes in a snap.Then they'd drunk mugs of creamy hot chocolate and eaten Tim Tams, while Georgio and Mully had told them about how they'd tricked the palace guards for hours by racing around Globagaskar with Molly Smith's redheaded daughter pretending to be the kidnapped princess in the back of the car.

“Hmm, I think we might need to employ some smarter guards,” the princess had said.

They had also explained that it was Mully who had been responsible for tracking down the king and queen on the Planet of Doom.

“All the time the Committee was convincing people to sign petitions, Mully had a covert operation underway to find the king and queen,” Georgio had boasted. “She had some of her old army buddies working undercover to make contact with them.We knew they'd put a stop to the princess's ridiculous plans for turning Earth into a garbage can—oh, excuse me, Princess Petronella.”

“It's okay,” the princess had said. “It was a pretty ridiculous idea.”

After that, Georgio had tried to tell them ghost stories that weren't scary at all and Mully had told them a story about being in the army that actually
was
pretty scary.Then they had tucked themselves into their sleeping bags on the sand under the stars.The princess had snored like some sort of wild animal and Shimlara couldn't stop laughing, but Nicola had been so tired, she'd fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep right away.

Now it was morning. She was a year older. Everything was perfect.

“OH NO! HERE COMES THE GARBAGE!” shouted someone and at the same moment something cold and greasy landed
splat
on Nicola's face.

She opened her eyes in panic. Had the mission failed after all? She wriggled around desperately in her sleeping bag, trying to get to her feet.

“Happy Birthday, Nic,” Sean picked up the sandy piece of bacon he'd just thrown in her face.

“Thanks a lot,” growled Nicola and wiped her cheek. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

She realized her countdown watch was beeping and flashing like crazy. It said:

Nicola unstrapped the watch. From now on, it would be nice just to see the time when she looked at her wrist.

“Here's your special birthday breakfast.” Katie handed Nicola a plate of fried eggs, bacon, mushrooms, and toast. “Hey, take a look over there.” She pointed at a group of small children playing Frisbee near the water's edge—except it wasn't a Frisbee, it was the princess's silver tiara sparkling in the sun as they threw it back and forth.

“Where is the princess?” asked Nicola with her mouth full.

“She and Dad are boogie boarding,” said Shimlara. “She didn't even bother to ask the kids for her tiara back.”

Nicola looked out at the ocean and saw the princess and Georgio whooping as they both caught the same wave. The boogie board was too short for Georgio and his long legs flipped over his head as he went flying.

Mully shook her head. “My husband is quite insane.”

Georgio's head popped up from under the water and he caught sight of Nicola. “It's the birthday girl!” he shouted and came running in from the water so fast his boogie board flew behind him like a kite.The princess followed. “Is it time for presents?” she asked enthusiastically, dropping onto the sand on her wet knees.

“Oh, I don't think anybody has a present for me,” said Nicola.

But she was wrong—
everyone
had a present for her.

The princess, who had heard from the others that it was Nicola's birthday, gave her a bracelet from her own wrist. It was a fine gold chain with red stones that glinted magically in the morning sun. It was too big for Nicola to wear as a bracelet, but it made a perfect necklace.

“Those are just a few very rare rubies,” said the princess casually.

“Oh, lovely, thank you!” said Nicola, thinking,
FRIZZLE! I'd better not lose it!

“It was Katie who reminded us that we'd probably be away for your birthday,” said Tyler.

Katie,Tyler, and Sean had brought presents with them when Georgio had picked them up from Earth. Katie gave Nicola a gorgeous red top that went perfectly with her new ruby necklace,Tyler gave her a book by her favorite author, and Sean gave her the latest CD by
his
favorite band. “I'm just trying to improve your taste in music,” he explained. “It's my duty as your brother.”

Even Greta had gone down to the Buddy Beach chemist and bought Nicola a straw sun hat. “I thought you probably wouldn't want to get any more freckles,” she said when Nicola opened it.

Georgio, Mully, and Shimlara were last.

It was something very large and flat, nearly as tall as Nicola, and wrapped up in brightly colored paper.

“We had bought it for you already on Globagaskar,” said Mully. “I grabbed it when the guards came to capture us. I'm so glad we're not giving it to you in prison!”

Nicola tore off the paper. She had no idea what it could be.

It was a large round silver circle—like a gigantic coin—with two handles on either side.

“Oh, umm, thanks!” said Nicola confusedly.

“It's a
cloud-surfboard
!” explained Shimlara. “For when you go cloud-swimming. It's sort of like boogie boarding, but you skim across the clouds.”

“Wow,” said Sean jealously.

“And guess what? Later today we're having a Cloud Party for you, so you can try it out!” Georgio was so excited you would have thought it was his own birthday.

“But first,” said Mully, “I expect your planet wants to say thank you.” She pointed to a group of tiny dots in the sky and they heard the
chop-chop
sound of helicopters getting closer.