"AAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Nicola's eyes were squeezed shut in sheer terror as she plummeted through the air.
Once, she'd fallen out of a tree in her backyard and had broken her arm.That had really hurt, but she guessed this was really, really going to hurt.
Any second now she would slam straight into the ground!
Any second now she would be shattered like a broken cup. Any second now.
Actually, it did seem to be taking quite a long time.
And it didn't really feel like she was falling. It felt more like she was floating.
She risked opening one eye and then immediately opened the other one.
The most amazing thing had happened! The skirt of her dress had puffed out like a shiny blue parachute, and she was bobbing gently in a mysterious, swirling world of wispy white fog.
I'm in the middle of a cloud, she thought. I'm swimming in a cloud!
"Watch out below!"
Nicola looked up to see Georgio poised on the edge of the helicopter. Suddenly he leaped out with both knees gripped close to his chest.
"Whoopeee!"
It was exactly the way Sean jumped into a swimming pool. Nicola hated it when he did that because he landed with a splash like a tidal wave and water went up her nose. She always got right out of the pool and did one straight back at him.They called it "having a battle of cannonballs."Their mom called it "trying to drown each other."
It turned out that the same thing happened in a cloud as in a swimming pool. Georgio landed right next to her with a huge whoosh of air that caused Nicola to spin around and around in circles while her mouth filled up with fluffy white cloud.
"No cannonballs allowed."When she finally stopped spinning, Georgio pointed a stern finger at her. "That was just for demonstration purposes."
His long black coat billowed out behind him just like Nicola's dress. He lay on his back and lazily ran his fingers through the cloud. "So what do you think of cloud-swimming, Nicola?"
Nicola spat out bits of cloud while she bobbed dizzily around in the air. She was feeling slightly angry with Georgio. "I thought I was going to fall straight to the ground when you threw me out of the helicopter!"
"Well, I knew you were dressed appropriately! After all, I'd hardly throw someone out without their cloud-swimming gear!" Georgio chuckled.Then he looked thoughtful. "Although there was that unfortunate incident with Uncle Dick."
He shook his head and winced. "Oh well! No point dwelling on past mistakes, is there? Learn from them and then move on! Come on. Don't just float there. Let's see you swim."
Nicola tentatively pushed her hands through the air as if she were swimming along the bottom of a pool.To her surprise, her body obediently moved forward. Air was much lighter than water! Cloud-swimming felt faster and smoother and more graceful. Actually, it felt like she was flying! She pushed her arms harder and kicked her legs and moved even faster. It got easier and easier, as if she'd always known how to cloud-swim and just forgotten for a while.
Georgio treaded cloud while he watched her and applauded loudly. "You're a natural!"
Nicola swooped and dived and glided through the air. The sun shone on the inflated blue satin skirt of her dress so it shimmered, and the air felt cool and fresh against her face. She couldn't believe that a little while ago she'd been sitting in Mrs. Zucchini's class learning about oceans and seas. Now here she was swimming in a cloud, while beneath her everybody was still at school!
"Try a belly flop!" cried Georgio.
"But they hurt!"
"What are you talking about? Belly flops tickle!"
Georgio held his arms and legs wide like a starfish and went plummeting into a cloud that looked like a scoop of ice cream. Sure enough, when he landed he clutched his stomach, threw back his head, and roared with laughter.
"You'd better not be faking!" yelled Nicola, who was used to that sort of thing from Sean.
She copied his starfish dive and went hurtling toward the same cloud.When she landed it felt as though her stomach was being gently tickled by hundreds of feathery fingers. She laughed so hard that tears ran down her face.
"Try a cartwheel!" called out Georgio, and he did ten in a row.
"I can't do cartwheels," Nicola said and stopped laughing. She was remembering that awful day at school when Greta Gretch had come around to the grassy area behind the school hall and seen Nicola and Katie doing cartwheels. Katie was quite good at them, but Nicola was hopeless. Greta had pointed and sneered and called everybody over. "Look at Nicola! She told me she was a phenomenal cartwheeler and look at her! She's the worst cartwheeler I've ever seen!"
Nicola had been outraged. "I did not say that!" Unfortunately nobody believed her because everybody knew that phenomenal was the sort of word only Nicola would say. She couldn't help it. She liked her long, fancy words.
"Come on, Nicola!" called out Georgio. "Give it a go!"
Nicola took a deep breath and carefully placed one palm and then the other down next to her feet as if the ground were there.
And to her immense surprise, her legs swung around in a smooth, perfect arc!
"I did it!"
"That was excellent." Georgio floated beside her and gave her a wink. "Phenomenal."
Nicola looked at him suspiciously. She'd noticed that Georgio sometimes seemed able to read her mind.
"Try a backflip," he suggested.
She did, and it was easy! She did a double backflip, a triple backflip, and a quadruple backflip!
Georgio looked at his watch regretfully. "Well, as much as I'd like to cloud-swim all day, we really should be on our way. Are you feeling more relaxed now?"
Nicola did a quick front-flip, backflip, and cartwheel. "Much more relaxed!"
"Good. After all, every single person on Earth is depending on you not to fail this mission!"
Nicola watched Georgio swim through the air toward the hovering helicopter.
Every person on Earth was depending on her? Her mom and dad, Sean, her nana and pop, her great-aunt Annie, her friends, like Katie and Tyler, the nice lady at the corner shop down the road, her tennis coach, her piano teacher, famous people, poor people, people in other countries she'd never met--they were all depending on her?
Now the thought of doing one of Mrs. Zucchini's horrendous math tests seemed as easy as pie.
How on Earth was Nicola Berry going to save the Earth?
CHAPTER 8
"You took long enough! Now don't drip cloud all over my helicopter, please!" said Plum over her shoulder as Georgio and Nicola hauled themselves back in.
"Certainly not," said Georgio. He handed Nicola an enormous fluffy red towel that was as large as a tablecloth. Nicola wrapped it around herself and began to dab at the bits of cloud clinging to her dress, but to her surprise the towel ripped itself out of her hands and began to vibrate in the air, rubbing itself briskly all over her.
"It's an electric towel," explained Georgio, who was standing motionless while his own towel flew up and down and around his body. "Surely you're not still using those old manual towels, are you?"
"Ow!" cried Nicola as the towel wrapped itself tightly around her hair and kneaded her head. "We only have electric toothbrushes--not electric towels!"
"I'm sorry," said Georgio sympathetically. "How tactless of me. I do forget sometimes just how tragically backward you are!"
"Tragically backward?" said Nicola, feeling quite defensive about poor old Earth. She was relieved when the towel stopped rubbing. It had reminded her of the brisk, rather rough way her mother used to dry her after her bath when she was little and would have much preferred to just sit around and drip-dry.
"No offense, Nicola!" Georgio buckled himself back into his seat on the helicopter. "You're hardly responsible for your whole planet, are you?" He raised an eyebrow and gave a little chuckle. "Although, right now, you actually are responsible for your whole planet! Oh, speaking of which, I've got two very important things to give you."
>
He searched in his pocket and pulled out a thick gold card. It looked like a fancy wedding invitation. It seemed quite small in Georgio's hand, but when he handed it to Nicola, it was as big as a hula hoop.
"Thank you." Nicola held the heavy gold card in front of her awkwardly with both hands. It said:
CONFIRMATION OF APPOINTMENT WITH
PRINCESS PETRONELLA AT TEN O'CLOCK SHARP,
TOMORROW MORNING AT THE RAINBOW PALACE.
PLEASE COME ON TIME, OR NOT AT ALL.
IT IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED THAT YOU BRING A SMALL,
CHARMING GIFT FOR THE PRINCESS.
The princess expected a present! As Nicola's nana would have said, this girl really took the cake.
"I have a selection of possible gifts at home for you," said Georgio. "So you've nothing to worry about--so to speak! And here's something to keep you focused on the task at hand."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a very large, bright yellow plastic watch.
"It's a countdown watch," explained Georgio. "It lets you know exactly how much time you have to complete your mission before the garbage starts to fall."
Nicola looked at the watch.
It said:
ONLY THREE DAYS REMAINING UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD--TIME TO GET CRACKING!
"I think you'll find it very motivational," said Georgio.
"Thanks," said Nicola faintly. She strapped the watch on her wrist and decided to try not to look at it that often.
Georgio glanced out the window and saw a huge expanse of red, rippled sand. "At last! Here's where we park our spaceships when we visit Earth.Terribly inconvenient."
As Nicola looked down, she saw what looked like an enormous, bright pink powder puff shoot vertically into the sky and then vanish.
"How annoying! That's the Wardrobewhizonic Ladies and their silly frilly spaceship!" said Georgio. "How did they beat us, Plum? I thought our helicopter was much faster than theirs!"
"They probably didn't stop for a spot of leisurely cloud-swimming," said Plum.
"Ah, good point," said Georgio hurriedly. "Well, Nicola, that far more sensible spaceship you see there is the one we'll be traveling in."
He gestured to a sleek silver spaceship sitting majestically in the middle of the desert. Nicola thought about how Tyler would love to be here right now seeing a real spaceship and thought about how she'd describe it to him.To her, it looked like a piece of giant cutlery, but Tyler would probably be hoping for a more technical description.
Plum expertly glided the helicopter down toward what looked like a parking bay on the spaceship's rim. Apparently, the helicopter clipped conveniently on to the side of the spaceship, like a small dinghy on a boat. They all climbed out into the hot dusty desert air, and Georgio punched a security code onto a panel. A hatch opened silently and they entered the gleaming, massive interior of the spaceship. Nicola felt like she was inside a vast computer. She was surrounded by what looked like thousands of flashing lights, glowing buttons, switches, and levers.There were signs everywhere saying things like WARNING!, DANGER!, and VERY,VERY HAZARDOUS!
"Gosh," she said feebly.
"Yes, it's my brand-new model Mercury 5000." Georgio proudly patted a nearby console. "It has a ten-volume instruction manual, which I haven't quite gotten around to reading yet, so I've had to hire Plum to fly it for me, just in the interim, you understand."
Plum went off to change into another uniform that looked more like a business suit. Her dark wraparound glasses were replaced by spectacles and her ponytail was neatly coiled into a knot at the back of her head. It seemed that flying a Mercury 5000 spaceship was a much more serious affair than flying a helicopter.
Georgio led Nicola down a long corridor to a row of purple passenger pods.
"No space suits?" asked Nicola nervously as they buckled themselves in.
"Fortunately, we developed the necessary technology to replace those unflattering suits about a billion years ago," said Georgio. "Oh dear, space travel is such a terrible bore!" He wriggled around, stretching his long legs out in front of him. "Have you brought a good book to read, Nicola?"
"No," answered Nicola. "I didn't know I'd need to bring a book."
"Never leave your planet without a book." Georgio pointed a solemn finger at her. "That's my number-one travel tip."
"Okay," said Nicola, not bothering to mention that she'd never left her planet before. Actually, she'd never left her country before.The farthest she'd been was Adelaide to visit Great-Aunt Annie.
Plum's voice crackled over the loudspeaker. "This is your pilot speaking. My name is Plum."
"Yes, yes, we know who you are!" said Georgio irritably. "Just get on with it!" He began patting at his pockets feverishly. "Oh, no! I don't have my book!"
"Never leave your planet without a book," said Nicola in the same serious tone that Georgio had used.
"Why, that's what I always say!" Georgio looked quite intrigued. "What an extraordinary coincidence."
"Erm. Not really," began Nicola, but then Plum's voice came on again. "Passengers, please remain seated at all times during blastoff. Ten, nine, eight, seven . . ."
"If only we could watch a movie to pass the time," said Georgio worriedly. "We're about to suffer from acute boredom."
Nicola realized that Georgio was a little like her dad. He'd rather be eaten by a crocodile than be bored.
"Three, two, one--blastoff!"
KABOOM!
The spaceship filled with bright eye-hurting flashes of turquoise and yellow lights. It shook so much that Nicola held on tightly to her armrests. It felt like she was being spun around in a tumble dryer. She caught sight of Georgio with both his arms stretched high in the air as he let out a tremendous yawn.
There were three loud thuds:
Thud.Thud.Thud.
And then silence.
"Well, thank goodness." Georgio slapped his knees with satisfaction. "I'm quite exhausted. Did you enjoy your trip?"
"What trip?" asked Nicola. "Five seconds must have passed!"
"Actually it was 3.4928494092 seconds," said Georgio. "What a bore, eh? Let's hope you don't suffer from space lag. Come on, I'm sure you're dying to stretch your legs!"
Nicola unbuckled her seat belt and followed Georgio down a short flight of stairs out of the spaceship wondering what strange and wonderful sights she was about to see.
"Welcome to Globagaskar!" cried Georgio, and he flung open his arms.
Nicola's foot hovered over the last step of the spaceship. The word momentous came into her head.This was definitely a momentous moment. She thought about how Neil Armstrong had said "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" when he first walked on the moon.
She should say something similar. She cleared her throat and said slowly, "One small step for Nicola, one giant leap--WHO-HOA!" she shouted.Then splat, she was facedown on the asphalt ground.
"Yes, well, hurry up," said Georgio. "And I don't know what you've learned from those ridiculous science-fiction television programs they show on your planet, but here on Globagaskar, we walk upright. On our feet."
Nicola picked herself up. She felt so ashamed. How would she ever manage saving planet Earth if she couldn't even manage one teeny tiny momentous moment?
CHAPTER 9
There was something very, very familiar about this place. Nicola peered about, trying to adjust her eyes to the gloom.
"This looks just like--" She couldn't put her finger on it.
Then it hit her. "This looks just like a garage!"
"Well, I expect that's because this is a garage," said Georgio. "We've parked in the garage of the local community hall where we hold our Save the Little Earthlings Committee meetings."
"Let me know if you need me to do any more flying for you," Plum came down the stairs of the spaceship and tossed Georgio a set of keys. She was dressed now in a black leather jacket with her hair all loose and messy.
"Plum also flies an aero-motorbike." Georgio shook his
head admiringly. "You wouldn't catch me on one."
"I'm off to meet my boyfriend," said Plum. "Best of luck at the palace tomorrow, Nicola. I hope you save your planet. It's one of my favorites."
"Thank you," said Nicola. Oh, for heaven's sake, even Plum was depending on her!
"Right," said Georgio. "This way, Nicola."
He pressed a button on the wall and it slid smoothly open.
"After you." Georgio waved Nicola past him. She stepped tentatively forward, then jumped in fright when she heard thunderous applause.
She was on a stage. A group of people just as tall as Georgio--some even taller--were standing in a semicircle below her, clapping vigorously. She looked around to see whom they were applauding and realized she was the only person on the stage.These giant people were all cheering for her! She stood awkwardly, biting her lip. Should she bow? They were much too happy to see her.They were clearly expecting something she couldn't possibly provide. She wanted to say, "No, no, it's just me, ordinary Nicola!"
Georgio came striding onto the stage behind her and went straight to a lectern with a microphone.
"That's right, ladies and gentlemen, it took some doing, but I have found the Earthling Ambassador. May I present the first ever Earthling to grace our planet . . . Nicola Berry!"
The audience clapped even louder. Nicola squirmed and plucked at her Earthling Ambassador sash.
"I know you're all dying to hear from Nicola herself, and in just a moment I'll ask her to say a few words."
What? Now she was going to have to give a speech? This was starting to seem more like a really difficult school assignment than a top secret mission.
"However, I would first like to introduce each of you to Nicola. As you know, Nicola, every member of the Save the Little Earthlings Committee had a hand in coming up with the list of questions that helped identify you. First up, may I present . . . Mr. Rory Racrory!"
A bald, bespectacled man stepped forward, blushed, and bobbed his head. "An honor to meet you, Nicola."
"Rory is Globagaskar's leading letterologist," said Georgio. "He suggested I needed to find someone with at least one letter r in their name."
"Yes, indeed, my studies show that people with rs in their names tend to be rational, reliable, and relentless," said Rory. "The more rs the better, I say!"
Mmmm, thought Nicola. Could it be that Rory is partial to rs because he had so many of them in his own name?