The Shobble Secret (The Shocking Trouble on the Planet of Shobble)

  'Katie, your hair looks great!' said Shimlara. 'We were so upset when we heard Enrico had cut it off but it really suits you.'

  'He didn't cut if off,' said Katie with a mouth full of hizza. 'That's how all this started. I was just so sick of the whole "hairity" business, I asked Joy to cut it off for me. You see, I found out there was a Katie Hobbs fan club and that was just too much. Can you think of anything worse - a fan club just for me!' She took another huge bite of hizza.

  'I'm pretty sure the girls at school have a secret Sean Berry fan club,' said Sean. He ran his fingers through his hair like a rock star. 'It doesn't worry me.'

  'Well, I didn't like it. After it was cut I felt great. Then that article appeared in the newspaper and the fan club started holding candlelit vigils outside Enrico's mansion. They were chanting poems all about "letting Katie go" and how I should be free like a bird or something. Anyway, it was driving Enrico nuts. So after I cut my hair he paraded me in front of them, saying, "Look! She's not even a hairity!" He thought that would be the end of my fan club. The funny thing was . . .'

  Katie stopped, looking shy.

  'What?' prompted Nicola.

  'Well,' said Katie, 'they still liked me. Actually, they seemed to like me even more. Enrico couldn't believe it. The problem was that it sent Enrico into a jealous rage. He kept saying to them, "But why? Why do you like her? Look at her hair! Do you like her more than me? Why don't you start a fan club for me?" And when he said that, someone laughed. Well, that was it. Enrico decided to starve me.'

  'Oh, no!' said Nicola. 'I knew you looked thinner!'

  'No, no,' said Katie. 'Joy and Silent Fred were sneaking plenty of food in to me. Lots of hizza. Also, I'd made friends with some of the Security Thugs because of our Scrabble games, so they were bringing me food to eat too. But then Enrico started visiting me to see how much I was suffering and it infuriated him the way I was still smiling. He kept saying to the Thugs, "I want to see her miserable! Why doesn't she look sadder? She looks happier than my own children!" (Well, it wasn't my fault. Those twins are such whiners.) Anyway, Enrico decided the only solution was to reduce my oxygen intake -'

  'WHAT?' said Sean. 'He tried to suffocate you?'

  'Well, that's when Joy and Silent Fred and the Katie Hobbs Fan Club and the nice Security Thugs all got together and came up with this plan to smuggle me out. They distracted the nasty Security Thugs with a fake fire and then I had to climb down this rope ladder from my window in the middle of the night . . .'

  'You must have been terrified,' said Nicola.

  'I was - but it was better than suffocating. They had the most beautiful ShobGobble waiting for me. I had to learn how to ride pretty fast! You have to be really light with your feather-whip, don't you?'

  'So you rode all the way here on a ShobGobble?' said Greta. 'All on your own?'

  'Yes,' said Katie. She smiled tiredly at them. 'I didn't think I could do it but I guess I did. Of course, when I came through the Valley of High Hopes I thought I could do anything! Oh, and when I was in the valley I came upon this huge family reunion. They said it was all thanks to the Space Brigade! This old man called Horatio Banks couldn't stop talking about how wonderful you all were. Oh, and a girl called Barbie said she hoped your arm was okay, Nicola. What happened to your arm?'

  'A Biter,' explained Nicola, and then she said, 'Hey, does that mean you crossed the Raging River on your own? You had to fight off the Biters all by yourself?'

  'Yes,' said Katie. 'But I crossed it at night. Apparently, the Biters can't see as well at night, so you're less likely to be bitten.'

  'You crossed that river on your own at night!' said Tyler. He shook his head. 'You are - you are -'

  'A legend,' completed Sean.

  'My hero,' completed Shimlara.

  'Stop it,' said Katie. 'That wasn't the worst part. The worst part was when I was crossing the Sweet Dream Swamplands during the hurricane. Although I shouldn't complain. I looked up at one point and saw a hot-air balloon. Can you believe it? It looked like it was going to smash into the mountain. I felt so sorry for those people!'

  'That was us!' yelled the Space Brigade as one.

  'You're kidding!' said Katie.

  'So I guess now you've got Katie back you don't need to help us with the revolution,' said Topaz, once they'd all stopped exchanging stories. 'You'll probably be wanting to go straight back to Earth.'

  Nicola was about to answer but Katie got in first. 'No way! We have to help you! Silent Fred and Joy are keeping Enrico away from the Hostage Room by pretending that I've caught some sort of horrible contagious disease, but they won't be able to keep that up forever. Enrico will find out the truth eventually and I don't want anyone to get in trouble because of me when he does.'

  'That's not your responsibility. We'd understand if you wanted to return home,' said Serena.

  'We wouldn't just desert you,' said Nicola.

  'We can't go back to Earth,' said Tyler.

  'We must do our duty,' agreed Nicola. Our noble duty, she thought grandly to herself.

  'No, I mean we can't,' said Tyler. 'Enrico has still got our spaceship, remember?'

  'Oh, that's right,' said Nicola. It somehow didn't feel quite so noble once she realised they were trapped on Shobble.

  'He's keeping it under his bed,' said Shimlara unexpectedly.

  'How do you know that?' asked Tyler.

  'I remember reading his mind when he took it,' said Shimlara. 'He thought, The little peasants will never think to look under my bed.'

  'That's really creepy the way you do that,' said Joshua.

  At that moment there was a thud of something falling.

  'Someone's sent us a message through the underground chute,' said Serena. She walked over to the side of the cave, moved aside a rock and picked up a tube with a rolled-up parchment inside it.

  'Wow. I wish we had a way of contacting each other like that on Earth,' said Sean.

  'We do,' said Tyler patiently. 'It's called the postal system.'

  Serena looked at the parchment and brought it over to Topaz. 'It's from that newspaper reporter,' she said.

  Topaz took the letter. She read a few lines then looked up and smiled. 'She's going to run a story about the protest march for us!' She went back to reading and her smile disappeared.

  'What is it?' asked Nicola anxiously.

  Topaz looked up again. 'Enrico has found out that Katie escaped. He's not happy.'

  'What do you mean by "not happy"?'

  Topaz said, 'He's on his way to find us.'

  35

  'Everyone who helped Katie has gone into hiding,' said Topaz. 'Joy, Silent Fred, the nice Security Thugs and all of the Katie Hobbs Fan Club.'

  Katie looked devastated. 'I shouldn't have escaped,' she said. 'I've put them all in danger!'

  'It gets worse,' said Topaz. 'Everyone in this cave has been put on trial for a whole list of crimes. We've all been found guilty.'

  'What sort of crimes?' asked Nicola.

  'Let's see.' Topaz looked again at the reporter's letter. 'Disobeying a direct order of the Commander-in-Chief, Impersonating a Hairity, Stealing a Hot-Air Balloon.'

  'That's an outrage! A travesty!' said Nicola. She thought for a few seconds. 'Although, I guess we are guilty of all those things.'

  'But we should have a chance to defend ourselves!' said Greta. 'How can they have a trial without us even being there?'

  'The judge was a hairity,' said Topaz. 'We've all been sentenced to a lifetime in jail. The Security Thugs are under orders to capture us, dead or alive. They're on their way here with Enrico. We've got twenty-four hours at the most. And the worst part is, they'll all be armed with Despair Gas.'

  'What's Despair Gas?' asked Katie.

  'It's terrible, terrible stuff,' said Topaz, which wasn't exactly helpful.

  Serena said, 'You know how in the Valley of High Hopes you felt filled with hope? Like you could do anything in the world?'

  They all nodded.
>
  'Well, Despair Gas has the opposite effect. One whiff of Despair Gas and you feel so miserable you want to lie down and give up. It's like how Topaz felt with her cold but far, far worse.'

  'Can't you just wear masks,' asked Sean, 'so you don't breathe it in?'

  'It's strong enough to get through any material,' said Joshua.

  'Well, we'll just have to be stronger than the Despair Gas,' said Nicola. 'We'll have to be prepared not to give up, no matter how bad we feel!'

  'Yes,' said Topaz doubtfully. 'Although -' She stopped herself and smiled with difficulty. 'No, you're absolutely right.'

  'Instead of running and hiding from Enrico and the Security Thugs, we should go ahead with our original plan of the protest march,' said Nicola. She could feel determination filling her chest. 'We should meet them head-on! We've got to make use of Enrico's phobias like we said. Let's get back to planning. So we agreed we should all be carrying buttons and wearing yellow -'

  'Well, yes, okay, we did say that, but we weren't being practical!' said Topaz irritably. 'There are no buttons or yellow clothes on the whole planet of Shobble.'

  There was a moment of tense silence.

  'We could dye our clothes yellow,' offered Shimlara.

  'Oh, yes, because yellow dye is so readily available here on Shobble,' said Topaz.

  'No need to be sarcastic,' said Nicola, surprised.

  'Sorry.' Topaz looked guilty. She blew her nose hard and said again, 'Sorry. I'm just frightened this isn't going to work.'

  'Well I guess we can't all wear yellow,' said Nicola. 'But we can -'

  'Chilli,' Greta interrupted her.

  'I beg your pardon?' said Nicola.

  'Remember how you meant to pick up a jar of chilli powder from your dad's spice rack and instead you brought turmeric?'

  'Yes,' said Nicola, wondering why Greta was choosing now to bring up Nicola's past mistakes.

  'Well, just the other day my mother rang up the Stain Brains -'

  'Stain Brains?' interrupted Nicola. Was Greta going a bit mad?

  'It's a radio show where a panel of experts tell you how to get stains out of your clothes. It's my mother's favourite show. I find it quite interesting too. Anyway, my mother rang up to see how she could get a bright yellow turmeric stain out of her favourite apron. Turmeric is a yellow spice.'

  Nicola still didn't get it, until Katie said excitedly, 'So we could add your jar of turmeric to a big vat of boiling water and easily dye all our clothes yellow!'

  'Of course!' said Nicola, pretending she'd understood all along. 'Excellent. Well done, Greta. Okay, why don't you and Katie be in charge of dyeing all the clothes yellow.'

  'So we're both in charge of clothes?' said Greta. 'But who has the final authority?'

  'Oh, you do, Greta,' said Katie, giving Nicola a look.

  'We'll put buttons in the too-hard basket for now,' said Nicola. 'What other phobias did Enrico have?'

  'Music,' said Shimlara.

  'Screaming Puppies!' said Sean.

  'Did he just swear in Earthling language?' asked Joshua.

  'No, it's Sean's favourite band,' said Nicola.

  'We can play my CD really loudly when we're marching,' said Sean. 'That will freak Enrico out.'

  'We'll need to rig up some sort of loudspeaker,' said Tyler.

  'You mean a loudtalker?' asked Joshua.

  'Are you two talking about a loudshouter?' asked Shimlara. 'That's what we call it on Globagaskar.'

  'Okay, you boys are in charge of music,' said Nicola. As she wrote their names up on the whiteboard, she caught sight of Topaz watching her intently.

  'You're a really good leader,' said Topaz. 'I could learn a lot from you.'

  'Oh, thanks.' Suddenly the pen felt clumsy in Nicola's hand and she didn't know what to say or do next. It was just like when she was learning to ride a bike and her dad called out, 'You're doing great!' and Nicola immediately went lopsided and fell off.

  Topaz put her hand on Nicola's arm. 'Do you really think we can do this? Do you think we can beat Enrico?'

  An image of a laughing Enrico surrounded by hundreds of huge Security Thugs came into Nicola's head.

  No, she thought. No way can we beat him!

  Out loud she said, 'Yes. Of course, we can beat him - and we will!'

  36

  THE SHOBBLE TIMES

  -SPECIAL LATE EDITION-

  ENRICO - THE PEOPLE OF SHOBBLE SAY IT'S TIME TO GO!

  By Jenny Jenkins

  The time has come for the people of Shobble to let Enrico know that we've had ENOUGH. We've had ENOUGH of mining and drilling night and day for the ShobbleChoc that fills your treasure accounts, while we earn nothing - not even your gratitude! We've had ENOUGH of watching your spoiled children prance about in satin and lace, while our children don't even have SOCKS! We've had ENOUGH of seeing lovely things such as the Department of Free Goods and Services taken away. We've had ENOUGH of your strange laws such as the Quiet-Please decree. We've had ENOUGH of this planet's ridiculous obsession with hairities (although see page 27 for this reporter's scoop on beautiful Melanie Melanoid and the love rat who broke her heart!). We've had enough of your Security Thugs, your cruelty, your vanity and your fake charm!

  If all this rings true with you, readers, then here is your chance to take ACTION! The notorious Topaz Silverbell and her associates, together with Nicola Berry and the Space Brigade (Earthling visitors who have been shocked by the state of our planet! Embarrassed? You should be!) have organised a protest march to take place at 10 am tomorrow starting at the Honey Sea Wharf. They are calling upon every man, woman and child to stand up and be counted. You will be asked to sign a petition calling for Enrico's resignation. You don't need to bring anything except your PASSION FOR CHANGE and a packed lunch.

  Be there or be square! (A traditional Earthling expression . . .)

  'How many people do you think will come?' asked Nicola. The special edition of the newspaper had just arrived through the chute and been passed around to everyone to read.

  'I couldn't tell you,' said Topaz. 'Maybe a few hundred? Maybe just us? I don't know.'

  'Well, how many Topaz supporters are there on Shobble?' asked Greta. 'I assume you keep a database.'

  'We've no idea how many supporters we have,' said Serena. 'You don't understand the level of fear people have suffered under Enrico's regime. There may be people out there who support Topaz but have never been brave enough to say it aloud.'

  'I wonder if Enrico has read this yet,' said Shimlara.

  'He will have.' Topaz grimaced. 'He'll be waiting for us at the Honey Sea Wharf with his Security Thugs. You can be sure of that.'

  There was silence for a few seconds as everyone tried to imagine what it would be like the following morning.

  'By this time tomorrow night, we could be celebrating Enrico's resignation!' said Katie optimistically.

  'Or we could be in jail,' said Sean.

  The mood in the cave became gloomy.

  'Maybe this isn't such a good idea,' said Serena hesitantly. 'If nobody turns up for the protest march, then we're basically just giving ourselves up to Enrico and his Thugs. We might be better off going into hiding.'

  'No,' said Topaz. 'This is it. This is our last chance to stand up to Enrico. I understand if you choose not to be there.'

  'I'm not a coward, Topaz!' said Serena irritably. 'I'm just -'

  'Delivery for you!'

  Everyone jumped at the sound of a cheerful voice at the entry to the cave.

  'I thought nobody knew this cave was here!' whispered Nicola.

  'Only our families,' Topaz whispered back.

  'Just need a signature!' called out the voice again.

  'It could be a trick,' hissed Joshua. 'It might be one of Enrico's Thugs.'

  'Urgent delivery for Nicola Berry from Mr H. Banks!' called out the voice, a little less cheerfully. 'It's quite cold out here!'

  Nicola jumped to her feet. 'It's something from Horatio!' she expla
ined. 'The old man from the Valley of High Hopes.'

  Topaz helped her push aside the rock at the entrance to the cave. A Shobbling man dressed in a courier's uniform and carrying a clipboard said, 'Take your own sweet time, ladies! Sign here.'

  Nicola signed on the dotted line and the man gestured at a huge pile of boxes behind him.

  'Where do you want 'em?'

  'What are they?' asked Nicola.

  'Don't ask me,' said the courier. 'Oh, by the way, the animals are over there.'

  'Animals?'

  'Five frisky ShobGobbles,' said the courier. 'Seemed in a hurry to get here.'

  Nicola's heart did a cartwheel. 'Quicksilver!' she cried and ran over to bury her face in his feathery mane. Quicksilver chirruped and butted Nicola gently with his head, his three eyes filled with such warmth and wisdom that Nicola's own eyes filled with happy tears. 'I missed you! I'm so glad to see you!'

  As she caressed him, she found a small white envelope under his saddle. She opened it and read:

  Dearest Nicola,

  THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for reuniting me with my family. Although the back of my head is still aching somewhat from where my beloved wife gave me a well-deserved slap when she first saw me, I am blissfully happy. It turns out that my family can't even remember the details of our argument. They are just cross with me for disappearing. (Of course, I can remember the details and I remain convinced that I was in the right, but I think it might be prudent to keep that to myself.)

  My granddaughter Barbie tells me that you suffered a Biter wound while crossing the Raging River. I do hope it is not giving you too much pain.

  The entire Banks family would like to be of service to you in any way they can. For example, it may interest you to know that we once owned a thriving business called BANKS BEAUTIFUL BUTTONS. We still have a lot of old stock available and it occurred to me that you might find it useful.

  Also, Barbie happened to be in the Why Not Drop Inn stables today where she found your ShobGobbles sleeping. She gave them some Wake-UpBiotics and we thought you might like them returned to you.

  Yours sincerely,

  Horatio Banks

  PS You may be wondering how we obtained this address. Barbie's mother went to school with a lady who plays Shobble-Ball with a lady who is in a recipe swap club with a lady who lives next door to Topaz's mother - and she was able to pass on Topaz's details. So her security is not in any way compromised. Topaz's mother asked if you could please ask Topaz and Joshua to bundle up tomorrow and keep their ears covered, as the wind can be so cold this time of year.