She looked over at Sean, who was looking horrified. His favourite foods were hamburgers and pizza and he stubbornly refused to eat anything he considered unusual. It was going to be fun watching him try to eat this stuff. Nicola swallowed a giggle and Sean discreetly poked his tongue out at her.
'I asked my chefs to prepare something truly special for us tonight in your honour,' said Enrico. 'We have piping-hot sea slug soup, the finest oysters a la marmalade, and crunchy strawberry-marinated octopus served with steamed seaweed and freshly picked mountain-tree roots. Enjoy!'
There were a few seconds of silence as everyone stared at their plates. Nicola noticed that Sean was extremely pale.
'Yum!' said Shimlara, rather unconvincingly.
As Nicola reluctantly picked up her knife and fork she saw that Enrico was looking at Shimlara with interest.
'You remind me of someone,' he said. 'You're not an Earthling, are you? I notice you're much taller than the others.'
'I'm from Globagaskar,' said Shimlara.
'Ah,' said Enrico. 'Many years ago, during my army days, I knew a very nice woman from Globagaskar. Her name was Mully.'
Shimlara said, 'That's my mother. She remembers you too. She asked me to pass on her regards.'
Nicola took a tiny sip of her sea slug soup. Actually it wasn't too bad. She took a larger mouthful. It was really quite delicious if you didn't think too much about what you were eating.
Enrico was smiling broadly. His wife Carmelita was smiling too, although her smile looked more like a snarl.
'Tell me, Shimlara,' said Enrico. 'I seem to remember learning from your mother that the people of Globagaskar have an interesting skill: they can read minds. Can you read minds, Shimlara?'
'No, I can't,' said Shimlara.
Nicola knew from personal experience that Shimlara could read minds. She wondered why she was lying. It wasn't like her. Normally Shimlara was embarrassingly truthful and said whatever came into her head.
'We don't learn how to read minds until we turn eighteen,' explained Shimlara, as cool as a cucumber.
'Ah, what a pity.' Enrico looked pleased.
The twins, Josie and Joseph, didn't seem especially interested in anything except Katie.
'What are the poporozzi like on Earth?' asked Josie, running her fingers through her hair as if she was auditioning for a shampoo ad. 'Do they drive you crazy?'
'Poporozzi?' said Katie blankly.
'You might have a different word for them on Earth,' said Joseph. 'It's the photographers who follow you around everywhere trying to get photos of you for the magazines and newspapers.'
'We call them the paparazzi,' said Greta. 'But they don't follow Katie around. They try to get photos of real celebrities, like actresses and models - and you might be interested to know that some of them have hair exactly like mine.'
Josie and Joseph looked at Greta with complete disdain, blinked their big goldfish eyes, then turned straight back to Katie.
Josie said in a low, confidential voice, 'I expect she's very jealous of you. That's why she's making that stuff up.'
Joseph leaned towards her. 'Why do you spend time with these ordinary people? Don't you feel more comfortable with other hairities?'
Before Katie had a chance to answer or Greta had a chance to explode, Enrico spoke again. 'Well, Space Brigade, perhaps it's time I explained why I've asked you here?'
Nicola swallowed a mouthful of steamed seaweed (quite tasty in a strangely disturbing way) and said, 'That would be great.'
Enrico pressed his fingertips together and said, 'My story begins with a very dangerous young girl . . .'
11
The word 'dangerous' made Nicola's heart thud. She leaned forward expectantly.
'The girl's name,' continued Enrico, 'is Topaz.'
His wife and the twins shuddered.
'She's a dreadful, dreadful girl,' said Carmelita, and she sipped daintily from her goblet as if to take away the bad taste.
'You should see her hair,' said Josie to Katie. 'It makes me feel sick! It's all wild and curly and all over the place! Eeuwww!'
She didn't seem to realise that both Nicola and Shimlara had wild curly hair and were sitting right in front of her.
'I love curly hair,' said Katie casually. 'I always wished I had it.'
Josie choked on her food.
'Topaz is the daughter of a marshmallow miner and grew up in a nearby village,' said Enrico, ignoring his daughter, who was now gasping for air and being slapped on the back by her brother. 'By all accounts, she comes from a perfectly normal family. No one can explain why she has become so . . . disagreeable.'
'What has this Topaz girl done?' asked Sean curiously. Nicola could see that his plate was completely empty. How had he managed to eat all that so quickly?
'Topaz has nearly brought this planet to a standstill!' boomed Enrico, slamming his fist on the table so hard they all had to steady their goblets.
'My apologies,' he said. His voice became smooth and charming again. 'It's just that I'm so proud of Shobble and everything it stands for. Let me explain. You would know that our planet's slogan is: Never a moment's trouble on our pretty planet of Shobble. That has been true for centuries. We have mined for marshmallow, drilled for chocolate and exported ShobbleChoc all around the galaxy. The planet has thrived and the people have been happy and contented. And yet on the way here, I believe you witnessed a shocking explosion?'
'That's right,' said Nicola.
'Well, that was the work of Topaz,' said Enrico, looking grim. 'She and her nasty little associates spend their days sabotaging the equipment in the mines and the chocolate fields. Days are lost as the equipment is repaired. Freshly mined marshmallow solidifies. Newly drilled chocolate turns to sugar. As a result, there is now a severe shortage of ShobbleChoc. We are losing sales. Our loyal customers throughout the galaxy are turning to inferior products. This can't go on!'
'No,' said Nicola. 'I see.' She was thinking that this Topaz girl seemed even scarier than Princess Petronella had sounded when they first heard about her plans to destroy Earth. (Although once they got to know the Princess they found she wasn't actually scary, just a little . . . misguided.) Presumably Enrico was going to ask them to convince Topaz to stop being a troublemaker. It might be difficult.
'But, er, why?' asked Tyler politely.
'Why what?' asked Enrico.
'Why is this Topaz sabotaging all the equipment? She's not just doing it for fun, is she?'
'Oh.' Enrico waved an impatient hand. 'She wants the miners and the drillers and the factory workers to be paid. Can you imagine? Can you think of anything more ridiculous?'
Everyone in the Space Brigade looked at each other, confused. Nicola wondered if she'd missed something. Surely she'd misunderstood.
'You don't mean that everyone works for free?' said Nicola, laughing slightly, so that Enrico would know she was joking.
'Well of course that's what I mean,' said Enrico. 'They have never been paid. They've never expected to be paid! It's not in their nature to be greedy. The people of Shobble are lovely, sweet people who have always been proud to work for their planet, creating the best chocolate in the galaxy.'
'Oh!' Nicola thought she understood now. 'Do you mean you don't charge for ShobbleChoc? You just give it away to all the other planets?'
Enrico looked at her as if she'd made a bad joke. 'Well, of course people have to pay for ShobbleChoc. People are prepared to pay a premium price for a premium chocolate.'
'We charge twenty gold coins plus shipping for one bar of ShobbleChoc,' said Joseph proudly.
'Five hundred gold coins for a box,' said Josie.
Nicola felt like she was in a maths class where nothing the teacher said made any sense whatsoever. If they were making all this money from the chocolate, then why weren't the workers paid? She looked at Greta. Greta was good at maths. Maybe she understood.
Unfortunately Greta was scratching the side of her head as if she didn't understan
d a word either.
It was Sean who spoke next. 'So who gets all the money then?'
'We do, of course.' Carmelita turned her head slightly so that her diamonds glinted in the candlelight. 'You've no idea what it costs to maintain a house of this size.'
'Our family doesn't get all the gold,' said Enrico. 'Although naturally we get the bulk of it, as I'm in charge of running the planet, which is a huge and exhausting responsibility. Obviously nobody expects me to work for free. There are other people, such as the Head of Price Negotiation and the International Customer Relationships Director, who are also rewarded for their very important work.'
'Let me guess . . .' said Katie. There was a hint of steel in her voice that Nicola had never heard before. 'The only people who get paid on this planet are "hairities"?'
'Well, as it happens, yes!' said Enrico, with a little toss of his long brown hair, as if this was a matter for celebration.
Nicola thought about all those sweet-faced people they had seen walking back from the mines, their shoulders slumped with exhaustion. She could feel herself becoming angry. She pinched herself hard on the arm to stop the feeling that was rising in her chest. Normally when she lost her temper she ended up saying something stupid.
She took a deep breath and said carefully, 'It just doesn't seem very fair. It looked like the people we saw work very hard. They deserve to be paid!'
Enrico looked baffled for a moment. Then his eyes brightened, he tapped the side of his nose and pointed a finger at Nicola. 'I see what you're doing! You're trying to get into the enemy's head so that you can work out how to defeat her! Very clever - that's exactly the sort of rubbish Topaz sprouts. Well done!'
Shimlara spoke up. Her cheeks were pink. She said, 'Actually, I think everyone in the Space Brigade would agree that it's not fair that the workers don't get paid. How do they pay their bills?'
Josie and Joseph made pffff! sounds as if they'd never heard anything more stupid. Carmelita yawned slightly while Enrico raised his eyebrows in a superior manner.
'My dear, they don't have any bills! They live on chocolate. They make their own clothes. They are very simple folk and they understand that they simply don't have the intelligence to handle the corrupting influence of money. It's always been that way. There is no reason to change it. Topaz is simply creating trouble and distress for everyone. And that's why I have called upon the Space Brigade to help. Now, I assume it's obvious what I need you to do?'
'You want us to convince Topaz that the people of Shobble don't need money?' said Nicola. She was thinking, We'll just say, Sorry, we can't help.
'No, not exactly,' said Enrico.
Suddenly his face had lost all its charm and warmth. His eyes looked like hard black stones.
He said, 'I need you to eliminate Topaz.'
Nicola's heart pounded.
'Eliminate?' she croaked.
Enrico smiled the nastiest smile Nicola had ever seen.
'Kill her,' he said. 'I need you to kill her.'
12
Enrico, Carmelita, Josie and Joseph were all smiling the same terrifyingly cruel smiles. They looked like hungry, happy wolves about to swallow their prey. Nicola saw the other members of the Space Brigade reel back in their chairs as if to keep as far away as possible from this strange, awful family.
Suddenly Shimlara's voice was loud and clear inside Nicola's head, although her lips weren't moving. What are we going to do? These people are HORRIBLE!
I don't know, Nicola answered mentally. Read Enrico's mind. See what you can find out.
The other members of the Space Brigade were all looking at Nicola, clearly waiting for her to take the lead. There was that familiar drilling sensation in the middle of Nicola's forehead she remembered so well from the last mission. Sometimes she thought it might be easier if someone else took a turn as the leader of the Space Brigade.
She sat up straight, took a deep shaky breath and managed to look at Enrico without flinching.
She said, 'We don't kill people. We would never do a thing like that. Even if this Topaz really was a bad person, we wouldn't kill her - and it sounds like she's not bad. She's just fighting for what she believes in. We can't help you.'
Enrico smiled knowingly. 'This is a negotiating tactic, I assume? Rest assured, I'm fully aware of your reputation. The Brigade first came to my attention when I heard that you had survived a trip to the planet of Arth. I knew then that you must be formidable creatures indeed!'
'But all we did was freeze the Arth Creatures,' said Nicola. 'We're not killers!'
'LIAR!'
This time Enrico punched the table with both fists. Most of the goblets on the table fell over, spilling liquid everywhere.
'Daddy!' said Josie, mopping at her dress.
Enrico ignored her. 'I have PROOF that you are trained killers!' he shouted.
'Proof? What proof?' said Nicola. How could there be proof of such a terrible thing?
He pulled a faded newspaper from his pocket and shook it at them. Nicola caught a glimpse of the headline, NICOLA AND HER FRIENDS SAVE THE WORLD. It was the same clipping that was pinned to the noticeboard at home. Her heart sank as she remembered what it said.
'Oh frizzle,' said Sean quietly.
'Let me read this to you,' said Enrico. 'Last week, Nicola Berry and blah, blah, blah, "The Space Brigade "undertook a daring intergalactic mission to kill an unspeakably evil alien princess - Princess Petronella - blah, blah, blah. They succeeded admirably.'
'But it's not true,' said Nicola miserably.
'Not true? It's in the newspaper! Are you suggesting they just make things up?' Josie and Joseph tittered behind their hands.
'I think that sometimes they just bend the truth a little to make a story sound more interesting,' said Nicola.
'Princess Petronella is alive and well,' pointed out Shimlara. 'We never killed her. We just convinced her to change her mind about destroying Earth. Ring the Palace on Globagaskar if you don't believe me. They'll tell you! Or ring my mum.'
Enrico looked at her thoughtfully. He pulled a hank of his hair over his shoulder and stroked it lovingly.
'Mmmmm,' he said.
Tyler spoke up. 'We're just kids, sir. Do we look capable of killing anyone?' He made his eyes look wide and innocent.
'It's true that you do appear very young and weak,' said Enrico.
'Hey!' Sean looked insulted.
Nicola shot him a 'be quiet' look. She decided it was time to press home the advantage with Enrico.
'We're not killers,' she explained. 'We're more like . . . diplomats.' (What a great word to pull out of her head!) 'We solve problems diplomatically. So maybe we could help you by talking to this girl Topaz, and together we could all come up with a solution. A win-win solution. That means a win for you and a win for -'
'NO!'
Enrico thumped the table again. This time everyone was ready and managed to grab their goblets in time.
'I want Topaz eliminated. That's why I hired you! That's why you're here! I don't care if you're not trained killers. You'll just have to learn on the job, won't you? My payment terms are more than generous. You can hardly complain. Look at this!'
He stood up from the table and stormed over to a large tapestry hanging on a wall. Enrico pulled on a cord and the tapestry slid to one side like a curtain to reveal an alcove. Sitting inside the alcove was a treasure chest. Enrico picked it up and carried it back over to the table.
'This will be your payment,' he said.
He lifted the lid. It creaked open slowly. A shaft of gold light beamed straight out from the chest, as if the sun had appeared from behind a cloud.
In spite of herself Nicola leaned forward. She was desperate to see what was inside the treasure chest.
The chest was filled to the brim. Nicola could see hundreds, maybe thousands of shiny gold coins and the most beautiful pieces of jewellery: bracelets, necklaces and earrings. There were also dozens of neatly stacked bars of ShobbleChoc, as well as b
rightly wrapped ShobbleChoc balls, bags of ShobbleChoc Marshmallows, tins of ShobbleChoc Hot Chocolate and large white boxes tied with ribbon and sealed with elegant gold stickers saying: SHOBBLECHOC GIFT BOX. The smell of chocolate combined with the shimmering gold of the coins and the jewellery made Nicola's head swim. There was a feeling rising rapidly in her chest - something powerful.
Suddenly she knew what it was: GREED. She wanted that treasure chest. She wanted it so badly. She could give Grammy one of those gift boxes and a bracelet. It would be the perfect present. She could spend those gold coins on anything she wanted - there would probably be enough to put a swimming pool in their backyard! She could lie by the pool in an expensive new swimming costume wearing those sparkly earrings and eating nothing but ShobbleChoc.
Nicola blinked rapidly and tried to clear her head. For heaven's sake! It didn't matter how much she wanted that treasure chest. She certainly wasn't going to KILL somebody for it! Why was she even thinking about it?
Enrico slammed the treasure chest shut and looked at them all triumphantly.
'I expect you've changed your minds now, eh? You're ready to take on the mission?'
Nicola looked around at the other members of the Space Brigade. All their faces were slightly flushed as if they too had felt that tremendous sense of greed when they saw the contents of the treasure chest, but she didn't need to ask them if they wanted to take on the mission.
'No,' she said. 'No thank you. This mission is not for us.'
'Oh, what's wrong with these people?' sighed Josie.
'They're obviously just stupid,' said Joseph.
'Shhh.' Their mother waggled a finger at them.
Nicola was waiting for Enrico to yell at them but he didn't say a word. He pressed his lips together so they made a thin line and carried the treasure chest back over to the wall and put it away in the alcove.
He turned back to them. 'Well then,' he said, and clicked his fingers twice.
Nicola! whispered Shimlara desperately in her head. He's going to -
At that moment there was a sound of heavy thudding boots and suddenly the room was filled with large, muscular men dressed in black. Their long brown hair was slicked down in oily strands against their potato-like heads. They folded their arms across their barrel chests and stood with their legs apart looking straight ahead.