Earthling Ambassador (12 page)

Katie's eyes were like saucers as she dropped the bags with a thud. “Is this really another planet?”

And then a very unexpected person elbowed Katie out of the way and marched into the room.

Nicola spoke through gritted teeth. “What are
you
doing here?”

It was Greta Gretch.

Nicola couldn't believe it. Her Very Worst Enemy was here. It was preposterous. It made her want to shudder. “I never asked you to bring
her
!” she said to Georgio. She knew she sounded rude, but she couldn't help it.

Georgio frowned at Greta. “But I don't think I
did
bring her!”

“Greetings, aliens! My name is Greta Gretch.” Greta lifted her nose proudly. She was wearing her Honeyville school uniform and carrying her school backpack. “I stowed away on the spaceship. I knew that I should have been the one picked for the mission, so I had to take the initiative. Obviously, you've failed, Nicola.That's why you had to send for your friends and your brother to help. So why don't you just admit that you don't have what it takes, step aside, and let me get on with the job?”

“What a horrendous little worm,” sighed Georgio.

“There's a girl at my school just like her,” Shimlara said sympathetically to Nicola.

“Ah, sir.”Tyler practically saluted Georgio. “Do you think you could just take her straight back to Earth?”

“Well, ordinarily I could,” said Georgio, “but Plum made me sign a contract promising not to disturb her again on her birthday. So we'll have to wait until tomorrow. I wonder where we can put her in the meantime?”

Sean was getting bored with all this talk.

“So, Nic, who do you want me to kill?” he asked. “Just point me in the right direction. I knew they should never have sent a girl to do the job of a warrior!”

“Now that's ENOUGH!” Everybody turned in surprise to look up at a red-faced Mully, her hands on her hips. “I'm not at all happy with this disrespect being shown to Nicola. She was chosen for this VERY DIFFICULT mission because she's the best person on your planet to do it. She has done an excellent job so far and now she's decided that she needs some help.
She
is the LEADER of this Space Brigade and you need to follow her instructions. If you can't do that, then you don't belong here and you can sit in my three-year-old son's time-out corner until it's all over!”

“Way to go, Mom!” said Shimlara.

“Yes, I was just about to say something along very similar lines myself,” said Georgio.

“Tell me what you'd like me to do, Nicola.” Tyler stood up straight and looked at Nicola so respectfully that she had to swallow a giggle. “I'm ready for action.”

“I'm ready for, ah, action, too, Nicola.” Katie looked terrified.

Everyone looked at Sean.

“Ummm.” He shuffled his feet. Nicola knew this would be agony for him. “Yeah, okay, ummm, Nic's the boss. Whatever you think, Nic.”

“Now, Nicola,” said Mully. “What would you like to do about Greta? Do you want her on the Space Brigade or not? If not, she can just wait here with Georgio and me until Plum is ready to take her back to Earth.”

Greta raised her chin and didn't say anything, but Nicola noticed she was biting her bottom lip hard and her knees were shaking. She obviously wanted to be on the Brigade very badly. It made Nicola feel slightly sick to have that much power to make somebody happy or sad. Should she give her a chance? After all, Greta did have some pretty good ideas sometimes, even though she was generally pretty despicable.

It was Georgio's voice, but he hadn't spoken out loud. In fact, he was looking up at the ceiling and whistling a tune, as if all this had nothing to do with him.

Extraordinary! Not only could Globagaskarians read your mind, they could talk inside your head as well! Although, presumably, that was bad manners, too.

Nicola shook her head distractedly and took a deep breath.

“Greta,” she said. “I'm happy to have you on the team, but I've got some conditions.”

“Okay,” Greta looked wary.

“You have to do what I say—even if you disagree with it.”

“Can I
tell
you if I disagree with it?” asked Greta.

“You can tell me
,
but if I say you've still got to do it, then you've got to do it,” said Nicola, wondering if she was making a terrible mistake.

“Okay.”

“The second condition is that if I decide you're off the team, then you're off it, NO ARGUMENTS.You'll have to go straight back to Earth.”

“Hmmmph.” Greta's mouth twisted. She tapped her foot and lifted her eyes to the ceiling.

Finally she spoke. “I accept your conditions, Nicola,” she said grandly, as if she were doing Nicola a great favor.

“Fine,” sighed Nicola. “You're in the Brigade.”

“Thank you.” Greta smiled, and for a moment she almost looked like a nice person.Well, maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all.

“Would you please stop talking in my head!” said Nicola, exasperated.

“Huh? What? Are you talking to me, Nicola?” Georgio gave her a confused, innocent look.

“I would like to call an immediate meeting of all members of the Space Brigade.” Nicola tried to sound firm and fair, but not too bossy. She wanted to be a calm, decisive leader.

“Right,” said Tyler. “Let's go.”

“Where will the meeting be?” asked Katie.

“Ummm.” Nicola looked around helplessly. It wasn't like she was in her own house.

“It will be in my bedroom,” said Shimlara. “If that's okay with you, Nicola?”

“Yes,” said Nicola sternly. “That will be fine.”

“Follow me,” said Shimlara. “And Mom and Dad, make sure you don't interrupt us!”

Mully and Georgio both held up their hands as if it were the last thing on their minds.

As they all trooped down the hallway and into Shimlara's bedroom, Squid worked out that something was going on that didn't involve him.

“I COMING,TOO!” He threw his arms around Shimlara's legs as she tried to close the door on him.

“Moooooom!” yelled Shimlara.

Katie took control of the situation. “That's right, Squid, you
can't
stay out there and have fun with your toys,” she said, taking him by the arm. “You
must
come into Shimlara's room and sit very quietly while we talk about boring things for a long time. Come in here right now!”

“NO!” Squid's face crumbled. “I PLAYING WITH TOYS!”

“Well, okay then.” Katie let him go. “You win. Off you go.”

Squid ran for his life.

“You're a genius,” said Shimlara, locking her bedroom door behind them. “Have you got a little brother, too?”

“I've got three of them,” said Katie. “Reverse psychology works every time.”

“Right,” said Nicola as everybody settled down, sitting on the floor or on Shimlara's funny ball bed. “I'd like to call this meeting to order.”

“Don't take yourself too seriously there, Nic,” said Sean. “You might be the boss, but you're not the Queen of England.”

“Are you going to start by calling the roll?” asked Greta. “That's what I'd do. Have you even got a list of our names? I mean, you've got to be organized, Nicola, no offense or anything, but I've seen your locker at school, and you're not a very organized person.”

“QUIET,” said Nicola. Keeping these people in line was going to be an even tougher job than meeting the princess. “The reason I decided I needed more than one person to complete this mission is because I have an idea. It could be dangerous and it's definitely against the law.”

“Now you're talking.” Sean grinned.

“But I think it's the only way we're going to save Earth from becoming an intergalactic garbage can.”

Everybody looked at her expectantly.

“My idea . . .” began Nicola hesitantly. Tyler gave her a little nod of encouragement. “My idea is to kidnap the princess.”

For a moment there was silence, then everybody burst out talking at once.

“AWESOME!” said Sean.

“Oh, but that seems so
mean
,” said Katie.

“But how would we ever get past the guards?” asked Shimlara.

“Is that really your best idea?” asked Greta.

“How would kidnapping the princess help accomplish the mission?” asked Tyler. “She could just pretend to agree to do what we want and then change her mind again when we let her go free. I mean, we can't kidnap her forever.”

Everybody stopped talking when they heard Tyler's question and looked to Nicola for an answer.

“I think Princess Petronella is bored,” explained Nicola. “She's coming up with these stupid laws just for something to do. If we take her to Earth, we can show her how fun it is! She can swim in the oceans and we could take her to the zoo and show her giraffes and kangaroos and koala bears and, and . . . stuff! And then maybe she'll realize what a terrible thing it would be to destroy such an amazing place.”

“Mmmm,” said Tyler doubtfully. “I guess that might work.”

“The princess is probably upset that her parents didn't take her with them on their vacation,” said Katie thoughtfully. “Georgio told us she didn't have any brothers or sisters, so she must be pretty lonely.”

“You might be right,” said Nicola. “She probably just needs some friends to help make her nicer.”

“What if the princess is just a nasty person?” asked Shimlara. “Some people are nasty all the way through.”

“In that case we could
torture
her!” said Sean enthusiastically.

Everybody stared at him until he mumbled, “Just a little bit—not so it really hurts her. Can't anybody take a joke around here?”

“I don't want to question your idea or anything, Nicola,” said Greta. “But
how
are we going to kidnap the princess? Have you got a plan? I mean, I don't think kidnapping is that
easy,
you know.We could all end up in jail. I don't want a criminal record! It might affect my chances of being school captain next year.”

“Yes, I am aware that kidnapping a princess isn't going to be easy,” said Nicola. “That's why I formed the Brigade. I knew I couldn't do it on my own, but I thought together we could come up with some ideas.” She put on a honey-sweet voice. “If you think it's too hard, Greta, then you don't need to be in the Space Brigade.You can just go and wait outside with Mully and Georgio and Squid.”

“Of course,
I
can think of some ideas.” Greta looked miffed. “Everybody always says I'm excellent at coming up with ideas.”

“Okay,” said Nicola. “What's your idea?”

“Give me a
minute
!”

“Got it!” Sean snapped his fingers. “I'll rappel down into the castle from a helicopter late at night, with, like, black stuff on my face, and dressed all in black, and I'll talk to you on the two-way radio and let you know how I'm going, and I'll just knock her out and toss her over my shoulder and then, ummmm, let's see ...Who wants to take it from there?”

Shimlara said, “Don't forget the princess is a whole lot taller than you, Sean.You'd probably have trouble tossing her over your shoulder.”

“You'd be surprised at what I can do.” Sean cracked his knuckles and Shimlara snorted, unimpressed.

“Shimlara, did you say something about guards around the palace?” asked Tyler.

“Yep, lots of them,” said Shimlara. “I don't want to sound negative, but you're all pretty small compared to the palace guards—even I am! They wouldn't think twice about shooting us if they caught us kidnapping the princess.”

“Bulletproof vests.” Sean pointed at his chest as if he wore a bulletproof vest to school every day.

“We've got to find an excuse to get her
out
of the palace,” said Tyler.

“Okay, but how do we do that?” asked Greta.

No one spoke.

“We could invite her to a party,” suggested Katie tentatively. “Nicola says she's bored, so she might be happy to come.”

“Like, a birthday party?” asked Shimlara. “I don't think she'd come to a commoner's birthday party. She would think it was beneath her.”

“The party would have to be about
her
,” said Greta. “It would have to be something that appealed to her ego.”

“What about a Praise the Princess Pool Party?” asked Nicola. “We could have it right here in the backyard.”

“Would she fall for it?” asked Tyler.

“I think she might,” said Nicola. “We could say it's to pay tribute to her wonderful beauty and talent, blah, blah, blah.”

“So we get her to the party,” said Sean. “And then I rappel in through the roof . . .”

“Sean, I don't know if we're going to need any rappeling,” said Nicola.

“Okay, so let's say we get her here to the pretend party,” said Shimlara. “She'll probably bring at least one bodyguard with her.”

“We'll have to distract the bodyguard, and then find a way to tie her up and tape up her mouth,” said Nicola. “The problem is that if she screams, the bodyguard will come running.”