Earthling Ambassador (5 page)

“Well, that's our pleasure, Nicola, but I'm afraid it's quite hard work getting people interested in a cause that doesn't directly affect their day-to-day lives,” said Georgio. “However, I'm proud to say that last week we presented a petition to the princess with over three thousand signatures.”

“And what did the princess say?”

“She folded the petition into a paper airplane, tossed it out the palace window, and demanded someone bring her a banana milkshake.”

Nicola despised this girl with her whole heart. “So, that's when the Committee came up with the idea of selecting an Earthling Ambassador to visit the princess. At first, the obvious choice was someone in a position of authority, like a prime minister or a king or queen. However, my wife cleverly suggested that an Earthling the same age as the princess might be more persuasive. Of course, that Earthling couldn't be just anyone. It needed to be someone with very special qualities. So, the Committee came up with a list of questions that would help us identify exactly the right person.”

It was as if a giant hand was squeezing Nicola's stomach. “But I don't think I
am
the right person at all! I think you should pick someone else! And those questions were so . . . unusual.” She had been about to say wacky, but she didn't want to offend Georgio.

“We've made an appointment for you with Princess Petronella at the Rainbow Palace tomorrow morning at ten.”

She had an appointment at a
palace
with a
princess.
Nicola felt a moment of giddy excitement, before remembering the particular princess she was meeting.

“So that's your mission in a nutshell: to convince the princess not to destroy your planet.Think you can handle it?”

“No!” said Nicola. “I don't think I can handle it at all.”

Oh, why hadn't she just sat down when Georgio asked the first question? Someone bossy and confident like Greta Gretch would have been a much better choice!

“Good!” said Georgio. “I like that self-doubt; it will make you work even harder. I dislike nothing more than overly confident people! I expect you're feeling extremely nervous right now. Heart racing, stomach churning, hands trembling, head pounding—that sort of thing?”

“Uh, yes.” Nicola smoothed the blue satin fabric of her dress across her knees.That was exactly how she was feeling.

Georgio looked at his watch and glanced out the window of the helicopter.

“Well, I don't know what my esteemed colleagues would think about this, but really, what difference will a few minutes make now that I've tracked you down?! So, how about a quick dip? I find nothing relaxes me more than a refreshing swim.What do you say?”

Nicola didn't quite know what to say. Swimming was actually the very last thing on her mind at the moment. Georgio was certainly very odd.

“Come on!” He unbuckled his seat belt. “Last one in is a rotten egg!”

To Nicola's horror, Georgio threw open the door of the helicopter and flung himself out into the cold air.

In Nicola's house nobody was allowed to swear, except in times of great stress, when they were allowed to say the word
frizzle
.This was their own private Berry family swear word, which didn't upset anyone.

“FRIZZLE!”
exclaimed Nicola.
“FRIZZLE, FRIZZLE!”

She tapped Plum on the shoulder. “Georgio just jumped out of the helicopter!”

She waited for a suitably horrified reaction.

“Oh, has he?” Plum turned her head slightly. “Typical! Well, why don't you have a quick dip, too? It will do you good before your mission.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Nicola faintly.

“What's taking you so long?” Nicola looked down and saw Georgio gazing up at her. He was leaning on the floor of the helicopter with both arms, just like it was the edge of a swimming pool, his long legs dangling behind him in the air.

“You must come in! The temperature is perfect.”

“Are you
crazy
?” Nicola felt quite petrified. She was trapped in a helicopter with two lunatics.

Georgio looked at her blankly. “Have you never been cloud-swimming before?”

“No. I have never been cloud-swimming before,” Nicola spoke slowly and distinctly, like she spoke to Great-Aunt Annie, who was very deaf and a little bit crazy.

“Why didn't you say so?” cried Georgio. “Everyone needs a little push the first time.”

He hauled himself back into the helicopter, unbuckled Nicola's seat belt, lifted her up under the arms, and held her outside the helicopter.

“Have fun, Nicola!” cried Georgio—and he let her go.

“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?

“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:

The princess expected a present! As Nicola's nana would have said, this girl really took the cake.