Guided by crazy Uncle Otto, they battle a stinking alien commander and use a pair of underpants in a nail-bitingly scary but hilarious bid to save the world.

Anthony McGowan

Einstein's

Underpants

And How They Saved the World

For Alex Mohar Csaky

CHAPTER 1

BAD NEWS FOR PLANET EARTH

ADMIRAL THLUGG OF
the Borgia Empire was in a good mood.

This was unusual.

Admiral Thlugg hadn't been in a good mood for almost eight hundred Earth years â although, in fairness, he was notoriously grumpy, even by Borgia standards.

It was the delicious taste of the three Russian cosmonauts that was responsible. The cosmonauts had been part of the World Space Programme's attempt to explore the moons of Jupiter. Their spacecraft,
Putin's Revenge
, had been picked up by a Borgia scout vessel, which took them back through the wormhole to the main fleet.

Being captured by grumpy aliens is never
very pleasant, but it was most unfortunate that the cosmonauts encountered the Borgia. The Borgia were perhaps the most despicable life form in the galaxy. Their philosophy was simple: they found, they killed, they ate.

Actually, the very term âlife form' didn't really work for the Borgia as they hardly had a form at all, looking as they did like a heavy sneeze come to life. There was no obvious up or down or back or front to them; not even a real inside or out. They had no eyes, ears, mouths or limbs of their own. They did have a sort of internal beak-like tusk, made from a carbon-tungsten alloy, which they used to help break up and digest some of their chewier victims, but that just floated around inside them like a tooth in a jar of marmalade.

However, they did possess the distinctly unpleasant ability to put to temporary use body parts from whatever other species they had just consumed. So Admiral Thlugg had
one eye, a hand and a buttock from the cosmonauts protruding from various points around his gelatinous body.

Being eaten by Admiral Thlugg was, of course, very bad news for the cosmonauts.

It was also very bad news for planet Earth.

The Borgia communicated mainly by means of smell, which was, frankly, rather silly (as well as smelly). They had two main venting holes, through which they emitted the complex aromas that constituted their language. Thlugg now vented his commands, wafting out little puffs of yellowy gas into one of the smellocaster tubes that ran around his ship:
Lemon, lavender, kippers, cheese, cheese, hint of mint, mature cheddar, milk left out on a hot day turning but not yet completely sour, cheese.

Or, in our language: âEngine room, engage fusion thrusters; helmsman, steer course 4512987-6049.99; kitchen, put the kettle on.'

The Borgia attack on planet Earth had begun.

Very bad news for planet Earth.

But that was not all.

That was not even the worst of it.

Not by a long shot.

Because something else was coming. Something more destructive, even, than the Borgia.

Asteroid c4098 was on its way.

Asteroid c4098 was a hunk of rock the size of Wales, travelling at 127,000 kilometres an hour, approaching from the opposite side of the Earth to the Borgia invasion fleet. In four days' time it was going to crash into the middle of the United States, where it would leave a crater big enough to hold an ocean. In a few moments, every living thing in North America would die, with the possible exception of some especially hardy bacteria.

The matter displaced by the impact would form a mushroom cloud reaching high into the stratosphere. Dust would blow around the world, bringing on a winter that would last for a hundred years.

Never mind global warming, this was global freezing.

And what would be left alive after that time? Those same hardy bacteria. Cockroaches. Rats. Mushrooms.

Bad news, indeed, for planet Earth.

CHAPTER 2

CHECKMATE

PLANET EARTH WAS
in trouble, but so was the chess club at St Jude's High School. It was in trouble because it had been invaded. Not by Thlugg and his Borgia stormtroopers, but by Big Mac and the other baboons in his gang.

The chess club was made up of every four-eyed brainiac, weakling, dweeb and nerd in the school. Some were gangly beanpoles with the co-ordination of blind baby kangaroos. Some were shaped like cupcakes. Some like teapots. All any of them hoped for was to get through the day without having their dinner money stolen, or their faces rubbed into the dirt, or being chased by a kid with some dog poo on the end of a stick. In short, they were about as cool as a group
of fat clowns sipping hot soup in a sauna.

Alexander wasn't as uncool as the other kids in the chess club. In fact he wasn't really uncool at all, apart from being a bit of a maths geek. He had dark-brown hair and a pleasant round face, and would usually smile unless there was a good reason not to. Alexander wasn't even a chess fanatic. He only hung out at the chess club because of his best friend, Melvyn. Melvyn needed looking after. Melvyn was nice and maybe just a tiny bit boring, but he was also famously unlucky. He was always the one who got poohed on by pigeons or bitten by yappy little dogs or yelled at by mad people in the street.

His worst piece of luck was that on the very first day of school back at the beginning of Year Seven, his mother had dropped him off and given him a sloppy kiss in front of everyone. That kind of thing sticks with you for ever. Since then he'd had to spend most of his break times hiding from the sort
of kids who teased you for being kissed by your mum, and by that I mean almost all the kids in the school, and by âteased' I mean slapped over the head continually until it was time to go home.

So Alexander used to try to keep Melvyn out of harm's way, even if that sometimes meant that Melvyn's bad luck rubbed off on him.

Usually Mr Van was in charge of the chess club, but today he was late. Mr Van was like a grown-up version of the chess-club nerds. He was probably in the staff toilets trying to comb some of the old food out of his beard. The kids in his class would place bets about what you could find in Mr Van's beard. One day it had been some fragments of fried egg. Another time it was several strands of pot noodle. Once it was a whole chip.

Big Mac and his baboons weren't specifically looking for Melvyn when they burst into the chess club, but they were pleased
when they found him there. It was like being a goldminer, and finding a diamond by mistake.

âWhat have we here?' said Big Mac in his Big Mac voice, which was actually quite high and squeaky â though it was best not to mention that or laugh at him for it or he'd probably kick you in the parts that would make
your
voice high and squeaky too.

Melvyn was playing chess with a skinny, very slightly buck-toothed person called Felicity, the only girl who went to chess club.

Melvyn groaned. It was the sort of timeless sound made all through history by villagers when they saw the barbarians ride up on their horses, ready to steal all their stuff and then burn down their houses and probably ride away with all the pretty girls and most of the plain ones as well, just leaving the cross-eyed and the chubby behind.

Felicity disappeared. The truth is, she was probably safe.

Melvyn found himself alone in the middle of a circle, with the chess-club brainiacs looking on helplessly, like mice watching a weasel.

âHow would you like to
do
this, Wilson?' said Big Mac pleasantly. âYou've got a couple of options. Either you can just hand over your dinner money now, or we can slap your head for a while, make fun of the way your mum kisses you, slap you a bit more, push you around, make you clean the whiteboard with your tongue â the usual things. What do you say?'

Melvyn didn't say anything. He just reached into his blazer pocket and fished around for his two pounds.

âWait.'

Alexander hadn't meant to say anything either. He knew it was best just to pay up like they always did.

As soon as he said âWait,' he knew he was
in trouble. Without realizing how it had happened, he found that he was now in the middle of the circle as well, next to Melvyn. Had he barged through, or had they spread out to engulf him? He wasn't sure.

âIt's all right,' said Melvyn, in a mumble. âI'll just give them the money. It's not worth fighting for it.'

âVery wise,' said Big Mac. He loomed over them like a troll. He had tiny black eyes and a nose like a squashed satsuma.

âNo.'

There it was again. The word coming out of Alexander's mouth without him meaning to say anything.

Big Mac swivelled and gave Alexander his black-eyed stare. Alexander felt his knees turn to jelly.

âWhat?' Big Mac had fat fingers like pink sausages. He was squeezing them into a fist.

âI said no. You can't have his dinner money.'

Big Mac looked surprised for a couple of seconds, and then let out a giggle that would
have been cute if it had come from a three-year-old. From a boy the size of a small bus, it was most unsettling.

âWhat are you, anyway?' he managed to say after he'd got his breath back. âI don't even know your name. At least everyone knows who Mummy's Boy here is. But you, you're virtually invisible.'

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