Liane Moriarty - Nicola Berry and the Shocking Trouble on the Planet of Shobble

Nicola Berry had a problem.

She needed to make a long-distance phone call.

An extremely long-distance phone call.

She needed to call someone who lived on another planet.

Unfortunately, whenever Nicolas mother checked the phone bill lately, she made a sound like she had a fish bone stuck in her throat. If an intergalactic phone call appeared on the bill she might stop breathing altogether.

Nicola pondered her problem while she cut up a banana to put on top of her breakfast cereal. The house was still and silent. A shaft of summer sunlight was creeping its way across the kitchen floor. It was early Saturday morning and her brother and parents were still sound asleep. They wouldnt be up for hours, when they would appear rubbing their eyes and saying things like, Youre up already? Why?

While Nicola ate her cereal at the kitchen table, she frowned as she studied the newspaper clipping her dad had pinned to the notice board. The headline read:

NICOLA AND HER FRIENDS SAVE THE WORLD!

She still got the strangest feeling from seeing her name in a newspaper. Nicola read the first paragraph of the article again.

Last week, Nicola Berry and a group of young friends she refers to as the Space Brigade undertook a daring intergalactic mission to kill an unspeakably evil alien princess called Princess Petronella, who had been left in charge of the planet of Globagaskar while her parents were on vacation. The spoiled young princess came up with a despicable plan to destroy Earth. Fortunately, Nicola and her young friends found out about the plan. They traveled to Globagaskar by spaceship and kidnapped the princess from her palace bedroom... The princess is dead and Earth has been saved, thanks to the heroic efforts of the Space Brigade.

The newspaper reporter had got it wrong. Nicola and the Space Brigade had kidnapped the princess and convinced her not to destroy Earth, but they certainly hadnt killed her! She was very much alive and kicking.

Actually, she was kicking all day long, according to her latest Glext (intergalactic e-mailsent from the superadvanced computer in the Globagaskar Palace all the way through outer space and cyberspace to the Berry familys battered old computer in their living room). The princess had Glexted to say that her new hobby was kickboxing and she was spending hours practicing on her poor guards.

Without a doubt, traveling to Globagaskar and kidnapping the princess had been the scariest thing Nicola had ever done. Not surprisingly, most people assumed Nicola wasnt in a hurry to head off into outer space again. You probably want to put your feet up, eat popcorn, and watch TV for the next twenty years or so, hey, Nic? her dad had said hopefully.

He had no idea that Nicola was actually hoping for the Space Brigade to be on its second mission very soon.

She put down her spoon and pulled out a crumpled letter from her pocket to read it for about the 1,200th time. It said:

Dear Nicola,

I understand youre the leader of a brigade of highly trained intergalactic freedom fighters and that you recently saved a planet by the name of EARTH.

Our small but exquisite planet is currently facing grave danger of a rather unusual kind and we would like to engage your services. Payment would be both generous and delicious.

If you are available and interested in taking on a new mission, please dont hesitate to call this number: 902856082484509342508905180891230943809421.

We look forward with much anticipation to hearing from you,

COMMANDER IN CHIEF,
PLANET OF SHOBBLE

Nicola looked longingly at the phone. If she didnt hurry up and call him, the commander might find another brigade of highly trained intergalactic freedom fighters.

Of course, the truth was that the members of the Space Brigade werent exactly highly trained. Nicola felt a flutter of fear as she considered the words grave danger. Imagine if something happened to one of them and it was Nicolas fault. Everybody would hate her. Shed never be invited to another party for the rest of her life. Why was she even considering it? She put her hand over the letter, ready to crumple it up, but then her eye caught the line, Payment would be both generous and delicious. That sounded so tempting.

Nicolas great-grandmother was turning one hundred years old in a few days time and Nicola wanted to find her the perfect present. After all, not many people had been alive for a whole century. If they were paid with something delicious, Nicola could give it to Grammy. This is just a little something I picked up in outer space, she could say casually.

She looked down at her cereal.