Earthling Ambassador

It was much later that day, and the Space Brigade and Princess Petronella sat on the beach wearing old sweats from the trailer. Greta had surprised them by efficiently finding firewood and building a perfect campfire the way she’d learned to in Girl Scouts.

After swimming, they’d all gone food shopping at the local supermarket (where a girl had approached the princess and Shimlara and begged them to consider joining her basketball team).

Now Tyler was showing Shimlara how to fry sausages, while Sean toasted bread rolls on the fire, and Katie and Nicola chopped tomatoes. Greta was making disapproving remarks about their cooking techniques and everybody was ignoring her.

“So every single time you want something to eat you have to cook it yourself?”The princess was stunned that they didn’t have Telepathy Chefs on Earth yet.

“Cooking is fun,”Tyler told the princess. “You can help us by buttering the rolls if you like.”

“I am not trained in the art of‘buttering a roll,’ Tyler,” said the princess. Her hair had fallen out of its bun and was curling in messy tendrils all around her shoulders. She actually looked rather pretty in the crackling light of the fire.

“You just dip the knife in the butter, like so,” demonstrated Sean. “And then smear across the toast. Not too thick. Not too thin. It’s not exactly an art.”

To everyone’s surprise, the princess took the knife from him and tentatively began buttering the rolls.

“Oh, look, the colors of the sky are changing!” Shimlara pointed at the horizon, where the sky was turning pink and gold. She explained, “The suns on Globagaskar don’t go down slowly like that each night.They just disappear at six o’clock, as if someone has switched off a light.”

Nicola said, “Every time there’s an extra beautiful sunset, our mom makes us run outside to watch.”

“Yeah, she won’t even let us wait for the commercial break,” complained Sean.

“It’s really beautiful,” said the princess quietly, almost as if she were speaking to herself.

“Go, Earth!” whispered Shimlara, while Sean did a silent victory punch in the air behind the princess’s back.

Something is probably about to go wrong again, thought Nicola. But her luck must have been changing, because at that moment she felt a delicate flutter against the top of her hand. It was a butterfly. Its wings were black with an intricate pattern of blue spots like wrapping paper.

“Oh look, a butterfly,” said Nicola casually. “Do you have butterflies on Globagaskar, Princess Petronella?” Of course, she knew perfectly well that they didn’t. She held out her wrist to the princess.

“No, we don’t have flying butters.”The princess looked enchanted as the butterfly flew straight onto her hand, almost as if it knew it had to help out with the mission. It flew up near the princess’s face and caressed her cheek with its wings before it flew off.That butterfly deserved a medal.

“You just got a butterfly kiss,” said Katie. “Now you’ll have good luck.”

“Okay!” said Tyler briskly. “I think the sausages are nearly ready. How are those rolls going?”

As Nicola looked around, she saw that every member of the Space Brigade, even Greta, was trying to suppress a giant grin.Things were looking up.

For once, Nicola didn’t feel like throwing the watch on the ground and smashing it into a million pieces.There was actually no need to panic.Things were progressing well. After they’d eaten dinner, she would very politely but firmly ask the princess if she would please change her mind about destroying Earth.

The princess would say “sure, no problem” and apologize profusely for even considering such a thing. After that they would all go to sleep on the beach in their sleeping bags, and the next morning after a delicious celebratory breakfast, they would fly the princess back to Globagaskar.

Then Nicola could relax and enjoy her birthday. She would probably receive particularly excellent presents because everybody would be so pleased with her.

Of course, on the other hand, the palace guards could be about to track them down on Earth any second now, the princess could refuse to change her mind (after all, she’d never changed her mind about anything before), and Nicola and the rest of the Space Brigade could be spending her birthday being tortured while Earth was being destroyed.

Tomorrow was either going to be Nicola’s very best birthday ever—or her very worst.