Chapter Twenty-five

Splattered mozzarella!

Harvey and Maxie sat slumped and exhausted on the filthy deck in the galley of the Toxic Spew. The entire room was splattered with a staggering quantity of molten mozzarella and rocket fuel sauce.

Snuffles was having the time of his life, licking up endless dollops of sauce with his huge tongue.

Blobs of it dripped off the surfaces and dribbled down the fridge. The hot plates were plastered with it, and splodges of molten mozzarella were smeared all over the 3D pizza printer.

In all honesty it didn’t look that much different than usual.

(Sorry, were you imagining that the Toxic Spew would have a squeaky clean galley with spotless metal surfaces and gleaming state-of-the-art cooking equipment?

Don’t be silly.)

The Bling Bots were gummed up, tied up and locked up in Yargal’s large food storage bins. Gizmo had gone to the bridge to alert the Intergalactic Traffic Police.

Yargal was frantically searching through cupboards and wondering if she could rustle up a celebratory pizza.

But she couldn’t find any mozzarella.

Of course there was plenty of it splattered all over the galley. But even Yargal has some standards.

How much Techno-tium!?

It won’t surprise you to know that Scrummage had dashed off to the cargo hold to see how much Techno-tium they had – and more importantly, how much it was worth. Maxie and Harvey were too tired to care.

Harvey sat cross-legged and weary with his head in his hands. ‘I nearly got us all killed,’ he said to Maxie quietly.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she said.

‘Yes it was. It was my idea to hide – and then I got us trapped.’

Maxie tucked her hair behind her ears and then said firmly. ‘Harvey, it was our fault. And I’m not just saying that to make you feel better.

‘You didn’t know how dangerous it was having such valuable cargo. But we did. And we knew that if we told you, you wouldn’t let us take the risk. So we didn’t tell you,’ she shrugged.

‘And anyhow, if it wasn’t for you we wouldn’t have got away with it. But we did  …  and now we’re going to be rich!’ She laughed, her bright turquoise eyes shining in her purple face. ‘RICH!’

Just at that moment Scrummage hailed them on the inter-ship coms SpaceTime system from the cargo hold. His voice sounded strangely tense.

‘I’m holding the Techno-tium,’ he said.

‘How much is there?’ asked Maxie breathlessly.

There was a pause while Scrummage seemed to be struggling to control his emotions, and then he said: ‘It’s about the size of a silver cupcake sugar ball.’

‘What! Is that all?’

‘Yup,’ said Scrummage. He was gutted.

‘Computer, how much is that worth?’ asked Harvey.

The computer was just about to answer, but Gizmo cut in  … 

‘Bridge to Captain, the Intergalactic Traffic Police are on their way. Um  …  do we know how much Techno-tium we have yet?’ he added, trying to sound casual. ‘And, more importantly, what it’s worth!’

‘Er, yes,’ said Harvey.

‘I was just about to say when you so rudely interrupted me,’ snipped the computer.

But Gizmo was too excited to bother about manners. ‘Well?’ he blurted out eagerly. ‘Is there enough for a new Cygnus 7 single-seater shuttle craft with its revolutionary TripTronic gearing system?’

‘Nope,’ said the computer.

‘Oh,’ said Gizmo flatly.

‘Is there enough for a personal 3D pizza printer, unlimited supplies of mozzarella, chocolate, banana custard and chilli sauce, and a small planet with sandy white beaches and a heated sea?’ asked Scrummage hopefully.

‘Nope!’

‘Speckled vomit!’ sighed Scrummage disappointedly.

‘How about a Cassini Personal HeliDroid, with inbuilt VidiScape gaming system, subsonic sound, 3V-360 VisionVisor, multi-player, multi-platform and multi-universe enabled features, downloadable cosmic content capability, pangalactic performance power enhancers and the Stella BonusBox? asked Maxie.

‘Nope!’

‘Which means there’s nowhere near enough for us to give up garbage collecting long enough to find Earth,’ said Harvey, sadly.

‘Absolutely correct!’ said the computer. ‘But I’m glad you mentioned that. Because I think I’ve found your home planet!’

‘Really!’ cried Harvey excitedly.

‘Is this Earth?’

‘Is it purple with a pink gas cloud ring, orbited by three glow-in-the-dark lime green moons just the other side of the asteroid belt in the Erical Galaxy?’

‘Nope,’ said Harvey.

‘Ah. In that case I haven’t. Sorry. Never mind, cheer up! Because there is enough Techno-tium to buy a rubber counter gravity bumper, a reactor-driven heat shield, and a reversing camera for the ship! Well, second-hand ones off the Outernet.’

‘Oh, excellent!’ cried Gizmo.

‘Cool!’ said Maxie, who was fed up with reversing the Toxic Spew and not being able to see what she was doing.

‘And, as well as getting the vital spare parts for the ship, there’s enough Techno-tium to get everyone a bumper family-size pack of grated mozzarella cheese – each!’

‘Well, I guess that’s better than nothing,’ said Harvey.

But then he’s new to the job. So hey, what does he know!