‘Did you hear that?’ said Terry.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We’re all going to die in an intergalactic death battle!’
‘No,’ said Terry, ‘not that bit. The bit about how we could win a trophy—or a medal!’
‘Unless we lose, that is,’ I said.
‘No, Andy,’ said Terry. ‘You don’t understand. Even if we lose, we still get a medal that says: If you had fun, you won!’
‘No,’ I said. ‘You don’t understand. A death battle is a battle to the death. Only the winner survives: the losers—which is everybody else—will all die.’
‘Then we’d better make sure we win,’ said Terry.
‘But that would mean we have to kill all the other contestants,’ said Jill. ‘That’s awful!’
‘It’s less awful than being killed,’ said Terry. ‘And it’s not like we have a choice.’
‘But how could we win even if we wanted to?’ said Jill. ‘The other aliens look much more dangerous than us. We don’t stand a chance!’
‘You’re forgetting one very important thing,’ said Terry. ‘Well, two, actually. I have laser eyes.’
‘But you can’t even kill a fly with your laser eyes!’ I said. ‘How do you expect them to help us win an intergalactic death battle?’
As we were speaking, thousands of flying eyeballs were filling the air around us.
‘Attention all aliens,’ boomed the giant flying eyeball. ‘In a moment your enclosures will be removed and the battle will begin. It will continue until only one species remains. Are there any questions?’
‘Yes,’ said a little green blob. ‘Please may I be excused from the battle? I need to go home.’
‘No,’ said the eyeball. ‘All contestants must fight. It’s the rules.’
Then, without warning, the eyeball let out a loud, high-pitched noise and our enclosure shattered. In fact, all the enclosures did.
We got such a fright, we fell out of the tree onto the soft spongy surface of Eyeballia with all the other aliens.
It was terrifying being so close to so many dangerous aliens, but there was hardly any time to feel scared, because then the eyeball said:
We all jumped up.
‘Oh no!’ said Jill. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘Fight?’ said Terry.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Let’s hide! Quick! Behind the door!’
‘The Door of Doom?’ said Terry. ‘Are you crazy?’
‘No!’ I said. ‘The front door!’
We all rushed inside—and not a moment too soon, because then …
the battle began!
‘I don’t think I like intergalactic death battles very much,’ I said, as the battle raged around our tree.
‘Me neither,’ said Jill. ‘They’re quite violent.’
‘And they’re too loud,’ said Terry. ‘I wish we could go home.’
‘Unfortunately, that’s not an option,’ I said. ‘But let’s look on the bright side. Perhaps, with a bit of luck, they’ll all destroy each other without us having to do anything or hurt anyone, and then we can collect the trophy and get out of here.’
‘Not much hope of that,’ said Jill, pointing at a hideous bull-like alien that was charging towards the tree. ‘I think that one’s realised we’re in here.’
‘This would be a perfect time to use your laser eyes, Terry!’ I yelled. ‘Blast it!’
‘I can’t!’ he said. ‘I’m too scared. My eyes won’t even open!’
At that moment, Mary Lollipoppins pushed past us, her hands full of enormous lollipops.
‘Never fear!’ she cried. ‘LOLLIPOPPINS is here!’
The alien roared at Mary, but she just laughed and said, ‘My, what a big gob you have, Grandma—just the right size for these super-sticky, super-giant, all-day gob-stoppers!’ and as quick as a lollipop-shop robot, she shoved all four lollipops into the alien’s open mouth. It was too surprised to continue its attack and too busy sucking on the gob-stoppers to do us any harm at all.
‘Good work, Mary!’ shouted Jill. ‘But watch out behind you!’
A razor-toothed, blood-sucking Venusian worm man was standing right behind Mary, about to bite her head off, when a scoop of hot ice-cream smashed into its face.
‘Never fear! SCOOPERHANDS is also here!’ yelled Edward Scooperhands from above as he launched scoopful after scoopful of sizzling hot ice-cream at the worm man.
The razor-toothed, blood-sucking Venusian worm man reared back and howled in pain. Or was it pleasure? It was hard to tell. It could have been either—or both. Hot ice-cream is hot, sure, but it’s also delicious.
So delicious, in fact, that all the other aliens stopped fighting the death battle …
and started having a hot ice-cream party instead!