Chapter Twenty-Three

Battle in the galley

SPLAT!

Harvey gasped as a lump of cold damp mozzarella walloped into his face, and dribbled down his chin.

SLURP! GULP!

went Snuffles, helpfully, instantly wolfing down the cheese and cleaning Harvey’s face at the same time. (Oh, yuk. How absolutely gross.)

‘Snuffles! OFF!’ ordered Harvey, pushing the hound away.

‘Look out!’ creaked Nerdie.

Harvey ducked. A yoghurt pot, two strawberry cheesecakes and a chocolate mousse sailed over his head and exploded on the wall.

‘Take cover!’ yelled Harvey, as the Junk Skunks lobbed several large cans of pilchards at them.

CLANG! CLANK!

The tins crashed against Nerdie’s metal body but bounced off harmlessly.

Pulling on the goggles, and shielding himself with the dustbin lid, Harvey commando-rolled across the galley deck and yanked open a cupboard. Grabbing a metal bucket and jamming it onto his head, he valiantly grasped the best weapon he could find – a non-stick frying pan.

(Maybe not the obvious choice – but it was that or a pair of tatty plastic toast tongs, OK?)

CLANG!

A tin of pineapple chunks clunked against Harvey’s metal bucket, er, helmet. Followed by a family-size pack of double chocolate chip and rhubarb custard cookies.

SCRUNCH!

And then the skunks launched a ferocious, all-out assault with dozens of juicy quarter-pounder hamburgers …

DROOL, SLOBBER!

went Snuffles, diving in with his mouth open, and

THWACK, WHACK!

went Harvey, batting the burgers away furiously with his frying pan.

Which was all very brave and undoubtedly great fun, but the excitement and the food – especially the food – was getting to the skunks. Their rubbery bodies were swelling to bursting point, like a bunch of over-pumped-up party balloons, and their, er … rear ends, were filling the galley with ghastly green goo and noxious yellow gas!

It was at this point that something small and fluffy waddled across the deck, wagging its little nappy-clad bottom merrily.

‘GORDON!’ exclaimed Harvey. ‘Noooooo!’

Too late! The skunks pounced towards the baby Gordonzola!

Baring his shark-like teeth in a ferocious snarl, Snuffles sprang across the galley to protect him,

GRRRRR, WOOOF!

But he and Gordon were instantly surrounded!

Harvey’s rubbish idea

An outstanding rubbish idea suddenly struck Harvey.

Bravely brandishing his non-stick frying pan, he yelled to Nerdie, ‘Drive the skunks into the corner – to the garbage chute!’

‘Stand back, Captain,’ rasped the Nerdbot 1000, rapidly unclipping cleaning attachments with all of its six metal claws at once. Then it charged at the Junk Skunks ferociously wielding, with awesome accuracy, its:

• telescopic cobweb brush,

• litter grabber,

• long-handled broom,

• matching dustpan and brush, and

• fluffy pink feather duster.

And within moments the droid had rounded the stinky little aliens up and herded them backwards and onto the trap door to the rubbish shaft. Calmly, Harvey pulled the lever to OPEN and the pongy little pests tumbled harmlessly down into the cargo hold, landing on the pile of garbage the Toxic Spew had emptied from Waitless. Then he pulled the lever to SHUT, trapping the troublesome cosmic critters in the garbage hold.

‘Yahoo!’ cried Harvey, doing a high-five with Nerdie.

CLANG!

‘OWW!’ yelped Harvey, doubling over in agony.

(Seriously?!

Look, I don’t mean to be rude and I know you don’t have a lot of domestic robots on your little planet, do you, but I would’ve thought that even someone from Earth would be smart enough to work out that high-fiving metal body parts really, really hurts!)

Harvey clamped his throbbing hand under his armpit, eyes watering and screaming silently under his breath.

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ croaked Nerdie rustily. ‘Are you all right?’

Harvey took a deep breath and held it. ‘I’m fine,’ he finally managed to squeak. ‘Apart from the fact I think I’ve broken my hand!’

‘I know! How about a refreshing squirt of SmelloGel?’ suggested Nerdie, spraying Harvey all over with a fine mist of beeswax and vanilla-scented multi-surface polish.

‘How’s that supposed to help?’ cried Harvey coughing and spluttering.

‘It says it “Shines and restores as good as new”!’ said the cleaning robot, reading the label on the tin.

‘That’s for things, not humans!’

‘Is there a big difference?’ asked Nerdie.

‘Yes!’ cried Harvey.

‘Ah,’ rasped Nerdie, and his six metal extending arms drooped sadly.