It looks like a giant sea slug. The creature’s translucent skin shimmers with bright, neon colours, whilst the bulbous bulk of its body towers above us both. As I look up in horror at the place where its face should be, I see a single probing tentacle staring back at me.
And then there’s a terrible smell.
‘Prisoners! The Cosmic Authority has sent me to escort you to your doom!’
These words boom inside my brain even though I can’t see the mouth they’re coming from. I turn to my dad in terror as a small puddle of slime slowly pools on the floor around the alien.
‘How come it’s speaking English?’ I gasp.
‘Er, it’s not,’ Dad replies, grimacing as he wipes a stray strand of slime from where it has splatted on his face. ‘The Gezundhai communicate solely through their scent glands. They don’t make speeches – they make smells. And the Quintessence translates these whiffy emissions into words inside our heads.’
‘Silence!’
An even fouler smell rises up from the alien like a cloud of cow pies.
Then the electric blue wall begins to bulge again and, with a slippery popping sound, a second of these creatures enters the cell. This one is smaller than the first, not much taller than me, but apart from that the creatures look exactly the same.
With a phut-phut sound, a neon bubble rises from somewhere near the rear end of this smaller alien. It floats up into the air and then pops to release a ghastly smell.
As soon as the stench hits my nostrils, the alien’s words appear directly in my head: ‘I’m bored.’
Ignoring the smaller alien, the larger slug-like creature waves its protruding tentacle in the direction of my dad as another stinking puddle of slime washes towards us.
‘You will follow me to the Chamber of Judgement,’ it oozes, as the electric blue walls suddenly blink out of existence. ‘There you will be sentenced for your terrible crime of trespassing on to a P-class planet and exposing the universe to their infectious ideas. Do not try to escape.’
I don’t know about escaping, but I’m finding it difficult to breathe as the alien’s noxious emissions waft over me.
‘Please stop talking,’ I gasp.
Then my dad lets out a small musical fart that quickly peters out into silence.
‘Sorry,’ he says, wincing as if he’s trying to remember exactly how the tune goes. ‘My Gezundhai is a bit rusty now. Tell you what, I’ll leave it to the Quintessence to do the translating.’
‘Silence!’ Another foul-smelling cloud rises up from the giant alien slug. ‘You will follow me!’
We now seem to be standing in a vast cavernous corridor, its curving walls pulsing with an eerie glow. The slug-like creature slithers forward, its gelatinous body quivering in rhythmic waves as it leaves a trail of slime for us to follow.
‘I’m afraid there’s been a big mistake,’ Day says, hurrying to catch up with the giant gastropod. ‘You can take me to the Chamber of Judgement, but my son Jake shouldn’t be here. He got himself beamed up by mistake.’
I feel a slimy tentacle poke me in the back and twist round to see the smaller of the slug-like creatures prodding me on. I hurry forward, my footsteps echoing off the metallic floor that gleams like blackened sunshine.
‘Kids, eh?’ The giant alien slug’s words appear in a puff of curdled steam. ‘They never listen, do they? Take this one here,’ it exudes, waggling its eye-tentacle back in the direction of the smaller alien. ‘It’s “Bring Your Daughter to Work Day” today, but with all the fuss this one’s been making you’d think it was “Torture Your Child at Work Day”. “Stop fluorescing in front of my friends, Dad,” she said when I picked her up from her mum’s, and since then it’s been moan, moan, moan. “Do I have to sing on the way to the cells? Do I have to shout at the prisoners so loud?” Here I am, trying to show her the exciting life of an intergalactic guard and all she can say is she’s bored!’
I glance over at the smaller slug-like creature as it slithers along beside me.
‘Is that your dad?’ I ask.
The slimy alien bobs its head, its translucent skin now shimmering a crimson red.
‘He’s so embarrassing,’ she replies in a rasp of stale air.
‘See what I mean,’ the giant slug continues, its jelly-like body wobbling as it slowly negotiates a curve in the corridor. ‘No respect for their fathers. Think all that we’re good for is pocket money and lifts home from interplanetary trips.’
My dad nods his head in agreement. ‘It’s the same for me too,’ he says. ‘When I picked him up from this year’s school disco, Jake made me wait on the street outside. He said he didn’t want me showing off my breakdancing moves like I did last year.’
I shudder as I remember the horror of the Year Five disco – Dad spinning on his head across the dance floor and then taking out my head teacher at the knees. Mr Ronson was off school for five weeks after that with a fractured femur.
‘It’s not breakdancing when you do it,’ I mutter under my breath. ‘It’s broken dancing.’
Overhearing my muttered joke, the younger Gezundhai secretes a slimy trail of giggles in her wake.
‘You know, it’s almost a shame I’ve got to escort you to a fate worse than death,’ the Gezundhai guard belches, spraying my dad with a shower of foul-smelling slime. ‘I can’t help thinking that you and I have got a lot in common. Two ordinary dads just trying to do the best we can.’
Dad wipes the slime from his face with the back of his sleeve. ‘Perhaps you don’t have to escort us to a fate worse than death,’ he suggests, looking up at the giant slug with a hopeful smile. ‘You could say we escaped and let us beam back down to Earth.’
‘Oh no, no, no,’ the guard guffs in reply. ‘What kind of example would I be setting my daughter by doing that? No, I’ll deliver you both to the Cosmic Authority and then I can clock off for lunch. I could murder some Dentrassi stew.’
Dad’s shoulders sag as the giant slug slithers forward again, leading us to our doom.
I glance across at the guard’s daughter, but she just waggles her eye-tentacle apologetically.
It’s no good. We’re being taken to the Chamber of Judgement to face a fate worse than death. And we’re going to get there very, very slowly.
I fall into step next to my dad, the two of us shuffling forward and then stopping, shuffling forward and then stopping as the Gezundhai sluggishly oozes its way along the corridor.
‘So what do we do now?’ I hiss, frantically searching my brain for any kind of escape plan.
But before Dad can even think of replying, another foul-smelling cloud chokes him into—
‘Silence!’ The stinking pall hangs above the giant slug’s head, its eye-tentacle swivelling in my direction. ‘Or at least speak up a bit so I can hear you. I can’t stand the way you young people mumble all the time.’
I sniff a sigh of exasperation from the smaller Gezundhai behind me and, echoing this, thrust my hands deep into my pockets. I can’t believe I’m being nagged by a giant alien slug. I sometimes used to wish that my own dad would nag me like this – telling me to tidy my room or get my homework done – just like an ordinary dad. But he never did.
I glance across at Dad, his bright green skin still looking so strange to me. I know now that he’s far from ordinary, but I don’t care any more. I don’t want an ordinary dad. I just want to find a way to get us both home.
Inside my pocket I feel the smooth shape of the Quintessence nestling next to the socks I stuffed there before. And as my fingers touch these furry socks and the giant slug’s eyestalk flicks back to the corridor ahead, this jogs a memory loose inside my mind.
I remember standing in the wings at the school concert and hear Damon’s voice inside my head, telling me the best way to defeat a Dalek. Stick a sock on their eyestalk and they can’t see a thing, he said. For a master race of alien monsters, they’re pretty rubbish really.
Amba laughed at this idea at the time, but maybe this is the kind of crazy plan I need now to rescue my dad from the Gezundhai. But I’m going to have to be quick . . .
Nudging him in the ribs, I whisper to my dad out of the side of my mouth, ‘Get ready to run.’
‘Silence!’ A fresh stink erupts from the giant slug leading the way, its eye-tentacle swivelling in my direction again. But this time I’m ready for it, drawing my weapons out of my pocket like a gunslinger stuck in a sock drawer.
With an acrobatic leap, I plant the first of these on top of the alien’s eyestalk, blindfolding the giant slug creature with a polka-dot sock from Marks and Spencer.
‘My vision is impaired!’ The alien guard rears up on its tail, its gelatinous bulk quivering with rage.
Spinning round like I’m on stage at the school concert, I spring backwards to plant the second of the socks on the smaller alien’s eye-tentacle. She sniffs as if listening to the pong emanating from the sock and then sprays out a shriek.
‘I can’t see! And this thing reeks!’
As this stinking shower of slime rains down on us, I grab hold of Dad’s hand.
‘Let’s get out of here!’