by Cas Lester
‘Um … there isn’t anything else,’ cringed Gizmo.
Maxie snorted with laughter.
Yargal tried to get Harvey’s attention. ‘Captain …’ she said.
‘Not now, Yargal,’ replied Harvey. Looking around the bridge, he saw that loads of vital controls and key bits of kit were held together by sticky tape.
‘Is that the standard repair kit for the Toxic Spew?’ he asked witheringly. ‘A couple of rolls of sticky tape?’
‘Er … no,’ admitted Gizmo, thoroughly embarrassed.
‘Captain …’ tried Yargal again, more urgently.
‘Not now, Yargal!’ barked Harvey.
‘Excuse me, Captain,’ said the computer smugly. ‘But I know for a fact that the Toxic Spew was issued with the standard repair equipment when it launched on its current mission.
(Is it helpful for me to remind you that the Class 4 Intergalactic Garbage Ship is on a five-year mission to collect all the rubbish in Galaxy 43b?
Probably not. But then you didn’t have to read that bit if you didn’t want to, did you?
So don’t blame me.)
‘But the crew have managed to lose the entire contents of the tool kit,’ the computer went on. ‘Of course, it’s not their fault. They can’t help being the sloppiest, laziest, most useless and careless, disgraceful, rubbish crew in the Entire Known Universe, and Beyond,’ it finished.
‘We’re a garbage crew, not a ‘rubbish’ crew!’ growled Scrummage furiously through the intercom.
‘I said ‘rubbish’ and I meant ‘rubbish!’ snipped the computer.
Gizmo winced and even Maxie kept her head down.
‘The Toxic Spew,’ continued the computer importantly, ‘should be carrying a fully functioning utility kit including:
• A wiffometer, to detect whether the smell of the garbage is:
a) hazardously horrendous, or
b) dangerously disgusting, or
c) fatally foul
and
• A reinforced rubber toilet plunger;
• And one of those little scratch remover pens that are so handy for repairing all the little scrapes and nicks on the outside of the ship.
It hardly seems worth it, thought Harvey, given the rusty, tatty and battered state of the ship’s exterior.
A sudden thought occurred to Harvey.
‘Is there a ship’s manual on your system?’
‘Do you mean a complete breakdown of all the parts of the ship, how they work, how to use them, how to repair them and so on?’ asked the computer.
‘Yes!’ said Harvey excitedly.
‘No!’ it said.
Harvey sighed.
Yargal was still hovering breathlessly by the captain’s chair, desperate to speak with him. Harvey finally asked what she wanted.
‘Captain!’ she replied dramatically and waggling her six blue tentacles importantly. ‘It’s a matter of life and death. As Ship’s Cook it is my duty to inform you that we have almost completely run out of food! And, as the ship’s Medical Officer it is my duty to inform you, and I do hate to mention it now, when I know you have a lot of other things to worry about, but we’re all going to die!’
Chapter Five
Captain! This is a disaster!
Harvey was used to Yargal violently over-reacting at the slightest opportunity. Honestly, if he’d had a point for every time she’d melodramatically flounced onto the command bridge, feverishly flinging blue tentacles and grey snot around liberally, he’d be at the top of the Premier League by now.
But he was gobstruck by the panic-stricken responses of Maxie and Gizmo.
‘Captain! This is a disaster!’ sobbed Gizmo hysterically, bursting into tears, pacing up and down the deck, and wringing his hands.
‘Pull yourself together, Officer Gizmo!’ barked Harvey. ‘Calm down, settle down and sit down! And that’s an order!’
Gulping and hiccupping, the Senior Engineering Officer collapsed weeping into his seat.
‘For crying out loud, Harvey!’ snapped Maxie from the flight deck. ‘I don’t think you understand the dreadfully dire and desperate dangerousness of our plight, or the alarmingly awful and appalling atrociousness of the situation!’ she finished, yelling at full volume.
‘Have you finished, Officer Maxie?’ asked Harvey evenly. Maxie hadn’t.
‘Let me explain, Earth Boy!’ she said pushing up her sleeves, marching over to him, and shoving her bright purple face into his and speaking painfully loudly. ‘We are stuck in a tiny spaceship in a remote corner of Galaxy 43b and WE – HAVE – NO – FOOD! We’re not talking about feeling a bit peckish, or fancying a little snack or wondering if there’s a packet of cheese and onion crisps or tin of assorted toffees left in the back of the galley cupboard! WE ARE GOING TO STARVE TO DEATH! Fine captain you’re turning out to be! What are we supposed to eat?’ she demanded furiously.
‘How about each other?’ suggested the computer cheerfully.
Too young to be eaten!
‘Aaaaargh!’ screamed Yargal. ‘Captain, I’m too young to be eaten! Save me!’ she sobbed, flinging her soggy tentacles around Harvey. Long strings of grey slime dribbled from her nostrils onto his uniform.
‘Steady, Officer Yargal,’ he said calmly, and gently but firmly peeling her off him. ‘No one is going to eat anyone else.’
Yargal stood shaking like a green and blue jelly slug, with grey snot dribbling down her slimy body and pooling onto the deck.
Secretly Harvey couldn’t imagine anybody wanting to eat anything as revolting as Yargal, but he was much too polite to say so.
Harvey snapped at the computer. ‘If you can’t say anything useful, then just … don’t say anything!’
‘But that was useful,’ retorted the computer. ‘The crew will probably kill each other anyway,’ it muttered sulkily.
‘Scrummage will definitely murder Yargal when he finds out there’s no food,’ announced Maxie.
‘Captain! I’m too young to be murdered!’ wailed Yargal.
Scrummage, of course, was still in the Vacuum Control Centre, trying to fix the hose back onto the pump machine with sticky tape, and hadn’t heard the grim news. Well, not yet, he hadn’t.
(I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to the moment when he does.
That’ll be a high point.)
Calming Yargal down, Harvey told her to follow him to the galley so he could see the state of the food supplies for himself.
‘Assuming command,’ sniffed Gizmo, going over to the captain’s chair, trying to stop snivelling, and drying his tears on his sleeves.
‘Really?’ queried Maxie witheringly. It was bad enough being bossed around by an arrogant, pompous Senior Engineering Officer, but a weepy, blubbing, sniffing one was off-the-scale of even worse.
Gross-out in the galley
It won’t surprise you to know that the galley of the Toxic Spew was indescribably gross. Smears of mouldy mozzarella and tomato sauce plastered the walls, the floor and even the ceiling. An interesting mildew-coloured fungus was actually growing out of one of the store cupboards. At least Harvey assumed it was a fungus. It might have been an alien friend of Yargal’s – he didn’t like to ask.
The smell in the kitchen was unbelievably atrocious. Harvey covered his nose and mouth with his hands and tried to breathe as little as possible. A heap of rotting leftover food festered in one corner, maggots squirming all over it.
‘Isn’t there a waste bin?’ choked Harvey, as soon as Yargal slithered into the galley after him.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘But that,’ she added proudly, pointing to a trapdoor under the pile of rotten food, ‘is a rubbish chute. It goes straight down into the garbage hold. Watch this!’ She pulled a lever and the hatch flipped open and the food tumbled down.
Harvey would have been impressed, but he was nearly knocked out by the terrible stench of decaying vegetables and foul drains that wafted up, and he gagged.
‘Sorry, sir,’ said Ya
rgal. ‘Is it a bit smelly? We Yargillions don’t have much sense of smell.’
Well, that explains a lot, thought Harvey.
Opening the cupboards, Yargal showed Harvey the pitiful remains of the food supplies – empty tubs labelled tomato paste, glacé cherries, anchovies, pickled onions and so on, and then she proudly presented the pizza maker. There were several other food machines in the galley, but Yargal told Harvey she didn’t know how to use them and there weren’t any instruction manuals. The pizza machine was dead easy because, although it was covered in buttons and complicated dials, it was voice controlled – so Yargal simply had to tell it what to make.
They’d had to programme it so that it only recognised her voice because Scrummage had kept sneaking into the galley and pigging out on pizza all day and night.
Harvey went over to one of the others. It was labelled ‘PopUpPuds’ and looked a bit like a toaster. He pressed the ‘Start’ button. It clunked and whirred for a while, then pinged a couple of times and a puff of steam erupted from its side. Harvey watched hopefully, wondering what sort of pudding would emerge. Actually he didn’t care – as long as it wasn’t rhubarb crumble.
It wasn’t.
In fact there wasn’t any pudding at all.
There was, however, an impressive
WHOOOMPH!
as the PopUpPuds machine burst into flames.
Chapter Six
Bad news
Thick black smoke poured out, sending the fire alarm and sprinkler systems into full-on panic-overdrive mode,
SPRAAAAAY!
DRIIII-IIIING!
and Harvey’s overalls were soaked – for the second time that day.
Yargal scraped a bit of gunk off the label above the ‘Start’ button on the pudding maker.
‘DO NOT PRESS RED BUTTON IF FOOD TRAY IS EMPTY’, it read.
‘Whoops,’ said Yargal, sympathetically. ‘Good job I’m the cook, and you’re not!’ Then, looking around the galley she added ‘I think I can just about scrape together enough food to make a small pizza for lunch.’
Following her gaze around the filthy, food-splattered room, Harvey didn’t like to think what she might actually scrape up. But he left her to it and waddled off soggily to put on another set of clothes. At this rate he’d be wearing his school uniform by lunchtime.
(If you’re one of those bright sparks who don’t miss much, then you’re probably wondering why Harvey’s got his school clothes with him.
If you’re not, or, if you already know, then you can skip the next bit.
Harvey was wearing his school uniform when he accidentally applied for the job of Captain of the Toxic Spew. He picked up a message from aliens on the computer in his bedroom, but he couldn’t understand it because it looked like this:
But that didn’t stop him replying – and getting transported onto the command bridge of the Toxic Spew – still in his school uniform.)
When he’d been on Earth, and captain of the Highford All Stars, Harvey often had to break bad news to his team. Like when their goalie got stolen by another club, and when their best striker broke his toe and couldn’t play for the rest of the season, and worst of all, when his mum accidentally dyed their kit bubblegum pink.
So when he got back to the bridge he took a deep breath and courageously announced, ‘There’s nothing left to eat except a small pizza.’
‘Oh good grief!’ gulped Gizmo tragically.
‘Whatever you do, don’t tell Scrummage,’ warned Maxie.
‘Don’t tell Scrummage what?’ asked Scrummage walking onto the bridge, the doors schwooshing open and closing automatically as he did so.
Bad taste
There was an awkward silence, broken by Yargal arriving, and the doors doing the schwooshing thing again. Yargal was carrying a pitifully small pizza – actually it was a dangerously small pizza. She was quaking so much she nearly dropped it. Snuffles, the ship’s huge Hazard Hunting Hound, lolloped along beside her, drooling hopefully, his huge shark-like teeth drenched in saliva.
‘I know it’s rather small, but it’s packed with flavour!’ she quavered, and taking a deep breath went on. ‘It’s fried asparagus (only slightly rotten), soggy Brussels sprouts, bacon-flavoured ice cream, and burnt sweetcorn slop, topped with squished bananas, crispy burnt marshmallows and hot chillies smothered in chocolate. And there’s a sloppy orange and cheese stuffed crust!’ she finished despairingly.
Scrummage looked slowly from the pizza to Yargal and back again. ‘Is that all there is for lunch?!’ he snarled, going an alarming shade of dark purple.
‘No, that’s all there is to eat – at all!’ stated Maxie.
‘And it’s for everyone,’ growled Gizmo pointedly at Scrummage.
Harvey was just about to give up his share of the pizza when the computer bleeped cheerfully.
‘Captain,’ it said, ‘I’ve had a brilliant idea.’
Phew! thought Harvey, who was becoming distinctly worried by the way Scrummage and Gizmo were glaring at each other … hungrily.
The computer continued brightly. ‘Why not throw some of the crew off the ship? Then there’ll be more pizza for those who are left!’
‘WHAT!?’ spluttered Harvey, horrified.
An astonishingly shocking row immediately erupted.
(It was so bad, I couldn’t put all of it here. I’ve just kept some of the least unpleasant bits.)
‘You can’t throw me off! I’m the only one who can fly the ship!’ yelled Maxie fiercely.
Gizmo grabbed Snuffles menacingly by the collar. ‘The hound can go for a start! He’s not exactly useful!’
‘Yes he is!’ cried Yargal hotly, thwacking Gizmo with her tentacle. ‘He does a very important job sniffing out dangerous garbage and he’s staying!’
‘All right, what about you, then?’ retorted Gizmo.
‘You can’t get rid of me!’ wailed Yargal. ‘I’m the only one who can cook … or deal with any medical emergencies.’
‘Well, we need Harvey,’ argued Maxie ‘Because he’s:
a) a good leader and planner,
b) the captain, and
c) the only one who can stop Gizmo and Scrummage from killing each other.’
‘Maybe he should let them,’ suggested the computer, ‘then there’d be two less to feed!’
‘Computer! That’s enough!’ snapped Harvey.
‘Looks like it’s you two then,’ said Maxie glowering at Gizmo and Scrummage, pushing up her sleeves and advancing on them threateningly.
‘Maxie!’ barked Harvey.
‘I say Scrummage goes!’ yelled Gizmo. ‘He eats more than everyone else put together!’
Scrummage’s hands flew round Gizmo’s throat, throttling him.
Harvey leapt between them. ‘PACK IT IN!’ he bawled. ‘No one is throwing anyone off the ship! And computer, butt out!’
‘I was only trying to help!’ it snipped, bleeping off in a massive hissy fit.
The I.S.S.
Harvey took a deep breath and calmly asked Maxie where the nearest place was where they could get some food. There was a moment’s silence while she checked on the ship’s 3D star map.
‘The I.S.S.,’ she replied.
Harvey couldn’t believe his ears! ‘The International Space Station?!’ he exclaimed. If the I.S.S. was nearby then they must be close to Earth and he could go home!
‘Er, no,’ said Maxie confused. ‘I.S.S. stands for Intergalactic Super Store. It’s called Waitless.
Harvey was gutted. But, remembering he was the captain, he pulled himself together and ordered Maxie to plot the course.
‘The quickest way to get there is through a black hole,’ she replied casually.
‘What?!’ cried Harvey.
(Harvey might be from a planet that no one in Galaxy 43b has ever heard of, but even he knows that if you go into a black hole you’ll die from ‘spaghettification’ and being stretched ultra-supa-mega-nova thin!)
‘It’ll take ages to get there if
we don’t,’ whined Maxie.
Four pairs of hungry eyes and three anxious googly ones stared at Harvey – dangerously.
Maxie’s hands hovered above the flight controls.
‘So, Captain, what are we going to do?’
Chapter Seven
Rumble, grumble
Harvey was torn.
On the one hand, he thought, perhaps he was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t that dangerous to cut through a black hole, or the crew wouldn’t want to do it.
He could hardly claim to be an expert at travelling through black holes in deep space.
(I hate to be rude, but frankly, Harvey could hardly claim to be an expert at travelling through deep space at all.
But then no one on your funny little blue and green planet can, can they?
It’s amazing to think that nobody on Earth has ever been further away than your own tiny little moon.
Just what is it that puts you off space travel? Is it the lack of regular flights? Or the lack of loo paper?
Or the lack of oxygen?
Or is it the food?)
But on the other hand, Harvey knew that his crew could be reckless and greedy and frankly stupid, and it was his job as captain to make the right decision – even if the entire crew disagreed and would end up lynching him.
So he ordered Maxie to take the longer, safer route and everyone groaned loudly. Almost as loudly as their stomachs.
RUMBLE, GRUMBLE
WHINGE, WHINE
‘I need food!’ moaned Scrummage, slumped weakly at the garbage control desk, clutching his outsize belly.
‘Stop complaining,’ sniffed Gizmo. ‘You’ve got loads of spare fat to use up.’
Maxie snorted rudely. She’d put the ship onto AutoAstronaut and was sitting with her knees pulled up, hugging her empty stomach.
‘How dare you!’ snarled Scrummage, patting his belly proudly. ‘I’d rather have some meat on me than be a scrawny weakling like you!’
