by Cas Lester
Giving up, Snuffles plonked his huge hairy hindquarters on the deck and howled like a heartbroken wolf.
AROOOO, AROUOUOU, AROOO!
Chapter Twenty
The top ten most deadly garbage pests in the Entire Known Universe, and Beyond
THWACK SPLAT, THWACK SPLAT!
Harvey woke to find Yargal slapping him soggily across the face with her slimy tentacles. Yuk!
THWACK SPLAT!
‘YEOWCH! OK, OK, STOP! I’m awake!’ cried Harvey, hurriedly struggling to his feet. Quickly he told Yargal about the invasion of Junk Skunks.
The Medical Officer gasped and one of her tentacles flew to her mouth in terror!
‘They’re in the top ten most dangerous garbage pests in the Entire Known Universe, and Beyond!’ she shuddered, going a very pale green.
(She’s right, they are.
They’re at number four. If this is the sort of thing that interests you, then you can find a list of the top ten most deadly garbage pests in the Entire Known Universe, and Beyond, in the manual at the back of the book.
No, not now!
We’re in the middle of a story, for crying out loud.)
‘We’ll have to get Scrummage to sickbay immediately!’ exclaimed Yargal, wrapping two of her tentacles under his arms and trying to pick him up. No chance.
Harvey tried taking the legs end, and they both tried. But again, no chance.
In the end Harvey had to radio Nerdie to come and help. He warned Gizmo and Maxie that there was a pack of Junk Skunks loose on the ship at the same time.
‘Stay on the bridge,’ he ordered. ‘And see if you can lock the doors.’
Lock the doors!
It won’t surprise you to know that
a) Gizmo instantly assumed command of the command bridge, and
b) promptly blamed Harvey.
‘If he hadn’t insisted on collecting the garbage from the I.S.S. we wouldn’t have vacuumed them onto the ship in the first place,’ he sniffed scornfully.
‘Yes, it’s all his fault,’ agreed the computer.
‘The Junk Skunks were clearly the reason why Waitless was abandoned,’ added Gizmo.
‘He’s a hopeless captain if you ask me,’ said the computer.
‘No, he’s not, and we didn’t ask you,’ snapped Maxie. Her bright turquoise eyes glittered dangerously.
‘Oooo-oooh! Someone’s in a snippy mood,’ retorted the computer.
‘And,’ carried on Gizmo pompously, ignoring Maxie, ‘if he hadn’t ignored the Intergalactic Travel and Transport Pact rules and regulations regarding …’
Maxie butted in heatedly. ‘When you two have quite finished trashing Harvey do you think you could spare the time to help me figure out how to lock the doors so the command bridge won’t be overrun by a bunch of deadly poison-gas-farting garbage aliens, forcing Gizmo and me to die a disgustingly gross and gruesome death?!’
There was a nano-beat as Gizmo took this in. Then he cried ‘Good idea!’ and frantically starting searching the engineering desk for the door controls.
Maxie rolled her eyes, sighed heavily, pushed up her sleeves and went over to help him.
‘Do you actually know what you’re doing?’
‘Um … no,’ confessed Gizmo, frowning. But that wasn’t going to stop him.
Maxie pointed to a row of green and red switches along the top.
‘What do those do?’
‘No idea,’ said Gizmo, busily switching them all ON and OFF and accidentally turning on the windscreen wipers on all three vision screens.
SCHWIP, SCHWOP, SCHWIP, SCHWOP!
‘Oh, good grief,’ groaned Maxie. ‘What do these do?’ she continued, indicating a series of large orange buttons.
‘Haven’t a clue,’ said Gizmo, pounding away at them feverishly and turning the Toxic Spew’s headlights on to FULL BEAM and its fog lights on to METEOR SMOG MODE.
‘And that?’ asked Maxie, indicating a large yellow dial.
‘Who knows?’ said Gizmo, instantly grabbing it and yanking it round to HIGH. Rock music instantly blared out around the bridge followed by a jaunty jingle: ‘Radio Galaxy Forty-three-Beeee-eeee!’
‘Well obviously, not you!’ snapped Maxie cranking the dial to OFF. ‘Computer? Do you know how to lock the doors to the command bridge?’ she yelled.
‘Yes, thank you,’ it replied smugly.
‘WELL, LOCK THE DOORS!’ bellowed Maxie and Gizmo furiously.
‘Did I hear a please?’ asked the computer.
‘I’m warning you …’ snarled Maxie menacingly.
Lights flickered on and off the computer’s console then there was a soft
CLUNK!
and a red sign above the doors lit up. It read
LOCKED
‘Thank you,’ said Maxie.
‘My pleasure,’ replied the computer sarcastically and bleeped off.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sick buckets in sickbay
By the time the others had hauled Scrummage to the sickbay, Harvey was beginning to feel horribly sick, and Snuffles was sneezing damply.
Yargillians have no sense of smell and so Yargal wasn’t affected by the Junk Skunks’ stench, and neither was Nerdie of course, but Scrummage was still out cold. Between the three of them they managed to heave him onto the bed and Yargal plugged up the Medi-Monitor. Harvey waited anxiously to see what it would say. There were a few blips and blibbles and a couple of lights blinked on and off softly. Then a message appeared on the screen. It read:
HE’LL BE FINE
BUT YOU’RE GOING TO NEED
A LOT OF SICK BUCKETS
‘I don’t want a sickbay covered in vomit!’ announced Yargal, poking around the cupboards in a frenzy, and digging out a couple of grubby grey metal buckets.
Harvey looked round the filthy state of the room. The walls, floor and even the ceiling were covered in all sorts of grimy globs of muck and slimy smears of stuff, which to Harvey looked suspiciously like sick. There was so much of it Harvey wondered if that was why it was called the ‘sickbay’.
Fortunately Harvey has a strong stomach. But he was still feeling pretty rough. So Yargal offered him some medicine. She took what looked like a large metal pen out of a drawer. Harvey knew it was a JabPen full of medicine. He’d seen her stab Scrummage with one before – and the huge Rubbish Officer had instantly slithered to the floor like a jelly.
‘What’s in it?’ he asked.
‘No idea,’ said Yargal. ‘But it always seems to work.’
‘Er, no thanks,’ said Harvey.
‘Or there’s this?’ suggested Yargal, holding up a plastic bottle of alarming looking thick green gooey liquid, and a large grubby spoon.
Rather impressively, the medicine managed to look like bogies, ear gunk, and with a hint of dandruff, all at the same time.
‘It’s Astrofen combined with Spacepol to make a powerful Spacebiotic. It’s AntiGag, AntiVomit and AntiPuke. Perfect really,’ she announced unscrewing the top.
‘Again, what’s in it?’ cried Harvey, backing away as a smell of stinky socks and canned dog food escaped the bottle.
Yargal looked at the label. She frowned as she struggled to read the words, which were long and, frankly, ridiculously complicated. Then, taking a deep breath, she had a go at reading them out to Harvey, as confidently as she could, trying to make it sound like she knew what they all meant.
‘Well, there’s some Anti-hist-rich-dox-hi-drate and some Anti-flis-tec-ek-x-etit and also some Anti-bis-tic-box-et and …’ she struggled on bravely, avoiding the suspicious look in Harvey’s eye, and took a run at the last one, ‘and some Ant-histi-click-check-dio-sid,’ she finished triumphantly.
‘Again,’ said Harvey, pulling a face, ‘no thanks.’
‘It’s banana flavour,’ tempted Yargal.
‘I’m feeling better already,’ lied Harvey.
‘Don’t worry. I have a plan,’ lied Harvey.
‘So, what are you going to do?’
asked Yargal, reluctantly putting the bottle back.
As a matter of fact, Harvey had absolutely no idea. But he didn’t want to admit that to Yargal.
(Look – I don’t want to give you the wrong impression of Harvey here. It’s not that he wanted to pretend he’s cleverer than he is. It’s just that Yargal has a tendency to panic – you might have noticed. And she also has a tendency to splatter everyone with disgusting grey snot while she does so.)
‘Don’t worry. I have a plan,’ lied Harvey, again.
(Look – again, I don’t want to give you the wrong impression of Harvey here. It’s not that he’s a cunning and clever liar. But he can be a good liar – when he needs to be. Which, since he joined the Toxic Spew, is turning out to be disturbingly often.)
‘I’ll come with you,’ volunteered Nerdie.
‘Thanks,’ replied Harvey gratefully. He hadn’t been exactly looking forward to taking on the Junk Skunks all by himself, but he wasn’t going to put one of this teammates, er … crew members at risk, that was for sure. But of course the droid wouldn’t be affected by the toxic fumes from the stinky critters at all. Although, given that the Nerdbot’s functions were: tidying, cleaning and making galaxy-class intergalactic coffee, Harvey wasn’t sure how much help he would be.
‘Take Snuffles with you,’ suggested Yargal.
‘But what about the smell?’ asked Harvey, reaching out protectively towards the space dog and scratching him behind the ears. Snuffles nudged Harvey’s hand with his great big meatball of a nose.
‘He’s a Hazard Hunting Hound! He’s trained for this kind of thing,’ replied Yargal. ‘But if you’re worried I can give you something to protect both of you from the smell. Well … a bit.’ And she started rummaging in drawer.
‘Er … its not medicine is it?’ said Harvey anxiously.
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ snorted Yargal, finding what she was looking for. ‘Here, have one of these each.’ And she handed Harvey what was possibly, no, make that definitely, two of the tattiest, filthiest, smelliest and most astonishingly stained bandages Harvey had ever seen.
Oh, gross, he thought. But it was probably better than nothing. So he wrapped the cloth around his nose and mouth while Yargal did the same for Snuffles.
‘Good luck, Captain!’ exclaimed Yargal, suddenly grabbing him and giving him a disgustingly soggy hug that left him damp round the edges. Then she wiped a few sticky grey tears from her googly eyes with her apron, and a long string of greasy snot from her nose with a tentacle.
A sudden, horrible thought hit Harvey like a punch in the stomach. ‘Where’s Gordon?’ he cried, realising that the baby Gordonzola wouldn’t be able to defend himself from the Junk Skunks.
‘OH NO! I left him in the galley!’ screamed Yargal. ‘All on his own! Captain!’ she cried, waggling her eyes and tentacles hysterically, ‘you’ve got to save him! He’s only a baby!’
‘Don’t panic,’ said Harvey. ‘I’m on my way …’ he yelled to Yargal over his shoulder as he ran off, followed by Snuffles and Nerdie.
(I’m not sure if you’re the sort of person who likes lists, but if you are, then here’s Harvey’s To Do List:
• Rescue Gordon
• Find Junk Skunks
• Catch Junk Skunks
• Save Toxic Spew and Everyone on Board
• Check Maxie and Gizmo
• Check Yargal and Scrummage
• Feed Snuffles
• Brush Teeth
• Go to Bed
Blimey – bet that’s busier than your day, huh!)
‘That young man doesn’t realise how brave he is!’ sniffed Yargal. Then she turned her attention to Scrummage, who was beginning to come round and make the sort of noises that sounded very much like he was going to be violently, revoltingly, and monumentally sick.
You know, like
BLUPP, BLUPPP, BLUUUUUP …
and
BLEEEURRGH!
Chapter Twenty-Two
Harvey heads off heroically
Heroically, Harvey and the Hazard Hunting Hound headed off, with Nerdie close behind, to rescue Gordon, track down the rampaging Junk Skunks, and to save the Toxic Spew!
‘So what’s your plan, Captain?’ asked the Nerdbot 1000, whizzing down the corridor alongside Harvey, on its metal wheel.
‘I don’t actually have one!’ confessed Harvey, sprinting along, with Snuffles lolloping along at his heels. Fortunately Harvey can run and think at the same time. (Aha! That’ll be why he’s such a talented footballer.)
But what should he do first? Rescue Gordon or catch the Junk Skunks? Then, brilliantly, he realised that capturing the garbage pests would actually be saving Gordon at the same time! And that, astonishingly, there was one member of the Toxic Spew crew who was both fully trained and brilliant at their job.
So he stopped suddenly and turned to the huge hound. ‘Snuffles!’ he ordered. ‘Seek!’
Snuffles abruptly stopped too, sat on the deck and looked at Harvey, waggling his ears and eyebrows in utter confusion.
AROUU?!
Harvey realised he didn’t know the right command word. Obviously it wasn’t ‘Seek’. ‘Er … Track!’ he tried, then, ‘Hunt!’ and ‘Find!’ but Snuffles just sat there doing the ears and eyebrows wiggling thing. It was very cute – but not much use. Then finally, and desperately, Harvey tried, ‘Er … Fetch?’ Snuffles shot to his feet, took one almighty
SNIIIIIIFF!
and, scrabbling like a demented werewolf, promptly pelted off down a side passageway.
It wasn’t difficult to follow the Junk Skunks’ trail. There was the eye-wateringly awful stench, the dollops of green goo splattered on the walls and deck, the gag-makingly ghastly stink, the pockets of swirling yellow fog, and oh, did I mention the hideously horrendous pong?
Harvey and Nerdie raced after Snuffles. They tore around the toilets, past a cosy chill-out room full of beanbags (that Harvey didn’t even know existed) through the crews’ quarters, in and out of the lifts, down to the lower deck and back up again. They sped along countless filthy corridors, past the Vacuum Control Room, the Engine Room (twice – and from different directions), under and over both Rear Rocket Blasters and almost straight through the exit pod and into outer space!
On the way Harvey scooped up anything he saw lying about that might be useful in a scuffle with a bunch of badly behaved and vile-smelling Junk Skunks.
(Just so you know, he grabbed:
• a pair of Scrummage’s goggles,
• a dirty sock,
• an old woollen glove,
• and the lid from a battered metal dustbin.
Of course, he’d have been a lot better off with:
• a complete Anti Junk Skunks 9091-2.0 Kit with
• a full face Gas Mask 7000,
• full-length gum boots,
• a full protective suit,
and
• a full spray can of SKUNKFUNK 5000 (which kills off the stench)
But hey, you can’t have everything.)
As they rounded a corner, Harvey realised to his horror, the trail was leading towards the galley where the baby Gordonzola was all alone! He kicked himself.
(No, not literally. Ever tried running and kicking yourself at the same time? Ridiculously tricky, isn’t it?)
Yargal and Scrummage would never forgive him if the baby Gordonzola was hurt, and worse, he would never forgive himself.
‘Gordon!’ cried Harvey as they charged into the galley, but the baby alien was nowhere to be seen.
(Phew! Thank goodness for that!)
Junk Skunks on the other hand, could be seen everywhere – raiding the kitchen cupboards and squatting on the counters, ripping open packets, cramming food into their mouths and generally gobbling everything up quickly speedily, greedily, and very, very happily.
And they weren’t going to give up without a fight …
Chapter Twenty-Three
Battle in the galley
&nbs
p; 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!
