by R. McGeddon
* * *
World Conquering: A Guide for Would-Be Alien Warlords
So you’ve found a planet you’d like to conquer. Congratulations! But what’s next? Cut out our pocket-size guide and bring it with you on your next invasion. You’ll be crushing those civilizations like the pathetic bugs they are in no time!
1. Make an Entrance. Good ways to make an entrance include swooping over the treetops in your flying saucer or beaming down as if from nowhere. Bad ways include falling from your ship’s ramp and crash-landing your jet pack into a tree.
2. Establish a Base of Operations. Of course you could take over a palace, political building, or fancy restaurant and use that as your base of operations, but you’ve already got a much more suitable space available, if you think about it. (Hint: You flew there in it.)
3. Kill and/or Dominate Native Life-Forms. It’s best to pick and choose which life-forms you elect to kill and/or dominate carefully. On the planet Earth, for example, you’ll probably want to focus your attention on the human race as opposed to, say, ducks. Having total control over the planet’s duck population is unlikely to be of any lasting benefit.
4. Adapt the Atmosphere. The atmospheres of alien worlds may be made up of any number of elements, including argon, helium, jam—and even oxygen. Temperatures on many worlds are also far below what may be comfortable for us. The careful deployment of terraforming pods will soon have the place warmed up and pumped full of noxious gas, though.
5. Relax. You’ve done all the hard work, now sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Another world is just around the corner waiting to be crushed beneath your fearsome boot, but for now take a minute to savor the screams of the dying native population and congratulate yourself on a job well done.
* * *
Chapter thirteen
So here we are at the final chapter. All the aliens have either cleared off or exploded into a sticky paste, and everything is right with the world.
Well, mostly everything. There’s a bit of an eggy smell hanging about the place, like a fart trapped under a duvet. It’ll fade soon enough, though. The Earth’s atmosphere is a truly wonderful thing, even if it doesn’t have enough jam in it for my liking.
The mayor has still been vaporized, of course, but no one’s all that bothered. Half of them have forgotten they ever even had a mayor, and those who do remember him dearly wish that they didn’t.
Lots of other people were blasted to bits, too, but let’s not dwell too much on them. Let’s turn our attention instead to what was until just yesterday the Sitting Duck Observatory, but which is now called …
Tell you what, why don’t I let Arty tell you? Here he is now with a big pair of scissors, getting ready to cut the ribbon. He’s looking all nervous, what with everyone in town (who wasn’t horribly killed by aliens) having gathered to watch him.
“For her heroism in the face of danger,” Arty said. “For her willingness to risk her own life to save us all. And for her really massive glasses…”
A mumble of agreement rippled around the crowd.
“I now name this the Stella Gazey Observatory.”
He cut the ribbon. The audience clapped. Arty’s mom made him pose for a picture with Sam and Emmie, because she was so proud of them. Then everyone else cleared off back down the hill, leaving Arty alone with Emmie and Sam. Well, come on, there’s loads of cleaning up to do and it’s hardly going to do itself, is it?
“Did I do okay?” Arty asked. Sam clapped him on the shoulder.
“You did great.”
“Your mom and dad didn’t come,” Arty said.
“Nah, they still think it was all just a film,” said Sam with a shrug. “They think it deserves to win an Oscar.”
They all laughed. Parents can be so dim sometimes.
“You were right, you know?” said Emmie. “Stella was pretty cool.”
Arty looked up at the telescope towering above them. “Yeah,” he smiled. “She really was.”
“Except her glasses,” Emmie added. “They were weird.”
The three walked side by side down the hill. “We couldn’t have done it without her, though,” said Arty, and they all nodded at that.
“We couldn’t have done it without any of us,” Sam said. “Your brains, Emmie’s ingenuity…”
“And her ability to kick things really hard,” Arty added.
“Yeah, and that,” grinned Sam.
“What about you? Drawing those aliens away, coming back and turning off their helmets,” Emmie said. “You’re the real hero here.”
“Nah, it took all of us,” Sam insisted. “The Three Muskadweebs.”
Good grief, this is touching stuff, right? I’m tearing up here. Someone pass me a tissue before I cry all over the page.
“Anyway, I should probably be thanking the aliens,” Sam said.
“Thanking them?”
“Why?”
“Well thanks to them I’m probably going to pass the next science test. I’ve got a pretty good idea what it takes to survive in Earth’s atmosphere now,” he said. “At least, I’ve got a better idea than they do!”
And with that, Sam, Arty, and Emmie strolled down the hill to Sitting Duck, and they all lived happily ever after.
Actually, now that I come to think about it, they didn’t. If anything, things went from bad to worse.
But that, as they say, is another story.…
* * *
Code Breaking with Friends
Want to devise foolproof codes that allow you and your friends to communicate without anyone else being able to listen in? Why not try some of the techniques below?
The Movie Name Code: Think of your twenty-six favorite movies, then rank them in order from best to worst. Each movie then represents a letter of the alphabet, allowing you to quickly pass messages unnoticed. For example, the word Moon might translate as:
Die Hard—Ghostbusters—Ghostbusters—Bambi
Quick, easy-to-remember, and utterly foolproof—this method is none of these things, so give it a try today!
The Noises a Bee Might Make Code: This code is simplicity itself to learn, but very difficult to crack. Every word in the dictionary is assigned a noise that a bee might make (e.g. buzz, bzzz, buuuuzzzz, etc.) and each sound is memorized by all those who wish to communicate with each other using the code. To untrained ears the code will simply sound like two people making bee noises—but those in the know will be receiving your message loud and clear! Warning: Learning this code will not allow you to talk to bees. That would be stupid.
The Fish Picture Code: Swap every letter in the alphabet with a hand-drawn picture of a fish, each one only slightly different from the others. After that you can’t go wrong, really.
Practice writing codes. Then practice breaking them!
* * *
* * *
Read on for a sneaky look at the disaster-defeating wisdom we have coming up for you in the next book …
Disaster Diaries: Brainwashed!
Ravenous zombie hordes and swarms of power-hungry tiny aliens are just some of the disasters the town of Sitting Duck has faced.
But danger never sleeps and a new evil genius has arisen, and he’s planning world domination with the aid of his homemade brainwashing device! Are Sam, Arty, and Emmie brave enough to save the day for the third time in a row?
If they aren’t, everyone—including you, dear reader—will totally lose their minds!
* * *
Chapter One
KABOOM!
No, that wasn’t an explosion. Sorry to get your hopes up. An explosion would have been a smashing way to open the book, but that’s not what’s happening. It was the sound of a thought arriving in the brain of Sam Saunders with such force it was almost loud enough for the people around him to hear it, too.
The thought that KABOOMED into his head as he darted across the school playing field was this:
Exercise is excellent.
Now don’t get me wrong—
Sam isn’t one of those weirdos who loves going to the gym and running on treadmills until they throw up all down themselves. The sort of exercise Sam loves is the running-around-with-friends sort. The wind-in-your-face, isn’t-it-great-to-be-alive type of activity.
And it’s not like he’s forcing exercise down anyone’s throat. He isn’t wearing a T-shirt that says how excellent exercise is or anything. He’s just thinking it inside his own head, and there’s nothing wrong with that, even if he is thinking it really quite loudly indeed.
Behind him, one of his best friends, Emmie, hurried to keep up. She also enjoyed running around, but not enough to make a KABOOMED! noise inside her mind.
Much farther behind Emmie was Sam’s other best friend, Arty. From the way he was sweating and panting and dragging his clumping great feet across the grass, it was plain for all to see that physical effort was not really Arty’s cup of tea. He did not think exercise was excellent. He thought it was a load of rubbish, make no mistake.
“I’m … going … to die.” Arty wheezed.
Emmie glanced over her shoulder. Arty’s face was red and puffed up, like the wrong end of a baboon, so Emmie offered him some words of encouragement.
“Oh shut up, you’re not going to die.”
“Almost there, Arty,” called Sam. “You can do it!”
Up ahead, across the playing field, he could see a group of kids gathering beside … someone else. The sun in his eyes made it impossible to figure out who it was.
Sam and Emmie slowed to a jog so as not to leave Arty trailing too far behind. They’re nice like that. And people say youngsters have no consideration these days.
“It’s not fair,” Arty gasped. “It’s bad enough we have to do PE in school, now I’m d-doing sports club during the holidays.”
Sports club was Arty’s idea of a living nightmare. It was supposedly started to give the young people of Sitting Duck a fun place to go during the holidays, but Arty reckoned the real reason it was started was to keep them out of trouble. Either that, or the whole thing had been devised as a very elaborate form of torture just for him.
“You’ll have a great time!” said Sam.
“I’ll have a heart attack,” Arty grumbled.
Emmie squinted into the sun as she ran. “Is that Coach Mackenzie?”
“Oh no,” Arty groaned. “He made me run until I was sick!”
“How long did that take?” Emmie asked.
“About a minute and a half,” Arty wheezed.
Sam shrugged. “He was okay. All those laps he made us do came in handy when we had to run away from the undead. If it wasn’t for him, we might have been zombie chow.”
“I’d rather be zombie chow than be running laps,” Arty said. “Please don’t let it be him.”
“I don’t think it is,” said Sam. They were getting closer now and the sun was dipping behind a cloud. “Not unless he’s got a lot thinner.”
“And become a woman,” added Emmie.
“I wouldn’t put anything past that guy,” Arty muttered.
He stopped running. His body gave him no choice. He hobbled onward, Sam and Emmie slowing down to walk beside him.
“We still going to the Town Hall after this?” Arty asked.
“The Town Hall was blown to smithereens by an alien death ray,” Emmie pointed out. “Or did you forget?”
Arty sighed. It was tremendously painful and he made a mental note not to do it again. “They’re rebuilding,” he said. “And they’re announcing the candidates running for mayor today.”
“Why would anyone want to be mayor after what happened to the last one?” Emmie wondered. “Mayor Sozzle was zapped into millions of atoms.”
Arty cleared his throat and nodded in Sam’s direction. Emmie quickly realized what he was getting at.
“But I … erm … I’m sure if your dad wins then he won’t be zapped to atoms,” she said to Sam. “I meant the other candidates.”
Sam shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry about it. The aliens aren’t coming back here in a hurry.”
“Exactly! Anyway, it’s going to be sooooo boring,” Emmie complained. “A load of people just standing around talking rubbish about how much better they’ll be for Sitting Duck than the rest. How dull can you get?”
“You don’t have to come,” Sam told her.
“Are you kidding?” cried Emmie. “It’s that or I have to go back home and watch Great Aunt Doris chew off her toenails. I wouldn’t miss this Town Hall thing for the world.”
“Ooh, hello! New people!” beamed the definitely-not-Coach-Mackenzie person. She was a young woman with short blond hair and a smile that could crack walnuts across a crowded room.
Actually, I’ve got no idea what I mean by that. I was trying to say her smile was very nice. I’ve got no clue how walnuts got involved.
Her eyes sparkled like lemonade, only blue and round and less runny. She wore gray shorts that showed off her legs, like shorts tend to do, and a white T-shirt with the word COACH written across the front.
“You’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen,” blurted Arty. Around him, the dozen or so other kids snickered behind their hands. Arty felt his face turn a worrying shade of red. “Er … by which I mean ‘hello,’” he said.
He held out a shaking hand. The coach flashed him a walnut-cracker and shook it. “Pleased to meet you,” she said, and Arty knew in that moment he’d never wash that hand again.
Emmie sneered and turned to Sam. “Can you believe the way he’s drooling over her?” she asked, but Sam was staring past her, his head cocked to one side, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
Were he a cartoon, Sam’s eyes would have been the shape of love-hearts, and he’d almost certainly have been floating several inches above the ground. Not being a cartoon, though, he merely stood there with a soppy expression on his face and dribbled very slightly down his chin.
* * *
Create a Disaster Survival Kit
* * *
What would you put in your own Disaster Survival Kit?
Maybe, like Arty, a Bristly-Brain-Basher (aka toilet brush) is all you need to keep enemies at bay?
Can you invent a more sophisticated form of weaponry using a toilet roll or an empty cookie tin?
Or do you really just want some sweets and a clean T-shirt?
Pack your bag for the apocalypse and keep it by the door in case of disaster!
DISASTER DIARIES
Zombies!
Aliens!
Brainwashed!
About the Author and Illustrator
R. McGeddon is absolutely sure the world is almost certainly going to probably end very soon. A strange, reclusive fellow—so reclusive, in fact, that no one has ever seen him, not even his mom—he plots his stories using letters cut from old newspapers and types them up on an encrypted typewriter. It’s also believed that he goes by other names, including A. Pocalypse and N. Dov Days, but since no one’s ever met him in real life, it’s hard to say for sure. One thing we know is that when the aliens invade, he’ll be ready! You can sign up for email updates here.
The suspiciously happy, award-winning illustrator Jamie Littler hails from the mysterious, mystical southern lands of England. It is said that the only form of nourishment he needs is to draw, which he does on a constant basis. This could explain why his hair grows so fast. When he is not drawing, which is a rare thing indeed, he spends his time trying to find the drawing pen he has just lost. He is down to his last one. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
<
br /> Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Excerpt from Disaster Diaries: Brainwashed!
Create a Disaster Survival Kit
Other Books in the Disaster Diaries Series
About the Author and Illustrator
Copyright
Special thanks to Barry Hutchison
Text copyright © 2014 by Hothouse Fiction Ltd.
Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Jamie Littler
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