Planet Wampetter has always been an easy place to visit. It's not that
far, really, just the other side of the galaxy. You don't need a special
application or photographs or shots. If you want to go to Planet Wampetter,
you just fuel up your ship, set the computer and off you go. That's the
way it is. That's the way it's always been.
Still, Planet Wampetter has not been a popular travel destination. In
fact, creatures all over the galaxy love to tell mean jokes about the place.
For example, "How many seasons are there on Planet Wampetter?"
Answer: "Two. Too hot and too cold." Or, "Where did the stupidhead
go to for vacation?" Answer: "Planet Wampetter. Why do you think
he's called a stupidhead?" Yet there was a time not so very long ago
when large numbers of galactic visitors descended on Planet Wampetter. For
a while it appeared the planet might become the hot new tourist destination.
In fact for a while it was the hot new tourist destination. This is the
story of how that happened and what happened next.
Eloise Tub and her sister Gartrude were playing brontosaurus in the mud
patch behind their house. This traditional wampetter game involves stomping
slowly in the mud and making awful braying sounds like this: AAUUUUNNNNEEEEEEIII!!
It was Change Season, the rainy period between winter and summer. Eloise
and Gartrude were covered with mud, which turned their clothes and orange
skins a deep reddish brown. They were handsome wampetter children: plump
and energetic, with big noses, bigger voices and eyes as bright as the sun
glinting off Lake Wacawacawoo in the morning.
Suddenly a small space ship dropped out of the sky into the field across
the street. It was a kind they had seen only on the bigscreen; they knew
it was very expensive. Out of the ship came a family of humans, looking
rather purplish in the planet's red light, and to wampetter eyes, particularly
slim, graceful and sophisticated. There was a mother, a father, and three
boys; each carried a small shiny metal suitcase. After much pointing and
discussion, the humans set down their suitcases, opened them and stepped
back. Gartrude and Eloise gaped in wonder.
"Eloise, look, it's growing!" Gartrude said, pointing.
"Don't point, it's rude. Besides, it's not growing, it's-it's-expanding."
Each of the suitcases expanded into a room and then linked together to
form hallways and a whole first floor, then a second and a third, followed
by a rooftop turret and large windows, indeed all the accoutrements of a
fancy house, the likes of which the wampetter girls had never seen-except
on the bigscreen.
"Let's go over and say hi," Gartrude suggested.
"But we're all dirty," Eloise objected.
"That's perfect!" Gartrude said. Indeed on Planet Wampetter,
visitors often take a mud bath before going visiting. Having your face caked
with mud and bits of food from your last meal is the height of wampetter
fashion. Eloise knew that wampetter customs varied a bit from those of other
creatures, though, and she did not want to say anything to these new visitors
until she had consulted her handy How Not to Insult An Alien and Get Your
Head Chopped Off, a handbook for travelling wampetters, which they had at
home. But Gartrude just ran over to the humans and Eloise had to follow.
"I'm Gartrude, this is my sister Eloise. We're wampetters and you're
not!" Gartrude announced.
Eloise was appalled, but the humans seemed amused by the small rotund
creature with the eager smile. Fortunately Gartrude had not used any of
the more traditional wampetter greetings like "You look like you're
about to barf," or "You look so fat you could explode."
Eloise was terribly impressed with the family up close. The father was
tall and handsome, and the mother was simply the most beautiful creature
Eloise had ever encountered. The boys looked strong, healthy and happy.
"Awfully glad to meet you," said the father. "My name
is Egglebert Lillienthal Smith III, but you can call me Richard. This is
my wife Althea, and my sons X, Y, and Z. We're talkers."
Eloise was even more impressed now. She knew that humans came in many
different kinds and that talkers were among the most powerful and important
of all.
"Glad to meet you," said Eloise. She tried to curtsy, but not
having had much practice, she fell flat on her face. A strong hand helped
her up from the ground. She looked up and saw that it was X, the oldest
and tallest of the Smith boys. "Thanks," she said, her face pale
with embarrassment.
"I say, I do hope it's no problem putting our house up here. We
can move it if-," Mr. Smith said.
"Oh no," said Eloise. "You can build anywhere, just not
on top of anyone else's place."
"We'd never do that. It sounds uncomfortable," Mrs. Smith said.
Eloise could not tell if she was joking. "Where do you come from?"
Gartrude asked.
"You ask, 'Where do we come from?'" Mr. Smith replied. He drew
a deep breath. "We come from near and we come from far. We travel the
galaxy, from one end to the other. No planet is too small or too humble
to escape our notice. Take Planet Wampetter for example. For too long your
planet has been deprived of the glories of intergalactic commerce and the
rest of the galaxy has been deprived of the riches of your world. And so
we have come, as facilitators of fun, prophets of profit, developers of
delight."
He paused for a moment and it seemed as if he were finished, but he was
not.
"You ask, 'But why? Why leave the comforts of home and journey across
the vacuum of space, risking death, bad reception and yucky food?' Well,
my Daddy explained it to me when I was a little boy. We were out behind
the barn one summer's night, gazing up at the starry sky and he said, 'Son.
It may look pretty, but there's a lot of places up there that need improvement.'
We've come here to make improvements. We're going to improve everything!"
"Everything?" Eloise asked.
Eloise could only nod in astonishment. She had never heard such talk
before, except on the bigscreen. Wampetters are plain creatures, given to
plain talk, while talkers are, well, talkers.
"You want to see the neighborhood?" Gartrude asked the boys.
The boys glanced hopefully at their parents.
"That's fine," Mrs. Smith said. Just make sure you have your
Rescue-Paks."
"Of course, Mom," X said.
"Sure thing," Y added.
"Never leave home without it," Z said.
And so they ran off, the boys loping over the hills and the girls pounding
after them, until they all flopped down beneath a brindlebrush tree that
stood in the middle of a broad meadow.
"Why do you have letters for names?" Eloise asked. "I
mean, if you don't mind saying."
"No problem," said Z.
"No skin off my teeth," Y added.
"Sure," said X. "Every talker child starts out with a
letter of the alphabet and then when you grow up, you get a real name. You
have to do something to earn a name, you don't just get one because you're
there. If you do something really great we say, 'That's worth a name.' I'm
almost old enough to get one."
"That's interesting," Eloise said.
"Let's play Hide and Get Lost," Gartrude suggested.
"Gar-," Eloise protested.
"Sounds good," said Z.
"Righteous," added Y.
. Gartrude leapt to her feet. "I'm it. Count to a hundred."
She ran off at top speed. She was at that age when she would do just about
anything to impress other kids, especially older kids, especially older
kids from another planet. She was determined to hide somewhere they would
never find her. When they gave up looking for her she would burst from her
hiding place and they would all want to know how she did it but she would
not say, not unless they begged.
She ran through a thicket of spoogplant, splashed across a wide stream
and clambered up the rocky bank on the other side. Soon she reached the
Quake Zone. Her parents, Albert and Berthe, had warned her many times not
to wander into the Quake Zone, but Gartrude was feeling daring, and besides
she would be very careful and only go in a little ways. Treading lightly,
she crossed the uneven ground until she found a perfect hiding spot behind
a big rock. She settled down to wait. As it turned out, she did not have
to wait long.
She heard a distant rumbling, like a train coming from far away. She
looked around but saw nothing unusual. The noise grew louder. She thought
it might be a space ship but the sky was clear. Suddenly the ground opened
beneath her feet and she fell straight down. She fell deeper and deeper
into the crevice, then suddenly stopped. She was wedged in around her tummy,
like a cork in a bottle. Like all wampetters she had a tough skin and plenty
of cushioning around the middle, so she was not hurt, but she was stuck.
She cried out but no one heard. Meanwhile the bright patch of sky at the
top of the hole gradually changed from pink to deep purple. She shivered
as the day cooled.
Gartrude was scared. She promised that she would never run off again,
that she would always obey her parents. She promised that she would eat
all her porridge for breakfast and never take a bath just before the family
was supposed to go out dirty for a special event. Oh, she would be so good,
everyone would see, if only she could get out of this hole. She just wanted
to see her sister and her parents and her house again. The wind howled.
Tears ran down her cheeks.
Meanwhile the Smith boys had lost interest in the game and gone home.
Only Eloise kept searching. She knew that even if Gartrude had found the
perfect hiding place, she would not be able to sit still for this long.
She would have come rushing out on some excuse long before-unless something
happened. Eloise worried that it was something bad.
Eloise told her mother, Berthe, and Berthe told Albert and they all searched
for Gartrude. Eloise was looking in the forest when she came across X reading
a book beneath a waytall tree.
"Are you still playing?" he asked.
"I'm afraid Gartrude's really lost," Eloise said.
"Doesn't she have a Rescue-Pak?" X asked.
"Well she should," said X. "It should be required on a
planet like this."
"I can find her if you want," X said.
"No problem. I'll use my Pak." X unstrapped from his waist
a small black object, about the size of a candy bar, which expanded into
a large cube. X spoke into one end: "Rescue mission, search mode, target
Gartrude, wampetter." He turned to Eloise. "Speak into this and
tell it what your sister's like-how she might be recognized."
"Well, she's a wampetter, orange and plump, five years old, with
bright green eyes, a big mouth and little ears. She's always getting into
trouble because she doesn't listen to anyone and just does what she wants
and I'm really afraid that maybe she went into the Quake Zone because that's
so dangerous and no one can go in there except if you do you can get hurt."
X pressed a series of buttons on the cube. It hummed in response and
then with a pffft sound, a small hatch opened at the top and a tiny insect-like
object flew out. It hovered above them a few seconds, and then flew off.
"That's the probe. We just watch here to see if it finds anything."
X pointed to a screen that appeared on one side of the cube.
Eloise called to her parents and they all huddled close to the screen,
their fingers and toes and eyes crossed, hoping against hope that Gartrude
might be found.
A buzzing sound began, followed by a whooping siren. A message appeared:
SUBJECT FOUND. The screen flashed a picture of Gartrude in her hole in the
Quake Zone.
"Oh my baby!" Berthe cried.
"My little G!" Albert screamed.
"What can we do?" Eloise shrieked.
"Nothing. It's all taken care of," X said.
Gartrude was afraid of the dark insect-like thing that buzzed around
her head. She thought it was going to bite her and so she tried to bite
it first. As a result, it took several minutes for the probe to complete
the rescue preliminaries. Soon Gartrude noticed that there were little strings
all over her clothes attached to a big white thing over her head that looked
just like a balloon. In fact it was a balloon. As the balloon filled, the
strings tugged her upwards. When she let out her breath in a great sigh,
Gartrude was lifted free. The balloon soared into the sky and Gartrude soared
with it, out of the hole and across the Quake Zone and straight back to
her home.
She looked down and there they were: her parents and sister and all the
Smiths, yelling and pointing.
She yelled back: "Look at me, I'm flying, I'm flying. And you couldn't
find me!" But then she remembered how scared she had been and decided
not to say anything more about the game. She landed gently in front of her
sister. There followed several minutes of hugs and cries and foot-stomping.
Gartrude promised never, ever to disobey her parents, and all the Tubs thanked
X for his help.
Finally Albert said it was time to go home. Gartrude nodded and leaned
her head against her father's tummy. "Thanks again for everything,"
Albert told the Smiths. "If there's anything we can do for you-"
"Well, we'd be delighted if you could come to dinner tomorrow,"
Mr. Smith said. "We have a great deal to discuss."
"We wouldn't miss it for anything," Albert said.
Eloise gave X a shy wave. He nodded and smiled back at her. As they walked
home she decided she liked him. She was already looking forward to dinner
at the Smith house.
California, Here we Come
It was an ordinary Wednesday night in the Tub household.
Gartrude and Eloise Tub lay curled up in their little round beds, making the little
snuffling noises that wampetters do when sleeping peacefully. Their mother, Berthe Tub
sang to herself in the bathroom while she flossed her toes and brushed her ears. She loved
to sing old show tunes. Tonight she sang that old favorite (of wampetters anyway):
"Aliens in My Cereal-And They Want to Eat Me." The dad of the family, Albert Tub
was under the covers in bed reading a mystery about the weather. He had just gotten to
the scary part in the story where it looked like it was going to rain on the summer parade.
This would be horrible because the hero of the story had just covered himself in mud to
lead the parade and impress his sweetheart and if it rained, the mud would wash off and
the parade would be ruined and they would never live happily ever after. Albert was
trying to get up the courage to turn the next page. The suspense was just too much.
Then suddenly, without any warning at all-the phone rang.
"Brrrrnnnggg. Bonk!" All phones on Planet Wampetter have a specially loud and
obnoxious ring. They're made that way to make someone answer. Wampetters love to
talk on the phone but hate to answer it when it rings. They always think it's for someone
else.
"The phone dear," Albert called out to his wife.
"I can hear it, sweetie," Berthe answered from the bathroom, her voice echoey
from the tiles.
"Brrrrnnnggg. Bonk!"
"It's ringing, honeybunch," Albert said.
"I can hear it, deariepie," Berthe replied.
"Brrrnnggg. Bonk!"
"It's probably for you," Albert called out.
"This late it's probably a wrong number," Berthe replied from the bathroom door.
"Which means it's for you."
Albert groaned. Ever since his wife had gone to Rule School he could never win
an argument with her. Albert picked up the phone. "Yes, this is Albert Tub, of 253 Outer
Civilization Drive." He listened. "You're kidding." He paused. "You must be joking." He
listened further. "I can't believe it. Really? For sure? Cross your tummy and never eat
again if you're wrong? Well whooppeee!" He listened more. "Okay, I'll write it all
down."
For the next five minutes, Albert scribbled notes. Because he was very excited he
did not pay a lot of attention to where he was writing. He started writing on a tiny scrap
of paper on the bedside table and then when he ran out of space continued on the wall all
the way across the room and into the closet.
"Okay, I've got it," Albert said. "See you soon." He hung up the phone and
jumped back in bed. By this time Berthe was there waiting for him.
"Wrong number?" Berthe asked. She knew that Albert loved to play jokes and it
would be just like him to pretend to get excited, when it was really a really a wrong
number all along.
"Nope," he replied.
"Well?" she asked.
"Well what?" he asked. He sang to himself. "La de da di dah." He was trying to
act casual, as if the phone call was nothing special. But he didn't fool Berthe.
"Albert. Who was it on the phone?"
"You really want to know?"
"Yes!" Berthe hated when other people in the family knew things that she didn't.
She hated, hated, hated it.
"Okay." Albert waited two breaths. "I won the contest."
"Which contest?" Berthe asked.
"You know, the contest."
"No, I don't. Is it the Great Paper Clip Essay Contest where you wrote five pages
about "What Paper Clips Mean to Me?"
"Nope," said Albert.
"How about the Happyflakes Contest where you and the girls dug old cereal
boxes out of all the garbage cans in the neighborhood to get enough box tops to send in?"
"Nope," Albert said grinning. "I won the Lemonfresh Scent of Mountain Air in
the Morning in Springtime Amid Pine Trees sweepstakes, outer sector, intelligent life
division. Remember, I sent in my smelly socks? They said mine were really smelly."
"You wore them for a month, straight," she said.
"They were impressed because they were stiff and slimy at the same time. That's
not easy. That requires real-"
"Albert. I don't want to hear about your smelly socks. I don't even want to think
about them. I want to go to bed."
"Okay." Albert reached up and turned off the light.
They then began their nightly tug-of-war over the covers. Neither could get to
sleep unless each had tried to steal a little extra covers from the other. It was silly, but
they enjoyed it.
"Albert?"
"Yes dear."
"What did you win?"
"It's something for all of us," Albert said.
Berthe sat up straight. "Did we win the all-expenses-paid two year vacation and
guided tour of all the inhabited planets and shopping malls in the galaxy with a lifetime
supply of feel-good, look-great toenail products from the galaxy's leading supplier of
reasonably-priced grooming aids?"
"Unfortunately, no. We didn't win first prize."
"Don't tell me, no, don't tell me that we won last prize," Berthe moaned. "Two
years of selling beauty aids door-to-door every weekend."
"Oh, no. We won second prize. A lifetime supply of Fresh Morning foot-scent."
"Great." She stuffed her whole pillow in her mouth she was so disappointed. Like
most wampetters she had a big mouth-it was also a small pillow.
"AND," Albert continued, "a two week, all expenses paid trip to California, home
of galactic entertainment, strange trends and bright sunshine. And we get to use a brand
new intergalactic vessel to get there-and to come back!"
"Mmuaagghhh." Berthe could not speak very well with a pillow in her mouth.
Finally she got it out. "You're kidding," she said.
"No."
"You're joking."
"I am not. Just imagine-the Tub family in the land of cowboys and Indians and
buxom bikini blondes."
"Can I be a buxom bikini blonde?" Berthe asked, playing with her spiky hair and
pushing out her big tummy.
"Absolutely," Albert said. "Me too."
"When are we going?" Berthe asked.
"You won't believe it."
"When?"
"In an hour."
"I don't believe it."
"See, I told you. Proves I'm always right," Albert said.
"No it doesn't."
"Yes it does.
"
"Does."
"Doesn't."
"Does."
"Doesn't."
This went on for several minutes until Berthe stopped and looked at Albert.
"What are we arguing about?" she asked.
"I forgot," Albert said. "I'm just waiting for the part where we say we're sorry.
And rub noses. I really like that part." He leaned over to rub noses with her.
"Albert! Don't distract me. What do you mean we have to leave in an hour?"
"Well, they say they've been trying to call all week but no one answered. The
space jump reservation is for tonight. It's now or never." He looked at her hopefully.
"What do you say?"
"I say let's go," replied Berthe.
Albert jumped out of bed to wake Eloise and Gartrude. Berthe ran to the kitchen
to pack a snack. Soon the whole family was running around the house, frantically yelling
at each other about what to bring.
"Don't forget underwear, girls," said Albert. "And Gartrude, no more than four
pairs of shoes."
"Aw, Dad!"
"And the pairs have to match."
"Then I'm not going," Gartrude declared, and sat down in the middle of the living
room floor. She only stayed there a few seconds though, because no one paid any
attention; then she went back to packing. She had important decisions to make, like
which of her twelve pairs of shoes to bring.
Eloise filled her suitcase with the best rocks in her rock collection. She was afraid
there might not be rocks in California and then what would she do? This only left room
for three pairs of underwear, a dress and a toothbrush but since this was all she really
needed, it worked out great. She wondered what other creatures did to fill their luggage if
they didn't bring rocks.
Albert packed twenty big books. He had heard that Californians were not big on
reading. He also brought all six of his cameras. Most of them had something wrong with
them, so he took them all, just in case.
Berthe soon realized that she did not have time to make a real snack, so she just
took everything out of the refrigerator and stuffed it in two big suitcases. Better to arrive
late than hungry, as the old saying goes. She tucked her Universal Rule Book into her big
travelling purse. She never went anywhere without it.
Miraculously they were ready and waiting when they heard the magical
swooshing sound of an intergalactic traveller in the last stages of its descent. They
opened the front door and there it was, gleaming and steaming in the cool night, a bright
white traveller with brilliant green and red stripes and enough fins and appendages to
satisfy the most gadget-happy technophile. A stocky wampetter burst out of the bottom
door and tossed the keys to Albert.
"Congrats, folks. Buster for Lemonfresh here. You guys better be going. They'll
meet you at the spaceport in LA. Be back in two weeks. And don't worry about the gas,
that's on us. See ya." And with that, Buster ran off down the street. Apparently he was in
a hurry too.
The Tubs clambered aboard and looked around. It was the nicest ship they had
ever been on. Soon they were jumping up and down with excitement. Then they fought
about seats. The ship had ten seats and every one of them was comfortable and had its
own view screen and controls. Still, some seemed better than others. In fact, the best seats
always seemed to be the one that someone else had taken. They finally tried the Blind
Choice Method, invented several centuries earlier by the wampetter sage Horfus the
Plump. According to Horfus, the problem is that everyone wants to sit where others
already are. The solution is for everyone to close their eyes and then choose their seats. It
doesn't always work, but this time it did. They ended up in exactly the same seats they
chose when they first came in. Finally they were ready to get to work.
The Tubs were experienced space voyagers and quickly checked out the ship's
systems.
"Propulsion system's go," announced Eloise.
"Navigation is a go," added Gartrude.
"Intelligence systems on-line and fully functioning," said Berthe
.
"Communications are go-and so are we," said Albert. "Departure in one
minute."
"California or bust!" Eloise yelled as the engines began to whup and whoosh.
"That's what the humans say."
"You sure it wasn't, get out of my way buddy, or something like that?" Gartrude
said.
"Yes, I'm sure," Eloise said in her most sarcastic voice-and she had a lot of
sarcastic voices.
"We're off!" yelled Albert.
The ship shuddered twice, like a galumpf shaking off a heavy rider, then shot
rapidly into the air. The Tubs were pressed back hard into their seats, becoming what
Eloise used to call "wampcakes." The ship shook, then grew calm and shook again as
they continued to gain speed and altitude. Then came the wondrous easing of pressure as
they soared above the last layer of atmosphere. They were in orbit.
"I can't believe we got off on time," Berthe said.
"First time in the history of the family," Albert said. "I just hope we didn't
forget-oh, no." He slapped his face in dismay. "I forgot my war club. And we may need
it. It's supposed to be quite wild in California."
"Don't worry, dear," Berthe said, reassuring him with a touch on the shoulder. "I
understand they all use guns. You'd look quite out of place with a big club."
"Oh," said Albert.
"And Dad, you can buy a gun practically anywhere and they're not very
expensive," Eloise said. "They have all these specials on Saturday night. We read about it
in school. It's because Californians have the constitutional right to bear arms."
"That's because they live at the beach," Gartrude said. "They keep their arms bare
because it's so sunny."
"That is totally not what we're talking about," Eloise said. "We're talking about
firearms. You know, guns?"
"You mean everybody has guns? So when they get mad they can just shoot you?
That's too scary. I don't want to go any more," Gartrude said.
"No, it's not like that," Berthe said. "They have gun control. You can't use your
gun unless you really think you have to."
"Oh," said Gartrude.
"Ahhh! I forgot my hair ribbons!" Eloise wailed.
"We'll buy you some more when we get there," Berthe said.
The ship's cabin was quiet for a moment. It was almost as if everyone knew what
was coming.
"I forgot my hummy," Gartrude said.
Berthe looked at Albert. Albert looked at Berthe. Gartrude had a special fuzzy
blanket called hummy because when she was little she used to put it next to her cheek
and hum. She had had the blanket since she was a baby and needed it to fall asleep. Once
she had cried for three hours without stopping when it was lost.
What were they going to do? If they went back for her hummy they would miss
their space-jump reservation and the whole trip might be cancelled. Space-jump
reservations were very hard to get.
"I'll let you use Ratty if you want," Eloise said. Ratty was a small plastic rat with
sharp teeth that Eloise always slept with. She handed Gartrude the animal.
"That's so nice," Berthe said. "Ratty will keep you company."
"It is a nice-rat," Gartrude said, pressing its shiny black body to her cheek. "But I
want my hummy. I know right where it is and then we can take off and go incredibly fast
and make up for lost time and-."
"No," said Albert. "There's no time."
"But it's not fair!" Gartrude screamed.
"You know it's your responsibility to pack for yourself now that you're a big
girl," Berthe said. "You're always telling us what a big girl you are."
"Then I want to drive," Gartrude said.
"What does that have to do with forgetting your hummy?" Eloise wanted to know.
"Driving helps me forget. Otherwise I'd have to think about it all the time."
Albert sighed. "We've told you before. Even if you did pass the Intergalactic
Space Navigator's test, seven years old is just too young to fly a ship between galactic
sectors."
"If I can't drive, I'm going to scream all the way there and all the way back and
all the time in between. Waaaaaaah. Waaaaaah."
Albert looked at Berthe. Berthe looked at Albert.
"If we don't have cooperation from every member of this family, we are not
going to California," Berthe said in her sternest warning voice. And she had a lot of
warning voices. "Albert, I think we should turn back."
"We'll be good, Mom," Eloise said. She looked at her younger sister.
"I'll be really good. I'll be so good you'll get so bored that you'll ask me to do
something bad," Gartrude said.
"You'll behave even without your hummy?" Berthe asked.
"Yes," said Gartrude.
"What if you don't get what you want when we get there? What if you don't like
the food?" Berthe asked.
"Maybe I'll scream-a little," Gartrude said. "Just a little. Just so you know I'm
upset. You say we should always tell you when we're having problems."
Berthe shook her head. "Turn the ship around, Albert."
"No!" shouted the girls. "We'll be good, really," Gartrude said. "And I don't care
about hummy. I don't need it, really."
"That's good," Albert said.
"Okay," said Berthe.
There was a long moment of calm in the ship.
"But I still want to drive," Gartrude added.
The other Tubs groaned.
"You can drive part of the way. But not in traffic," Albert said.
"That is so totally not fair at all," Eloise protested. "I'm three years older and
much more mature and I don't get to drive. Just because I didn't take any stupid
courses-"
"Look girls, suncrest," Albert said.
As the ship emerged from the night side of Planet Wampetter, the sun appeared as
a crescent of crimson behind the planet. Between the black of space and the dark of the
night-time planet the sun spread a widening band of bright yellowish-red light.
Like most wampetters, the Tubs loved space travel because they loved moments
like this, when the wonders of the universe seemed to be revealed for them alone.
Whenever they could manage it-which wasn't that often, unfortunately, because they
were busy and space travel was expensive-they would take off into space, sometimes
without any special destination, just to soak in the awesome experience.
"It's like nothing out here cares about you, but it doesn't matter," Eloise said
finally.
"What do you mean?" asked Berthe.
"Well, space is a vacuum and really cold, so if we didn't have a ship we'd be dead
in seconds."
"In milliseconds," Gartrude said. "You explode from the inside."
"You do not," said Eloise.
"You do too. I saw it on the bigscreen."
"Then I guess it must be true."
"How would you know, stuu-"
"Girls!" warned Berthe. "Tell us what you meant, Eloise."
"Well, it's like I don't usually like going places where folks don't like me because
it feels yucky, but space, even though it'll kill you if you're not really careful, that
doesn't mean it hates you, you know? You just have to be careful. It's like climbing up
something really high like a mountain or something and making sure you don't fall off.
You can see totally amazing things; you just have to be careful."
"I like the way the asteroids glitter like big jewelry when the stars are right,"
Gartrude said.
"I like the movement of celestial bodies," Berthe said. "All the stars and moons
and planets and asteroids and comets and gases, following their own separate paths at
their own speeds like a intricate dance."
"You know what I like?" Albert asked. He paused to make sure he had their
attention. "I like-getting there."
"Oh, Dad!" the girls yelled together. Albert always gave them a hard time about
being sappy, but he was the one who always wanted to take space trips. He was the one
who looked out the view screen for hours. He was the one who watched space movies on
the bigscreen, no matter how dumb. The week before he had watched a whole movie
about alien monsters with heads that looked like cereal boxes that lived on pet food and
rocks-and he cried when they were killed even though they were the bad guys.
"I hope they'll like us in California," Gartrude said.
"What's not to like?" Berthe asked.
"Maybe they'll hate us because of what happened with the Development
Commission," Eloise said.
Ever since the human effort to turn Planet Wampetter into one giant tourist
attraction failed, relations between wampetters and humans had been strained. Then a
week earlier, the wampetter ambassador to France had been sent home because he had
been rude at a diplomatic dinner. They said it was because he slurped his soup, but
actually it was because he was slurping other diplomats' soup. Without permission. The
ambassador explained that he was hungry and everyone else was taking such little sips
with a spoon he thought they didn't like it. Anyway, it was an intergalactic incident,
whatever that is.
"It'll be fine," Berthe said. "We just have to be on our best behavior."
"Tell that to little miss know-it-all," Eloise said, glaring at her sister.
"You're the one that thinks you're Queen of the Universe," Gartrude snapped
back. "Except you're not!"
Berthe and Albert sighed. In the last few months the girls had bickered constantly.
They fought in the morning, in the afternoon and at night. When they did not fight with
each other, they fought with their parents. What had happened to their cheerful little
family? Albert and Berthe looked at each other. They knew that if the fighting didn't stop
it would be a very, very long trip.
"Bwaah! Bwaah! Bwaah!" The ship alarm sounded and warning lights flashed on
and off. The computer screen said: "Status Purple, Status Purple, Incoming Super High
Priority, Incredibly Important Message! Stand By to Receive."
Suddenly an image formed on the screen.
"Look, Dad-it's the Lord High Most Exalted Shouter," Eloise yelled. "And he's
calling from the Hall of Jokes." The Lord High Shouter was the most powerful elected
official on Planet Wampetter, which was saying something, but not that much.
Wampetters don't believe in letting any one creature have that much power. The Hall of
Jokes is where wampetter politicians meet to argue and decide things, but mostly to
argue. Some say it's called the Hall of Jokes because of the jokes the politicians love to
tell; others say it's the politicians that are the jokes. It is also the place where the sacred
Book of Jokes is usually kept.
A wampetter with white hair appeared on the screen. "Am I in contact with the
ship Crusader and the Tub family, comprised of Berthe, Albert, Gartrude and Eloise?"
"Yes, that's us," Albert responded.
"Please execute your security code sequence now."
"Uh, I'm sorry, but, uh, we don't have a whatchyoumacallit. We had to leave in
kind of a hurry," Albert said.
"Okay. Then-just don't let anybody else hear you," the Lord Shouter said.
"Okay," Albert whispered.
"What? You'll have to speak up," the Lord Shouter said. "They're making a big
racket here. Debating about what we should have for lunch."
In the background the Tubs could hear the two sides yelling at each other: "Egg
salad!" called out one group. "Yucko. We want Tunafoo!" yelled the other.
"But you said to be quiet," Albert replied.
"Yeah, but I gotta hear you," the Shouter shouted. To be Shouter, he had to be
able to shout very loudly. "Ah, forget about it. Nobody's listening anyway. They never
do. You're going to Planet Earth and the State of California, right?"
"That's right," Albert said.
"Then I have a mission for you. Maybe a little dangerous-but really important.
Okay?"
"Don't we get to know what it is?" Eloise demanded.
"I can't tell you unless you agree," the Lord Shouter replied.
"That's not fair," Eloise complained.
"It's not fair? You want to talk about fair? Do you think it's fair that after fifteen
years in this job, I'm the most important guy on the whole planet, and I don't have my
own parking spot? Well?" the Lord Shouter demanded.
The Tubs looked at each other in astonishment. They didn't know what to say.
"So you guys on board for this mission thing?" the Shouter asked.
"Well, as long as it's in the best interests of our planet and the harmony of life
throughout the galaxy," Albert said.
"Oh yeah, yeah, it's all that," the Lord Shouter said.
"Okay," said Albert.
"We need you to recover the Book of Jokes. It's been stolen," the Lord Shouter
said.
"No! Not the Book of Jokes," said Albert, sounding quite horrified.
The Book of Jokes is the wampetters' most treasured book, containing all the best
jokes of the travelling harries, the saints of ages past. The harries were wampetters who
wandered the countryside, bringing news, stories-and jokes. They told jokes in
exchange for food and a place to sleep. Many hundreds of years ago, before their way of
life ended and the last of the harries died, their jokes were written down in the Book of
Jokes. In the whole galaxy there was only one Book of Jokes. It was kept in special place
in the Hall of Jokes, except for once a year when it was taken to the Court of the Old
Fogeys for the opening of the court.
"That's right," the Lord Shouter replied. "We believe that in the last days of the
Development Commission one of the guards here sold the book to a human tourist. Last
week we picked up a bigscreen broadcast from Los Angeles where the star guy used two
jokes straight out of the Book. In a commercial show."
"No!" yelled Berthe and Albert. It was a terrible thing to tell a joke from the Book
of Jokes for personal profit. The jokes in the book were sacred, meant for those special
times when the balm of laughter was most needed.
"You gotta find the book and get it back," the Lord Shouter said. "And do it by
next week so we'll have it for the Court opening thing. Big problems if we don't have it
then. Big problems. Okay. Over and over. No, that's not it." The Lord High Shouter
looked puzzled. "In and out. No, that's not right. Oh, yes-over and out."
And the screen went blank.
"What ceremony?" Gartrude asked.
"The opening of the book," Berthe said. "It marks the beginning of the year for
the Court of Old Fogeys. They're the most important judges on the planet," Berthe
explained. "The book symbolizes the respect everyone has for the judges. They have the
book because they're trusted to be wise and righteous. If the book's not there, many
wampetters will think the judges can't be trusted. And that would be awful because they
have to decide really important cases."
"Like what? Like whether my sister's stupid?" Gartrude asked.
"Shut up! You're the one who's a stupidhead," Eloise yelled back.
"Girls!" yelled Albert. "We'll turn around right now if you don't act civilized."
The girls settled down.
"If the book's not at the Court when it opens, the Court of Old Fogeys can't
decide the boundary dispute between Foom and Illiaksand," Berthe said. "You know
about that, don't you girls?"
"Yes," said Eloise wearily. For more than fifty years the two main cities on the
planet had been arguing about where one city stopped and the other started. The cities
were right next to each other and each thought the other one should move away. But
neither wanted to move.
"And if the Court doesn't decide it, there will be war," Albert said.
"Like the Forever War?" Gartrude asked.
"Could be," said Albert. The Forever War was a terrible conflict extending over
centuries between three tribes of wampetters fighting over a tree house in a large
baowinappa tree. "Everyone's so mad about so many things it won't take much to start
trouble. And once it gets started-" He just shook his head.
"So what do you think, girls? Can we stop fighting long enough to do something
important?" Berthe asked.
"But we don't even know where the book is," Eloise said.
"And whoever took it won't want to give it back," Gartrude said.
"Well, it may be hard. Even dangerous," Berthe said.
"But that's what makes it fun!" said Albert. "When was the last time we had a
good adventure?"
Eloise nodded in agreement. They all looked at Gartrude.
"Okay," said Gartrude. "But I still want to drive."
CHAPTER ONE