Planet of the Girls

Chapter 3. The Strange Vehicle

"Good," said the man. "Keep it held down in that position or it will spring back up. You see, the Navigation Stabiliser Lever malfunctioned when I accidentally attempted to park on a spider that happened to be walking along minding its own business on an empty Dentist's car park floor. And my vehicle cannot park on a living creature, so it quickly veered and lurched to an adjacent car parking space in the car park that was absent of spiders or any other living creatures. Now the lever will not stay down as it should, and it must stay down for the vehicle to work. I cannot reach the lever while administering vehicle navigation control; that is why I needed your help, little friends. Now all I need to do is press a few buttons and rotate a few dials, and the vehicle will start working."

"The vehicle manoeuvred itself to avoid a spider...what sort of vehicle can do that?" I grunted, clinging on to the lever like a limpet.

"This one can," answered the man simply. He then turned his attention to fiddling about at a...er...control panel, for want of a better word. It seemed to appear from nowhere and bits of it seemed to be hanging in mid-air. I thought perhaps these bits were held in space by magnetism. But I was wrong, as I would eventually find out.

Then, quite unexpectedly, the whole vehicle shook as if it had sneezed!

Gerald and I fell on the swirling mist-covered floor, losing grip of the lever. We watched in horror as the lever shot back up in the air. It snapped off whatever it was connected to, and plunged down beneath the blue mist smashing into the floor with a jarring clang.

"Noooo!" screamed the man with wild eyes, which I noticed for the first time were like a cat's.

Gerald and I shot back up off the floor because we didn't much like sitting in a strange swirling blue mist.

The man was raging with anger.

"The Navigation Stabiliser Lever has broken beyond repair!" he roared.

Then suddenly he threw off his lime coloured overcoat and balaclava to reveal more of his true form-and boy, was it weird, even though it kind of made sense. To go with his six huge German sausage sized fingers on each hand, triple nostrils, cat's eyes, and pointed shark-like teeth he had a gaunt face, ears like Brussels sprouts, and was as bald as a pink snooker ball. And now his face was finally in full view, you could see it looked like the facial sculpture of a Greek god-the sort attempted by a talentless old age pensioner with severe learning difficulties at a local primary school's evening pottery class. He was dressed in what can best be described as a bright yellow three-piece suit that seemed as if it had invisible buttons. Wherever this guy came from, it seemed the illusion of invisible buttons was obviously at the height of fashion.

Despite the sight of the stranger-okay, let's face it, alien-being kind of interesting, it nevertheless came across as terrifying. Just try imagining yourself in such a predicament.

While I was trying my best not to puke up, Gerald took to kneeling and praying-and blowing a huge bubble with his chewing gum. The alien took no pity on us, of course. He hopped about insanely and angrily, looking like a giant banana on an invisible pogo-stick (amazing the way he seemed to use invisibility-even when he wasn't!). I thought for a minute he might well be about to explode. He hopped on one leg, then on the other. He was literally hopping mad!

After a few moments, the alien stopped his raving about and marched right up close to us. Well, the last time I remember praying was when I didn't want Mum to find out I had chased Blackie (our ex-cat) out of the garden...and into the path of a steamroller. I'd never seen a steamroller before-neither had Blackie...and she never saw one again because in an argument between a cat and a steamroller there can only be one winner-and it sure isn't a cat. I remember scouring cat homes for similar looking cats to fool Mum into thinking Blackie had never died. I found a suitable cat eventually, the only problem being it was the wrong colour. Still, I brought it home, and I bought some jet-black hair dye and made it look exactly like Blackie. When the dye faded and the cat's fur returned to its natural ginger, Mum just assumed it was a natural feline phenomenon. Nowadays everyone wonders why our ginger moggy is called Blackie; well let them wonder; at least we know why; I guess I let the cat out of the bag-which is fine, as long as it doesn't run off under a steamroller! Anyway, with this alien standing in front of me it was time to pray again!

So there we were, the Linden brothers, kneeling side by side, praying (and in Gerald's case blowing the odd bubble).

The alien bent his head down so close to us that we could smell his breath; and that's when I realised where the peppermint smell was coming from. His cat-like eyes blazed with anger and his razor-finished pointed teeth glinted on their tips as he thundered, "You do not understand, do you, you malfunctioned idiots? WE COULD BE ANYWHERE!"

I was just approaching my second "Hail Mary" when the alien suddenly scooped up the Navigation Stabiliser Lever from the blue mist and raised it above his head...

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I hope you enjoyed this Chapter. I welcome any votes, comments or constructive criticisms (style, spelling, grammar and punctuation errors).

T. J. P. CAMPBELL.