A Beginner's Guide to Ruling the Galaxy E-Book

David Solomons

• Herausgeber: Nosy Crow
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: Beginner's Guide to Ruling the Galaxy
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 307

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

A brilliantly funny story of what happens when a galactic princess moves in next door and almost brings about the end of the world. Exciting new fiction from the bestselling, award-winning author of My Brother is a Superhero. Gavin's got a new neighbour and she's really annoying. Niki follows him everywhere, bosses him about, and doesn't care that her parents will obliterate Earth with their galactic warships if she doesn't stop running away from them. Can Niki and Gavin sort out the alien despots (aka Mum and Dad) and save the planet? Possibly. Will they become friends along the way? Doubtful... 'David Solomons represents the best in contemporary comic writing for children' -- Guardian A hilarious new story from the author of My Brother Is a Superhero, winner of the Waterstones Children's Book Prize and the British Book Industry Awards Children's Book of the Year. Perfect for fans of David Baddiel and David Walliams. Read the My Brother is a Superhero series: - My Brother Is a Superhero - My Gym Teacher is an Alien Overlord - My Evil Twin is a Supervillain - My Arch-Enemy is a Brain in a Jar - My Cousin is a Time-Traveller

Leseprobe

OUT OF THIS WORLD REVIEWS FOR

MY BROTHER IS A SUPERHERO

“I even think my dad would like reading this book!”David, The Book Squad, The Beano

“Cosmic! Amazing! Outstanding! Probably the funniest book I have read for a long time.”Alison A. Maxwell-Cox, The School Librarian

“I was so addicted to it that my mum had to make me put it down.”Calum, aged 11

“Funny, fast moving and deftly plotted, it’s the best thing to hit the superhero world since sliced kryptonite.”Damian Kelleher, Dad Info

“You know a book is going to be good when you’re giggling after five minutes… Ideal for comic readers and superhero experts.”Nicola Lee, The Independent

“An excellent adventure story with real heart that’s also properly funny.”Andrea Reece, Lovereading4Kids

“You’ll laugh until you fall out of your tree house!”Steve Coogan

“A brilliantly funny adventure with twists, turns, crazy characters and a really hilarious ending. Fantastic!”Sam, aged 11

“Brilliantly funny.”The Bookseller

vi

Chapter 1

“I claim this adequately rated secondary school in the name of the Galactic League!”

Puzzled to hear such an odd declaration, Gavin looked up to see a tall girl with long black hair standing on the top step outside the main entrance of Middling High, hands on her hips, chin jutting out, addressing the milling playground like some junior dictator. The morning sun gleamed off the buttons on her uniform blazer, her dark eyes shone and her hair streamed in the breeze. A discarded crisp packet blew by, briefly catching on her foot. Gavin didn’t recognise her and, despite the impressive display, no one was paying her the slightest attention. No one except for him. The girl turned on one heel and marched over.

It was just before the bell went for the start of classes and he was sitting on the far side of the steps reading a book, on his own as usual. The girl seemed to have some difficulty focusing on him at first, but eventually her gaze landed and suddenly he felt like a specimen under a microscope.

“Your skin,” she remarked. “It’s so … pale.” She rolled up one sleeve and stuck her arm next to his. The contrast between her sandy complexion and his pasty skin was striking. “Remarkable. You’re almost translucent. Not a friend to the ultraviolet end of the spectrum, I’m guessing. Good job this planet only has one sun.”

Assuming that this was her awkward attempt at saying hello, Gavin ignored the general weirdness of the comment. He hadn’t seen her at school before and since he had plenty of experience of being the new kid, he decided to give her a break.

He lowered his book. “So, do you always go around claiming schools for – what was it again?”

“The Galactic League,” she repeated in a tone of voice that suggested she was disgusted he hadn’t heard of it.

Her accent marked her out as not from around here, so he figured it must be some foreign football league. Still, an odd comment to make, even for an ardent fan. “I’m Gavin, by the way.”

“Gavin?” she said, intoning his name like she’d just discovered a new species of frog. “The Gavin?”

He was the only one in Year 8. There was another in Year 12, but everyone called him Shed, because once he’d got locked in his dad’s garden shed over a bank holiday weekend and had to survive on birdseed and spring water from a four-pack of canned tuna. He hadn’t eaten the tuna because he couldn’t find any mayo. So, yes, Gavin supposed that made him the Gavin, whatever that meant.

The girl put a hand over her right eye and squinted at him with her left, her eyeball circling wildly. “So it’s true. It’s like you’re barely here.”

“Fine,” he said, losing interest and burying his head in his book. His plan was to ignore her until she went away. But then he noticed a boy tearing across the playground with a stiff, upright running style, arms pumping, knees somewhere around his ears. The boy carved a path through clumps of kids, heading towards the main entrance.

“There you are,” he said to the girl, trotting up the steps. He was slightly shorter than she was, an athletic body topped by a disproportionately big head. “You wandered off,” he continued. “Sam – I mean, Dad – told you not to leave my side, at least for our first day.”

So they’re brother and sister, thought Gavin. Maybe twins.

She glowered and he shrank from her. “No one orders me about. Especially not some hairy warrior.”

“Some what?” said Gavin.

The boy let out a startled cry, evidently just noticing him sitting there. He sent Gavin a nervous glance and began to honk like a goose. “Worrier. Dad’s such a worrier.” The boy paused for a moment. “And he is hairy.” He raised a hand in greeting. “I’m Bart,” he mumbled, and then added, “I come in peace.”

Oh no, not another one. “Good for you,” said Gavin. “I came on my bike.”

The boy frowned. “That is an example of comedic wordplay, correct?”

Gavin was coming to the surprising conclusion that the boy might be even weirder than his sister. “Sure. You a big fan of comedic wordplay, Bart?”

The boy and girl exchanged a puzzled glance. “Yee-s,” he said slowly, “I am Bart. That is correct. Because ‘Bart’ is a statistically commonplace designation.”

“Nice to meet you,” he said, even more keen to get back to his book and far away from these two. “I’m Gavin.”

“Gavin?” The boy’s eyes widened. “Is he the one?”

The girl ignored him. “What’s that?” she asked, referring to Gavin’s Spork of the Dead-themed lunchbox.

Unsure if she hadn’t recognised the greatest video game in the world, or a basic packed lunch box, he didn’t answer at first. She took it as an invitation to investigate further.

“Hey!” he objected as she removed his sandwiches and took a large bite.

“Oh, mmm,” she gushed. “It’s so utterly, incredibly … bland. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything so wholly unremarkable in my whole life. What is it?”

“Uh … cheese and ham,” said Gavin, looking around the playground for the telltale smirks on the faces of his schoolmates that would signal this was a prank.

“Uh-Cheesinam,” she repeated in wonder, staring at the sandwich as if it was the Crown Jewels, before tearing off another chunk.

Gavin found his tongue. “That’s my lunch you’re eating.”

She waved away his concern. “I’ll have one of the servants prepare you a fresh Uh-Cheesinam. Or perhaps you’d prefer something more interesting – how about a slice of Tilorthian Phlan? Your taste buds will think you’ve died and gone to Alpha Centauri.”

Bart began to honk again, as if his sister had cracked the funniest joke. “Isn’t she a hoot? Phlan? Servants? Earth’s closest planetary system? I ask you, as if a perfectly normal human schoolgirl would have staff and an intergalactic packed lunch.”

“So.” She gave a long sigh and flicked her hair. “What is there to do here?”

“At school?”

“No. In this habitat.”

Strange word to use. “You mean Middling?”

“If that’s how its inhabitants refer to their environment.”

If she was hoping for bright lights and a world-class aquarium, she’d come to the wrong habitat. Gavin had lived in Middling since he was nine years old, which made a running total of three years, four months, two weeks, and five days. He’d had a lot of different homes over the years, so he liked to keep count. He muttered something about it being a nice spot to live, if a little quiet.

“Apple,” she said.

“No, it’s grapes today.” He pulled out a bunch of seedless South Africans from his lunchbox.

“I refer to my personal designation,” she said. Gavin gave her a blank look and she curled her lip in frustration before clicking her fingers. “Name!” She said it like she’d produced a rabbit from a hat. “My name is Apple.” She paused. “Niki Apple.”

“Cheesely,” he said. “Gavin Cheesely.”

“You have my condolences,” said Niki.

The bell went for the start of school. The kids in the playground lumbered zombie-like up the steps and in through the main entrance. When the crowd thinned, Niki and Bart had gone. For a moment, Gavin wondered if he’d imagined the two of them, but then they strolled back through the open doors on to the steps. Even his imagination wasn’t strange enough to conjure up these two.

“What are you waiting for?” said Niki. “As I understand from my briefing, the repetitive sound of the directly struck idiophone percussion instrument—”

“She means the bell,” Bart added hurriedly.

Niki pursed her lips, swatting him away like a persistent fly. “The bell signifies the commencement of training. Oh, I do hope the first class is hand-to-hand combat. I have sharpened my nails especially.”

She disappeared inside with an eager bounce and what Gavin judged to be a frankly disturbing look in her eye.

Bart paused. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “That she’s cruel and uncaring and only interested in herself.”

Gavin waited for the next half of the sentence, the bit where Bart went on to explain that really she’s not like that at all, and how once you got to know her she was kind and gentle and actually a great big softy.

It didn’t come.

“Bart, attend me this instant!” Niki’s piercing tone blasted out of the entrance like a high-explosive round.

Bart winced and, with one final apologetic look towards Gavin, trotted after her. “Coming, Your High—” He broke off. “I mean … coming, regular biological sister.”

Closing the book, Gavin stuffed it and the remains of his lunch into his bag and prepared to head to his first class. If he’d known then what he would later learn, what he should’ve done was drop everything, hightail it in the opposite direction, change his name to Jose Silva and immediately relocate to Brazil. But at that precise moment he had no idea that though Niki Apple had only just appeared in his life, she was about to make quite an impact.

Like that asteroid did on the dinosaurs.

Chapter 2

Deciding that Niki was a fruitcake with extra crazy currants, Gavin made every effort to steer clear of her after that. However, she had different ideas. Even when he thought he’d given her the slip, he would turn a corner or open a classroom door and there she’d be, popping up like an incredibly insulting jack-in-the-box, Bart trailing her every step. He didn’t know why she was so keen to accompany him both in and out of school, and whenever he asked, she invariably changed the subject. In one incident a few months after their first meeting, he’d accused her of spying on him with a pair of binoculars, which she vehemently denied, claiming instead to be an innocent bird-spotter. An explanation that would’ve been more believable had they not at the time been standing in the queue for McDonald’s.

Gavin considered that the attention from Niki wouldn’t have been so bad if she’d been in any way, shape or form … pleasant. But that was not the case. Reserve my table at luncheon, reserve my place in art class, reserve my seat on the bus – there was an awful lot of reserving.

“Entitled, that’s the word,” he confided to Bart in a quiet moment between slights. They were in biology with Mr Chetty. At least here he had some respite from her, sitting on the opposite side of the room. Not that Bart was a great improvement over Niki. He was one of those people whose life consisted of exercise and salad (Gavin had never seen him with so much as a packet of Fruit Pastilles). Perpetually happy, he was an advert for a clean-living, healthy lifestyle. And, honestly, he was a bit annoying – though not half as much as his sister. “She’s so arrogant,” Gavin griped. “I mean, some people act like they’re better than everyone else, but usually they’re covering for the fact that they’re lacking in confidence. Niki’s not like that. You look into those eyes and you can tell that she utterly believes she’s top banana.”

Bart nodded sagely. “I hadn’t appreciated that the banana was so revered in your culture. Then again, who could resist its potassium-rich, curvy, squishy yellowness – am I right?”

Gavin regarded him with a mixture of confusion and sympathy. “I can’t imagine being her brother.”

“No,” agreed Bart. “Must be dreadful.” He caught Gavin’s expression, quickly cleared his throat and nodded again. “I mean, yes, dreadful. The entitlement. The arrogance. The bananas.”

Mr Chetty instructed the class to choose partners for the next experiment. Before Gavin knew what was happening, Niki had marched over, ejected Bart from his chair and claimed Gavin for her partner. She flopped down next to him and swept her gaze round the class.

“So which one is to be dissected?” she asked in a bored voice.

“Beg pardon?”

“We are studying anatomy, yes?” She cast an imperious look over her classmates. “Then which one of these specimens do we cut up?” Her eyes brightened with excitement. “Or do we get to choose? If so, I pick Audrey Woods. Although overweight, the pallor of her skin suggests healthy internal organs that would prove suitable for study. So is there an operating table in the stationery cupboard or do we slice her open here?”

“You know I can hear you, right?” said Audrey, who was sitting at the next desk.

“We don’t do live animal dissections in this country any more,” said Gavin. “Perhaps in your old school…?”

Niki nodded with understanding and in a matter-of-fact voice said, “What you need is a specimen that would welcome being dissected. Bart?”

“Right away!”

Bart sprang from his seat, charged to the front of the class and offered himself up for scientific study. It took a surprising amount of persuasion for Mr Chetty to convince him that under no circumstances was he about to slice open a student. The remainder of the hour passed without further incident, but Gavin found himself watching Niki with renewed bafflement. And yet for all her strangeness – or perhaps because of it – he was aware that the other kids in school were spellbound by her. Sometimes it felt to him like Niki was riding atop a glorious, rainbow-coloured carnival float, waving regally at a vast crowd, lit by her own personal ray of sunshine, while he was standing by the side of the road holding a stick of candyfloss, watching her go by. In the rain.

Gavin walked home from school alone. It was one of the few times he could count on not being harassed by Niki. While he liked nothing better than to leave at the end of the school day, she crammed her week with every possible after-school activity. Chess club, martial arts, debate team and pottery, to name but a few; she possessed a competitive spirit that compelled her to pit herself against everyone and anyone. Even her ceramic sheep were aggressive. He reached his house on Park Street and turned into the driveway. If eluding Niki in school was hard, doing so at home was even harder, since she lived in the house next door. As soon as the Apples had moved in a few months ago, their driveway became a procession of nosy neighbours bearing casseroles and questions. But to the frustration of the street, and with the exception of Niki’s relentless pursuit of Gavin, the Apples kept themselves largely to themselves.

Unlike his house, Niki’s had an upper floor and the top window with the star-patterned curtains was her bedroom. He knew that she wouldn’t be home yet – it was music practice today and she was first violin in the orchestra. Apart from a few odd facts like these, it struck him that he didn’t know much about her. He knew even less about her family. He had briefly met Mercedes, her mum, when she’d invited him over for what she called a “typical human lunch”. She served jam sandwiches, which turned out to be a slice of chicken squeezed between layers of strawberry jam. Her dad, Sam, was just as odd. One Saturday morning Gavin had been in his back garden, which bordered the Apples’, when through the fence that divided them he’d heard Niki’s mum and dad talking.

“Have you got any dark stuff?” Mercedes had asked.

Sam hadn’t answered at first, leaving a thoughtful pause during which Gavin stuck his eye to a small hole in the fence, to see the long-haired Sam looking past Mercedes with a thousand-yard stare.

“I’ve seen things,” Sam had muttered. “Terrible things. Attack ships on fi—”

“No,” Mercedes had interrupted him. “Dark stuff. I’m putting a wash on.”

As eccentric as the other Apples were, it was Niki who took the biscuit. Actually, she didn’t take it so much as terrify it out of its wrapper and crush it to dust in her triumphantly aloft fist. Gavin stuck his key in the door. He had a strong suspicion that she was hiding something. Other people would be desperate to know what, but not him. He preferred to keep his head down and get on with his life. Whatever Niki was keeping secret, he was certain of one thing.

It had nothing to do with him.

Chapter 3

Niki lay back on her bed with a deep sigh of satisfaction. Orchestra practice had gone particularly well this afternoon. Mr Warble the music teacher had remarked that he’d never seen a violin used like that. Well, it was Tanisha Day’s own fault – she shouldn’t have come in early on the second bar. She gazed up at the swaying shadows on her sloping ceiling. She’d commandeered this bedroom as soon as they moved in. It was the biggest in the house, although its size paled in comparison with the grand living spaces to which she was accustomed. She sighed. She missed her old life. Well, not all of it, but definitely the simple things – like a massive luxury suite with its own spa, private zoo and a convertible roof. Sam had objected to her taking the upper storey of the house, saying it was harder to defend from attack or infiltration. Such a bore. He would have preferred her to sleep in a more secure location. She tutted to herself. The background research she’d been supplied with before their arrival in Middling had included a sample of typical fiction, including one genre of story that seemed exclusively to involve young women – often women of rank with great hair – being locked up in towers by their elders. Sam would approve. Were it up to him, she would be bolted behind a two-metre-thick Teledium metal door in some subterranean prison. Without her hair straighteners.

There was a hesitant knock at the door.

“Go away,” she called out in irritation. Hadn’t she made it clear to the rest of the Apples that she was not to be disturbed? Having to spend so much time at Middling High School was wearing. School wasn’t taxing intellectually or physically, of course; she was far smarter and more able than anyone else there, including the teachers. No, it was the tedium of this existence that she needed to take time out of, and in particular the task she’d been set by Sam and Mercedes, which was a wearisome burden. Following that unremarkable neighbour boy everywhere felt like the biggest waste of her time. Be his shadow, Sam had insisted. She understood why he wanted her to stick to Gavin, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. Or him. She swung her legs off the bed and stood up, then reached in the gap between her mattress and bed frame and pulled out a sleek mobile phone. Its bright casing shimmered like it had been carved from a cloud using a sliver of ice.

There was a gasp from the door. She whirled round to see Bart standing there, his anxious gaze trained on the phone.

“Do Mum and Dad know you’ve got that?”

“They are not my mum and dad. And they’re never going to find out,” she said, adding darkly, “Are they?”

“No. Never,” he gulped. “Uh, so what are you using it for, exactly?”

“What on Earth?”

“I said, what are you using—”

“No.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s the title of my channel.” She turned the phone around so he could see the screen. On it was an image of a smiling Niki, just about recognisable beneath a ton of filters, above which was splashed the phrase “What on Earth?”

He squinted at the screen. “Why’s there a number six there?”

Niki snatched the phone away and sniffed. “That’s my followers.”

“Oh.”

“I’ve just started,” she said defensively. “Give it a month and a few irresistible posts and it’ll be—”

“Seven?”

“Thousands!” She threw him a murderous look. “Millions!” She strutted into the centre of the room. “If I’m stuck here, I might as well do something to entertain myself. Now, be silent.” She swept back her hair took a deep breath and …

… her head burst into flames.

Instead of running about in panic looking for a fire extinguisher like any normal person would do under the circumstances, she just fixed a smile across her face. The flames encircled her head like a burning crown.

“You’re not supposed to do that—” began Bart, immediately falling silent under her fiery glare.

“I will do exactly as I wish,” she said coldly, pointing the phone at her face and tapping the record icon. “Dread Princess Xyllara, Spawn of D’Rek the Destroyer, Firelord of Trilia Zed Zed 6, Inheritor of the Haunted Stars, First Hatchling of Pamnatakrocula the Pitiless, Sovereign of Shadows, heir apparent to the throne of the Dark Galaxy, coming to you again from planet Dirt. OK, so it’s … five-thirty in the evening of my ninety-second day in this desolate place. As bad as it is having to trail around after Gavin Cheesely like he possesses the secret of the ancients, it’s made so much worse by taking place here. Its inhabitants refer to it as—”

“NO!” shouted Bart. “You’re not supposed to say where we are!”

Niki’s flames shot higher and she sent him a dangerous look.

“Sorry,” he mumbled apologetically. “I just mean, it’s not safe. Sam and Mercedes say—”

“I don’t care what they say.” She gave a dismissive tut. “And, anyway, who’s going to find out? No one’s going to come across this place, not in a million years. If there’s a bright spot in the universe, then Middling is as far from it as a bold, independently minded Galactic League princess could possibly find herself.” She returned her attention to the video. “On today’s episode of ‘What on Earth?’ I want to talk about something that came up at orchestra practice today. And I don’t mean Tanisha Day’s bruise. No, I am referring to the four-beat musical combo known as Cubic Parsec, the most successful and sensational pop group on this planet, according to my classmates. I detect notable increases in heart rate and elevated skin temperature whenever the group is discussed, especially its lead singer, Hal Hill. The topic of conversation today was Cubic Parsec’s major new tour. Obviously, they’re not coming to Middling, and yet the excitement here is palpable. The unwarranted adulation for a glamorous figurehead I can totally understand.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s the songs I don’t get. ‘Talkin’ ‘Bout a Pollution Revolution’, ‘Polar Bear Blues’, ‘It’s the Climate, Mate’. They’re all about what people here refer to as ‘the environment’. By which they mean the air, earth, water and all the living things that surround them. Young people in particular are obsessed with ‘the environment’. And not in the way you’d expect – they want to protect it. I know. You’d think it was the only planet they had. The inhabitants of this place have no idea how to conduct themselves like a civilised culture. Haven’t they read Ruling the Galaxy – A Guide for the Aspiring Tyrant?” She snapped her fingers and pointed to her bookcase. Bart hurried over, retrieved a large hardback book prominently displayed there and handed it to her. She balanced it on one knee and flicked through the pages. “Yes, here it is. Chapter twenty-three explains the importance of the environment. You extract as much as your machines can pull from the soil, the air, the oceans, then move on to the next world and start all over again. That’s progress. That’s conquest. That’s how you build an empire!”

Niki ended the recording with an indifferent swipe at the phone and waved Bart away. “You are dismissed.”

Bowing low, he retreated to the door and hesitated, remembering why he had come in the first place.

“Why are you still here?” Niki demanded.

“Dad said I had to get you. It’s time to leave for the quiz.”

She yawned. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going.”

“But you have to!”

She could see him regret his choice of words as soon as they slipped from his tongue. No one told her she must do anything, especially not someone like Bart.

“Apologies,” he grovelled. “But people will ask questions if you don’t show, and you know what Mum and D— Sam and Mercedes say about unwanted questions.”

Let them ask their questions. She was fed up pretending. Fed up hiding her light. It was such a blisteringly beautiful light!

“It’s the final,” said Bart hopefully. “And it’s against Middling Academy.”

Middling Academy was Middling High’s arch-rival. Now, that was a concept she could get behind: an adversary to defeat. An enemy to crush.

“Fetch my outer layer,” she commanded, striding past him out of the bedroom and heading downstairs.

“And would you like a banana?” he said, tripping after her.

She frowned. “Why would I want a banana?”

“No reason,” he said, reaching the foot of the staircase. He crossed the tiny hallway, plucked her coat from the stand and helped her on with it.

“Now bring my personal transport around to the front of the dwelling,” she ordered.

“Right away, Your Highness.”

She placed her hands on her hips and declared to no one in particular, “I shall ride my twenty-six-inch Carrera Vengeance junior mountain bike to the quiz where I will single-handedly smite Middling Academy and then we will have chips!”

There was just one thing Earth had to offer that Niki had found favour with during her time on the planet: a bag of hot chips from Act of Cod, the fish and chip shop on the high street. And those little sachets of ketchup. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

Chapter 4

It was several months later and the middle of the summer term. Gavin was heading to his English class when he came across a traffic jam in the corridor. Kids were backed up all the way to the drinking fountain, complaining at the delay. With sinking inevitability, he saw that Niki and Bart were the cause of the hold-up. Niki stood in front of the notice board, studying it intently, seemingly unaware of the surrounding clamour. Behind her, Bart swayed back and forth across the corridor, weighed down by a huge sculpture he was attempting to carry. Gavin recognised it from art class. The theme of this term’s project was “images of perfection” so, naturally, Niki had chosen to sculpt a life-sized version of herself.

Unable to balance the sculpture any longer, Bart tripped, launching the figure through the air. Gavin looked up just in time to see the monumental Niki flying directly at him.

“Oof!” The sculpture slammed into him, knocking him to the floor. He lay there for a few seconds, dazed, the other students altering course around him like ants faced with an obstruction.

“What is this?” Niki asked, still looking at the notice board.

He struggled to his feet. At first he thought she was checking out a flyer advertising auditions for this year’s school drama production of Fiddler on the Roof, but then he saw her gaze was fixed on a different poster, inviting nominations for the school’s student council election.

She screwed up her face and pronounced the word in three distinct syllables. “El-ec-tion?”

Gavin was about to explain when she held up a silencing hand. He hated it when she did that, which she did a lot.

“No, wait, don’t tell me. Is it when you lure a xenomorphic intruder into the airlock of your interplanetary craft and then blast the creature into the cold, unforgiving vacuum of outer space to perish?” She beamed at Gavin with an expression of self-satisfaction.

Bart uttered his usual hooting laugh of disbelief. “Airlocks, interplanetary craft, explosive decompression! As if an anonymous and unremarkable human schoolgirl would have any experience in the containment and elimination of endoparasitoid extraterrestrial species.”

“Ejection,” said Niki, clicking her fingers and muttering. “That was it.”

Gavin narrowed his eyes at her. “An election,” he began, “is when a group of people – like the population of a country, or in this case, a school – decides together by voting on who should represent them to make the big decisions about how to run things. The student council gets to decide on things like the theme for the end-of-term dance and menus for the canteen. So they’re not that powerful. Though the chairperson gets a special parking space for his or her bike right in front of the main entrance.”

“Privileged parking,” repeated Niki with a faraway gleam in her eye.

How could she not know what an election was? “Don’t you have them where you come from?” He lowered his voice. “Is it because your country is under authoritarian rule? Is there, like, a tyrannical dictator who’s been in charge for decades and who fixes the elections to ensure he stays in power?”

Niki snapped out of her daydream and put an arm around Gavin’s shoulders, walking him off down the corridor. “Tell me more about this ‘election fixing’…”

Three weeks later, Niki was officially installed as Student Council Chair. Not only was she the first Year 8 to assume the position, but she did so by taking a record ninety-seven per cent of the vote. Her first act was to push through legislation to change her title to Supreme Leader in Perpetuity. She gave her inaugural speech at a lavish celebration party she threw for herself in the school hall, which it transpired she’d paid for using most of the student council’s annual budget. But the canapés were delicious. Gavin retained doubts about the fairness of the election, but he couldn’t question Niki’s popularity, especially not after she had led the school to a stunning victory over Middling Academy in the Quiz of Champions earlier that term. The Academy had won it last year, and the year before that. Having made it through yet again to the final round, they’d been firm favourites to emerge triumphant once more. Middling High’s appearance in the final had come as a surprise to every other school in the district, but none more so than to Middling High. Their winning run was due entirely to Niki. In the end, the final wasn’t a competition so much as a massacre. She steamrollered over the brightest and best that the Academy had to offer, despite some of her answers coming across as rather eccentric. For instance, she refused to accept the quizmaster’s assertion that it would take around seven months for a spaceship to reach Mars, insisting that Mars wasn’t even a parsec away and then yelling, “What kind of engine-tech are you people using – steam?”

Since then she’d won prizes at school for everything, out-sprinting the opposition on the track and outthrowing them on the field (and on the pottery wheel). And it wasn’t just physical prowess that made her stand out. As well as her quiz success, she’d nabbed the lead in the school play, much to the clench-fisted fury of Tanya Cloister-Moore, who could act, sing and dance, but nonetheless couldn’t compete with Niki’s star power.

She had this way of persuading people to do just what she wanted. The whole school had fallen for her … charms? No, that wasn’t the right word. It was as if she exerted a mysterious force on all who came within her orbit. People obeyed her, instinctively. She was all-star, all-the-rage and verging on all-powerful.

So, naturally, it was Niki he had to face in the class debate that day.

He was anticipating a bloodbath. Not literally, but in Mrs Caesar’s English class you never knew. Mrs Caesar, like her ancient Roman namesake, enjoyed nothing more than pitting students against one another in gladiatorial combat. Thanks to health and safety, she wasn’t actually permitted to make them fight each other to the death in sandy arenas using swords and tridents. But she did love a good argument. That afternoon they were debating the motion: This House believes there must be intelligent extraterrestrial life somewhere in the universe.

“Our galaxy has at least two hundred billion solar systems,” Niki began confidently. “So it’s extraordinarily unlikely that the only life is here on Earth.”

Twenty-eight heads swivelled to face Gavin for his response. (Actually, twenty-seven to be exact, since Jeffrey Burke was still wearing a neck brace following a run-in involving an e-scooter and the outside wall of the PE block).

“The factors that came together…” he mumbled.

“Speak up, Gavin,” commanded Mrs Caesar, signing with an upturned thumb.

He cleared his throat. “The factors that came together to cause life on Earth are so rare that even in a universe as big as ours there’s little chance of them occurring again.”

The debate rolled on and for the next fifteen minutes Niki battered him with her perfectly constructed arguments. He glanced at the classroom clock, counting down the last minute of the debate. He had one final point to make.

“If there is life out there,” he stuttered, “then surely some of the aliens would be smart enough to figure out how to cross the galaxy. In which case, why haven’t they come and said hello?”

A mumble of agreement rippled around the classroom. Even Mrs C allowed herself a flicker of a smile.

To Gavin’s astonishment, Niki was silent. Then he saw that she was looking out of the window, wide-eyed, at a shaggy, tiger-striped cat sitting there staring back.

“Ms Apple,” said Mrs Caesar. “Do you have a rejoinder?”

Just as Gavin was beginning to think he’d scored a knock-out point, Niki roused herself and came back at him.

“Human beings share sixty per cent of their genes with the banana,” she said. “Maybe these super-smart aliens don’t think it’s worth crossing vast interstellar distances to meet a bunch of talking fruit.”

There was a buzz as the clock ran out. The debate – and class – was over. Game, set and match to Niki. She didn’t hang around to shake hands. Not even pausing to collect her schoolbag, she bolted for the door.

Ten minutes later Gavin was ambling home. He kicked at a stone, sending it skittering across the pavement and into the gutter. Niki was such a show-off, strutting around Middling High School like she’d been voted most popular girl in school. Which, he supposed, she had.

“GAVIN – STOP THAT CAT!”

He spun round to see Niki storming along the pavement behind the same tiger-striped cat she had been staring at through the classroom window.

Gavin, return my library books. Gavin, fetch me another slice of strudel. Gavin, stop that cat. Seriously, who died and made her queen of the world? Turning his back on her, he continued on his way.

The cat squeezed through the gap between the railings and bounded into the park. Niki didn’t break stride as she vaulted the fence and hotfooted it after her quarry.

Why was she so intent on catching it? To answer the question, he knew he would have to follow her. A little voice in his head piped up, warning him that he should stop right now and go home, but curiosity got the better of him. He took a fateful detour through the park.

Chapter 5