The Screaming Puppies boomed so loud cracks started to appear in the frozen sea. Enrico desperately tried to plug his ears with handfuls of snow.

‘Do you resign?’ cried Serena.

‘But I don’t want to!’ moaned Enrico.

‘Okay then,’ said Nicola. ‘I guess it’s time we bombarded you with these extra large, bright yellow buttons!’

Enrico looked up, his face contorted with horror.

‘We don’t have any extra large, bright yellow buttons!’ hissed Joshua out of the side of his mouth.

‘He doesn’t know that,’ replied Nicola.

Joshua grinned. He raised his voice. ‘Oh, Enrico, how about if we dip these BIG YELLOW BUTTONS in some extra sticky PEANUT BUTTER!’

Enrico sat up and lifted his palms in the air. ‘Okay, okay, I resign! I resign! Just keep those yucky yellow buttons away from me!’

The crowd roared. Babies were thrown in the air. Couples kissed.

‘Success!’ cried Serena.

‘Whooopeee!’ shouted Sean and Joshua, giving each other high fives.

‘Oh, thank goodness,’ said Katie. ‘I was starting to feel really sorry for him.’

Shimlara leaned over from her ShobGobble and hugged Nicola. ‘Looks like another successful mission for the Space Brigade!’

‘Wait just a minute!’

It was Topaz. She was speaking into her macrophone and looked fierce and determined.

‘Enrico, I don’t want to just bully you into resigning!’

‘Why not?’ said Sean.

‘Yeah, I don’t see the problem,’ said Joshua.

Enrico, who had flipped back over on his stomach, sat up again, shuddering when his hand came in contact with the buttons that were scattered all around him. He looked up at Topaz. His eyes narrowed. ‘So you don’t want me to resign?’

‘I want to do it legally,’ said Topaz. ‘We have a petition here calling for your resignation. According to the Constitution if we present you with a petition as long as a rainbow, then you must resign.’

‘Fine. Just get it over with,’ said Enrico sulkily.

‘Serena,’ said Topaz. ‘Let’s see if that petition is the length of a rainbow.’

Serena lowered her voice. ‘But, Topaz, what if it’s not?’

‘I don’t care. I want this done properly,’ said Topaz. ‘You understand, don’t you, Nicola?’

‘Sort of,’ said Nicola. She guessed it made sense to force Enrico’s resignation legally, rather than just by exploiting his phobias.

‘This is ridiculous,’ huffed Greta.

‘That rainbow there might be a good one,’ said Tyler, pointing to one that began at the Honey Sea Wharf and curved across the crowd of Shobblings. Nicola knew that Tyler would have quickly picked out the shortest rainbow he could see.

Serena took the huge roll of rose-pink parchment from her backpack and handed it to Topaz.

‘Will you do the honours, Nicola?’ asked Topaz.

‘Sure,’ said Nicola nervously. She took a firm hold of the scroll of paper, while Topaz took the other end . . .

‘You ready?’

‘Yes.’

‘Let’s go.’