‘Oh.’ Enrico waved an impatient hand. ‘She wants the miners and the drillers and the factory workers to be paid. Can you imagine? Can you think of anything more ridiculous?’

Everyone in the Space Brigade looked at each other, confused. Nicola wondered if she’d missed something. Surely she’d misunderstood.

‘You don’t mean that everyone works for free?’ said Nicola, laughing slightly, so that Enrico would know she was joking.

‘Well of course that’s what I mean,’ said Enrico. ‘They have never been paid. They’ve never expected to be paid! It’s not in their nature to be greedy. The people of Shobble are lovely, sweet people who have always been proud to work for their planet, creating the best chocolate in the galaxy.’

‘Oh!’ Nicola thought she understood now. ‘Do you mean you don’t charge for ShobbleChoc? You just give it away to all the other planets?’

Enrico looked at her as if she’d made a bad joke. ‘Well, of course people have to pay for ShobbleChoc. People are prepared to pay a premium price for a premium chocolate.’

‘We charge twenty gold coins plus shipping for one bar of ShobbleChoc,’ said Joseph proudly.

‘Five hundred gold coins for a box,’ said Josie.

Nicola felt like she was in a maths class where nothing the teacher said made any sense whatsoever. If they were making all this money from the chocolate, then why weren’t the workers paid? She looked at Greta. Greta was good at maths. Maybe she understood.

Unfortunately Greta was scratching the side of her head as if she didn’t understand a word either.

It was Sean who spoke next. ‘So who gets all the money then?’

‘We do, of course.’ Carmelita turned her head slightly so that her diamonds glinted in the candlelight. ‘You’ve no idea what it costs to maintain a house of this size.’

‘Our family doesn’t get all the gold,’ said Enrico. ‘Although naturally we get the bulk of it, as I’m in charge of running the planet, which is a huge and exhausting responsibility. Obviously nobody expects me to work for free. There are other people, such as the Head of Price Negotiation and the International Customer Relationships Director, who are also rewarded for their very important work.’

‘Let me guess . . .’ said Katie. There was a hint of steel in her voice that Nicola had never heard before. ‘The only people who get paid on this planet are “hairities”?’

‘Well, as it happens, yes!’ said Enrico, with a little toss of his long brown hair, as if this was a matter for celebration.

Nicola thought about all those sweet-faced people they had seen walking back from the mines, their shoulders slumped with exhaustion. She could feel herself becoming angry. She pinched herself hard on the arm to stop the feeling that was rising in her chest. Normally when she lost her temper she ended up saying something stupid.