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Back The Shocking Trouble on the Planet of Shobble Save as PDF
Chapters (47)
  1. COVER
  2. ABOUT L. M. MORIARTY
  3. ALSO BY L. M. MORIARTY
  4. TITLE PAGE
  5. PROLOGUE
  6. 1
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  8. 3
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  47. 42

Quicksilver’s eyelids drooped.

Nicola looked down and saw they were losing height. What could she do? She did not want to end up in that river again.

She put her mouth close to Quicksilver’s ear and made a sound like an alarm clock. ‘Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr!’

Quicksilver’s head jerked and they rose back up into the air.

Desperate to keep him awake, Nicola began to sing the words to an annoying cat food commercial. (She was not a great singer.) Quicksilver’s ears twitched irritably. He gave her a rather reproachful look, took a deep breath and flew her straight to the shore, landing clumsily with a flurry of snow. His legs folded beneath him, his head fell to one side and seconds later he was snoring: a loud, rumbling, very human sort of snore.

Weak with relief, Nicola slid off Quicksilver’s saddle on to the snow and leaned back against his warm, feathery flank. She looked down at her arm and saw blood seeping through a tear in her jacket and jumper.

Sean got to Nicola first.

‘That’s a massive bite,’ he said admiringly.

‘Press this against it.’ Greta pulled a crisp white hanky from her pocket. ‘Just make sure you wash it before I get it back. Actually you might have to buy me a new one.’

‘Is that an ambulance I hear?’ asked Shimlara. ‘That’s good luck!’

‘It’s not an ambulance,’ said Tyler. ‘It’s a person!’ He pointed towards a figure jogging purposefully out of the woods. She was wearing a pair of blue overalls with the words BITER WOUND BRIGADE embroidered on the front and a large satchel slung over her shoulder. A flashing blue light was attached to her forehead by a headband. As she got closer, everyone clapped their hands over their ears. The woman switched the siren off.

‘Hello there. Sorry about the noise. I’m so used to it I forget it’s rather loud. I’m Barbie. What have we got here?’

Barbie knelt down beside Nicola and lifted her arm. ‘You poor thing.’

Nicola stared up at her. There was something about Barbie. It had to do with the little ‘v’ shape between her eyes when she frowned.

Something important.

The pain from her arm whirled around her head.

‘Horseradish,’ said Nicola.

No, that wasn’t the word she’d meant to say.

‘I beg your pardon?’ said Barbie.

Nicola felt as though someone was rolling her up in a big blanket of nothingness.

Everything went black.

23

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Nicola was deliciously warm. She was lying somewhere soft and comfortable. There was something toasty hot near her feet. A hot-water bottle? Was she back home in her own bed on Earth?

Nicola’s eyes fluttered open and the first thing she saw was an open window revealing a bright splash of overlapping rainbows. She was still on Shobble.