23.
‘Get off my bed, you stupid cat,’ snarled Emily as she kicked Negrita flying across the room. ‘You are not to look at me in that tone of voice. OUT!’
She’d become much moodier than she used to be. She used to cruise along without so much as a blip. It took her a little while and a cup of tea or two to get going in the mornings, but after that she was just fine. Things had changed. Now her moods were up, they were down; they were all over the place.
She went to see Castor and watched the video about puberty again.
‘Hormones,’ it said. ‘Hormones are to blame for everything.’
‘They certainly are,’ said Emily. ‘If only I could get my hands on them. I’d ring their frigging necks.’
‘The penguins,’ said Zeus, as they shaped the mast support for their boat. ‘We must visit the penguins to see how they’re doing.’
Emily smiled to herself thinking of the funny fat penguins.
She slipped on another layer of clothes, had a hot choccy with Zeus and off they went.
It was a beautiful day on Xizang. With the sun glinting off the snow and icebergs, it was so bright that Emily had to scrunch up her eyes and squint into the whiteness. The asteroid seemed to be flourishing; cries of seagulls filled the air, seals lazed on the ice flows and in the leads of open water they saw misty plumes and heard the pisssssst of whales spouting. The once scrawny polar bears had beefed up and looked healthy and alert, their white coats shining in the bright sunshine.
There was only one thing missing: penguins!
‘Oh, no,’ said Zeus, ‘I hope our clients haven’t been eaten. It would be embarrassing. Those polar bears look suspiciously healthy!’
They trudged through the soft snow for hours. Emily was starting to feel cold and hungry when they came across footprints in the snow. ‘Look footprints,’ she exclaimed. ‘Someone else is here. Let’s follow the footprints and find them!’
Zeus laughed.
Realising her mistake, Emily tried the footprints for size. They’d been right around the little asteroid!
‘They’ve gone!’ said Zeus. ‘Sadly, no penguins.’
As the words left his lips there was a big splash and commotion at their feet and little black and white missiles came rocketing up on to the ice and skidded to a halt beside them. A leopard seal stuck his head up on the ice, gnashed his teeth and bellowed, covering Zeus and Emily with snot and slime, then slipped back into the green depths, and went hunting elsewhere.
Wiping the goop off his face, Zeus smiled and said, ‘I’ve never seen such healthy looking penguins.’
Spring waved his wand early on Camillo, thanks to its Mediterranean climate.
The walled paddock where the sheep lived became a magical place. Young lambs, still shaky on their feet, frolicked about, chasing each other through a carpet of wildflowers under blossoming almond trees. A gentle breeze stirred the trees, picking off delicate white petals and raining them down on Emily where she lay, flat on her back amongst the wild flowers. Negrita chased after the swirling petals, batting them with her sharp claws and pouncing on them. Some days, it was simply a pleasure to be alive.
With the arrival of spring, Emily spent long hours in the garden, digging, weeding and planting but always found time to enjoy Camillo, to visit the paddock, to walk up to the top of the bluff and look out to sea, and to walk along the beach to visit Azziz and Jesus.
Jesus, who didn’t feel the cold, spent most of his time out surfing, but when the wind or waves were wrong he worked in his garden. Emily loved helping him. She didn’t want to say anything in case he took offence, but as soon as he got his gumboots on he turned all Prince Charlesy. He was big into sustainability and organics. In a nutshell, this meant that if you grew things in a natural way, you could keep doing it forever. The veges tasted better and were better for you as well. No spraying the land with pesticides, feeding the cows with steroids, cutting down the trees or catching all the fish as they do on Earth; Jesus said that that was a route that could only end in tears.
Once up and running, each asteroid was designed to be self-supporting. To achieve this, things needed to be done in the correct way, the sustainable way.
‘Easy in theory, difficult in practice,’ said Jesus. ‘But I’m trying to do my bit.’
They dragged seaweed up from the beach to compost the garden and planted onions between the lettuces.
‘I don’t know if it’ll keep the slugs out,’ he whispered, ‘but it will keep the aphids and caterpillars away.’
They sowed wheat to make bread and, with the help of the ever friendly zinodes, planted grape vines in neat rows.
‘I like to eat grapes and raisins,’ said Jesus.
‘You must really, really like them,’ said Emily, poking him in the ribs. ‘You’re going to have truckloads of grapes!’
‘You can never have enough!’
Emily loved the cafe. It was so hip and the customers were really cool. All the beatniks in the Universe seemed to have heard of it and musicians and artists turned up from all corners of the Galaxy and hung out for days. Emily helped out waitressing, and after Azziz showed her how to concoct concoctions, she worked behind the bar mixing cocktails.
She loved mixing the black hole, guaranteed to remove all internal parasites, and didn’t even baulk at making the slimeball, an evil blue drink that frothed, bubbled and glowed in the dark.
The cafe was very relaxed and friendly and Emily spent more time hanging out and chatting with the customers than actually doing anything.
She had trouble with the name of the cafe, Azziz’s.
It slid effortlessly off Azziz’s velvet tongue, but Emily couldn’t say it. She practiced it as she skipped back home along the beach but the closest she could get was Scissors.
Using the Worm, Emily kept an eye on Earth; just an occasional peek to check that her family and friends were okay. She could see what God was on about; to try and watch everything and everyone was an impossible task, and did they really need her help anyway? Forget about divine guidance, it was best to leave Earth’s inhabitants to shape their own destiny!