'Trouble in Trickletown'
Chapter 14
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A Journey to Remember
Willey’s departure from the Chaseboard Challenge had left him approaching Blue Street Station, but this was no ordinary station!
This was a station to the stars.
Blue Street Space Station had been built near the top of Blue Street to allow the Fuddles to travel into space. It was one of Willey’s favourite places and one day he hoped to have a space pod all of his own.
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“You must visit Old Man Moon and his Sack of Secrets,” the Orange Envelope had said.
Well this was exactly where they were going – and the space pod sitting on the launch pad was waiting to take them there.
“Jump aboard, Willey!” shouted Teabags, his finger hovering over a large green button. “Strap yourself in and I will get this thing ready for take-off.”
Teabags looked at all the instruments flickering in front of him. The Wiggle Fish Control Globe was activated. And there was nothing telling him they should not take off, so when they were both good and ready, he pressed the large green button.
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“Old Man Moon here we come!” declared Teabags, releasing a head of steam from the end of his spout. His lid was beginning to rattle.
“Have you ever flown one of these before?” enquired Willey, as the space pod zoomed into orbit.
Teabags did not reply – he was too busy fiddling with the controls.
After two near misses with a satellite and a brush with a bright shooting star, Willey concluded that Teabags hadn’t. So he took hold of the controls himself, and just in time! The troublesome Comet, called Climaticus, whizzed past the cockpit, sending the space pod spinning off in a different direction.
“WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!” A red light flashed across the centre of the control panel. “UNAUTHORISED SPACE PODS APPROACHING.”
Willey looked at the radar indicator and sure enough there were three more space pods following close behind.
“WARP DRIVE: EMERGENCY SYSTEMS ACTIVATED,” announced the control panel. Willey just followed the on-screen instructions as the space pod took evasive action. However, there was nothing anyone could do. Someone had programmed the space pods to follow each other on their missions, so wherever the leading pod went the others could only follow.
“IMMINENT COLLISION!
PREPARE FOR EMERGENCY LANDING!”
S N A P ! T W A N G ! C R A C K !
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The space pod tangled itself in Old Man Moon’s beard and it was followed very swiftly by a Whiz, a Whoosh and a Swoosh as the three other space pods followed in close pursuit.
“FIRE IN THE ENGINES!” shouted Teabags, and sure enough a bright orange glow could be seen outside the window.
“OLD MAN MOON IS ON FIRE! ACTIVATE THE EXTINGUISHERS!” but it was far too late for that, the flames had set light to his beard and the smoke was drifting up his nose.
”Ah ... Ahhh ... Ahhhh ... C H O O O ...!
Old Man Moon sneezed, and the space pods shot like rockets out of his beard. Even the Comet Climaticus was thrown out of orbit. As the space pods hurtled through space, they were heading for the one thing that might stop them. A small orange planet – Planet Fuddle.
“RE-CALCULATING CURRENT DESTINATION,” said the control panel, as they skimmed the icy waves of an Orange Ocean and then ploughed into the frosty trees of a Flooded Forest.
It had not been the most comfortable of rides, but eventually they came to a stop.
“JOURNEY TIME: FOURTEEN MINUTES – DISTANCE TRAVELLED: TEN MILLION WIGGLES – LOCATION: PLANET FUDDLE,” concluded the control panel, before lowering the revs of the engine and switching off.
It had been less than twenty minutes since Willey left the Chaseboard Challenge, yet now he was floating in a space pod, in the middle of a slushy orange lake, on a strange, but not so distant planet called Fuddle. And what’s more, he could see a large wooden galleon heading straight for them!
Ding-Ding! Ding-Ding! Ding-Ding!
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Alarm bells started to ring in the Flooded Forest; HMS Rattle was afloat and her captain was sounding the alarm.
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