Super Prawn!Book 1: Super Prawn Escapes!

Chapter 14

 Clamp strapped himself into one of two seats in the cockpit of Richard's spaceship. Next to him, Richard was pressing numerous buttons, twisting dozens of dials, and flicking quite a few switches. Lights flashed. Sparks fizzed. And a microwave oven in the wall kept pinging and opening its door. They were both wearing shiny spacesuits and looked like the kind of thing you'd put on a barbeque. Well, maybe not you. A grown up perhaps. They like to put things on barbeques, burn them, then pretend its food. My advice: don't become one.

"Blast off in T minus ten seconds!" Richard said.

"Tea?" said Clamp. "Oh, good — I am rather hungry. What have you got?"

"Nine!" said Richard.

"I'll eat as many as you can give me," Clamp said. "What are they? Doughnuts? Pies? I do like pies. What about chocolate?"

"Eight!"

"No, it's eat," said Clamp. "As in, what are we going to..."

"Seven!"

"You said there were nine!" Clamp grumbled. "Have you eaten the other two already?"

"Six!"

"Did you say chips? My favourite!"

"Five!"

"Pie? Where's the pie?" Clamp was drooling now. "Pie and chips? This is brilliant! I'm starving now! Rescuing worlds is hungry work!"

"Four!"

"For me, that's who for," said Clamp. "Just show me the food and —"

"Thr —"

An explosion thundered through the spaceship, cutting Richard's word in two. Even though it was a three. Which you can't really cut in two. Unless you want one and a half of something.

Richard the prawn's spaceship burst forth with such speed that the rules of space and time, and even of cricket and chess, were thrown forever into confusion. Up it went. Up, up, up, as though it was trying to prove a point. That point being that if you wanted to go up, then this was the way to go about it. Not with stairs or lifts or hot air balloons or ladders, but with rockets. I think I might actually get some myself, come to think of it.

Then, as the gravity of the planet below started to take a hold, the spaceship began to slow. But it was too late now. Nothing could stop it. Not gravity. Not a black hole. Not even a very long piece of string. Until, at last, Richard's spaceship broke out of orbit and into...

SPACE!

[insert pic of Richard's spaceship now in space]