Super Prawn!Book 1: Super Prawn Escapes!

Chapter 16

 It was a rock. A huge, gnarly lump of the stuff, all shiny like glass. And beneath it was attached a dizzying array of tubes and wires, all feeding into an enormously impressive rocket propulsion system.

"What's that?" Clamp asked.

The upper surface of the rock was flat. Along its side stretched a row of huge brassy trumpets behind which were numerous microphones. Behind the microphones, and attached to the rock by sinew-like threads of seaweed green, were giant molluscs. You've probably seen what a mussel looks like, right? Well, imagine one, only it's about twenty feet tall. And it wants to kill you.

The molluscs were singing.

"Oooooh, there's nothing you can do

To escape from Kath Hoolu!

She's the biggest and the best in the galaxeeeeee!

Not just a squid with a bad temper,

She's a terrifying masticator!

And the next thing on her menu is you!"

The words forced their way through the comms system of Richard's spaceship like sweaty lumps of meat through a sausage maker. Richard flicked a switch and the awful din disappeared. The molluscs, however, carried on singing into the vacuum of space. Which is actually impossible. Singing in a vacuum, that is. Everything else is this story is absolutely not impossible at all. Honest...

Richard quickly punched the Earth coordinates into the spaceship's navigational console. Then, as he went to hammer home the lever that would initiate the hyperspace drive, he noticed an odd nibbling sensation, almost as though something was trying to eat him.

He glanced down to his right. It was Clamp. He was chewing something that looked familiar to Richard. Something he was quite sure that he didn't want chewing. Then he realised what it was. It was his leg.

Richard frowned.

"I hope this isn't going to be a problem."

"Mumph?" said Clamp, his mouth full of Richard's delicously prawny leg. He was imagining it being drenched in butter.

"The fact that prawn is your favourite food," said Richard.

"It's not," said Clamp, his mouth no longer filled with leg.

"You were chewing my leg."

"I wouldn't say I was actually chewing it," Clamp replied. "Sucking it a little would be more accurate."

"I can see gnawing marks on my space suit."

"You're a shrimp," Clamp shrugged. "Not my fault if you're delicious."

"I'm a prawn!" snapped Richard. "And a long armed one at that. And delicious or not, trying to eat me could put a dent in our relationship."

"Sorry," said Clamp.

Richard reached for the hyperspace drive lever.

"Hold on ..."

Then the spaceship shuddered and bucked and went absolutely nowhere at all.