"This is making a mockery of war! You had some foolish little actress pretending to be me! That's against the law! And now you've got my soldiers dancing! That's so disrespectful!"
"Your soldiers seem to be enjoying it," pointed out Princess Petronella.
"And as for you, young lady." Mrs. Mania thrust an angry finger at Princess Petronella. "What disgusting behavior for a guest! I shall be writing to the king and queen of Globagaskar."
"Why don't you?" said the princess airily. "My parents will be proud of me!"
"Anyway," said Nicola. "I assume you will now honor your commitment and withdraw your troops."
"Never!" screamed Mrs. Mania.
"I beg your pardon?" said Nicola. "But we won!"
At that moment the rest of the Space Brigade, Henry Sweet, Mully, Georgio, and the now rather disheveled-looking United Aunts came into the room, all of them flushed with victory and slapping one another on the back.
"I don't care if you won or not! I shall fight this war until the day I die!" roared Mrs. Mania. She bounced around so much on her chair that it nearly toppled over.
There was silence for a few seconds as everyone in the room stared at the strange, demented woman.
The United Aunts sighed, folded their arms across their chests, and shook their heads disappointedly.
"That's it, I know the United Aunts disapprove of violence but I'm giving her a good rap across the knuckles with my wooden spoon," said the green-skinned United Aunt.
"If I were to paint this woman," said Henry, "I would give her the head of a viper."
"I'm so sick of her! Let's just throw her out of the tower window!" said a Volcomanian war protester who had been imprisoned in the camp, and was obviously still not very happy about it.
The room erupted as everyone argued over the best thing to do next.
And then the only person in the room with any power over Mrs. Mania spoke up.
CHARTER 38
"Mother," said Marty Mania.
He spoke quietly and forcefully. His soft, plump face became hard. He seemed twenty years older.
"That is enough. You are embarrassing me. You are embarrassing the planet of Volcomania."
"Marty, you don't understand." Mrs. Mania squirmed in her chair.
"No, Mother, I don't! I never understood the point of this war, anyway! What has Whimsy ever done to us?"
"It's simple geography! Whimsy is not its own planet. It's a suburb of Volcomania. Why should they get all this beauty to themselves? Look at all that fertile soil out there!" Mrs. Mania
jerked her head out the window at the velvet green soil. "They don't do anything with it, except lie around making up their pathetic poems. Then they come whining to us when they run out of food. We could farm that land! We would make something of this place. If we had Whimsy, Volcomania would be the most successful planet in the galaxy! Don't you see, Marty, I'm doing this for Volcomania!"
"But it's not what the Whimsian people want!" said Marty.
"Who cares about them?! They're annoying! So impractical, so . . . whimsical."
"I think we should work with the Whimsian people," said Marty. "I have some ideas about how we could help them and they could help us."
Henry Sweet nodded at Marty. "I'd like to hear those ideas, young man!"
"Well, my dear son, if you were in charge of Volcomania then you could be as chummy as you wanted with Mr. Sweet," said Mrs. Mania. "However--"
"That's the thing, Mother," said Marty. "I was talking to one of the United Aunts, the one representing Earth."