"Now, you've got your appointment card and your gift?" asked Georgio as he lowered the car to ground level.
"Yep," said Nicola.The gift-wrapped globe of the Earth was in her backpack and the huge appointment card was sitting on her lap.
"Well, Nicola," said Georgio. "I'm afraid you're on your own from here. I wish you the very best of luck. I think you're going to do a fine job of representing your planet."
He shook Nicola's hand solemnly. "I'll be waiting outside the gate for you."
"Thank you, Georgio."
She put her hand on the aero-car door handle, and for a second she felt so nervous she couldn't move.What if she was permanently paralyzed and stuck sitting in this car with her hand on the door handle for the rest of her life, while Earth was turned into a garbage can?
"You'd probably move when you got hungry," said Georgio.
"Stop reading my mind! It's bad manners!" snapped Nicola, and all at once she could move again. She pushed down the door handle and hopped out of the car with her head held high.
Grinning widely, Georgio gave her a thumbs-up sign and his car rose gently into the air and flew away. Nicola was alone on a strange planet, standing in front of an enormous glittering palace, and she was about to meet a scary princess and try to convince her to change her mind. It was phenomenally preposterous.
"Well, get on with it!" she said to herself in a voice just like Mrs. Zucchini's, and she walked up to one of the enormous guards.
"Excuse me," she said politely.
The guard didn't move. Nicola was at eye level with his enormous black-clad knees. She realized that the guard probably couldn't hear her.
"EXCUSE ME!" she hollered.
The knees slowly bent and a face appeared in front of her. It wasn't a man. It was a woman with gentle brown eyes and wavy hair. She actually looked a little like Nicola's great-aunt Annie from Adelaide.
"Well, hello, aren't you the cutest little thing!" exclaimed the guard, as if Nicola was an adorable baby in a stroller.
It wasn't quite the greeting Nicola was expecting. "Thank you," she said cautiously. "I have an appointment with Princess Petronella." She held up her gold appointment card.
"Let's have a look at that," said the guard, barely glancing at it. "Are you from another planet, sweetie-pie? Is that why you're so tiny? Why, I could pop you straight into my pocket!"
"I'm from Earth," said Nicola.
"Ooh, an Earthling!" said the guard. "I've heard about your darling little planet. My, you're serious, for such an itty-bitty thing! You're so delicious, I could eat you up!"
Nicola looked alarmed and the guard giggled. "There, there, I'm just joking, sweetie. I wouldn't eat you, but I sure would love to take you home and dress you up in teeny-weeny dresses!"
Nicola said firmly, "I don't want to be late for my appointment with the princess."
"Ooh, no time to chat!" said the guard. "Don't you worry, poppet. In you go. Good luck!"
She pushed a button and the iron gates slid open while a giant drawbridge slowly lowered itself across the moat.
"Thank you," said Nicola.
"That's my pleasure."The guard ruffled Nicola's hair and pinched her cheek. Nicola couldn't remember being treated this way since she was about four years old and her grandma came to visit. Even then, Nicola thought, she was too grown-up for it . . .
But the upside was that Nicola felt so irritated by the guard that she forgot to be nervous, and she walked briskly across the bridge and through a sapphire-encrusted archway.
Another guard, this one fat and red-faced, grabbed her card from her fingertips and said in a rushed bored voice, "You're number 4948, please take a seat and wait for your number to be called! NEEEXT!"Then he took a gigantic rubber stamp, leaned down, and pressed it hard against her forehead.
Feeling somewhat dazed, Nicola looked around and saw that she was in a huge hall with high ceilings and endless rows of chairs. Almost every chair was taken and each person had a gift on their lap, a desperate expression on their face, and a small red number stamped on their forehead.The numbers made everybody look slightly silly, which was a pity when everyone had obviously dressed up especially to see the princess.
Actually, thought Nicola, I probably look even sillier, because the number must be huge on my small forehead. She looked for the nearest free chair and realized she was going to have trouble climbing onto it because it was so high.
"You can use this as a step," said the woman in the chair next to hers, and she put her brightly wrapped present on the floor for Nicola to stand on. "I'm not sure the princess will like it that much, anyway."