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- Herausgeber: Knights Of
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
A hilarious and heartfelt debut from multi-award winning, hearing aid wearing, comedian, actor and author Samantha Baines. The intergalactic adventure starts athome with Harriet, who discovers that her hearing-aid can do more than she ever bargained for when she finds an alien in her room. Discovering that her family secretly work for an intergalactic agency, Harriet becomes the Earth's last line of defence as the only one who can understand the invaders. Sure, her hearing-aid helps her understand aliens from across the universe, if only she could understand her own feelings.
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Contents
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Chapter 1
“Harriet! Come and say goodbye to your dad before he goes,” Gran shouted from downstairs.
Well, I think that’s what she shouted, I didn’t have my hearing aid in but I heard the words “goodbye” and “Dad” so I just filled in the rest, like a crossword puzzle.
“Coming,” I yelled back. I put down my sparkly blue hair brush and looked around for my hearing aid. (My hearing aid is green, which is my second favourite colour, as well as being my surname. The doctor said they didn’t have any in blue and sparkly, which would have been my top choice.)
2I had taken it out to have my shower, because it doesn’t like water (I don’t either, I prefer orange squash) but now I couldn’t see it anywhere.
“Oh no,” I whispered. “No, no, no.” I had only just arrived at Gran’s house, where I was going to be staying while Dad was away, working on his new job, and it looked like I had already lost one of my most important things. (My hearing aid is like a teeny tiny music speaker but instead of playing music it makes the noises going into my ear, like Gran shouting upstairs, louder so I can hear them better. My hearing isn’t as good as other kids my age so I need my tiny speaker to help me hear at the same level as everyone else.) I was just starting to panic when I spotted a flash of green under the bed. It must be my hearing aid, how on earth had it got under there?
3I bent down to pick it up and instead discovered one of my socks lying there. Even weirder – I hadn’t unpacked anything yet.
I spotted my hearing aid on the bed, nestled in the duvet and only visible from this angle – triple weird. I put my hearing aid in quickly and heard a loud scurrying noise coming from under the bed. When the sock started to move, like something was pulling it, I knew something was under there.
4Without thinking, I reached out and grabbed the other end of the sock just before it disappeared.
“Hey,” I said to my sock and felt a bit silly, clothes don’t tend to talk back. It must have just got caught on something. But as I tried to pick it up, the somethingheld it tight at the other end. I squinted into the darkness under the bed to work out what the sock was stuck on, but I couldn’t see anything. This was so weird. I was losing a tug of war with something invisible.
“Harriet,” Gran’s voice drifted up the stairs again.
Well I think that’s what she had said as my hearing aid wasn’t in my ear properly because I had put it in so quickly. I wasn’t 5even sure if the scurrying noise under the bed had been real – sometimes my hearing aid makes funny noises when the battery runs out or if it gets wet so it can be difficult to tell what is a hearing aid noise and what is real life. I gave my hearing aid a wiggle with my finger to get it back into place, like when you sit on a cushion mountain and wiggle your bottom into the cushions to get yourself comfy. The whole time I made sure I kept hold of the sock with my other hand.
“Just a minute,” I yelled back at Gran. I hoped I had heard her right.
I didn’t have time for this tug-of-war. I pulled as hard as I could and the sock strrreeeettttcccchhhhed before finally pinging free so suddenly that I went flying backwards, the sock still gripped firmly in my hand.
6I landed on my bottom (Gran calls her bottom her “best comfy cushion” and says it’s comfier than a cushion mountain) and blinked at the sock. The something was still attached to the other end of it.
7It was green and furry, the size of a small dog, with googly eyes, a round tummy and a sock-shaped mouth. This mouth was still clinging tightly to the other end of my sock.
WOOOAHHHHH.
I sat there with my mouth open. Finally I remembered to speak.
“Who …” I began. “What … Who are you?”
The creature tipped its head to one side, like you do when you are getting water out of your ear after you’ve been in the swimming pool and said, perfectly clearly, “I am Sock Muncha. I eat socks because they are mighty tasty. Who are you?”8
Chapter 2
“I’m Harriet,” I said to the small furry creature. “Harriet Green. I eat … well all sorts really.”
It was still staring at me with wide eyes as though I was the strange one.
“What are … where have you come from?” I wanted to ask what it was – it didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen on David Attenborough, and besides, it could speak – but I couldn’t think of a way of wording it that didn’t sound rude.
“I’ve come from planet Janet – how about you?”
“I’ve come from … my dad’s house.”
11Sock Muncha nodded knowingly.
Wait a minute.
“Planet Janet? Do you mean you’re not from earth? You’re an alien?”
“I’m not an alien,” the creature giggled. “You are.”
“But–aliens aren’t real, are they?”
“Must be, I’m looking at one.”
I blew a bit of my frizzy hair out of my eye in frustration.
12My hair was always in the way, once it even got in my mouth and my chewing-gum got stuck to it.
“But you’re not from Earth?”
“No, I told you – I’m from planet Janet.”
“So life on other planets is … real?”
“Yes, of course it is.”
This was big. Like all capitals BIG.
I had heard so many stories about other galaxies and places like the planet Slumber and the planet Elbows and Knees. Gran had 13told me all about what the atmosphere on other planets was like; the weather and tons of other stuff – and I’d written everything down in my big space book. But I’d thought they were just that – stories.
They were just stories.
Until now.
“I have a question for you,” Sock Muncha said. “How can you understand Muncha?”
“Hmmm, what do you mean?” I asked.
“All Munchas can understand a range of different languages – it’s helpful for our … er … appetites. But I’ve never practised speaking Earthian. How do you know Muncha?”
“I … don’t,” I said, feeling more confused by the second. “I’d never even heard of a Muncha until five minutes ago.”
But was that true? Something about Sock 14Muncha was feeling a bit familiar.
“You must do, we’re talking, aren’t we?”
Without waiting for me to reply, Sock Muncha carried on, “And I have another question.”
I couldn’t help but smile. Sock Muncha seemed as confused as I felt.
“What is that green bug in your ear? Is it a smaller kind of earth creature?”
“Oh, no. It’s my hearing aid,” I said, in a kind of mumble. Was Sock Muncha going to tease me like the kids at my old school had done? “It helps me hear properly.”
When I was little, I fell asleep on a music speaker at a birthday party. I don’t know how I did it because they are really loud but I do like music so maybe I just wanted to get really close. My dad found me and carried me home to bed as soon as he saw 15me there but “the damage had been done”, as Dad said. I didn’t know you could hurt your ears so easily. Apparently there are little hairs deep in the ear and mine got damaged, which is weird because it didn’t damage the hair on my head and that was nearer. The doctor said that the little hairs in my ear being damaged meant that I can’t hear as well as other people.
Sock Muncha just nodded curiously. “How does it work?” he asked. “Does the green bug talk to you?”
“No,” I said with a giggle. “Look, it’s not a bug…” I took it out to show him. I could see what he meant. It does look a bit like a green bug has got all comfy on the side of my head and curled around my ear, like I used to curl around my teddy in bed (and 16sometimes still do but only when I feel sad).
Sock Muncha opened his mouth and said, “GHAOIFJAOSDI22 JAPIDAGPEDLLLLLRRRR.”
“Huh?”
“BKJSFMNIJ5989,” he said, pointing at my hearing aid.
I put it back into my ear.
“I think the green bug translates Muncha into Earthian,” Sock Muncha said.
“It’s not a–” I stopped. He must have been right. My hearing aid let me understand his language.
I’d always known it was cool – after all, it meant I could hear things like birds singing, and the doorbell, and teachers in class and my favourite programmes on TV, but this was cooler than I’d ever dreamed.
“Harriet?” The stairs creaked under my dad’s 17tromping feet.
Uh oh.
Dad’s new job was driving his van all around the country, which is why I had come to stay with Gran. In the van on the way over here he’d given me a present of a special glittery blue nail varnish that looked like galaxies floating in space, and then he’d got that serious look on his face.
“Hairy,” he’d begun.
