'Thank you,' he whispered.
He cleared his throat.
'Thank you!' he squeaked.
He coughed.
'THANK YOU!' It was a lovely, rich, deep voice. Everyone applauded.
Silent Fred threw his top hat in the air and shouted, 'I LOVE my wife! I've been wanting to say that out loud for so long!'
Joy joyfully wiped away tears.
'Now where are the fellas?' said Silent Fred. 'It's time we got the band back together!'
Next thing he had disappeared with a group of grey-haired men and soon they were belting out the words to their old hit, 'Rock Around the Choc', while Joy was left with instructions to bring them plenty of hot chocolate in between songs. 'Mmmm,' said Joy thoughtfully. Then she caught sight of Tyler and said, 'Oh! When I was cleaning Enrico's room, I found this under his bed.'
'YES!' said Tyler excitedly, as Joy handed over a silver briefcase. 'I thought I might never see it again.'
There was some sort of a commotion behind them and they all turned around to see Enrico ducking behind his ShobGobble while his wife, Carmelita, threw badly formed snowballs at him, yelling, 'HOW COULD YOU LET THIS HAPPEN? NOW YOU'RE A NOBODY! I'M FAR TOO BEAUTIFUL TO BE MARRIED TO A NOBODY!'
The twins were still in the sleigh, looking longingly at the party and wailing, 'Why is everybody talking to those stupid Earthlings? Why aren't we the guests of honour at that lovely party?'
'What a charming family,' said Shimlara.
'Poor old Enrico,' said Katie.
'Don't worry,' said Serena. 'I'm going to send him a very polite thank-you card, just like the Constitution says. It will be my pleasure.'
'Who is going to run the planet now?' asked Sean.
'There will have to be an election,' said Topaz. 'I'll be running for president. Joshua and Serena will be my campaign managers.'
'I wish we could stay to help with the campaign,' said Nicola sadly.
'Why can't you all move to Shobble?' said Joshua. He gave Sean a friendly punch. 'You've got pretty good at Head Crunch, mate.'
Sean punched him back. 'And you've got pretty good at karate.'
'Can't you guys hang around for just a few more days?' pleaded Serena.
'We don't know how much time has passed on Earth,' said Nicola. 'Our families might be worried. We should leave now.'
Greta said, 'Yes, and I've got homework to do.'
They all stared at her.
'What?' said Greta defensively. 'I do! You probably do too!'
'I wish we could take our ShobGobbles back to Earth with us,' said Katie.
That gave Nicola a start. She realised she'd been vaguely imagining that Quicksilver would always be with her. How wonderful to ride him to school each day! But of course, there was no room for ShobGobbles in their spaceship and there was no such thing as indigo berries on Earth.
'We'd better go say goodbye to them,' said Nicola bravely.
She found Quicksilver taking a well-deserved snooze under the shelter of a tree.
'I have to go now,' she whispered. Quicksilver sleepily opened his eyes and gently nuzzled her neck.