'Ladies and gentlemen,' tried Nicola.
The crowd ignored her.
Nicola and Topaz looked at each other and nodded.
'STOP TALKING AND LISTEN UP!' they shouted simultaneously.
There was silence. Even the babies stopped crying.
Topaz said, 'My name is Topaz Silverbell and this is Nicola Berry from the planet Earth and we want to thank you for coming today.'
There was thunderous applause and calls of 'Topaz! Topaz!' and 'Hey there, Earthling!' A miner with a bandage across his nose called out, 'I forgive you for the fizz bomb, Topaz!'
'Thank you,' said Topaz. 'But this is serious. We need to be ready for Enrico and the Security Thugs. We believe they will be armed with Despair Gas.'
This was met with a ripple of dismay. Nicola could hear people saying things like, 'We can't win against Despair Gas' and 'Maybe we should go home'.
Topaz looked a little despairing herself so Nicola took over.
'Despair is just a feeling,' she said.
'A pretty bad feeling,' called out a rough-looking chocolate driller.
'Yes, but just because you feel something doesn't mean you have to give in to that feeling. We've got to stay strong! Besides which, we've got people power!' Nicola punched a fist in the air. There was silence, apart from someone saying clearly, 'What's she doing with her fist in the air like that?'
Nicola dropped her arm and said, 'We've got weapons to fight Enrico!'
That cheered everyone up considerably. 'YEAH!' shouted a group of teenage boys.
Nicola decided not to mention that their only weapons were yellow clothes, music, buttons and a jar of peanut butter.
'So if this is going to work we need you to
follow our orders exactly,' said Topaz. 'We need you to first join the clothes-dyeing queue and then move on to the petition-signing queue. After that, we need you to line up in rows with your arms linked.'
'And be quiet,' added Nicola.
'Are there any questions?' asked Topaz.
A portly miner put his hand up. 'When is lunch?'
'Straight after we've overthrown Enrico,' said Nicola quickly. 'Any more questions?'
There was silence. Nicola saw Topaz's father discreetly trying to take their photo, while Topaz's mother called out, 'Oh well done, darlings!' It was lucky Nicola's own parents were safely on Earth where they couldn't embarrass her.
'Right,' said Topaz. 'Let's do it!'
It was a miracle: people actually did as they were told. Without fuss, they queued up in front of Katie and Greta to have their clothes dyed and then stood in line to sign the petition. A short time later rows of Shobblings, dressed from head to toe in yellow (quite a few had obligingly offered to dye their hair yellow as well, to help make themselves scarier to Enrico), began to form, their arms linked, quietly chatting to each other. Meanwhile, Serena rolled out more and more of the scroll of parchment for the petition.
An hour later, only a few stragglers stood before the signing table.
'Do you think it's as long as a rainbow yet?' asked Nicola.
'I think so,' said Serena. 'I hope so.'
And that's when Joshua spoke the chilling words: 'They're here.'
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