"Oh, be quiet, Greta!" snapped Nicola, because the thing about criticism was that it always stung the most when it was true.
"Well!" said Katie brightly. "What next?"
"Now we have to get off this mountain of ash," said Sean.
He ducked as the nearby volcano erupted again, showering them with lava.
"And maybe we should reapply our lava screen," said Shimlara. "I'm sweating."
They all were. The heat from the erupting volcanoes was intense. It seemed to suck the air from Nicola's lungs.
They all pulled out their lava screen tubes from their backpacks and pasted thick layers across their faces.
Nicola walked over to the edge of the ash mountain. "It's going to take us ages to walk down."
"I was thinking we could sit on bits of parachute and slide down to the bottom," said Tyler.
"Good idea! That'll be fun!" Sean examined the remains of his parachute.
"This mission isn't about fun," said Greta primly. "There is a terrible war goiong on. And we're here to find Shimlara's family."
"I don't think my family would mind if we have some fun along the way," said Shimlara. "In fact, Dad would encourage it."
Nicola didn't say anything. She was still recovering from Greta's earlier comment.
A short time later, they were all sitting on pieces of parachute silk on the edge of the mountain of ash.
"Last one down is a rotten egg!" said Sean, and he slid off.
I bet he didn't like it that I was the first one to parachute out of the spaceship, thought Nicola and grinned to herself. As the big brother, he was always supposed to be first.
"It probably killed him that you jumped first," said Shimlara, who was sitting next to Nicola.
"Shimlara! You've got to stop reading my mind!" said Nicola.
"I didn't!" protested Shimlara.
"Mmmmm," said Nicola distrustfully.
"Cross my nose," said Shimlara, and carefully drew a little cross over her nose with the tip of her finger.
"On Earth we say 'cross my heart,'" said Nicola.
Shimlara giggled. "Really? How funny! Why would you cross your heart?"
"Why would you cross your nose?"
But Shimlara had already pushed off the edge, shouting, "Last one down is a rotten Earthling!"
Nicola watched her go. It was only her and Katie left.
"Remember how we loved playing on the slide at the park?" said Katie. She and Nicola had known each other ever since they were babies. There was an embarrassing photo at Katie's house o
f the two of them sitting together in a sandbox wearing nothing but diapers.
"I remember." Nicola grinned.
"One, two, three!" said Nicola and Katie at the same time, and they slid off.