The Beach Buoy. Jonny Moon

      Dedication

      Special thanks to Colin Brake, GUNGE agent extraordinaire.

      Contents

      Title Page

      Dedication

Introduction

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Gunk Aliens Series!

      Copyright

      About the Publisher

Introduction

      A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a bunch of slimy aliens discovered the secret to clean, renewable energy …

      … snot!

      (Well, OK, clean-ish.)

      There was just one problem. The best snot came from only one kind of creature.

      Humans.

      And humans were very rare. Within a few years, the aliens had used up all the best snot in their solar system.

      That was when the Galactic Union of Nasty Killer Aliens (GUNK) was born. Its mission: to find human life and drain its snot. Rockets were sent to the four corners of the universe, each carrying representatives from the major alien races. Three of those rockets were never heard from again. But one of them landed on a planet quite simply full of humans.

      Jack Brady whistled happily as he worked.

      Well, it was a sort of whistle.

      Actually, to be totally honest, Jack had never really got the hang of whistling. He made up for it by sucking air over his teeth and humming at the same time, which was a long way short of actual whistling, but made Jack feel happy.

      It was a hot August day, the sun was shining brightly and there wasn’t a cloud to be seen in the sky. The end of the school term already seemed a distant memory, but there were still weeks of summer holidays stretching out into the future, keeping the prospect of returning to school at a comfortable distance. Most children were enjoying the great weather, playing outside in back gardens and on the streets, firing super-soakers at each other, splashing in paddling pools, kicking footballs around.

      Jack Brady, however, was not doing any of these things. Jack was not like most children of his age. Jack was a genius. Jack was an inventor. And right now, Jack was in one of his favourite places – the tree house he shared with his best friend Oscar – fiddling with his latest project. It was an inflatable submarine that he had been toying with for some time and, using a few beach lilos, he was finally making a working prototype. Fixing the various inflated sections together with waterproof superglue (which he had also invented) was a difficult procedure and Jack had to take great care. Very patiently, he applied a thin coating of his adhesive to a section of the sub and set the next piece in place over the sticky trail.

      Suddenly there was a noise like a hailstorm as something hit the window of the tree house. Startled, Jack hurried across to the door and pulled it open. As he stepped out on to the porch area he was hit in the face by a handful of stale breadcrumbs.

      “Sorry!” came a voice from below. It was Oscar, standing beneath the tree. In Oscar’s hand was a plastic bread bag.

      “What are you doing?” demanded Jack as he hurried down the steps fixed to the tree trunk.

      “Mum gave me some breadcrumbs to feed to the ducks,” Oscar began to explain.

      “I’m not a duck!” complained Jack, reaching the ground.

      “It’s OK – there’s plenty left,” said Oscar, missing the point as usual. If Jack was a genius (and he was) Oscar was special in other ways. According to Jack’s mum, Oscar was a sandwich short of a picnic, and even Jack had to admit that Oscar could be mind-bogglingly stupid at times – but he was loyal and brave and, no matter what, he was Jack’s best friend.

      “Snivel,” Jack called. “Walkies.”

      In response a unique-looking dog appeared at his feet. Snivel was a mess of legs and hair that defied identification as any particular breed. Some people thought he was some kind of crossbreed terrier, some people thought he had some poodle in him and others just called him a mutt.

      None of those people was right. In reality, Snivel was an artificial creature. A Snot-Bot, to be precise. Built using alien technology, Snivel had been given to Jack to help him locate and capture some dangerous aliens that were at large in his area. That mission had been accomplished now, leaving Jack with nothing but a slightly odd three-eyed dog, and the memories of some great adventures.

      Jack, Oscar and Snivel headed to the park. One way or another, a lot of their escapades had started here, and for a while it had become a place of excitement and mystery. Now, weeks since their last unusual adventure, it had begun to lose all those associations. Now it was just the park again, a normal place where normal things happened.

      Jack looked round as they walked through the gate and sighed.

      “Everything looks normal,” he muttered with a slightly heavy heart.

      Oscar nodded. “Yep,” he agreed in a bored tone. “Normal kids playing normal football, normal mums pushing normal buggies, normal dogs taking their owners for normal walks …”

      “And Ruby,” added Jack in the same tone, “dressed as a Brownie and collecting litter …”

      His voice trailed off as he realised what he was saying. Jack and Oscar exchanged looks.

      “Brownie uniform?” repeated Oscar.

      “Litter?” replied Jack.

      In unison they shook their heads and rubbed their eyes before taking another look. No, they had been right the first time. There was Ruby in a pristine Brownie uniform, holding a black bin liner in one hand and a grabbing stick in the other, with which she was patiently picking up litter. Jack and Oscar hurried over to join her.

      As she saw them coming, Ruby turned a bright shade of pink. “Don’t say a thing,” she told them, but they couldn’t stop themselves.

      “Litter?” asked Jack.

      “Brownie uniform?” said Oscar at