Six On The Moon

By Stenton Garvald

Jack was determined to find another mystery to solve - after all, that was what he and his secret friends did best. But perhaps a space adventure wasn't quite what he had in mind, with Aliens, a Death Ray, a Mad Professor (actually their friend Professor Fletcher, who was more Confused than properly Mad), Lost Continents and a Rocket Ship. Still, it should keep Eric and Roy happy ...
Hoorah!

Against one wall was a row of black chairs, and above each chair was a large glass helmet with wires attached to the top. Several of the little robots were whizzing busily around. Martin thought it looked like the hairdresser's where his mother went. Apart from the robots.
'It's not too bad,' he assured the others. 'I've seen it done before.'
'What are they?' Jo asked, pointing at the chairs and helmets.
'They are part of the Mind Sucking Machine. They will suck all the information out of your brains,' the alien said. 'The process is quite painful, and will leave you as mere husks - empty shells.'
'My mother goes every month,' Martin said.
'I think these aliens are turning out to be rather beastly after all,' Sophie announced.
'I should say,' Jack agreed. 'It's probably because they're not British.'

A fourth curious and surreal romp through the world of six deluded and at times borderline psychotic children - welcome to the world of The Splendid Six.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Asquith Publishing
• Release date: Nov 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9781909420205

Book preview

Stenton Garvald

SIX ON THE MOON

Eric’s Favourite Adventure of the Splendid Six

SIX ON THE MOON

Smashwords Edition

ISBN 978-1-909420-20-5 (EPUB format)

Copyright 2013 Stenton Garvald.

All rights reserved.

Published by Asquith Publishing

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal use only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book, then please purchase additional copies. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please visit Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the efforts of the author.

Table of Contents

Chapter One – After The Hols

Chapter Two – Global Warming

Chapter Three – What The Professor Had To Say

Chapter Four – Up, Up and Away

Chapter Five – Coming in Peace

Chapter Six – Alien Queen

Chapter Seven – The Mind Sucking Machine

Chapter Eight – The Man in the Moon

Chapter Nine – The Death Ray

Chapter Ten – Down To Earth with a Bang

Chapter One – After The Hols

Jack padlocked his gleaming blue sports bike to a railing by the churchyard gate and stepped back to admire his favourite Christmas present. This padlock was a present from his parents, and it had a 6-digit combination instead of a key. He didn’t know exactly how tricky that made it for someone to guess the number (he would have to ask Jo), but it was certainly pretty unlikely.

He was so impressed that he was beginning to think he should start a collection of padlocks. They didn’t take up much space, and always came in handy. Unfortunately, it was something none of the other boys collected. He would have to convince some of the others to start their own collections so they could do swaps.

As he trudged up the low hill towards the church, he noticed that his boots were the first to mark the snow which had fallen last night. That meant he was the first to arrive. The others would turn up shortly: Eric and Roy, Sophie, Jo and Martin. His secret friends. The Splendid Six.

Dashed fine chaps, all of them. Except the girls, of course, since they weren’t really chaps at all: but they were dashed fine girls. And they’d had some splendid adventures together, since becoming friends last summer [See Six Canoe to France].

They’d met up a few times since that affair with the onion smugglers, especially at weekends. There was the escapade with mad Professor Fletcher and his time machine [See Six Meet Prehistoric Man]. And, of course, just before Christmas they’d managed to foil the evil plans of a gang of Santa Clauses [See Six At Christmas]. It was really rather super how much fun they had together.

They’d made a decision that this year they would try to find even more mysteries to solve, since they were obviously very good at them. It was their duty, Jack felt, especially since the police were normally tied up with other things, like telling people the time, and giving directions and so on.

Since coming back from the Christmas Hols last week, they’d already met up once – on Saturday. They’d spent that day gambling. Eric had taught them all how to play poker. Originally, they were going to play using matches instead of money, but the man in the corner shop recognised Eric and wouldn’t sell them any. Instead they went to the park and used leaves instead. After half an hour they gave up, because it was too easy to simply pick up a handful of leaves from the ground and suddenly be winning. It was Sophie who discovered that.

Next, Eric had offered to teach them Russian Roulette, but he didn’t have a gun. He had a bow and arrow, which he had been given for Christmas, but it was easy to see whether the bow was loaded or not so the game hadn’t really worked.

It had all been very jolly, and quite risky at times (especially when Eric had his bow out), but Jack wasn’t totally convinced that it counted as an adventure or a mystery. They would all have to try harder, he had decided. That was why he had called this meeting.

‘Hello, Jack,’ a girl’s voice shouted from behind him, just as he reached the church. He turned and saw Sophie running up the path towards him – it wasn’t really running, of course, since she was a girl. It was sort of Sophie-running, which meant that she only ran for three or four steps and then slowed down to a walk again.

She was wearing a pale pink anorak, which was about two sizes too large for her, with the hood up. It had a big fluffy white collar, which matched her gloves, and it made her legs look really thin.

‘The others aren’t here yet,’ Jack told her, when she reached the church.

‘Then it’s only the two of us,’ Sophie smiled. ‘That’s nice.’

‘Not for long,’ Jack said. ‘Look, here come Martin and Jo.’

Martin was pushing Jo’s wheelchair up the path towards them. He was wearing a really long scarf, which kept getting trapped in Jo’s rear wheels, so they had to keep stopping. Jo was wearing a pair of black earmuffs and an extra-thick blanket on her lap. Martin had a little red pointed hat with a white pompom on the very top.

‘Gosh,’ Sophie said, when they arrived. ‘That’s ever such a big bruise.’ She pointed at Martin, who looked over his shoulder.

‘Where?’ he asked.

‘There’s a big bruise, right in the middle of your forehead,’ she explained.

‘Ah,’ he nodded, and then added. ‘I got a yo-yo for Christmas.’

Sophie thought that explained everything, but Martin hadn’t finished.

‘I couldn’t get it to work properly,’ he told her. ‘It wouldn’t come back up again. So I took the string out and replaced it with a long piece of elastic. The lady at the hospital said I was very lucky.’

‘We passed Eric and Roy at the gate,’ Jo interrupted. ‘They were trying to pick a bicycle lock.’

‘I say,’ Jack said. ‘That’s my bike.’

‘Look,’ Sophie said. ‘Here they come now.’

Eric was running along the path towards them, and Roy was presumably running next to him. It was always difficult to tell when Roy was running, because he didn’t leave any tracks and he didn’t make any noise. That was because he was Eric’s imaginary friend, and the others couldn’t see him.

‘Hello everyone,’ Eric greeted them when he arrived.

‘Hello, Eric,’ they said.