Stay Out of My Kitchen!

By David J. Wighton

Read the book to learn the answers to these questions.

How did Planet Persnickety's emotional control police punish offenders?

What is a McDuck?

What did the Persnickets think about Star Trek's Spock?

What university sport will Maddy choose? Baseball or Basketball?

Winnie was peeking at the dealer's cards when William and Galahad were playing poker in a casino. Why wasn't that cheating?

Why did Gnome Land ban dogs from the planet?

The only thing that Persnickets hated was a shiny building? Why?

Who had the longest blink in recorded history?

Was Ho-Ho-Ho really assassinated?

Why did Maddy endure a beating and not fight back?

Why did Shields feel it necessary to tell Hamish that she wasn't a girly-girly?

What does this sentence mean? It was hot dog time at the OK Corral and Maddy was the mustard.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David J. Wighton
• Release date: Feb 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005277413

David J. Wighton

David Wighton is a retired educator who enjoys writing youth novels when he's not on a basketball court coaching middle-school girls. The books in his Wilizy series peek at how people lived after the word's governments collapsed in the chaos that followed the catastrophic rise in ocean levels and the disappearance of the world's last deposits of oil. Luckily today, in the 2080s, the citizens of Alberta are safe because their It's Only Fair society uses brain-bands to zap people whenever they break a rule. That way, all children grow up knowing the difference between right and wrong. Unfortunately, they're also taught that women's ankles need to be covered so that men can't see them and turn into perverts. Plus, no-one in Alberta can have babies any more because the government manufactures them in a way that ensures that no child has an unfair advantage over any other child. All of this makes sense to Alberta's dictator, but not to Will and Izzy – two teenagers who are decidedly different from everyone else.Wighton's novels have strong teenage characters driving the plot and facing challenges that, in many respects, are no different from what teenagers face today. His novels are intended to entertain and readers will find adventure, romance, suspense, humour, a strong focus on family, plus a touch of whimsy. Wighton also writes to provoke a little thought about life in today's societies and what the future might bring. Teachers may find the series useful in the classroom and the novels are priced with that intent in mind.

Book preview

Chapter 1

I see five space yachts, but not Mom's, Double-Ought reported what Luna could already see.

She's not responding to my calls, Luna reported. Could they have destroyed it?

Double-Ought and Luna were returning to Planet Panther after the conclusion of the Board of Directors meeting in Cosmos during which Double-Ought had administered Fang Justice to Diaper Stink. Kyty had been busy defending the planet.

Justice would have told us if she had been hurt or if there had been any damage. She's probably in the backwoods.

We need to apologize to her.

I need to check the security of the planet first. Let's park this ship with the others and take the life boat down to the surface.

Agreed. Let's make sure the mine is still operating and the devil miners still alive too. They can probably tell us what happened.

# # # # # # # #

Minister, you wanted to see me?

Yes, Justice. Come in and shut the door.

Are you happy that the Cosmos granted you all that money?

Yes, I'm happy. We received that money because of your presentation.

I had help. Ho-Ho-Ho made a big difference.

He'll be an active director, which means he can pressure Sewage Breath and Underarm Stench if they try to obstruct. What do you know about Queen Guinevere?

Not much. I've messaged with her whenever I involve Winnie in an operation. She's been supportive.

Does Winnie know her well?

Yes. Very.

Are they related by blood?

No. Why?

Sewage Breath will stall for as long as he can before he invites her to be a director. He may even pretend to forget. If I'm going to get into a fight with him, I'd like to know in advance if she'll accept the position.

I can probably wrangle an audience.

Through Winnie?

Yes. Would you accept another director?

Winnie?

No. She'd never do that. Besides, she's better suited where she is right now. How badly do you want Queen Guinevere?

I want the strongest woman we can get from Heaven.

I'll see what I can do.

# # # # # # # #

We don't know what happened in the battle, the mine's head devil told Luna. We managed to hide all of the loose gold deep inside the mine while your mom was meeting with the panthers. When she returned, she told us to hide with the gold and not come out until she told us to. We didn't see the attackers. They did fire their guns down the tunnel but we were too deep in the mine to be injured.

Do you know anything about the battle? Luna asked.

We heard five big explosions. That's it.

That would have been their lifeboats blowing up. They would have been where Double-Ought is sniffing around. Anything else?

We heard a lot of screaming and then nothing for a long time. Kyty came by and told us that we were safe and could bring the gold out of the mine again. She also asked me to search the clothing of the attackers for the keys to their spaceships. Another panther took me into the woods and I found four sets of keys. I put them in your house. By this time, your mom was gone. She left a note for you in the house.

Did you read it?

It was none of my business.

I'm glad you're safe.

Not much was left of the invaders.

No, there wouldn't have been. Luna turned towards the house.

We would be happy to bring the skeletons back to the mine for you. You could use them as a warning in case others get the same idea.

I have to meet with the other panthers. I think we'll do that.

Your mom saved the planet. We devils couldn't have done anything against guns.

I know. We have to make some changes.

# # # # # # # #

How soon will the new money appear in the field, Minister?

Something like this requires a lot of paperwork, Justice. I can do that, but I need an administrator to work with the personnel. His first task will be to publish announcements that we are hiring staff. Then, she will have to evaluate the candidates. After that, he will assign the staff to the planets that need unannounced visits. You know what skill set we'd need. I was wondering if you ...

No, thanks. I'd hate a desk job.

Thought so, but I had to ask. I'll ask Claude if he wants to take on the job. He's the most experienced investigator in the ministry.

All the more reason he should remain where he is. Do you have concerns about him?

No. I was just wondering if he was getting burnt out.

What made you think that he was?

Your decision to do all of the work on the Wiffle-Waffle case provoked a reaction. I couldn't read it. Perhaps relief? I wondered if he had a family. If so, is he away from his family too much? Might he want a desk job so that he can be with them more?

Seeing planets at their worst can wear on a person over time.

If he doesn't want this job, perhaps he'd welcome a job managing the justices: assign them to operations, evaluate them, train them. That sort of thing.

He'd probably want that more. Conducting a proper investigation is way harder and more important than doing surprise visits. I hardly know him. I'll do a little checking on him.

Be discrete. Meanwhile, I'll check into his previous investigations.

# # # # # # # #

Have you figured it out? Luna asked Double-Ought.

I think so. Each of the burn marks is where a lifeboat landed and was exploded. You can see that the debris is in a sort of circle around the burn mark. They were destroyed from space. It must have been torpedoes from Heaven.1. Galahad and Shields probably. They had to have been warned ahead of time, otherwise they couldn't have gotten here in time.

Who warned them?

Justice perhaps. Possibly Winnie. It doesn't matter. Heaven agreed to defend us if we needed it and they did. Where's Mom?

She's having an operation on her brain in Heaven. She left us a note.

She must have heard about you taking charge.

We're acting like grown ups now.

That must be why she agreed to get a brain plug.

We have to make sure that we apologize to her, Luna said.

Then we can beg her to come back and be president again.

Back to the Table of Contents

Chapter 2

It was an innocuous little humanoid planet. The interplanetary guide identified it as FF2P. Its neighbors referred to the planet as Persnickety and its occupants as persnickets. That's because when they became angry, they became persnickety. They didn't become abrasive, apoplectic, belligerent, cantankerous, caustic, furious, livid, malicious, rabid, or scathing. Their anger, such as it was, reached the level of persnicketedness and stopped there.

You may wonder why persnickets were so tolerant. That's because they had only one thing to complain about. Their climate was OK; their economy was so-so; the people were polite to each other, mostly; their cities were not too big or too small; their food was palatable; the government was adequate; and their politicians were tolerable.

If they ordered ice cream, it would be vanilla. Their clothes were mostly beige. If they laughed, it would be heh-heh. When they had sex, it was pleasant. When one persnicket became angry at another persnicket, it was like being brutalized by a gold fish. Their life was like some prankster had put ten tons of Valium into their drinking water and then left the planet to enjoy life to the fullest elsewhere.

The planet was far too little and too unnoticeable to attract the attention that it would receive in time. Life was good, except for that one thing.

# # # # # # # #

I've never even touched a basketball, Maddy confessed to the teacher who had asked her to come to his classroom at lunch. I wouldn't know what to do with it.

The teacher was Mr. Konrad Evans and he was the coach of the Senior Girls Basketball Team. He had just asked Maddy if she were interested in joining the team. That didn't stop you from coaching the school's soccer team, he responded

That was different. I had played goalie before. I knew enough to be able to contribute to the team. Besides, I have to start training for baseball season now.

You could contribute to the basketball team in a meaningful way. We're defending champions this year, but we have one big weakness. You could make that weakness disappear.

How? You don't need a goalie. That's all I know how to do.

"Have you heard the expression? The game is won on defense."

Yes. That's true in baseball. That's why pitchers are so important.

In a normal high school basketball game, each team will have about 50 attempts to score. If a team has good shooters, they might score on 50% of their shots. The other team might score 50% of the time too. But, let's say that our team prevents the other team from having fifty attempts. Let's say we take the ball away from them before they can shoot ten times. Now, they will have to score at a much higher rate to stay even with us. But, our defense can stymie them. A good defense means that we can beat them even if we have a bad shooting game.

It's the same thing in baseball. If I hold the other team to one run, we only have to score two runs to win.

Exactly. In basketball, teams will rely on star players to do most of the scoring. In a typical game, their best player will score twenty-five points; the second best will score sixteen. But if we hold their best player to fifteen points, somebody else on that team has to contribute ten more points than she normally would. That's very difficult to do. University High School is known for winning our games on defense, but this year's team doesn't have a defensive stopper. We don't have anybody quick enough, or aggressive enough, to play that role.

Huh.

A defensive stopper doesn't have to score a lot of baskets. She doesn't have to contribute on offense to the same degree as others. She has to know some basic skills, but those skills are easy enough to learn. Making good passes. Setting screens. Running give and go plays. Triggering the fast break. You could do all of that.

I taught the soccer team give and go's.

You also taught them the fast break which was why your team won. The two sports have the same concepts: get the ball to your best players in a position where they can score; create uneven offensive situations; and stop the other team from scoring.

How'd you know what I did in soccer?

Mrs. Evans, your teacher sponsor, did not know how to coach soccer, but she understood the strategies. She told me about you.

I dunno. I really should be working out on baseball.

You could do both. Would that affect your school marks?

Not if I'm careful.

You could try coming to a few practices with us. See what it's like and then make a decision.

I could do that.

How do you feel about some extra practices with me so that I can teach you the basics.

My first baseball coach gave me individual coaching so that I could catch up. It worked. When would we do it?

How early in the morning can your get here? I have a key to the school gym.

How early in the morning would you like me to be here?

6:30?

Which door?

The outside door to the gym that is painted blue. I'll prop it open.

Gear?

Gym clothes and a good pair of basketball shoes.

Can you show me what good basketball shoes look like?

Back to the Table of Contents

Chapter 3

Double-Ought and Luna were waiting for Kyty when she opened the hatch to her yacht's lifeboat and stepped out.

Mom, you're back, Luna said unnecessarily. How'd the operation go? That question was also unnecessary. Kyty's black furry head remained black and completely furry. Neither Luna nor Double-Ought recognized the significance of that yet.

Both of you know Justice, Kyty said unnecessarily as she stepped out of the lifeboat behind her. So far, this conversation was taking up a lot of time with nothing to show for it. That would change soon. We need to talk. We'll do that in the house.

...

Justice is here in her official capacity as a justice of the Cosmos. Where do you want me?

Lying here against the wall is good. Do you have a chair for me?

Sorry, no. We have a lot of pillows though. Double-Ought, make our guest welcome.

# # # # # # #

Here's the scene now. Kyty was lying on a big pillow against a wall. Justice was sitting cross-legged on another pillow in the middle of the room with a truth ray on the floor beside her. It was pointing at Kyty. Double-Ought and Luna were on pillows behind her, but with an uninterrupted view of their mother.

Let's get this over with, Kyty instructed Justice.

Very well. I am here to investigate a complaint that Kyty-Lytr has been a bad mother to Double-Ought and Luna Moon. I have been instructed to use the truth ray, which I have now activated. Is that too bright?

No.

"Kyty, while you're under the truth ray, you must answer my questions truthfully or a buzzer will sound. In this investigation, you will be free to answer my questions fully. If I find it necessary, I will limit your answers to either Yes or No. Do you understand?"

Yes.

Wait, Luna interrupted. Who made such a ridiculous complaint?

I have to explain something, Luna and Double-Ought, Justice preambled. During an interrogation under a truth ray, only I can question the suspect. Since your question will be informative, I will ask the question for you. Kyty, who complained that you were a bad mother?

I did.

Being a bad mother is not against any regulations that I could find. So, I'll have to learn some background. Kyty, where have you been the last couple of days?

I have been in one of Heaven's operating rooms.

Why were you there?

Both Double-Ought and Luna insisted that I receive the operation that they received, which increased their intelligence and capacity to learn. I tried to turn them down. But, that made things between us worse. So I went to get the operation and you're here so that they know that I did go.

I don't see any signs of surgery. Did you actually have an operation?

No. Heaven's surgeons took some scans and said that they couldn't do anything to improve my capacity to learn.

Why was that?

They said that I had a normal panther brain. While we panthers are sentient, our brains are feline. Those brains give us very good reflexes and an extraordinary sense of smell in addition to other skills. Felines were created to act on instincts, not on intellectual knowledge.

Did that surprise you?

No. I was certain the brain operation would fail.

Why were they able to have a successful operation when you couldn't? All three of you are panthers.

No, we're not and that's what I have been trying to hide from them. I am not Luna or Double-Ought's birth mother. Their birth mother and father had humanoid brains in a panther body. I knew from an early age that their children would be special. I tried to hide that from Luna and Double-Ought because I'm a coward.

[Silence from the truth ray.]

She's not a coward! Luna declared. Why didn't the truth ray respond?

Kyty is telling the truth as she sees it. She believes it and so she is not lying. Kyty, can you explain how a panther can have a humanoid brain in a panther body?

I can't explain it. I'm too dumb to know how it was possible.

How did you come to learn that their parents were a mix of panther and human?

I met their parents in my capacity as the Head of Planet Panther. They said that the two babies had been conceived when they were occupying panther bodies on another planet. Normally, they are humanoids on that planet, but through something called an astral plane, they were able to conceive baby panthers. They came to Planet Panther through that astral plane. They did not have a space ship.

That's hard to believe, even for me.

That why you're shining that light in my face. That's what they told me. I did not have the intellectual capacity to know if they were telling a lie or not. They told me that they had wanted to raise the cubs in their humanoid planet, but that wouldn't be right for them. As cubs, they would lose any sense of what life would be like as panthers. On the humanoid planet, they would be considered freaks. They wanted what was best for them, and what was best for them was to be with their own kind. I agreed to take them and told everybody here that they were foundlings. That was a lie. I didn't want the panthers to think of them as freaks either.

What happened then?

The real parents came to visit their cubs twice. I asked them not to return because it would be bad for the cubs. They agreed, but what I said to the parents was a lie.

Why do you think that what you said was a lie?

By then, I could see how smart they were going to be. They would be smart like their birth parents. I'm dumb. If they saw their parents again, they would want to be with them, not me. I didn't want to lose them. They had become the focus of my life. I lied for selfish reasons. I taught them to tell the truth, but I myself was a liar. I was a coward unwilling to face what I knew would happen.

"You have decided to resign as the leader of Planet Panther. You named Luna as the new leader. How do