Lab Rats in Space by Bruno Bouchet Page B

back from her face and behind her head was the most enormous ball of perfectly combed hair, like a massive bun.
    â€˜Welcome to Libris, I am Miss Tennet, Assistant Head Librarian, Information Requests Section. In order to optimise your time on Libris, could you please state the nature of your enquiry?’
    â€˜Good morning Miss Tennet,’ the children all said together without thinking.
    â€˜Good morning,’ she smiled, ‘and your enquiry?’
    Zed introduced himself. ‘We want to know where we come from?’
    â€˜Surely you know that for yourselves?’ Miss Tennet was perplexed.
    â€˜No, prof…’ Jay was about to mention Professor Xanax, when Dee interrupted him. She didn’t think it was a good idea to let Miss Tennet know that one of the most ruthless and powerful men in the galaxy was chasing them.
    â€˜We had our memories wiped during a weird electrical storm,’ Dee said, ‘and we can’t remember which planets we’re from.’
    â€˜How unfortunate. But we have all known life forms scanned into our databanks so we should be able to resolve your issue satisfactorily. I shall meet your ship.’
    With that, the image of Miss Tennet disappeared.
    â€˜What did she mean?’ asked Katy. ‘Resolve our issue?’
    â€˜I think it means she can help us,’ answered Emm, ‘…ooh nice.’
    Another smell wafted over her. Noone else could smell anything except for Jay.
    â€˜Who farted?’ he asked, pressing both hands to either side of his nose to block his nostrils.
    The ship set down on what looked like the page of a giant book. The writing on the page was different to anything the Lab Rats had seen before. It was Oopan— the oldest known written language in the galaxy. It was there to remind everyone who landed on Libris that writing was the basis of everything, ‘the launch pad for all libraries’.
    A giant bookmark extended from the landing pad to the main building. As the children walked along the bookmark they could see buildings in the distance, which all looked like books on a bookcase, of different heights with different coloured edges.
    At the end of the bookmark was a wide corridor. On either side of the corridor, shelves of books reached as high as they could see and far into the distance.
    â€˜What do we do now?’ Katy asked, looking for Miss Tennet.
    As the Rats waited, the first thing they noticed was how quiet Libris was. They had been so used to the hum of the ship and their own noise that the silence unnerved them.
    Emm stood with XL under her arm, stroking him gently. On board the ship XL had been too busy running everything to enjoy any physical contact with the others. Now he realised he actually enjoyed being touched.
    They could see something moving towards them in the distance. It shot along at high speed, growing bigger and bigger. Soon Zed could make out Miss Tennet’s huge bun of hair. She was standing on a ladder which ran along a rail in front of one of the bookcases. The top ofthe ladder touched a rail twelve shelves up. She hurtled towards them and the ladder stopped.
    â€˜Welcome to Libris!’ she stretched her arm out and quietly replaced the one strand of hair which had strayed from her head.
    â€˜I apologise for being late, I had an emergency cross-reference enquiry.’
    She looked at them all and smiled without a hint of shock, even when she saw Dee’s arm. Dee liked her immediately. She was so neat and friendly. Dee wished she could be that neat.
    â€˜Thank you for helping us, Miss Tennet,’ she said.
    â€˜Now I better take you to Arrivals so we can log you in and go from there. Jump up.’
    They crammed onto the ladder.
    â€˜How marvellous you’d be at stacking shelves,’ Miss Tennet looked at Zed’s third arm. ‘Have you thought about a career in libraries young man?’
    â€˜No,’ replied Zed.
    â€˜I suppose he wants to