How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy (6 page)

“Yes, a horny robot adult chat-line,” Sydney repeated.  “I didn’t request it, though,” he quickly protested.  “Some dodgy phone company is obviously just sending out random messages to random numbers.”

“Okay, if you could give me the number of the company that called you,” the operator requested.

“Here, man!  It was just a message!  I didn’t get the number!” Sydney snapped, his patience wearing thin.  “Here!  Why should I have to go through all this shit just cos of your inefficiency in the first place?”

“If you could just stay calm I’d find it easier to deal with your enquiry,” the operator advised.

“It’s not an enquiry!  It’s a complaint!” Sydney pointed out.  “Look, either some fucking dickhead’s signed my fucking number up to some dodgy expensive fucking robot adult chat-line, or otherwise it’s some dodgy scam company taking advantage of the incompetence of your security checks.  But either way, if I’ve been charged £7.99 on my next bill then I’m not paying the bill.  Simple as that.

And unless yous provide a signature saying that I authorised that message then I’ll be reporting yous to the fraud squad as well.  And yous won’t have a leg to stand on cos I haven’t signed anything.”

“Look, unless you stay calm and tell me exactly what’s happened I’m not going to be able to help you with your enquiry,” the operator repeated.

Sydney took a deep breath and attempted to calm down.  “Right, well basically either someone has signed uz up to a message service I didn’t request, or else some dodgy scam company is sending out random messages to random phone numbers.  And these messages cost £7.99 a time,” Sydney explained.

“How do you know they cost £7.99?” the operator inquired.

“Cos it said in the message,” Sydney explained.

“Ah … well, you see… if you’ve listened to the message that might present a bit of a problem with regard to getting
a refund,” the operator declared.

“Here!  If that £7.99 is on my bill you’ll be hearing from my lawyers!” Sydney threatened.

“It’s just that if you didn’t request the message then technically you should have hung up straight away,” the operator advised.

“Here, how was I meant to know if I’d actually requested it without actually listening to it first?” Sydney pointed out.

“It’s just that if you’ve listened to the message then the service provider may be entitled to make a charge for it,” the operator remarked.

Sydney’s patience had reached the end of its tether.  “Here!  Fuck off!” he bellowed.  And with that he slammed the phone down.

Meanwhile, outside Sydney’s house Jixyl and Azleev were in fits of laughter.

“Har, har!  Class!” Jixyl chuckled.  “He was completely sucked in, like.”

“Yeah,” Azleev agreed.  “It’s excellent how rubbish the integrity of the phone companies are on Earth.”

“Aye,” Jixyl smirked.  “It makes it an absolute doddle for pranksters like us to get a result.”

Sydney had in fact not been sent the ‘horny robot adult chat-line’ message by a dodgy phone scam company.  He had in fact been sent it by Jixyl.  Minutes earlier Jixyl had simply typed out a text message containing a load of made-up patter regarding a robot adult premium rate chat-line and then sent that message to Sydney’s land-line.
[10]
  Then he and Azleev had used the ‘piggyback network’ feature on their alien mobile phones to simply hack into Sydney’s land-line and allow them to listen in to his irate protestations.

“Ar, I
’ve got another idea!” Jixyl announced.  “We should ring that operator back and pretend that we’re someone else who’s had a dodgy phone scam message.  Then we should completely lose it with him and totally threaten him and get him all scared!”

“Do you not think that’s maybe going a bit too far?” Azleev replied.

“Nar, course not,” Jixyl remarked.  “If he had that lackadaisical attitude on Fyra then his company would get instantly closed down.  All we’re doing is teaching him to take phone fraud more seriously in future.”

“But if he took phone fraud more seriously it would make it harder for us to play phone pranks,” Azleev pointed out.

“True,” Jixyl acknowledged, “but he definitely needs teaching a lesson in any case.”

So Jixyl set about ringing the telephone operator.  Fortunately for the operator though, the maze of automated menus and options proved too tricky for Jixyl to navigate his way through, and so he never managed to play his prank on the operator.

Within a few more seconds, however, Jixyl had the seeds of another prank forming in his head.  He nudged Azleev and nodded at a mother and small toddler in the next garden along from Sydney’s garden.

“What?” Azleev shrugged.

“I see another prank forming,” Jixyl grinned.

All Azleev could see was a small toddler with his mother planting a seed in a plant-pot.  “How can we play a trick on them?” Azleev asked.

“Watch and learn,” Jixyl boasted.  “Watch and learn.”

So Jixyl and Azleev hovered about outside Sydney’s house until the toddler and mother had finished planting the seed in the plant-pot and returned inside.  “Here goes,” Jixyl remarked, to his friend.  And so he sneaked along into the adjacent garden to put the wheels in motion for his next prank…

A few minutes later Jamie, the toddler in question, peered out of the window at the plant-pot and was surprised to see a small number of leaves already sprouting up from the soil.

“Mam!” he shouted.  “The seed’s growing.”

“Yeah,” his mother replied.  “In a few weeks’ time you’ll be able to see your plant growing up through the soil.”

“No, it’s growing now,” Jamie revealed.  “I can see leaves.”

“Don’t be so stupid,” his mother remarked.

“I can,” Jamie insisted.  “I can see leaves.”

His inquisitive mother strolled to the window to see for herself.  “It won’t start growing for another few…”  At this point she arrived at the window and saw for herself the leaves sprouting up from the plant-pot.  “…weeks.”

“See!” Jamie proclaimed, proud of his rapidly growing plant.

“Eee!  How’s it growing that quick?” his mother inquired, looking very confused.  She quickly opened the door and dashed into the garden for a closer look.  The plant-pot looked the same from close-up as it did from through the window.  Which is to say that a small number of leaves had already emerged from the soil.  “Eee!  Michael!  Come and have a look at this!” she called inside to her husband.  “Michael!  Quick!  Look at this!”

At that point Jixyl could contain his laughter no more and burst out laughing which drew the attention of Jamie’s mother.  She looked up at Jixyl chuckling away to himself, then looked down at the plant-pot, then back at Jixyl, and quickly surmised that there was tomfoolery afoot.

“You stupid idiots!” she shouted at Jixyl and Azleev.  Then she looked at Jamie and remarked, “Howay, we’re going back inside now.”

“It’s a fast grower, isn’t it, mam?” Jamie remarked.

“It hasn’t started growing yet,” Jamie’s mother explained.  “It’s just them idiots over there being idiots,” and she took his hand and marched back inside the house.

“Ar, man.  You gave the game away there,” Azleev reproached his friend.

“I couldn’t help it, man,” Jixyl shrugged.  “Her face was just so funny.  She completely fell for it.”  He shook his head in disbelief at her gullibility.  “Anyway, we had to let her know it was a trick at some point otherwise she wouldn’t have swore.”

“She didn’t swear anyway!” Azleev pointed out.  “Think about it … she’s not gonna swear in front of her toddler, is she?  You should have waited until the toddler was back inside.  You’ve spoilt our run now.  We were on a potential triple letter
[11]
as well.”

“You and your triple letters,” Jixyl remarked.  “You see, it’s not all about the word score for me, you know.  I’m mainly in it for the fun of playing pranks.  Besides, we’re still on for the double letter.  And we’ve still got the green scary masks and clawed gloves to come.  They’re always a definite banker.”

“Yeah, I suppose,” Azleev shrugged.  “Are we heading somewhere more remote first, though?  We can’t do that one here.  There’s too many people about.”

“Aye, we’ll head back to the spaceship, then,” Jixyl agreed.

And so the two friends headed back to their spaceship to journey somewhere more remote where they could look for their third victim and thus potentially earn themselves a double letter score.

Back on the spaceship with Eric…

“…so how come the plant grew so quickly, then?” Eric inquired, as Jixyl and Azleev finished bringing him up-to-date on their adventures since arriving on Earth.  “Did you use some clever alien plant acceleration growth technology on it, did you?”

“No, I just snapped a stalk off a hedge and stuck it in the plant-pot,” Jixyl revealed.

“Anyway, that’s basically what The Nivlax Festival is all about,” Azleev summarised.  “We fly to various planets throughout the galaxy and play pranks on people.  If you get your victim so angry that they swear then you get the first letter of that planet towards making a word.  If you get three people to swear then you get a double letter score.  And if you get three people in a row to swear you get a triple letter score.

Then once you’ve got a few letters you make a word out of the letters and whoever makes the word with the most points wins.”

“Ar, we’ve got a game a bit like that on Earth,” Eric mused.  “Only it doesn’t involve pranks.  It involves…”  Eric paused.

“What?” Jixyl inquired.

“Ar, just, er…”  Eric paused again.  “Em … ar, just little tiles on a board.  It’s called Scrabble.”

“Well our version is called The Nivlax Festival,” Jixyl replied.  “And it involves playing pranks on people on other planets.  Not little tiles on a board.”

“But I think I should just point out that I’m not usually this childish,” Azleev interjected.  “I’m usually quite mature and responsible.  But it’s just sort of a tradition so you have to go along with it.”

“And I think I should point out that I
am
usually this childish,” Jixyl added.  “But if there’s any excuse to be extra childish then I’m all in favour of it.”

“Anyway, so did I spoil your triple letter score by not swearing?” Eric inquired.  “Just cos I don’t normally swear in everyday conversation, but if it helps you get your double letter score then I don’t mind saying ‘fuck.’”

“It’s okay,” Azleev replied.  “We’re still on for a potential double letter score anyway, cos you already said ‘fuck’ in any case.  You said ‘flip’ at first, but then in the end you said ‘fuck.’”

“Did I?” Eric queried.  “I thought I just said ‘flip.’”

“Nar, you definitely said ‘fuck,’” Jixyl confirmed.  “You said it a few times actually.  Once just before you fainted and then you said a few more ‘fucks’ when you finally realised that we were really aliens.”

“It must have just been the shock of seeing a spaceship and the shock of meeting aliens from another planet,” Eric explained.

“You don’t have to explain yourself,” Jixyl replied.  “We’re glad you said ‘fuck.’  It means we still might get our double letter score.”

Eric smirked as he tried to get his head around the bizarreness of the concept of The Nivlax Festival.  “It’s a weird idea for a festival, like,” he remarked, before quickly adding, “It sounds class, though.  We should have something like that in England.  I mean on Earth.”  He generally thought of himself as English, rather than an Earthling, but he figured that in the presence of aliens it was probably more appropriate to refer to himself as an Earthling, rather than English.  “We’ve got April Fool’s Day, I suppose, but that’s a bit small scale compared to what yous do.”

“Aye, you can’t beat The Nivlax Festival,” Jixyl enthused.

“Although I have to say, though … you were a bit sly with that first lass, like,” Eric commented.  “Like, she obviously really wants to get in touch with her ex-boyfriend and you’re just thinking of a funny prank to play on her.  I think you crossed the line a bit there cos lasses on Earth get totally upset when they split up with someone.”

“They do on our planet as well,” Azleev revealed.

“She’ll be okay,” Jixyl insisted.  “She seemed quite calm in the message she left, like.  And anyway, I haven’t even decided how I’m gonna reply to her yet.”

“Nar but, like, honestly … lasses on Earth get, like …
totally
upset when they split up with someone, like,” Eric elaborated.  “You shouldn’t play tricks on them, like.”

“I’m probably just saving her from embarrassing herself,” Jixyl argued.  “If she had her ex-boyfriend’s real number she’d probably just end up leaving him really desperate messages and making a show of herself.”

“Mebbees … but I still reckon you should just give her Vince’s real number, like,” Eric proposed.  “Fair enough, she’ll probably just make a show of herself but at least then it’s her that’s making a fool of herself, rather than someone else making a fool of her.

Honestly, man.  When a lass splits up with someone on Earth it’s a totally big deal to them.  They’re all, like, ‘Oh no!  I haven’t got a boyfriend!  My life’s a failure!’  Seriously, you shouldn’t mess with the feelings of a dumped lass.”