Fortunately the Milk Read Free Page A

special-shiny-greeny-stone.”
    I went over the side of the gondola and down the rope ladder. I pulled the emerald out of the eye socket.
    Below me, on the plain, a number of brightly colored ponies were gathered, and when I picked up the emerald, one of them shouted up at me. “You must be the man without the milk. We have heard about you, in our tales.”
    “Why are you a pink pony with a pale blue star on the side?” I asked.
    “I know,” said the pony with a sigh. “It’s what everybody’s wearing these days. Pale blue stars are so last year.”
    Professor Steg leaned over the side of the balloon’s basket. “Hurry up!” he called. “If the volcano is going to go off, it will do it any moment.”
    The volcano made a noise like a huge burp, and the middle of it collapsed into itself.
    “We thought it would do that,” said a green pony with a sparkly mane.
    “There was a prophecy, I suppose,” I said.
    “No. We’re just very clever.” All the ponies nodded. They were very clever ponies.
    “I am so glad there were ponies,” said my sister.

I got back into the balloon basket. Professor Steg unhooked the first emerald from his Time Machine and replaced it with the one that I had just taken from the weathered face of Splod-in-the-Future.

    “Do not, whatever else you might do,” said the professor, “touch those two stones together.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because, according to my calculations, if the same object from two different times touches itself, one of two things will happen. Either the Universe will cease to exist. Or three remarkable dwarfs will dance through the streets with flowerpots on their heads.”
    “That sounds astonishingly specific,” I said.
    “I know. But it is science . And it is much more probable that the Universe will end.”
    “I thought it would be,” I said.
    “You look so sad,” Professor Steg told me.
    “I am! It’s the milk. My children are breakfastless—”
    “The milk!” said Professor Steg. “Of course!” And with that, Professor Steg pressed the red button with his heavily armored tail.
    There was a ZOOM , a TWORP , and a THANG , and we were hurtling through the cosmic void.
    And then it was dark.
    Very dark.
    “Oops,” said Professor Steg. “Overshot a little. Only by a week, though. Hold on. . . .”
    Professor Steg leaned over the side of the basket.
    “Excuse me?” he said. “Is there anyone around?”
    “Only me,” said a very surprised-sounding voice from below us. “The priest of Splod. Who is that up in the sky? Is it a bird? You do not sound like a bird.”
    “I am not a bird,” said Professor Steg. “I am a marvelous yet mysterious and prophetic voice, telling you a mighty prophecy. So mighty that . . . Um . . . Very mighty indeed. Listen. When a huge and good-looking spiny-backed individual—”
    “Monster,” I told him. “The prophecy said monster.”
    “Accompanied by a scrawny human being of revolting appearance—” said Professor Steg.

    “That was not necessary.”
    “—lands in a Floaty-Ball-Person-Carrier, you must not sacrifice them. You must instead take them to the volcano and give them the Eye of Splod. And this shall be the way that you shall know them. The human being will hold up some milk.”
    “Is that the prophecy?” said the voice.
    “Yes.”
    “Is there anything about crops in it?”
    “I’m afraid not.”
    “Oh well. Thank you anyway, prophetic and mysterious voices from the air.”
    I pressed the red button.
    Daylight. We were in the middle of a very familiar volcanic eruption. “Quickly!” I said. “Give me the emerald!”

    A little way away I could see a balloon being blown through the sky, while fire and ash were swept around it by the wind. I could see me in the balloon, standing next to Professor Steg, with my mouth open. I looked miserable.
    Professor Steg— MY Professor Steg—gave me the emerald.

    I raced down the rope ladder and placed the emerald back into the face’s eye.