Free Bumageddon: The Final Pongflict by Andy Griffiths

trusted.’
    Zack shrugged. ‘We don’t have much choice,’ he said.

CHAPTER 36
CAMPFIRE
    T hat night the three bum-fighters and two bums sat around a small campfire. Long, low poopasaur mating calls filled the air.
    Zack looked up into the blackness and marvelled at the awesome wash of stars above them. It was all so beautiful, he thought. It was hard to believe that a life-on-Earth-destroying arseteroid could come out of such a sky. But it was definitely coming. And soon.
    Ned and Eleanor were roasting bumnuts the size of baseballs. ‘These are much bigger than the bumnuts back home,’ said Ned, spitting out small pieces of the woody nut as he spoke.
    â€˜I know,’ said their guide. ‘Bumolution is not always for the better.’
    â€˜You can say that again,’ said Zack’s bum. ‘Bums would have been so much better off without heads messing things up.’
    Zack ignored his bum’s remark and turned to their guide. ‘So, how did you come to be here, exactly?’ said Zack. ‘I know you got sucked into a brown hole, but what were you doing out in space to begin with?’
    â€˜Well,’ said the bum, staring into the fire, ‘it’s a sad story. I used to have an owner. A really good one. She took care of me. Clothed me. Wiped me. Even let me watch television occasionally. She was the best owner a bum could ever want. But then one day I wokeup and she wasn’t there. I wasn’t in her bed. I was in a rubbish bin. I’d been cut loose. Discarded. Abandoned.’
    â€˜Zack would never do that to me, ’ said Zack’s bum. ‘Would you, Zack?’
    Zack raised his eyebrows. ‘Wouldn’t I?’ he said.
    Zack’s bum ignored Zack. ‘You must have done something pretty bad,’ it said to the other bum.
    â€˜I never did anything!’ said the bum. ‘At first I thought there must have been some mistake—some terrible misunderstanding. Had I not done everything I could to be a good and faithful bum? Had I not fulfilled my half of the charter between a bum and its owner? I searched and searched for her but, alas, it was in vain. She had simply disappeared. Vanished.’
    â€˜That’s too bad,’ said Ned quietly.
    Zack noticed that Eleanor was staring intently at the small bum through the smoke.
    He supposed the bum’s story couldn’t have been easy for her to listen to. He knew how much she regretted her decision to cut her own bum loose all those years ago. Back then it had been a routine procedure for bum-fighters to replace their bums with false ones. No bum-fighter wanted to have their bum-fighting ability compromised by a bum that might not be completely loyal. But that was before she’d seen Zack and his bum in action—before she’d realised what a powerful team a bum and its owner could really be.
    The small pink bum wiped a tear from its cheek.
    â€˜So, what did you do then?’ Zack asked the bum gently.
    â€˜I kept looking,’ it said. ‘I wandered the solarsystem searching for her. I would have kept searching, too, but I got sucked into the brown hole and deposited here, with no way of getting back. But to tell you the truth, I’m not sure I’d want to go back, even if I could. I can be lonely here just as well as there. Besides, I’m not sure I’d recognise my owner now even if I did see her again. She was a little girl, then—she’d be quite grown up by now.’
    The bum fell silent.
    The fire glowed low.
    Something screeched in the distance.
    It was the saddest story that Zack had ever heard.
    Ned and Eleanor were both wiping their eyes.
    Even Zack’s bum was choked up. ‘Do you have a tissue, Zack?’ it whispered.
    â€˜Sure,’ said Zack, pulling a tissue from his pocket and handing it to his bum.
    â€˜I hope you find your owner some day,’ said Zack.
    The bum shrugged. ‘Thanks,’ it said.