73 Peanut's Choice

73 Peanut's Choice Peanut opened her eyes. She sat up and rubbed her head. She felt dizzy. She looked around. She appeared to be surrounded by the burned-out shells of a hundred small, fish-shaped robots. And then it all came back to her. 'Rockwell?' she gasped. He was lying on his back ten metres to her left, out cold. Peanut was hugely relieved to see that he was, at least, breathing. And then she realised. The pencil! It wasn't in her hand. She scoured the snow, looking for something, anything, yellow.

And there it was. Ten metres in the other direction. The most important pencil in the world, lying there in the snow. Suddenly, she became aware that the ground all around her was shaking. She looked up to see the Big X coming to a stop nearby. She saw Mr White, radiating light, racing down the mechanical steps, closely followed by Alan. The boy has the anti-Exocetia weapon! Get him!' Mr White commanded. Peanut looked at the pencil. Mr White was running towards it. She looked at Rockwell. Alan was running towards him. She only had time to save one of them. She made her decision surprisingly quickly.