Doctor Don't Do Much Saves Mankind

• Alex Bird, Grade 5, Adamstown Primary School
• Short Story
• 1999

Finalist in the 'Imagine That! 1999' competition

One day in the year 1994 on the small planet of Jinka in a galaxy far away, Doctor John
Jacob Don't-Do-Much, an Archaeologist and Explorer, stumbled on something very peculiar.
It was a giant goldfish that could talk.

The language was not familiar to Doc so he got out his 1984 edition of the Q18 language decoder. To his surprise the fish was speaking Hecktonariess, the language of the planet Heck, which had been in contact with the Earth before the Earth had been destroyed three centuries ago.

With his language decoder, Doc was able to speak to the fish. He said ‘Zinco nagen byos cindo.’ Which means, ‘Hi fish guy, what's your name?’ The fish replied, ‘Bingka lootos ma boona’, which means, ‘My name is Bob.’ Then Doc asked, ‘Ruckna nickan blanas English?’ which means ‘Do you speak English?’ ‘Sure I do’, answered Bob. ‘And who might you be.’ ‘I'm Doctor John Jacob Don't-Do-Much, but my friends call me Doc.’ ‘Where are your from’, said the fish. ‘The planet Jinka’, said Doc, but formerly from the planet Earth. It was destroyed a few hundred years ago and some 5,000 of us managed to survive. We're now living on Jinka.

The fish then stared at Doc and said, ‘Ok, now that I know your name and where you’re from, I'm going to destroy you and all your kind. ‘What?’ said Doc. ‘Why would you want to do that?’ ‘Because hidden deeply in your planet is a jewel which is the most powerful object in the entire Universe’, said Bob.
’What?’ said Doc. ‘What jewel? How do you know about it?’ ‘The jewel was put on Earth by my great ancestor about 8 million years ago. It was before dinosaurs were even thought of. Coonby Jode, which was his Nanny, buried it in a giant hole. It took him four and a half days.’

‘But why did he bury it?’ asked Doc. ‘Because it was really a lead case made to look like a jewel.’ ‘What is inside the case?’, said Doc. ‘It contained the most powerful gases, poisons, acids and chemicals in the whole Universe. Then you humans came. You discovered it, you opened it and spread the chemicals and gases and destroyed the earth. Some of your explorers also took the contents of the jewel to other planets and destroyed them too, without even knowing what they were doing.’

‘Oh’, said Doc, so you and your fish clan want the jewel back before it does any more damage.’ ‘Yes’, said Bob, ‘Exactly right'. I'm going to have to destroy you so that you and your kind don't destroy the rest of the Universe.’ ‘No!’ said Doc, ‘Wait. What if you take us with you? We can help you. You can use our knowledge.’ ‘Hmm, let me think’, said Bob. ‘Ok, get in my Geocruiser all of you.’

As they journeyed through space Doc asked, ‘Bob, if the Earth was destroyed, where is the jewel now?’ ‘Well, said Bob, the Earth hasn't been destroyed.’ ‘What do you mean?’ said Doc. ‘Well, said Bob. ’We believe our race is superior, so we took humans to be our robots to do all the boring jobs on our planet Heck.

‘We've been tricked!’ thought Doc. ‘I'll show them!’ He quickly found his sonic boom gun (because he knew that fish don't like loud noises) and destroyed all the fish in the Geocruiser.

The humans then took off on a new journey. It was to find Earth and see what condition it was in.

Centuries later I live to tell the story - I am an Earthling.