LET ME OFF THIS SPACESHIP!
by Gery Greer & Bob Ruddick & illustrated by Blanche L. Sims
Tod and Billy are captured by aliens, but brattiness saves the day. The boys are hurrying home, late for lunch, when ZAP!— WHOOSH!—they're beamed aboard an alien spaceship. Captain Zerkfield Thorst is willing to return them to earth, but only after a spaceflight of 30 years. How to escape? Easy: be such pains that the captain can't take it—e.g., teach the 300-pound purple aliens to play touch football. It works, and home they go- -late for lunch, yes, but not 30 years late. This cheerful updating of O. Henry's ``The Ransom of Red Chief,'' with a couple of wise cracking kids who never lose their cool, is spoof, romp, and tall tale, all in one. (Fiction. 10+)