The Book That Saved the Earth · Class 10 English · Footprints Without Feet: 60 flashcards

Claire Boiko. It is a play, not a story.

In the twenty-fifth century, in the the twentieth-century section of a museum of ancient history, where a Historian speaks to the audience.

Because books were written on every subject there is, from the ant eater to the Zulu people. They taught people how to, when to, where to and why to — they illustrated, they educated, they punctuated and they even decorated.

An African ethnic group belonging to South Africa.

It saved the Earth — by stopping the Martian invasion of 2040 before it could happen.

Not a noble encyclopedia, not a tome about rockets and missiles, and not a secret file from outer space.

The projector the Historian switches on to show the audience what happened in 2040 — the device that turns the play into a story inside a story.

The Martians, led by the Great and Mighty Think-Tank, in the year 2040.

Seated on a raised box with his arms folded, with a huge egg-shaped head and a long robe covered with stars and circles.

Mars Space Control — Great and Mighty Think-Tank, Commander-in-Chief — and, in brackets, an instruction to bow low before entering.

Apprentice Noodle, who stands beside Think-Tank at an elaborate switchboard. An apprentice is a learner of a trade who works for a period in return for being taught.

Think-Tank tells him peevishly that he has left out part of the salutation and makes him go through the whole thing again.

That Think-Tank is Ruler of Mars and her two moons — and Noodle runs out of breath before he can ask for orders.

Irritably.

He calls Earth a ridiculous little planet about to be placed under their generous rulership, and has to ask Noodle what it is called — then treats his own forgetfulness as proof that the place is insignificant.

He asks it who is the most fantastically gifted being in the land, and an offstage voice answers, after a pause, that it is him.

Because it paused before answering. He tells it to answer quicker next time, saying he hates a slow mirror, and then admires himself in it.

That they are ugly, with tiny heads, while the Martians are a handsome race — and he tells Noodle that exercising his mind may one day give him a balloon brain like his own.

To contact the space probe, because he wishes that primitive ball of mud invaded before lunch.

A ruler who can never be corrected, an apprentice who is always right, and a planet already written off as primitive — which is why everything found on Earth will be misread.

In two places at once — Mars Space Control and the public library at Centerville on Earth — a few seconds after Scene 1.

Omega is fumbling with the drawers of the card catalogue, quite unable to make sense of them; Iota is working her way along a bookcase, counting; and Oop has one open, then upside down, then shaken, then riffled through — and shakes his head at it.

Quickly turning over the pages of a book.

Some sort of storage barn — she has counted two thousand of the peculiar items. A barn is a covered building for storing hay.

Hats. He puts one on his head and wonders whether the room is a haberdashery — a shop selling clothing and small articles of dress such as pins and cotton. He says he has been to seven galaxies and never seen anything like it.

That since Earth creatures are always eating, it must be a crude refreshment stand, and the item in Omega's hand a sandwich — the main staple of Earth diet, two slices of bread with some sort of filling between them.

He ordered Captain Omega to eat the sandwich.

Omega discovered that Iota had not had her breakfast and ordered her to eat it; Iota said she could not be so impolite as to eat before her sergeant and handed it to Oop, ordering him to eat it immediately.

They saluted and told him to do it for the glory of Mars.

He bit down on a corner, mimed chewing and swallowing while making terrible faces, and then coughed; Omega and Iota pounded him on the back.

Saluting, he reported that it was correct — it was not delicious. He could not think how Earthlings get them down without water, since they are as dry as Martian dust.

As an insignificant bit of data that had floated into his mind: surveyor films showed that Earthlings did not eat these things but used them as some sort of communication device.

Haughtily. He said that was naturally his next point, renamed them communication sandwiches, and asked who is never wrong — to which the crew saluted and answered that the Great and Mighty Think-Tank is never mistaken.

To listen to the sandwiches. When they repeated the order back in bewilderment, he asked whether they had marbles in their ears.

Omega suggested they were not on the correct frequency; Iota suggested that Earthlings have sharper ears; Oop suggested that the sandwiches simply do not make sounds.

Because each of them protects Think-Tank from the possibility of having been wrong — as he makes plain by asking whether anybody is suggesting that he has made a mistake.

A cloudy piece of information twirling around in his head — that the Earthlings did not listen to the sandwiches, but opened them and watched them.

That the sandwiches are not for ear communication but for eye communication — which he announced as a clarification of Noodle's muddle.

The large, colourful sandwich, which appeared to him to be important — and to report what she observed.

Three: that they were sandwiches to be eaten, then sandwiches to be listened to, and finally sandwiches to be looked at — each new theory announced as the point he was coming to next.

A very large volume of Mother Goose, which she held so that the audience could see the title.

Omega said it seemed to contain pictures of Earthlings; Iota said there was some sort of code; Oop described tiny strokes, curls and dots, thousands of them beside the pictures.

Scrawls — illegible writing or markings.

He became sharply interested, said he had told them this one was important, admitted that perhaps the Earthlings were not as primitive as had been thought, and declared that the code must be broken.

Noodle's — he asked whether the chemical department had not given the crew vitamins to increase their intelligence. Think-Tank then announced it as a thought of magnificent brilliance that had come to him.

Remove vitamins, present vitamins, swallow vitamins — after which the crew gulped together, opened their eyes wide and put their hands to their foreheads.

To decipher is to find the meaning of something puzzling or difficult to understand; to transcribe is to write out in full from shorthand.

The rhyme about Mistress Mary and her garden. He said the Earthlings had learned to combine agriculture and mining — they could grow rare metals raised as a crop, silver and cockle shells, and high explosives too.

A tendency to treat serious matters without respect — a lack of seriousness. Think-Tank uses it to stop Oop laughing at the idea of maids growing in a garden.

Noodle reported that they were ready to go down and take over Earth; Think-Tank told them to hold, because new information had come in.

The rhyme about the cat and the fiddle and the cow that jumped over the moon. He said the Earthlings had trained their household animals in music and in space travel, that even their dogs had a sense of humour, and that they might at that moment be sending millions of cows across space in an attack.

Notify the invasion fleet — no invasion today.

The rhyme about Humpty Dumpty, who sat on a wall and had a great fall that all the King's horses and men could not mend. He then noticed the picture, said it looked like somebody, and turned the large illustration towards Think-Tank and the audience.

As a portrait of himself — his own Great and Mighty Balloon Brain. He concluded that the Earthlings had seen him and were after him, and that the great fall meant a plan to capture Mars Central Control and him with it.

To prepare a space capsule so that he could escape without delay; to have the crew leave Earth at once and remove all traces of their visit, since the Earthlings must not know that he knew; and to signal the fleet to clear the whole of Mars.

Alpha Centauri, a hundred million miles away.

Chuckling, she said that was how a dusty old collection of nursery rhymes kept Earth from being overrun by Martians.

In the twenty-fifth century the Earthlings resumed contact with Mars and became very friendly. Great and Mighty Think-Tank had been succeeded by a far shrewder Martian, the wise and wonderful Noodle.

The difference between sandwiches and books, and how to read — and they established a model library in the Martian capital city of Marsopolis.

Mother Goose — the collection of nursery rhymes that frightened them off the Earth.