Extract

Los Angeles International Airport: teeming with passengers, arrivals, filmstars, illegal immigrants, a dazed English girl called Ros and of course, the odd alien or two freshly landed from another planet. Well, only one alien, actually. A small, yellow, transparent creature who liked to be called Bib. His name was actually Ozymandmandyprandialsink, but Bib was just much more him, he felt. Bib was in Los Angeles by accident - he'd stolen a craft and gone on a little joyride, only planning to go as far as planet Zephir. Or planet Kyton, at the most. But they'd been repairing the super-galaxy-freeway and diverting everyone and somehow he'd lost his way and ended up in this place.

Ros Little hadn't landed from another planet, she just felt like she had. The twelve hour flight from Heathrow, the eight-hour time difference and the terrible row she'd had the night before she'd left all conspired to make her feel like she was having a psychotic episode. Her body was telling her it should be the middle of the night, her heart was telling her her life was over, but the brazen mid-afternoon Californian sun dazzled and scorched regardless.

As Ros dragged her suitcase through the crowds and the drenching humidity towards the taxi-rank, she was stopped in her tracks by a woman's shriek.

"It's an alien!" The helmet-haired, leisure-suited matron yelled, jabbing a finger at something only she could see. "Oh my Lord, look, just right there, it's a little yellow alien."

How very Californian, Ros thought wearily. Her first mad person and she wasn't even out of the airport yet.