Author's Note:

Hey there. I'm finally back on task with writing this thing, averaging about a chapter every four days or so. So far the story is keeping pretty close to the original…but new, fancy, ninja-esque things are on the way. Huzzah!

6. Unexpected! Invitation to the Whitehouse!

"The President of the Country of Amerika will now address you!" announced the loudspeaker voice in the lobby of the Space Hotel.

Sakura and Sai's ears perked up at the sound of this. Hinata took her fingers out of her ears.

"President? Who the heck is that?" Naruto wondered aloud. Wonka-san quickly clapped a hand over his mouth.

"Shhh," he said, "Listen."

"Dear friends," said the unknown voice of the President over the loudspeaker. "Dear, dear friends! Welcome to 'Space Hotel U.S.A.' Greetings to the brave astronauts from Mars and Venus…"

"M-Mars and Venus?" whispered Hinata, "You mean he thinks we're from…"

"Shhh-shhh-ssshhhh!" said Wonka-san. He was doubled up with silent laughter, shaking all over and hopping on one foot to the other.

"You have come a long way," said the President, continuing, "so why don't you come down just a tiny bit further and pay us a visit down here on our humble little planet. I invite all five of you to stay down here in Amerika as my honoured guests. You could land your wonderful glass space machine of yours on the lawn in the back behind the White House. We shall have a red carpet out and ready. It'll be great! We can eat cheese hamburgers, play baseball, um, have…apple pie? Either way, I anxiously await your reply."

There was a click and the President went off the air.

"Who the heck was that woman?" Naruto whispered to Hinata.

"That's the leader of the Country of Amerika!" she whispered back, "The people who built this hotel. They're inviting us back to their c-country!"

Sakura looked excited. "This is fantastic!" she whispered, "We're invited to the White House as honored guests!"

Wonka-san was still shaking with laughter, but he motioned everyone around him so that they could whisper without being overheard by the hidden microphones.

"They're scared to death," he whispered. "They won't be bothering us any more now. So let's have our feast we were talking about and afterward we can explore the hotel."

"Wait, aren't we going to the White House?" whispered Sakura. "I want to go and meet President Giriguraso."

"Um…no!" Wonka-san said, still holding back a giggle. "Everybody down there thinks we're from Mars…and I'm pretty sure you don't look like a Mars-ish person. They'd know at once that they'd been fooled. We'd be arrested before you could say 'konichi wa'."

Wonka-san was right. There was no question of accepting the President's invitation and they all knew it.

"B-but we've got t-to say something to him," Hinata whispered, "She must be sitting in the White House right now, waiting f-for an answer."

"Make an excuse" suggested Naruto.

"Tell him we're otherwise engaged" said Sai.

"Ask him for a rain check" said Sakura.

"Yeah, you're probably right…" Wonka-san said, "It'd be awfully rude of me to ignore an invitation like that." He paced around the hotel lobby for a few seconds, thinking.

"…Alright…I'm just gonna scare him off. That sounds like a plan." He said triumphantly.

Hinata and Naruto made a face. Already, thoughts of the obvious repercussions were racing through their minds.

"He's gonna get us in trouble…" Naruto sighed.

"Y-yeah…b-but I'm sure it'll t-turn out alright…" Hinata whispered. She reached out and held Naruto's hand. She remembered that at the moment they thought they were doomed; Naruto had wanted to tell her something important. She kept wondering what it was…but given the circumstance, she decided not to press it.

Standing close to the receiving microphone, Wonka-san began to speak in a very deep, loud, devilish way:

"In the quelchy quaggy sogmire,

In the mashy midious harshland,

At the witchy hour of gloomness

All the grobes come oozing home.

So start to run! Oh skid and daddle,

Through the slubber slush and sossel!

Skip jump hop and try to skaddle!

All the grobes are on the roam!"

In her study two hundred and forty kilometers below, the President was as white as the White House. "Oh my God!" she cried, "I think they're after us!"

"Oh please let me blow them up!" cried the ex-Chief of the Army.

"Urusei!" shouted Oba-san, "Go stand in the corner!"

In the lobby of the space hotel, Wonka-san had merely paused in order to think up another verse, and he was about to start off again when a frightful piercing scream stopped him cold. The screamer was Sakura. She was standing in place and pointing with a shaking finger at the elevators at the far end of the lobby. She screamed a second time, still pointing, and all eyes were turned towards the elevators. The door of the one on the left was sliding open slowly and the watchers could clearly see that there was something…something thick…something brown…something not exactly brown, but greenish-brown…something with slimy skin and large eyes…squatting in the elevator!