The fact that someone had decided I’d be safer on Mars, where you could still only sort of breathe the air and sort of not get sunburned to death, was a sign that the war with the aliens was not going fantastically well.

I was worried that I was about to be told that my mother’s spacefighter had been shot down, so that when I found out that I was being evacuated to Mars, I was pretty calm.

And, despite everything that happened to me and my friends afterward, I’d do it all again. Because until you have been pursued by terrifying aliens, been taught math by a laser-shooting robot goldfish, and tried to save the galaxy, I don’t think you can say you’ve really lived.

If the same thing happens to you, here’s my advice: always carry duct tape.