As the fragrance of good food reached the boys’ noses, they suddenly remembered how hungry they were. They hadn’t eaten since they left the orphanage!
“That’s Gino you hear,” Captain Eaton explained.
The boys presently saw a short, fat little Italian throwing a huge, flat wad of dough into the air. He stopped when he saw the boys and grinned so widely that his eyes disappeared and his mouth seemed as broad as that of a jack-o’-lantern.
Captain Eaton exchanged names so that everyone quickly knew everyone else. Gino was the ship’s cook, and his full name was Gino Spondini.
Gino kept tossing the dough into the air, and each time he tossed it up it became thinner and bigger.
“You bambini chose a good day to come to the Carefree,” Gino said. “This is a special day for good food, only once every two weeks, eh, Captain?”
Captain Eaton nodded. “Unfortunately, there isn’t a grocery store just around the corner, and so we fill our food room and deep freeze only a few times a year from the commissary satellite which supplies food to all the manned satellites around earth. But when we do have an exceptionally good meal, we enjoy it even more.”
“I don’t know what you’re making, Gino,” Garry said, “but I’m hungry enough to eat it raw.”
Gino looked shocked. “You don’t know pizza when you see it? Where have you been all your life, bambino?”
“Gino makes the best pizza pie in the world—or should I say the best in the solar system?” the captain said. “Now, boys, shall we move on and meet the others?”