Glory Alley and the Star Riders (The Glory Alley Series) (19 page)

“But my
backpack
.”
she pointed to her bare feet. “And my shoes
.”

“There isn’t time,” Brandon said
, handing Glory her backpack.

“
Run
,
Glory
,” Danny said.

“Don’t let them break us apart,
”
Randy added.

Glory
looked to the grim faces of h
er
brothers.
And there was George in his booster seat playing with his food.
When he saw her look at him
,
he gave a big smile.

Brandon placed a hand on h
er
shoulder, “
O
ur fate is in your hands.”

Glory
understood
.
She
grabbed
a
ratty cardigan off a hook on
the way out the kitchen door
and
r
an
around the house through the soggy front yard
.
The gravel lane tore at
her
bare
soles as
s
he sprinted toward the bus
. She
struggled to put on the sweater
as she ran
away from Miss Crenshaw
.

The bus driver, Mrs. Spud, hit the brakes when she saw h
er
and opened the doors
.
Panting hard,
Glory
climbed into the vehicle, flushed and
closing the sweater
shut
with
one hand.

“My, my,” Mrs. Spud said, eying h
er
up and down
, lingering on her bare feet
.
“Aren’t we eager to get to school today?”

“
I
was running late
and didn’t want you drive off without me.”

Mrs. Spud looked at her watch, then back to the
Alley
house, which sat far from the road
. Her
face became quizzical
at the sight of a
squad car parked in the driveway
.

“Don’t worry,”
Glory
reassured
.
“I have gym shoes in my locker
.”

Mrs. Spud studied h
er
a
mom
ent. “If you’re sure
everything is okay
…
”

“I
’m sure,
m
a’am.”

“All righty then, move on back.”

Ma
tthew
Cloude
with the
dark
hair
and
slate
blue eyes looked directly at her and
s
mirked
.
A handsome kid a couple grades ahead
of her
,
and
captain of the Sling Team
,
he had a big ego. S
chool gossip said he’d traveled all over the world before moving to
Cloverdale
because his father was some sort of diplomat. Why they had chosen to settle in
a
n
uneventful little town like
Cloverdale was anybody’s guess.

All the sling players
, including Matthew,
wore their boards strapped across their backs
.
Glory thought s
lingboards
looked like dead fish floating on their sides.
Guys
who could afford top of the line boards
like that didn’t
smile at girls like Glory.
Whatever he was up to, Glory wanted no part of it.

His eyebrows arched
when he noticed her feet.
“
Primitive,”
he said
in
a
con
descending, but
flirty way. “Me like.”

His friends
all
snickered.

“Go
jump in the creek,” she snarled
.

“Whoa,” one of his
sling team
budd
ies
said
.
“
It
m
ust be s
omebody’s time of the month.”

Glory
’s
mouth puckered in indignation,
but she ignored the comment and continued toward the middle of the bus
to slide in beside Clash
.
His
ever curious expression was even more so this morning
as he noticed her lack of footwear. Mrs.
Spud grinded the gears
and sent the bus lurching forward
down the road
again
.
Glory
sat there, catching
a
breath, glancing back at the house
, but Clash was too preoccupied with her bare feet to notice the squad car. Good—at least she wouldn’t have to explain.

He
pushed h
is
glasses up
t
h
e bridge of
his
nose.
“
Uh, h
ow on
Tullah
did you forget your shoes?”

She
shrugged.

Clash
glanced at the p
uppy covered
bottoms
and raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “Are those pajamas?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

His chuckled
stopped
abruptly.
W
orry spread across h
is thin
face.

“
This isn’t related to what happened at the mesa
?
I mean
you’re feeling better
. And aren’t…er…
seeing things—are you?”

“I’m not seeing things
,” She hissed. “
This has nothing to do with the mesa.”

“
That’s relief.
”
Clash
produc
ed
h
is
Sliver, unfolded it, and
shook i
t under
Glory
’s nose.
“How about a round of
Space Raiders
?”

“No thank
you
,
”
Glory
said, eying the Sliver’s high definition screen
.
“Hey, do
you have any
data
access
minutes left
?”

“
A few, but I need them for a
science paper
.
”

She
sighed
.
Most kids didn’t have to track every single
free government
minute
the way Clash and Glory
did, because o
nce they ran out, they simply bought more.

“
The new month starts next week
—
can it wait?”

“
Do I have a choice?
”
Being poor
bit the big one.
“W
hat
do you know
about the l
egend of Queen’s Mesa?”

“
Only what your Grandpa told me.
Come on,
Glory
, just one more game
.
I downloaded Princess Gala for you.”

“
Princess Gala?” The news perked her up. “
I’ve been wanting to try her out a long time now.”

“Here’s your chance.” He waved the Sliver under her nose.

“Aren’t you tired of losing
?
”

“I laugh in the face of your
baseless comment
, ha, ha, ha.”

Sometimes
Clash
acted
bizarre,
wandering around the classroom at inappropriate times, getting on people’s nerves,
but mostly he was fun
.

“You do know I’m the Space Raider Champion of yesterday, today and tomorrow,”
Glory reminded.

“Not anymore,”
Clash
smiled, offering
t
he Sliver. “I’ve already beat your highest score. See.”

Glory
snatched it out of her hands
.
“Gimme that.
”
She
bent the Sliver’s screen to a forty-five degree angle, then pressed the high score button
.
The number at the top of the display flashed
.
Clash
had exceeded
her top
score by seven hundred points. Sticking the tip of h
er
tongue out the corner of
her
mouth,
Glory
got busy, s
ending photon torpedoes into the
side of an alien cargo ship
.