Glory Alley and the Star Riders (The Glory Alley Series) (60 page)

Bringing the slingboard to the middle
of the Bamboozle
,
Matthew
ascend
ed
toward the
tall stack at the center
.
The
higher he went
,
the higher the pitch of the motor
.
About ten feet from the
bottom of the
Bamboozle’s stem
the slingboard
s
putter
ed
and
refused to climb anymore
.

Matthew kept flicking the controls until the
high
-
pitched sound died
.

Olivia
let out a small scream
.
Glory
slapped her own cheeks
, knowing the board had stalled and was going down.
T
he slingboard dropped like a rock, but at the last second
it
hummed
back to life, sparing Matthew from a bone
-
crunching landing
.

The board bounced
on unseen anti-gravity bands,
slinging Matthew toward a wall, but he deftly tilted the board upward
.

“Hit the deck!” Clash
warned
.

The girls flattened themselves to the ground
.

The wall
pinged
Matthew
toward the
opposite side of the Bamboozle,
just over the girls’ heads,
and then
ponged him back again, repeating over and over.
Clash
narrowly missed a neck-breaking
collision
as Matthew’s board slinged
violently
from wall to wall
.
But he wasn’t captain of the Sling Team for nothing.
Every
time it appeared as if he’d hit the wall, he’d toe up the front end of the board
, allowing
the
gravity repellers at the bottom of the board to do their thing
.
The momentum of each ping lessened each time and Matthew quickly gain
ed
control,
finally circling gently to the ground, where
he stomped on the back of the board, flipping it up into his waiting hand
.

“That
was some amazing
slinging
there, Matthew,” Glory said
, totally impressed with his sling skills
.

“Wow,” Clash said. “That was like the coolest thing ever.”

Matthew tried to look humble, but Glory caught him grinning. He w
ip
ed
off his glistening forehead with the back of his sleeve
.
“
S
orry
about
that
,
ladies
—
Clash.” Matthew
was the one who had risked his life to help them escape, yet he was the one apologizing. How debonair of him, Glory thought. “
The problem with s
lingboards
is that they’re
made for wide open spaces
. C
onfined
areas
or great heights
are problematic
.
If only we
could build a ramp.”

“With what?
”
Mandy hissed, brushing sand from her clothes
.
“
You about killed us with that thing
.
Now we’re going to be stuck here all night
.
Maybe
even
longer.
”

She took out her
phone
, madly pressing buttons. “
Still no s
ervice
.
Piece of junk!
”
She threw it against the wall, breaking it into several pieces.”

Matthew put a hand on her shoulder, trying to give comfort, but she pulled
aw
ay
.
“Don’t talk to me.”

His
lips t
urned into a tight
line
and he s
tomped to the other side of the Bamboozle
like an angry gorilla
.
Olivia
wrapped an arm over his shoulder as he walked away.
“She’s not mad at you, just the situation
.
Give her some space
and
she’ll cool off.”

“All she ever thinks about is herself…”

“Help!” Mandy
s
hout
ed
up into the
tall stack where a tantalizing piece of blue sky show
ed
.
“I’ve been drugged
against my will and kidnapped by lunatics.
If you can hear me, call the police!
”

Clash
rolled his eyes.
“I’d prefer jail over all the whining.”

Glory laughed
through her nose
.

Matthew
ruffled through his bag and pulled
out
a paper sack—lunch
.

He split a thick ham and cheese on rye into five parts.
“I’m a vegetarian,” Olivia said hoarsely
, pulling out just the ham and handing it back.

Clash
passed around
an
apple
, candy fireballs,
and
a bottle of
soda for everybody to share
.
After a while
,
they ran out of ideas for escape and
conversation
.
Sleep eventually took over.

When
Glory
woke the piece of sky at the top of the Bamboozle was velvet
y black and dotted with sparkling
diamonds
.
The edges of the Bamboozle were lost in the darkest shades of night
.
Although she was sorry to have dragged the others here
,
their presence
felt like a comfortable
old
blanket
.

“You awake?” she heard
Clash
say
.

“Yep.”

“So am I,” Matthew said from a few feet away. “Where
are
Olivia and Mandy?”

“They thought they were too good to nap with the rest of us, so they went off in their own corner
,
”
Clash informed.

There were a few shuffling sounds, whispers coming from the dark, and the missing pair
emerged from
the shadows looking messy haired and frightened
.

“What’s going on
?
” Olivia inquired.

“Still here, still tripping,”
Glory
said
.

“You ought to know,” Mandy said
. She took a seat next to Matthew. That’s right, Glory remembered, they two were dating. What he saw in her was hard to imagine.

“T
ell me,
” Matthew said. “H
ow
did this
alleged
thing with the Wybbils
begin
?
”

“It started weeks ago,”
Clash
volunteered
.
“When
Glory
went to Queen’s Mesa without me.
She
came out of there all shaken up. Told me
the
Hoogula
had
chased her
.

“I chalked
it up to the Cold Crazies
.
Figured
it would go away on i
t
s own
, but when she was still
obsessing
over it a week later, making me
look up stuff about
H
oogalas,
W
ybbils
, and
E
lbonies, I started getting worried.
”

“
Not Elbonies,
”
Glory
corrected
.
“
Elboni, in the singular.
Although it’s hidden under many forms, there is only one in the whole universe
.
And
on Harvest Day morning
,
I found it at the bottom of Queen’s Mesa
.”

“
You
can’t be
serious?
”
Matthew
asked
.
“Legend says no
Tullah
n eye has ever
seen the Elboni
, so how would you even know?”

“I didn’t know it was the Elboni at first, but after a series of strange events I’m quite certain
it is
.”

“
C
learly
,
Glory
has
s
chizo
phreni
a,
” Mandy said as if the question wasn’t even up for debate. “Which is on
e of the worst
type
of mental illnesses to have. It’s
basically incurable. I know because my cousin
…er, my cousin’s friend
has it.
He’s created this whole elaborate world in his mind, and he thinks it’s totally real. A
lot of serial killer are schizo
ids
, you know
.
It tends to run in families.
”