Glory Alley and the Star Riders (The Glory Alley Series) (63 page)

“
Great bloody gut bucket, it’s gone.” He was referring to the door. A dumb ole grin spread across his face. “This is like a dream come true—visiting another planet I mean.”

“More like a nightmare come true if you ask me.” Glory pulled her knees up to her chest, watching him check out the other doors. He and the others had given them a thorough inspection, turning the handles,
examining
the seams, before they had tried to dig their way out with a spoon and fork. She didn’t know why Clash expected them to open this time around.

“
Remember how we used to pretend
Glosh
Cove
was another planet and how we’d fight off
zombies,
space aliens and stuff
?” Clash said
as he knocked on the blue door
. “
Never in a millions years did I think it would ever happen
.
Me and you against the world,
we always sa
id
,
but this time it’s you and me against the whole friggin’ universe
.
”

“I’m glad somebody’s happy about it.”

“I hope you can forgive me for doubting your story.”

“That really hurt.”

“
I’m sorry.
Can we be
friends again, Glo?”

“I didn’t know we
ha
d
ever
stopped
.
”

“
H
ey,”
Clash
said
,
spying something bulky lying in the sand
.
“M
atthew’s
backpack
is still here.”

“So is his slingboard
,
”
Glory noted.
“You ever fly one
outside of gym class
?”

“
Yep.
My cousins have one
,
I’m not
the best,
but I get by.”

“You?”

“Only in gym class
.
I pretty much suck.
”

“
What are you going to do about the Wybills
?
”
Clash
asked.

“
Dunno.
What do you think I should do?”

“
S
eems
to me
you’re in way over your head.”

“Scurvy Sailor would say never surrender,” Glory said as she
hooked Matthew’s backpack with her foot to drag it over into her lap.
Normally, she wouldn’t invade somebody’s privacy like this, but she had no qualms about opening it under the circumstances.
“He’s got a ton of junk in here. Hey, look!
”
She pulled out a king sized chocolate bar
.
“The jock was holding out on us
.
Want to go halfsies?”

“Sure.”

Pens, notebooks, books
, undershorts and more
came flying out of the backpack
. “Isn’t he a little old for toy guns?”
Clash
held up
Matthew’s
t
oy pistol that shot foam bullets
.
“To
o
bad they’re not the real thing
.
Pow,
W
ybbils
.
Pow!”

“I’d use my bullet
s
on
Mandy
.
Pow,
right between the eyes
!”

The two friends
snorted with laughter
.

As
she let a square of chocolate melt on her tongue
,
Glory
continued to dig through his belongings, finding a full water bottle.
They passed it back and forth, deciding to conserve at least half of it.

“
Doesn’t he have anything useful
,
”
she
complained awhile,
and
then halted
when her hands gripped
a red plastic
rectangle
.
“
Wait a second, what’s this?
”

She held it up triumphantly.

“
His
Sliver
!
”

Clash snatched it away. “That looks like the latest version.” Clash snatched it away to open it. “It is! These things cost a bundle.”

“
Let me see,” Glory tried to grab for it, but Matthew hoisted it away. “Here,” he said shoving his own blue Sliver her way. “You can play with mine while I check out this one.”

No matter how many times Glory used a Sliver,
old versions or new,
she
marveled at how
the tri-folds
clicked into a stiff seamless surface
.
She
powered
on Clash’s blue Sliver. It
was
fully
charged
.
So was Matthew’s.
What a
stroke of
luck
.

“The lucky dog has unlimited data access,” Clash complained. “Must be nice to have that kind of dough.”

“
Wouldn’t it be freaky if
we
could
connect to
the data center from here
?
” Glory knew it was impossible, but she gave it a try just for kick
s
.
N
o
Connection
Found
, showed on the display.
No surprise
.

“Hey,
Glo.” Clash’s voice became
reverent
, as if he’d just stumbled upon the mother lode
. “He has JunkYard Derby
, version three
.”

“That
’s not supposed to be available until next week!”

“I know.”

“
Oh my gosh, link me up!”

After a couple of minutes
,
both Slivers were linked together. Glory and Clash settled
into the sand next to each other for a
game of Junk Yard Derby,
passing the hour
crashing
cars
and trucks
into one another
,
trying
to be
the first one to top
Matthew’s high score
.

“What am I doing?
”
Glory
finally asked the inevitable
.

“Beating the
crap
out of me,”
Clash
said
.
“Just five-thousand
more and you’ll beat Matthew’s high score.”

“
No, I mean
I can’t stay here forever
.
Neither can you. This is
getting
us
nowhere
.”

She
powered off the Sliver, letting
her eyes fall on the spot she’d tried so hard to avoid
.

“What are you looking at?
”
Clash
asked.
“The blue door?”

Glory nodded, speaking more to herself than to
Clash
.
“I
lived through the
trial behind the
green one
, and for the life of me, I can’t see a connection
between green and being naked on a bus
.
I’m
trying to figure out what blue
might mean
, but I’m getting nothing.”

“
Water?
”

“
That’s a possibility, ‘cept here the water’s
violet
. Blue
i
s
serene.
Also sad.”

“Could mean a million different things
,
”
said Clash.

“Might as well just go for it then—right?”

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

“
W
hatever danger waits
, how can it be worse
than what I’ve already been through
?
”

“Death would be worse and there’s a lot of
awful
ways to die.”

“
I’d rather
die
than
face
the
humiliation of
public nudity
again
.” Her cheeks burned remembering
.
“
The kids said
I
looked like I ate a lot of donuts
?
Am I really
that
fat?”

“
He
ck
no
, Glo
.
You
look good
.
Real good.
”