Chapter 9

The Flying Gondola

We raced in pursuit, but the man on the scooter was quicker than one might expect. Being handicapped, he had the advantage of the crowd’s pity. People seemed more willing to move out of his way than they were for us. Eventually the flow of fairgoers thinned enough so we could close the gap between us.

“Give me back my sword!” Rob shouted after Boojum.

“Nuh uh,” Boojum said defiantly, gripping the sword tightly to his chest. “Light bad.”

With that he hopped out of the basket and scurried up a ramp that led to the Sky Cars. It was the only ride on this side of the fairgrounds, and not really much of a ride at that. Its main purpose was to carry gondolas of spectators from one side of the fair to the other. There was no line—everyone else was saving his or her tickets for the thrill rides on the other side of the fair.

We wasted no time rushing up after him, but at the top of the ramp a broad man, as wide as he was tall, blocked our path.

“Tickets, please—four each for a round trip,” he said, reaching out for the fare. We tried to explain but the man was not sympathetic to our plight.

“Look, if you wants on the ride, you have ta pay fer it. It’s as simple as that.”

Trista dug into her pocket and begrudgingly produced the twelve tickets required. He counted them and let us pass at last. By the time we reached the top of the ramp, Boojum had already snuck aboard an empty car, which was starting to slide up the cable and across the fairgrounds.

Another man, scrawny and gaunt, motioned for us to step forward to load up in the next car. Trista and I hopped into gondola seven, but Rob suddenly froze in place.

“What are you waiting for, Rob?” I asked.

He squirmed, unwilling to move past the yellow safety line that was painted on the ground.

“I was just thinking…maybe I ought to meet you guys on the other side,” he suggested, his voice sounding a bit strange.

“Don’t be stupid,” Trista said in her usual blunt way.“It’ll take you three times as long to get there. Boojum will be long gone by then.”

“It’s just that I’m afraid of heights, okay? They make my stomach sick,” Rob confessed.

“So, ya goin’ on or ain’t ya, kid?” the slim man asked rather impatiently.

Rob didn’t budge, still frozen with fear.

“Come on, Rob, we have to get that sword!” I encouraged him. “It’s only five minutes across; it will be over before you know it.”

The man who held our gondola door open added, “This here is the safest ride in the park, son. Why, I’ve never lost a rider yet.”

“Fine, I’ll go, but don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Rob said, stepping into the gondola against his better judgment. He sat down across from the two of us and scooted to the middle.

The door slammed shut and with the release of a lever the gondola swung forward, connected to the cable that stretched a hundred feet in the air. Rob shut his eyes tightly and gripped the metal railing that surrounded the compartment. With each sway of the cable car his fist tightened and he moaned weakly.

“Relax,” Trista offered. “We’re safe up here; nothing is going to happen.”

“There’s always a first time,” Rob whined.

As we reached the highest point of the ride, there was a sudden jolt as the cable car stopped in place, swaying wildly back and forth from its previous momentum.

“Tell me we didn’t just stop,” Rob said, still unwilling to open his eyes.

“It’s no big deal,” said Trista. “I’m sure this happens all the time when they get backed up with passengers.”

The fact that we hadn’t seen any other passengers getting on with us crossed my mind, but I wasn’t about to say it out loud. Glancing out over the fairgrounds, I spotted a series of phantom figures appearing on the sky cable tower ahead of us. They were not human. As they began to climb up the tower, I knew in an instant what they were—skinny bug-like creatures with six arms, a pair of long legs and bulging frog-like faces.

“Dispirits,” I said, barely loud enough for the others to hear.

For the first time since he had set foot on the ride, Rob’s eyes popped opened. He craned his neck slowly around to look where I was pointing. The shadowy creatures had reached the peak of the tower already and, using their six arms, had begun traversing along the cable toward our car.

“Great. Without my sword we’re doomed,” he moaned.

I started thinking of escape plans but nothing seemed to work. It was too high to jump (the fall would certainly kill us), and climbing out of the car seemed futile as well (by the time we made it to the cable the Dispirits would already be there). I had just about given up hope when a familiar voice called out from beneath my seat.

“Hungry,” said Boojum, as he scratched at my backpack in search of a snack.

“Boojum? How did you get here?” I asked, surprised to see the creature in our gondola. “I thought you were over there in number six.”

“Me flee, see?” said Boojum, disappearing and reappearing a few steps away.

Trista was delighted at the sight of the creature and snatched him up in her arms.

“What about my sword?” Rob asked, sounding sicker by the minute. We searched under the seat, but Boojum didn’t have it with him.

“It must still be in the other gondola,” I figured.

“Well, I can’t fight with what I don’t have,” Rob pointed out.

“Maybe not, but there might be a way to get it back,” I said, glancing down at Boojum. The plan was simple; we promised Boojum he could have a snack bar if he retrieved the sword from gondola six. With a little encouragement, he disappeared in puff of black smoke and returned a moment later with Rob’s sword in hand.

“Good job, Boojum,” Trista said, picking him up again and showering him with praise. In no time at all he was munching a Boojum bar, sitting contentedly on Trista’s lap.

“Good job?” Rob groaned in response. “If he hadn’t stolen my sword in the first place we’d be safe on the ground right now!”

“Well, if you hadn’t scared him with it he wouldn’t have run away,” she replied.

“That still doesn’t give him the right to run off with my sword.”

“Then why don’t you try holding onto it next time, instead of throwing it out the door.”

Before I could break up the argument, a gruesome black arm shot through the top of the compartment, grasping for a victim. The Dispirits had found us.

Trista screamed at the sight, spooking Boojum back into my bag. I tossed the sword to Rob who ignited it on the spot and severed the arm from its shadowy host above. Two more arms reached down through the canopy like phantoms. Rob took care of them as well, then plunged the Veritas Sword up through the roof and into the Dispirit above.

The creature dissolved into a black inky mist and floated away into the night sky. We had no time to celebrate this minor victory. Two more Dispirits leapt off the cable and onto the car, one of them hanging from the side, thrusting its fanged face into the cabin with a loud hiss.

Rob jammed his sword into its mouth before it could release its long, stinging tongue. By now, the cable car was rocking violently back and forth from the commotion. It was enough to make even me sick. When the third Dispirit lowered its head through the roof and into the cable car, Rob lost all sense of reason.

“Taste this, bug brain,” Rob said angrily, thrusting his lighted sword up through the roof once more, tearing a semicircular shape in the ceiling in the process. The Dispirit vanished with the touch of the blade, but apparently it was not all that was cut. For as Rob pulled his sword out once more, the cable car shifted and dropped, dangling at a steep angle from the cable.

The sudden shift caused everything in the cabin to slide to the right side of the car where the windows became gaping holes to certain death. All it took was for poor Rob to lose his footing and gravity handled the rest. He fell out of the window beside him, catching only his arms and elbows on the frame.

“Heeeelp!” he yelled in tearful desperation. “Don’t let me fall!”

“Hang on, Rob. We’ll get you back in,” I shouted, grabbing his arm and pulling him back into momentary safety. Once his lower half was back inside the gondola he curled up on the floor and began to cry.

It was his worst nightmare come true.

A terrible, aching groan from above warned us that the worst was not over. It was the sound of sheet metal tearing. The Veritas Sword had severed the arm of the gondola and we were hanging from a very thin quarter inch of metal. A second later the quarter inch gave way and gondola seven plunged toward the ground.

The fall, a frantic, heart-pounding drop of sheer terror, blurred my vision and robbed all sense of time. My eyes slammed shut and my stomach tightened as the gondola plunged in a freefall. Clinging to the railing, I held tight with helpless desperation, bracing myself for the horrid end that waited below.

Then, unexpectedly, a powerful jolt shifted the gondola’s momentum midair. All of a sudden, instead of plowing into the cement walkway we were being hoisted upward, like a yo-yo at the end of its rope. Once my stomach caught up with the rest of me, I opened my eyes to discover the three of us (and Boojum) soaring through the air—miraculously carried away from the fairgrounds by an invisible force.

Trista had buried her head in her arms and looked up for the first time. She wore an expression of stunned fright.

“What just happened?” Trista questioned, her voice quivering with emotion.

“I don’t know; one moment we were falling to our death and the next…” I allowed my voice to trail off as we watched the fairground lights sparkling in the distance. The scene spoke for itself. Leaning lightly over the railing, I looked up only to find there appeared to be nothing around us or above us, just the gondola and the crisp night air.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” moaned Rob. His tear-streaked face was a reminder to us all of just how close we had come to death. He bent over in pain, covering his mouth with one hand and his stomach with the other.

“This is impossible,” Trista said, still in a daze. “We should be dead by now. Cable cars don’t just fly off into the sky like this.”

“Maybe not, but how else do you explain the view?” I asked.

Trista pondered this for a moment.

“We’re probably in a coma of some kind, knocked unconscious by the collision. It happens all the time on TV.”

“Look around you. Do you really think we’re in a coma?” I asked. “We’re all here together still, how can we be in a coma together? It doesn’t make sense.”

Trista looked baffled, but she quickly formed another idea.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out for sure.” Before I could object she reached over and pinched my arm, hard.

“Ouch,” I yelped, rubbing the mark she had left. “What did you do that for?”

“To see if we’re awake; now pinch me!”

“What? Why?”

“If you don’t pinch me back, how will I know I’m not dreaming too? Come on, do it already!” she demanded.

I squeezed her gently on the arm just to amuse her.

“That was weak,” she pointed out, rolling her eyes at me.

“Well, would you rather I maim you like that?” I said, pointing at the mark on my own arm.

“Oh puh-lease,” Trista replied. “I hardly even touched you.”

“Uh, guys,” Rob interrupted, “I really don’t feel good. I need to get down from here now.”

“We’re working on it, Rob!” Trista answered kindly as Rob curled up on his bench.

“How do we steer this thing?” Trista asked, trying to figure out what was happening.

“Craaaaa,” a loud screech from outside the cable car caught us by surprise. Together, Trista and I leaned over the railing and looked up. There was a ghostly movement above the cable car, and a great whoosh of air like the flapping of invisible wings.

“Uh, I don’t think we do!” I replied slowly, pointing to a pair of clawed feet that gripped the top of our ride.

Trista gasped at the sight.

“Feet? We’re being carried away by giant feet? Now I know I’m dreaming!”

The two enormous bird-like feet clutched what remained of the severed gondola arm tightly in their grasp, but they themselves were not attached to anything, just floating through the air. I had seen this once before and turned quickly, scanning the space in front of us. Sure enough, floating out in the open, a huge yellow beak and a pair of glossy black eyes hovered in the otherwise empty sky.

“Faith?” I yelled out. “Is that you?”

“Craaaa,” the invisible bird’s voice squawked happily in response. Sudden warmth calmed my nerves as the majestic Thunderbird shimmered in the sky, making itself visible at last. She was an inspiring sight, her wings full of blue and gold.

Trista, on the other hand, looked as terrified as ever.

“What is that…that…thing?”

“She’s not a thing, she’s a Thunderbird. Her name’s Faith, and she’s come to help us.”

Trista shot a puzzled look my direction, and I felt compelled to explain. I told of how Faith had rescued me from the Shadow creatures once before. At this, Trista seemed to accept that I knew what I was talking about; however, her reservations about Faith still remained. She still was unconvinced that we were safer in the talons of a giant bird than we were in the teetering cable car nearer to the ground.

We continued to climb upward, much to Rob’s dismay. As we broke through the first layer of clouds, it seemed for a moment that we were already back in Solandria. The lower blanket of clouds stretched out to the horizon in front of us, while a darker, more sinister cloud covering the sky above us created a ceiling of sorts.

“Why does she have to fly so high? We must be thousands of feet in the air already,” Trista asked.

Rob’s face worsened at the thought, and he keeled over on the spot.

“Oh man, I think I’m gonna…”

“Oh no you don’t, not in here!” Trista started, but it was too late.Rob threw up all over the cable car floor, barely missing her feet in the process.

“Ew, gross! You could have done that over the side, you know,” she whined, holding her nose and turning her head away from the sight of Rob’s vomit.

Rob looked up through watery eyes and shook his head, “Sorry, I told you I’m afraid of heights.”

Trista dug through her purse and found a small bag of tissues, which she tossed at Rob. He wiped the edges of his mouth and thanked her for them.

“Well, that settles it,” Trista said, still cupping her hand over her nose to avoid the smell. “This is the worst dream I’ve ever had. Wake me up when it’s over.”

“We’re not dreaming,” I added slowly, sensing there was something more at work. We’re being called by the Author.”

Rob shot a glance my direction. “That would explain the Dispirits and the Treptors,” he said matter-of-factly.

I nodded.

“Let me get this straight. When the Author calls you, you get chased by weird creatures, nearly dropped to your death and carried off by a giant eagle into a storm?” Trista asked sarcastically.

“Well, sort of, but it’s never the same as the time before,” Rob explained warily. “Every time you go it’s…well…different.”

Boojum, who until that moment had been hiding in my backpack, overheard the discussion and butted in, “Go? Go? No no, don’t go!” he said, his enormous eyes were wider than usual. “Bad things, danger!”

“What’s he talking about? Go where?” Trista asked.

“To Solandria,” I replied. No sooner had I said it, than a sharp bolt of lightning tore through the sky, followed instantly by a crash of thunder. It was as if the Author himself was adding the exclamation point to my statement.

Boojum shrieked at the flash of light and vanished in a puff of smoke.

“Hey, where did he go?” Trista wondered.

“Who cares,” said Rob. “It’s better that he stays out of our way anyhow!”

The clouds rumbled around us, followed by a heavy drenching rain. Another bolt of lightning flashed dangerously close to the cable car, passing by in a sharp angled slice. Faith dropped slightly at the sight and circled to the left, heading back toward the place it had nearly hit us. I realized then that this was no ordinary storm. All around us the clouds began to roll in a violent wave of fury. As Faith evened her approach, a gleaming sliver of light in the sky caught our attention. Only this time, it wasn’t lightning.

Everyone was speechless as we flew toward the mysterious flickering white light. The closer we came, the more it seemed the bolt of lightning had actually ripped a small hole in the sky. The edges of the gap stretched and widened, ready to swallow us whole as we approached.

Trista gripped my arm and covered her eyes as we passed through the seam in the sky and into the blinding white light beyond it.