Arcade Catastrophe
Page 10

“We’ll be right outside,” Victor promised. “John would have our heads if anything happened to you kids.”
“Deadly lair or not, we’ll be there right away if you need us,” Ziggy assured them. “You in?”
Nate and his friends exchanged small nods. Nate held out his hand for the money. “We’re in.”
Chapter Four
Arcadeland
Half a block from Arcadeland, on the opposite side of the street, Summer and Pigeon ducked into an alley. Both of them looked up. The buildings on either side rose three stories tall.
“No fire escapes,” Pigeon said.
“We’ll have to use Moon Rocks,” Summer answered, leading them farther down the alley. She looked back toward the street. Almost two hours had passed since they had left Schwendiman’s All-You-Can-Eat Buffet. The sun was not directly overhead, so most of the alley was in shadow. Anyone in the cars driving by on Canal Street would have only a brief glimpse into the alleyway.
“Acceptable risk?” Pigeon asked.
“Nobody was nearby on the sidewalk,” Summer said. “If we hurry we should be fine.”
Pigeon glanced up. “Several windows.”
Summer indicated a vertical path up the wall. “We’ll be hard to see from a window if we stay along this line. People would practically have to lean out to get a view of us.”
“We do need a good vantage point,” Pigeon conceded.
Summer popped a Moon Rock into her mouth, feeling the familiar lightening of her frame. Pigeon did likewise. Summer jumped toward one side of the alley, soaring gently, then kicked off the side of a building, gaining altitude as she crossed to the far side. She kicked off the wall again, gliding higher.
Glancing down, she saw Pigeon staring up at her. She was already high, but she reminded herself that with the Moon Rock, to fall would be no big deal. Two more sharp kicks and she reached the top of one of the buildings.
Summer eased her light body over the edge to stand on the roof, then watched as Pigeon tried to follow her. He was kicking off the walls too straight-on, gaining only a little height every time he crossed from one side to the other. She almost called out some advice, then realized it would probably only embarrass him without improving his technique.
After springing back and forth more than fifteen times, Pigeon reached the top of the building. “Should I spit it out?” he asked.
“No point in wasting it,” Summer said. “Just be careful not to float off the roof and cause a scene.”
“Right.”
They gingerly moved to the part of the roof overlooking Canal Street and Arcadeland. The arcade was much larger than Summer had expected. Neon fireworks burst in jerky patterns beside the flashy sign. Not only was the main building huge, but two miniature golf courses wrapped around it. There were batting cages on the near side and a twisty go-kart track on the far side. A tall chain-link fence enclosed the entire complex.
“Looks fun,” Pigeon said.
Summer noticed that Pigeon was raising his head higher than necessary as he surveyed Arcadeland, making himself too visible from the street. “Stay low,” she cautioned.
“Right.”
Summer spotted Nate and Trevor on the far side of the street, trying to look casual as they scanned the rooftops. She lifted her head a little and waved. Nate saw her and gave a small salute. He and Trevor mounted their bikes, then rode over to the Arcadeland parking lot. She watched them deposit their bikes at the large bike rack before disappearing inside the building.
Pigeon shifted beside her. “I keep trying to tell myself they got the dangerous job, not the fun one.”
“Are you believing it?”
“Not really.”
“Me neither,” Summer sighed. “But at least we had an excuse to climb a building. Nate was right that we’d be crazy to all go in together. This way, if something goes wrong, they can’t catch us all at once.”
“Think anything will happen?”
“Probably not. But better safe than sorry.”
Summer studied Arcadeland. It seemed popular. There were cars in the parking lot and plenty of bikes at the bike rack. Two of the batting cages were in use, and several groups roamed the miniature golf courses, putting on artificial turf surrounded by miniature monuments. She saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, the Sphinx, Big Ben, Mount Rushmore, and others that she recognized but couldn’t name.
Summer leaned toward Pigeon. “What’s the name of that building in Russia with the colorful, onion-shaped domes?”
“In the West we call it St. Basil’s Cathedral,” he replied. “There’s a rumor that the architect who designed it was blinded by Ivan the Terrible to prevent him from duplicating his efforts elsewhere.”
“How do you know all this stuff?”
He shrugged. “I just like to read about history.”
As the minutes dragged by, Summer felt her patience wearing thin. People made their way around the miniature golf courses. A trickle of customers entered and exited the front doors.
Summer tried to spot the Battiato brothers. Supposedly they were close by, but she hadn’t seen them since leaving the buffet. She studied the parked vehicles in the area and scanned up and down the sidewalks, but she detected no sign of the beefy twins.
“What the . . . ?” Pigeon suddenly blurted.
“What?” Summer asked, glancing at him to see where he was looking.
“Do you see those two kids across the way?”
“Which kids?”
“The two near the batting cages, just outside the Arcadeland fence.”
“A boy and a girl.”
“Right.”
“What about them?”
“Well, I barely saw it, but when they came out from behind that building next to Arcadeland, they were like ten feet off the ground. They glided to a landing on the pavement.”
“Like they had Moon Rocks?”
“Or something.”
Summer studied them as best she could. The girl had longish brown hair and tan skin. The boy had messy blond hair. They were looking around as if to make sure they were unobserved. Summer was about to comment that they were acting suspicious when the two kids jumped over the Arcadeland fence with a single smooth leap. The side of the batting cages would have shielded them from onlookers inside Arcadeland. But Summer saw the furtive act perfectly.
“Arcadeland must be handing out magic candy,” Summer guessed.
“What do we do?” Pigeon asked.