"Aaaahhh!"
SPLASH! Water up to my waist! BANG! The side of the channel. "Owww!
My head!" I slipped and fell face-first in the water. I felt the current carry me away.
Then Marco's voice: "Ooof! Owww!"
"You kids aren't going to get away that easy!"
PUH-LOOOSH! "Aaarg!"
"Owww!"
"Hey! Watch where you're driving that boat!"
BONK!
A hand grabbed me! I swung a clenched fist.
"Oww! I need that shoulder!" Jake yelled.
"Sorry!"
"You kids stop where you are!"
Suddenly, there were lights! Lights everywhere! I had been swept along in the current back out of the tunnel. I was back in the night air again, gazing up at neon and incandescence.
I stood up. But the current was too strong. It swept my feet out from under me. I fell and floated.
Behind me, another log boat filled with crew-cut guys. Between me and that boat, three heads bobbed in the water: Jake, Marco, and a really angry Captain Torrelli.
"Cassie! Climb out!"
"Oh, no, this is insane!" Marco moaned.
"You kids are gonna do time for this, I swear it!" Captain Torrelli yelled.
BUMPBUMPBUMP. SQUUUEEEEEEGEEE!
I was scraped along a sharp turn. I tried to grab the lip of the boat channel and pull myself out, but I was too weak and the force of the water was too strong.
What to do? I couldn't morph. There were witnesses. I'd just have to float along until...
Until the big huge drop!
"Ahhhhh!" I cried.
"I think Cassie just figured out where we're headed," Marco said.
"Ahhhhh!" I confirmed.
Another sharp turn. BUMPBUMPBUMP! SQUUUUEEEEGEEE!
And then, just a few dozen feet ahead, just ahead of the log boat we had been in, I saw another boat suddenly disappear. And I heard screams.
Happy screams. Totally different from my scream.
"Aaaaaahhhhhh!"
I was racing toward a waterfall. And there was nothing I could do to stop it!
"No! No! Noooooo!"
"Oh, man! No! No! Noooooo!"
"This is insaaaaane! Nooooo!"
"I'll get you kids for this! Nooooooo!"
And over the edge we went. I skidded on my butt down a fifty-foot water slide. Which was bad enough. But just a few feet behind me were two guys and an angry man.
And just a few feet farther back was another log boat. A log boat that would squash us all like bugs if it hit us.
Down I fell, screaming the entire way!
BAH-LOOOOSH!
I hit the lagoon and rolled to my left as fast as I could move my waterlogged body. Something hit me, but it wasn't a boat.
"Hah! Cindy Crawford! You think I don't remember your name? You are under arrest!" Captain Torrelli cried exultantly.
But then he slipped and his head went under the water and I was out of there.
We joined up just outside the exit from the log ride. Three extremely wet, barefoot kids in bike shorts and aerobics suits.
"You know, basically that was fun," Marco said. "If you set aside the whole could-have-been-crushed-by-a-log-boat thing."
Jake squeegeed the water out of his hair. "Okay, so it's not the log ride.
No Yeerks there."
"House of Horrors," I agreed. "Definitely the House of Horrors."
We ran for the House of Horrors. But as we ran there came the sound of a not-too-distant voice crying, "Po ice! Security! Police!"
So we ran faster.
Chapter 24
We ran for the House of Horrors, bare wet feet SLAP-SLAP-SLAPPING all the way. It was halfway across the amusement park. I was panting and sweating and holding my sides from the pain by the time we got there.
"Now what?" Marco asked.
"Now we find the others," Jake said.
"But they could be in morph. We don't even know what we're looking for,"
I pointed out.
"Exactly. And then we have to figure out if the Yeerks are using the House of Horrors to kidnap and infest guys from Zone Ninety-one."
"Even though we don't know if the Yeerks will be plain old human- Controllers or Hork-Bajir or whatever," I said.
"Exactly."
"And in the meantime," I concluded, "we have to avoid getting arrested by an Air Force captain who is frantically trying to protect the Most Secret Place On Earth, where they are hiding an old Andalite toilet."
Marco laughed sardonically. "Does anyone else ever think maybe we've all just lost our minds? You know, like maybe none of this is real and we're escaped lunatics from the local hospital for the hopelessly wacko?"
"Hey, we're saving the world here, Marco," I said.
"That's what all lunatics say."
"Come along, my wacko friends." Jake led the way toward the House of Horrors entrance.
This ride involved cars on tracks as opposed to log boats in water. I was relieved that at least there wasn't any water.
The three of us piled into one of the cars. A fourth person was seated with us. He was a man, maybe thirty years old. He smiled at me.
"Sure this isn't too scary for you kids?"
"No, sir. We're pretty good at handling scary stuff," I said.
"I don't see the others," Jake muttered under his breath as the car lurched away down the track.
"Boo-ah-ah-hah-HAH!" a mechanical skeleton shrieked.
"Beware! Beware all ye who enter here!" a loud, booming recorded voice cried. "Beware the horrors that lie within!"
Then, "Aaaaaarrrggghh!" A mechanical pirate holding his own severed head jerkily waved a sword at us.
A huge snake turned and aimed its cobralike head at us, staring with glittering green eyes.
"Yeah, yeah, big deal," Marco said. "Could this get any faker?"
"Why are you kids so cynical?" the crew-cut man asked.
"We watch too much TV," Marco answered.
The car spun and banged backward through a doorway into the next room of the House of Horrors. In a flash of lightning I saw the car behind us. In it were also four people. Captain Torrelli and three uniformed Gardens security guys.
"What is with thaiguy?" I asked.
"Hey, Captain, havin' fun?" crew cut yelled back to Torrelli.
"Airman Jones!" Torrelli yelled. "Don't let those kids get away!"
"These kids?" Airman Jones asked, pointing at us.
"Yeah. Thosekids! At least that girl and the boy with the smirk!"
Our car jerked violently back around and we were being shrieked at by a flight of ghosts passing overhead.
"That Captain Torrelli. What a joker that guy is," I said weakly to Airman Jones.
"Captain Torrelli has never joked in his life," Jones growled. "You kids are gonna have to stay with me till the captain can talk to you."
We passed beneath the flying ghosts. And that's when the ride got weird.
Really weird.
See, somehow, whoever had built the ride seemed to have created perfect, life-size replicas of six Hork-Bajir warriors. And standing behind them, also frozen in place, was a creature with the body of a deer, the tail of a scorpion, and a mouthless face. They were all very lifelike. Probably because they were alive.
Visser Three was in the House of Horrors.
"Okay, now\'mscared," Marco said.