9

In the dim light, I saw two Horrors watching us approach. They stood in front of the sliding boards. Their bulging yellow eyes lit up as we hurried over to them.

"Do you slide all the way down?" Luke asked one of them.

The Horror nodded.

"Do you go really fast?" Clay asked, lingering a few feet behind us.

The Horror nodded again. "It's a long way down," he rumbled.

"Be careful which slide you pick," the other Horror warned. "Don't pick the Doom Slide." He gestured to the number painted in black in front of each slide.

"Yes. Don't pick the Doom Slide," his partner repeated. "You'll slide down forever and ever."

I laughed.

He was just trying to scare us — wasn't he?

I chose slide number three because three is my lucky number. Luke sat down on top of the slide next to mine, slide number two. And Clay scrambled over to the far end and dropped down onto slide number ten.

I glanced back to see what the Horrors were doing. But before I could focus on them, I felt the bottom tilt underneath me.

I let out a long, high-pitched shriek as I began to slide.

I raised my arms over my head, leaned back, and screamed all the way down. My cries echoed in the enormous, dark canyon of the Doom Slide building.

It felt great. The slide curved and curved, and I swirled down in the darkness, faster and faster.

In the shadowy light, I could see Luke in the slide next to mine. He was lying on his back, staring straight up with his mouth wide open.

I tried to call out to him. But the slide curved away, and I curved with it.

Down, down.

I was sliding so fast, the darkness became a solid blur.

The slide curved up, then around, then down again. I'm a human roller coaster, I thought happily.

Down, down. Darker and darker.

I'm sliding faster than the speed of light, I thought.

I glanced from one side to the other, trying to see Luke and Clay. But it was too dark, and I was moving too fast.

Too fast.

And, then, bump.

A chute opened up. I hit the ground hard, landing on the seat of my jeans.

Outside. I was back outside.

Bump.

Luke bounced out beside me. He hit the ground, still lying on his back, and made no attempt to get up. He grinned up at me. "Where am I?"

"Back on the ground," I told him, climbing to my feet. I brushed off the back of my jeans, then reached behind my head to straighten my braid. "Great ride, huh?"

"Let's go again," Luke said, still lying there.

"We can't go again if you don't get up," I said.

"Help me." He reached up a hand.

I groaned as I tugged him to a sitting position. "Get up yourself," I said impatiently.

"You were screaming in there," he told me.

"I did it on purpose," I said. "I wanted to scream."

"Yeah. Sure." He rolled his eyes. Then he pulled himself to his feet. "Wow. I'm a little dizzy. How fast do you think we were going?"

I shrugged. "Pretty fast, I think. It's so dark in there, it's hard to know how fast you're going."

And then I realized we were missing a member of our sliding party. I stared at the closed chutes on the wall of the building. "Hey — where's Clay?"

"Huh?" Luke had forgotten about him, too.

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