Full Tilt by Neal Shusterman Read Free Book Online Page A

for although it now moved with the agility of flesh, to the touch it was still like slippery, painted wood. All of these animals were a strange melding of wood, paint, and flesh.
    Who made this place?
    Beside me I passed an unfortunate boy desperately trying to get some speed out of the banana slug he rode. From behind him, what could only be described as a Fighting Irishman grabbed him by the scruff of his collar.
    “Outta me way,” the Irishman said, and hurled the kid off his slug so far out of sight that I had no idea where he landed.
    It’s only a ride, I told myself. It’s only a ride.
    I caught up to Maggie on her ram. She was experienced on horseback and had taken to the shape and rhythm of her new mount. The look on her face wasn’t fear; it was something slowly creeping toward ecstasy.
    “This is wild!” she said as I passed her.
    My lion leaped over a rock, and I rose off his back, coming down on his haunches, practically at the tail. I had to throw all my weight forward to keep from falling off.
    “You’ll never make it if you ride like that.”
    It was Cassandra. She rode a huge beast the color of blood that matched pace with my lion. It was a razor-back, but it was more dinosaur than hog. Cassandra wasn’t dressed in the clothes she’d worn before but was in some exotic safari outfit. And as I looked at myself I saw that I was wearing the same thing. In fact, everyone was. It was as if costumes were part of the deal here.
    “None of this is real!” I shouted to her. “It can’t be! I’m getting off!”
    “Bad idea.”
    As I looked ahead of me I saw what she meant. There was a kid on an orange longhorn bull who was having as much trouble as I was. I heard him scream as he slipped off the bull, but his screams were silenced under the trampling feet of the stampede.
    “You could call this the weed-out course,” Cassandra said with a dry smile.
    “Okay,” I said, hugging the neck of my lion. “Okay. I get the idea. You can stop the ride now.”
    She laughed at me. “The ride doesn’t stop. Find your way to another ride. That’s the only way to get off.”
    Another ride? That implied surviving this one. Had Quinn been through this? He would have loved it. He would have died loving it!
    “Where’s my brother?”
    Instead of answering, Cassandra tugged on the ears of her razorback. It turned its head, opened its massive jaw, and dug its tusks into my lion, shredding its neck.
    “Bad piggy,” Cassandra said, but it was clear this was exactly what she had intended to do. Maggie came up behind me. Her ram reared and threw her to the ground. My lion roared in pain, wood splintering in all directions. It collapsed, and I tumbled off just as the huge razorback chomped down on my lion, lifted it up, and swallowed it whole.
    “Survival of the fittest,” Cassandra said with a wink. “Looks like your lion didn’t make the grade.” Then she rode off, leaving me and Maggie standing in the middle of the stampede.
    “We’re toast,” Maggie said.
    By now I’d seen more than one kid trampled into dust. What happens if you die here? I wondered. Is it just the end of the ride, or something worse?
    “Come on!” I grabbed Maggie’s hand and wove us through the stampede. Somehow we managed to sidestepevery animal. I turned away from the kid being swallowed by a crimson alligator and another who got speared by a maroon and gold Trojan warrior. We fought our way past a host of horrors until we came out into tall grass. I was exhausted, but I felt I could run forever to get away from this place.
    “Wait! What about Russ?” Maggie said. We’d completely forgotten about him.
    I turned back, fearing the worst. But he, too, had broken away from the stampede—only he hadn’t left his mount. He still rode the back of that gargantuan peacock, which now ran AWOL through the grass.
    “Help!” Russ yelled. “Get me off this thing!” As big as he was, he was at the mercy of the ridiculous bird.
    Maggie