Kingdom Keepers V (9781423153429) by Ridley Pearson Read Free Book Online Page B

Seriously. I really am.”
    â€œI…ah…” Maybeck knew there was no use trying to deny it. “Whatever,” he said. Looking down at the buckets, he added, “Nice move.”
    â€œThank you.” She moved closer to the nearest bucket. “We need a glass jar to collect some of this stuff. The Imagineers should analyze it. It’s like liquid fire or something. It eats through wood. Maybe flesh, for all I know.”
    â€œSweet!” Maybeck said, always excited to see the next great horror in person.
    â€œI think it uses itself up as it does whatever it does,” she said. “There was definitely less of it after it chewed up each of the brooms.”
    Maybeck produced an empty soda can from a trash bin.
    â€œNo,” she said. “There can’t be any chance of spilling it.”
    â€œWhat if we just gave them the buckets?” he asked.
    â€œDuh! Of course!”
    On inspection, the buckets proved to be plastic looking like wood, possibly explaining why the goo hadn’t destroyed them as well.
    Maybeck carefully picked up two; Charlene, the two others. They carried them around to the front door of the Base, and Maybeck rang the exterior intercom. He explained to the person who answered what they were leaving on the doorstep and advised an extra dose of caution in handling it.
    The intercom’s welcome screen displayed the time as 3:13.
    â€œThere won’t be any more action tonight,” he said. Historically, very little happened after 3:00 a.m.
    â€œAgreed,” she said.
    â€œWhat do you suppose they were trying to do?” he asked.
    â€œGet inside,” she said.
    â€œLike the Rangers,” Maybeck said.
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œThe Rangers are an elite team of commandos that leads the way into battle. Black Ops. You know.”
    â€œThey were supposed to burn a hole in the wall for others to follow through.”
    â€œMaybe you prevented that.”
    â€œWe,” she said.
    â€œYou,” he said.
    That was the thing about Maybeck: just when she thought he was the biggest egomaniac of all time he’d come out with something caring and thoughtful. Completely unpredictable. Somewhere behind all his bold and brash statements was someone with a real heart, and it endeared him to her. Maybe it was the artist in him. Maybe all the blowhard stuff was just a shell he hid behind.
    â€œWe’ll stay until four,” she said.
    â€œOf course!”
    Philby would manually return them at the appointed time. To leave any earlier would require a phone call, as the Return device wasn’t currently in Hollywood Studios.
    â€œLet’s patrol,” she said, “in case you’re right and there’s some kind of backup team in place.”
    â€œTogether,” he said. “We’ll patrol together.”
    She thought her near-suicidal fall had affected him. In any case, he was that different Maybeck she liked better. They roamed the area, alert for anything out of place, the slightest movement of a shadow, the tiniest of sounds. Somewhere near the art shop Maybeck took her hand and Charlene let him. It wasn’t possessive or romantic. It was brotherly.
    But it felt good.
    To both of them.

S econd period, Willa and Philby found themselves together in History. Both wanted to discuss Finn’s bedroom attack, having been texted about it, but Mr. E. didn’t appreciate “background noise.”
    Mr. Eisenower consistently won Edgewater High’s annual “Best Teacher Award,” which at least made the class tolerable. Today’s class had been on the origins of mythological creatures, inspired in part by Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series, which had swept through middle school like wildfire a few years before.
    Mr. E. narrated a Keynote slide show of all sorts of weird and twisted creatures created in mythologies ranging from Indonesia to the Greeks and Africans. It was one of those blocks