Sidekick by Auralee Wallace Read Free Book Online

up. The boy swayed back and forth above the crowd. I needed to get a move on.
    I clambered up the last few rungs ignoring the pain in my feet. I knew I had reached the top when my head smacked against something hard.
    I looked up. I had hit the edge of a platform at the bottom of a set of stairs that led to the ship’s upper deck. A wooden railing with horizontal rungs surrounded the small landing. All I had to do now was reach up and over, grab the railing and hoist myself up onto the platform. No problem really…except my arms felt like wet, jiggley noodles. How on earth had the Sultana managed this carrying a kid? Maybe I was underestimating my opponent by a smidge. This was probably a bad idea. I should go back. But then again, I had already climbed all this way.
    I grabbed the lip of the floor with my left hand and made a blind grasp for the railing with the right. Sickeningly, the movement forced me to lean away from the ladder, my back facing nothingness, and the railing was further than I thought. I stepped up onto the last rung of the ladder and made a full body reach. I was still a half an inch short. Seriously, did the Sultana have the wingspan of a pterodactyl? And who designed this ship? I had a sudden urge to beat up an architect.
    “Hey! Look at that girl!” someone shouted from below.
    Great, now I was performance art. I stretched even further, wiggling my fingertips towards the railing.
    Then it happened.
    I don’t know if I heard it, or if I felt the barest of shifts in my jacket—or maybe I was just getting used to the feeling that the universe was about to kick me in the metaphorical nuts—but whatever it was, something made me look down. There, half in and half out, of my jacket pocket was the wad of money Mr. Raj had given me.
    It teetered…teetered…and then spilled out into the air.
    Instinctively, I grabbed for it with the hand that had been holding the floor. My precarious balance shattered. My right arm pin-wheeled through the empty air. I used the last pressure I had from my tiptoes to launch myself towards the railing. My hand whacked a rung. I squeezed my fingers shut as my body dangled and swung in the empty air.
    “Money!” voices shouted from below.
    I spared a stomach-turning glance down. Hungry hands were shooting up into the air to snatch my helpless little bills from their flight.
    I looked back and quickly swung my other hand to the rung. Missed. The pressure on my fingers was unbearable. I didn’t want to die. I really didn’t. But the laws of physics were in charge now. I couldn’t hold on for much longer.
    My phone chirped.
    I sent my sister a mental I love you . Maybe it was better this way. She would get over it in time. I wasn’t sure if I really believed that. I wouldn’t if the situation had been reversed. Still, maybe it was better she never knew the truth about our father.
    Father .
    Rage washed over me. This was his fault.
    A sudden jolt of energy shot through my muscles. I swung my hand again. Got it! Now I just needed to swing my feet over to the lip. I could do this. I could actually do this.
    I swung my legs with all the core strength that I had, and my right toe caught the edge of the platform. It was enough. I wriggled my entire foot up. The weight was taking some of the pressure off my hands. Just a little more, and I’d get my whole body up.
    Suddenly I felt a cold shadow move over me.
    “Well, looky looky. Who do we have here?”

Chapter Six
    I rolled my eyes up to the demented clown’s face.
    I had lost focus and was dangling again. I still had a firm grip with both hands, but I didn’t have the strength left to even try to get my foot up again.
    “Little help?” I wheezed as a gust of wind rocked my body.
    The clown hooted.
    Well, you can’t blame a girl for trying.
    I decided on a new approach.
    “My father…he won’t be happy if I die.”
    I didn’t know if that was true anymore, but I had seen the way the Sultana looked at me in the