Theme Planet by Andy Remic Read Free Book Online Page B

MAKES SENSE.
     
    The headrest turned red with
annoyance when both Dex and Kat burst out laughing.
     
    ~ * ~
     
    “Dad! Dad Dad Dad Dad Dad!”
     
    “What? Jesus, kids, can you stop
with the bloody shouting?”
     
    “I can see it, it’s down there,
we’re getting close, it’s not the time to have a lie-in, Dad, you can see the
domes and the hotel cubescrapers and the ginormous roller-coasters and everything! Come look, Dad, come on, look!”
     
    Dex looked, rubbing sleep from
his eyes. Up and down the Shuttle similar scenes were being re-enacted by
excited squawking kids pummelling awake their bleary-eyed parents, who’d known
it was far too damn much to hope that they’d get a bit of sleep on the first
day of their vacation. Forget Christmas, Juja, Pokaloloa or any other festival
which leaves presents beneath a tree precipitating 4am awakenings by excited young offspring... this was something else.
     
    Dex, Molly and Toffee stared out
of the Shuttle’s porthole as engines screamed in deceleration and the whole
world of Theme Planet swung into view, spreading out before them like some
massive, mammoth playground - which it surely was. Dex blinked, his eyes funny
for a moment, and he realised the Shuttle’s porthole was magnifying the
images for their benefit, thus giving an immediate sense of gratification that
hey, hell, they’d picked the right damn holiday of a lifetime, baby.
     
    Theme Planet spread out, a
tapestry of wonder.
     
    Theme Planet undulated, an image
of physical joy.
     
    Green fields rolled, golden
beaches gleamed, turquoise oceans lapped, purple mountains sparkled, and amidst
the finery and luxury and stunning natural beauty, amidst the perfection of
cleanliness and holiness and utter, total perfection, sat the rides...
     
    “There’s Bubble Guts!” shrieked
Molly, pointing. All along the Shuttle other kids were shrieking and hollering
as they spied favourite rides seen so many times on TV adverts and filmys. Dex
squinted. The entrance to the “ride” was as big as five cubescrapers. It could
be seen from space.
     
    “What’s Bubby Guts?” said Dex.
     
    “Aww Dad,” said Molly,
giving him one of those looks.
     
    Katrina appeared at his shoulder.
“You certainly know how to keep up with the times,” she said, and nibbled his
ear-lobe.
     
    “Careful. Don’t want to get
spanked by that pedantic head-rest,” he said.
     
    “Insane! Insane! Insane!”
shrieked Toffee, red in the face.
     
    “You’re damn right, you are,”
muttered Dex.
     
    “No dad, it’s the ride called Insane,” chided Molly, rolling her eyes. “Look!”
     
    Dex looked. It was a five
kilometre high rollercoaster with enough loops and curves and flick-backs and
twists and turns and jelly-donuts to make the hardiest of hard roller-coaster
riders puke his quivering burger into his lap. It dominated the skyline,
starting a full five kilometres up in the sky, and dropping into the turquoise
ocean where (Molly reliably informed him) it went five kilometres under the
waves.
     
    Dex stared at his daughter. “Now
that is insane,” he said.
     
    “Can we go on it, Dad, please,
please, you can only go on it with your parents, please Dad, please, can we can
we can we?”
     
    Dex stared once again at the true
monster mother bastard bitch of all roller-coasters. “The day I
go on that ride,” he said, voice soft, words carefully clipped, “is the day
Hell freezes over, God comes down from his cloud to sign limited editions of Bible
II - The Remix, and the sun explodes to consume Earth with a comedy
Pac-Man munch.” He shouted the last word, barking it like a dog.
     
    Molly worked this out. “Aww, come
on Dad, Mum, will you tell him?”
     
    “Go on, Dex. Don’t be such a
stick in the mud.”
     
    “Don’t worry,” said Dex, ruffling
Molly’s shoulder-length brown hair. “Your mother will take you on it.”
     
    Kat threw him a glance like a
sock filled with razor-blades.
     
    Again, the