Smek for President by Adam Rex

Author:Adam Rex [Rex, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781484710579
Publisher: Disney Book Group

ELEVEN

The Sector 3 detention nub was a dusty little pimple of a building in the center of a ring of tall fencing. Dim lights were shining up at it from the ground. The fence wasn’t going to give me any problem—I was pretty sure I’d be able to vault it with my low-gravity superpowers. Then it was about a hundred feet to the edge of the dome. I couldn’t see a way in from where I was standing.

Actually, the fence looked so easy that it made me a little suspicious. How secure could any prison be when every Boov had a flying scooter and a gun that could make holes in anything? I squinted into the darkness and looked around, but there didn’t seem to be anyone patrolling the grounds. It was a really small prison; J.Lo was probably the only one in there. Maybe Boov just did what they were told. Maybe Boov just stayed where they were put.

I wanted something to throw over the fence, just to see what would happen. I wished I had a racquetball.

“Oh!” I whispered to Bill. “Shoot a bubble over there!”

YES.

Bill rose to just above the level of the fence, turned, and launched a bubble inside the perimeter. It slowed once it was about thirty feet in, then drifted lazily on the ammonia-scented breeze. Nothing. No other movement inside the fence.

“Shoot another one,” I said. “Shoot a big bunch.”

Bill made an arrangement like a clump of grapes and snapped at it with his antennae, and it sailed over the compound like a parade balloon.

“You’d think someone in there would tell us to keep our bubbles out of his yard,” I whispered.

“I would,” said the Chief, who’d just joined me at the fence. “If it was my yard.”

“You would, wouldn’t you,” I said. “You’d grab the bubbles and be all like, ‘These are my bubbles now. You’re not gettin’ ’em back.’”

The Chief nodded slowly. “The Spook in there?”

“Yeah,” I sighed, and stared through the bars. “I’m scared for him.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“No plan,” I said. “Did I have a plan when I saved the whole world? Not much of one, anyway.”

We were quiet a moment. Which is to say that I was quiet and the Chief was a figment of my imagination.

“I’ve decided you were wrong before,” I told him after a while.

“Oh, good.”

“It isn’t just kids who go about everything wrong. It’s people. I mean, I don’t want to offend you or anything—”

“Ha! Since when?”

“—but you weren’t exactly the most popular guy back at the casino. Or in Roswell. People thought you were...hard to get along with. Some people. And you are no kid, pardon me for saying so; you’re like two hundred and fifty years old, so shouldn’t you know by now how to make everybody like you?”

“Ah, you put your finger right on it. I could no longer give two horse apples what people think of me. That’s what maturity’s good for. Might be the only thing it’s good for.”

He paused to cough.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.