Author's note: I figure, better early than late. That's why I added this chapter so early.
-
Chapter 5: No Way Up?
-
CARLSBAD APARTMENTS EAST STAIRCASE - 19:13:9
We entered the staircase only to find another discouragement: Marvin had placed yet another ceiling to block our way. There was seemingly no way up.
Resourcefulness is a quality of mine, however, and I spotted our way up in the form of a man who happened to be washing the window just outside the staircase.
Alex opened the window. "Excuse me," she told the startled man, "but we need your platform much more than you do." After making sure the man was safely inside, Alex motioned for us to climb on.
I climbed through the window to join Alex, still holding the pizza. Even as a lion, Sam somehow managed to fit through the window and settle on the platform. We landed, and I hit the UP button on the platform controls.
The platform stalled.
Alex and I looked at each other, then at Sam. "Whoopsie," Alex said. "I forgot how much two teenagers, a pizza, and a lion can weigh together."
"No problem," I responded. "You and I can use our jetpack-backpacks to hover just over the platform while Sam rides alone. That way the weight will be fine. I know my physics."
We tried again. This time, the platform went up, up, up, slowly but surely. Thirteenth floor. Fourteenth floor. Fifteenth floor. Sixteenth floor. Seventeenth floor. Eighteenth floor.
Uh-oh! On the nineteenth floor, we hit a disturbance. There was Marvin, peeking out a window on the twenty-first floor. He was holding a pair of wire cutters to one of the cables that held the platform.
Marvin smirked. "Hey, Gray and Yellow! Where's Green?"
"What care you?" I shot back. "We're the ones who've got the pizza. See?"
"Ah, I see. Well, I'm afraid I'm going to have to say cut you down. Bye-bye."
Marvin leaned over and cut the cable. At least, he would have, but Clover peeked out of the twenty-second floor window and froze the wire cutters with her Ice Queen perfume.
As you can imagine, Marvin wasn't happy. "Hey! What business do you have, interfering with my business?"
"I'm the cleaning lady, remember?" Clover responded. "It's my job to keep things clean. It wouldn't do to let you ruin the sidewalk with lion guts."
Clover and Marvin ducked back inside, and we continued our slow but constant ascent. Twentieth floor. Twenty-first floor. Twenty-second floor. Twenty-third floor.
On the twenty-fourth floor, Marvin tried to hamper our ascent again. This time, he opened the twenty-third floor window and pushed the platform, tilting it and causing Sam to fall off.
Alex and I both gasped. "SAM!"
We both dove down on our jetpack-backpacks to catch Sam. Lions are heavy, but somehow we managed to carry Sam together and return her to the platform.
"That was nearly heart-stopping," I said.
"I'll say," Alex agreed. "Let's keep going. We've only got fifteen minutes and twenty-eight point three seconds."
Twenty-fifth floor. Twenty-sixth floor. Twenty-seventh floor. Twenty-eighth floor. Twenty-ninth floor. We finally reached the window of Marvin's penthouse suite.
It wasn't that easy, however. Marvin's window was bolted shut, and reinforced so much that even our lasers couldn't penetrate it.
Alex sighed. "Darn it! We'll just have to get off at the twenty-ninth floor and go upstairs inside."
I lowered the platform back down to the twenty-ninth floor window, which Alex opened. We reentered the building.
-
Yeah, yeah, wait to find out what's next, you know how it goes.
