Glory Alley and the Star Riders (The Glory Alley Series) (12 page)

“
You
’re not sleeping in here again,
”
Glory
growled
,
knowing he intended
to claim
Patrice’s
vacant bed
.
She had heard
that
Randy and Danny
had come
home from
opportunity
school
earlier in the day
. The twins had
dropped off their junk up in their bedroom
and then promptly
left to hang out with some friends. They returned while she was in the shower
,
and by the time she was out
,
they were in bed.
Brandon and George shared
the bedroom down the hall with them.
The twins
were
total slobs
, so she
could hardly blame Brandon for not wanting to sleep in such squalor, but why should she have to suffer
because
of
it
?

Looking
up
,
s
he saw
Brandon
unzipping his jacket
.
His arms were swirled with tattoos. His goal in life was to ink his entire body. A guy had to have goals, but that? Puh-leez.

He
ignored h
er glare
,
tossed his jacket over the bedpost
,
and
dropped
a magazine on
to the bed.
Glory
g
lance
d
over
at it
.
J
ason
Belway
, the famous pop star
,
was on the cover
sporting six-pack abs,
a
s
teamy
grin
, and a barely dressed
woman on each arm
.
The title
said he was one of
the top ten
wealthiest entertainer
s
in the world
.

Mu
st be nice
, she thought
.
I wonder w
hat
it
would be like to
be his girlfriend
? But
if beauty attract
s
money, and money beauty
—
fat chance that w
ill
ever happen
.
Last year, Jason had come under suspicion when his manager’s body washed up onto a riverbank. All of that had blown over now and Jason was as popular as ever.

She
reached for
the magazine
, but Brandon snatched it away
.

Her
nose
wrinkled at the smell of smoke wafting around
Brandon
.

“Wrap it up, Chubs,” Brandon said
.
“It’s late and I’m going to bed.”

She
hated
that name
.
Glory
acknowledged
she could stand to lose a few pounds
.
I have a pretty face though—right
?
S
he tried to reassure herself. People tell me that sometimes.

S
he pulled out
her
rock collector’s guide from under
the
bed, setting it on the floor beside h
er
.

“I said wrap it up.”

“In a sec,”
she
replied, returning the boxes
to alphabetical order beneath her
bed
.
“I have to look something up.”

Still
in
his street clothes
, he
crawled into the bed
,
thumb
ing
through the magazine
. Meanwhile,
Glory
sat on the floor in the aisle between the two beds, flipping through the pages of
her
rock collector’s guide.

After several minutes
,
Glory
asked
casually
, “Hey, Brandon
.
How big is the biggest dog in the world?”

“How the heck would I know?”

“Have you ever heard of a dog being as big as
…say
...
a pick-up truck?”

“Nah. No dog’s that big.”

Glory
thought for a
mom
ent
.

“Are there any bears around here?”

“There used to be, but not for hundreds of years.”

“Oh
. U
h, what about white ones?”

“White what?”

“White bears. Are there any around these parts?”

Brandon rolled onto his side and faced h
er
. “Don’t be stupid
.
White bears only live where it’s cold all year round.”

Brandon yawned, making no attempt to cover his mouth. “What’s the sudden interest in giant dogs and white bears?”

“Promise you won’t tell?
”
she
knew better than to trust Brandon, but
s
he was dying to tell someone.

“Just get on with it.”

“Well,
earlier
when I was at Queen’s Mesa
... 
”

“
Glory
,” Brandon’s voice s
oftened with something bordering on concern,
“you gotta quit going up there
.
You’re gonna get lost in there
,
or killed
,
and nobody will ever find you.”

“Since when do you care?”

“I don’t,” Brandon snapped
.
“
And
you better not be spray painting in there again
.
If you get caught defacing a cave
,
the
Eco
-police will
fine
Dad
and throw you into juvie.”

“Do you want to hear the story or not?”

“Go.”

“I found a new cavern today and guess what I saw.”

“A white dog?”

“How’d you know?
”

“Lucky guess.”

“But this was no ordinary dog, Brandon, if it was a dog at all
.
I think it was none other than the red-eyed devil of Queen’s
Mesa
himself.
”
Sh
e paused for effect
.

“You mean the
Hoogula
?” Brandon raised an incredulous eyebrow
.

“
A
definite possibility
.
” She gave a solemn nod. “
It was almost exactly like
Grandpa
described
. H
uge fiery eyes as big as your face
, thorns all over its body, skin like powdered rock.
And it
had fangs like swords
.”
Brandon made no reply, but his
brows r
ose
higher, and he put down the magazine
.
“It
chased me from its lair—all the way to the top of Queen’s Mesa
!
I was this close to being a devil-doggy snack.
”
Sh
e held h
er
thumb and index finger a
n inch apart.
“Good thing luck was with me and I escaped
.
But barely.”

Reliving the chase made h
er
shudder
.
“So, what do you think?”

Brandon sat up and was silent a minute
, t
hen threw
a pillow
at
h
er
.

“Go to bed, dork.”

Glo
ry
felt like a balloon with a leak
.
Sh
e
ha
d shared h
er
most amazing day with h
er
brother only to be ridiculed
.
She
hadn’t even gotten to the best part
—
the beautiful mysterious
rock
!
Served him right
—
Brandon wasn’t worthy to hear about IT anyway.

He
leaned out of bed and flipped off the lamp
.

“Turn that back on
, Brandon
. I’m not done reading.”