Glory Alley and the Star Riders (The Glory Alley Series) (36 page)

Using the back of her
forearm
to wipe her brow
,
s
he
fe
lt
like a part of Mount-O-Crap itself—wet, smelly, unappreciated,
and
just waiting around to be
come fertilizer.

By the time she was finished
,
Grandpa
was
already
outside on the front porch snoozing in his wheelchair
. C
hin resting on his chest, wooden game board set up over a barrel in front of him
,
she smiled at his eagerness.
She went in to
take a fast shower.
Grandpa hadn’t
even
stirred
by the time she returned to the front
p
orch
.

The name
on the board
game
was printed at the top
.
Treasure Quest:  Seek
,
Find
,
Persist
,
Conquer
.

“
Grandpa
?
”
Glory
gently shook his shoulder
.
“Do ya still want to play?”

“Rose?
”
The old man
asked with a yawn.

“No, it’s me,
Glory
.”

“
Must have been dreaming,” Grandpa said
.
“Not only do you look like
your mother
, but
sound like her too.”

Glory
lik
ed
it when
people
compared her to Mom
.
She smiled.
Grandpa
straightened his hunting cap
.

“Ready to get your tail whipped?
”

“
Nope. Are you?”

“Those are fightin’ words.”
Grandpa
sputtered with laughter as he hunched over the game board and began arranging his pieces
.
“Your mother never came close to beating me, but that didn’t stop her from trying.”

It had taken a while to get used to
Grandpa
when he had first moved in, but the man was a mean Treasure Quest player. So was
Glory
.
They had grown close over the last hundred games or so
.
Taking a seat in the metal chair opposite
Grandpa
,
Glory
arranged twelve knights on the diamond spaces at the battlefront
.
She
placed the sorceress and three golden keys on the squares. At the back of the board, in the lair,
s
he protected h
er
treasure chest between the dragon and three goblins
.
Grandpa
set up his own side in similar fashion.

The game began as a battle between knights vying for their opponent’s keys, which were needed to open the door to the dragon's lair
.
Once inside the lair
,
the knights fought the goblins whose movements were limited to squares
.
The dragon was powerful
.
He could move on diamonds and squares. The sorceress, however, if she survived the battle, could utter spells, freezing the dragon for a turn
.
The game was won when a knight made it to the treasure chest with a viable key
.
The game was lost when a player lost all of his keys or knights to an opponent
.

Grandpa
and
Glory
had knights in each other's lairs and were down to their dragons and a couple of goblins when the rest of the
Alley
boys came in from the field, where they had been repairing a barbed wire fence
.
Brandon and Danny went into the house, but Randy stopped to hover over
Glory
’s
shoulder.

“How can you stand to play with h
er
,
Grandpa
?
”
Randy asked. “
I
t takes h
er
a year to make a move and the game goes on and on forever.”

“When’s the last time you beat your
little
sister
at Treasure Quest?”
Grandpa asked without looking up from the game.

“I quit playing with h
er
, not because
s
he was better than me, but because
s
he’s so slow.”

“Sure, ya did,”
Grandpa
said
with a knowing wink.
“If
Glory
thinks slow
,
it’s only because h
er
mind is deep and it takes a long time for h
er
thoughts to go down and back up again.”

“I dunno,
Grandpa
, I think
s
he’s just stupid.”

Randy dodged
Glory
’s
flying fist.

“Like I said,” Randy teased. “
Glory
’s
slow!”

“Quit flapping your jaws, kid, you’re ruining my concentration,”
Grandpa
told Randy
.
“Scram.”

Randy
humphed
and went inside. The game resumed and
Grandpa
promptly killed
Glory
’s
last goblin and took it from the board
.
Without glancing in her direction, he said,
“
I see that the
bums
gave you your shoes back.”

This was an unexpected shift in conversation
.

Glory
looked down at
h
er
all-terrain hikers afraid
that
acknowledging the latest
encounter would
only lead to
trouble.
She
gave a small
shrug
without meeting
Grandpa
’s eyes
.

“So, they’re still coming around?”
Grandpa
pressed
.
“Do you know why?
”

Glory
gave a reluctant
nod.

The old man raised a bushy eyebrow
.
“
And?
”

“
They said they’re elves and they’ve lost the
Elboni
,”
s
he mumbled.

Grandpa
cupped an ear
.
“What’d you say?”

Glory
shouted
:
“They said they’re elves and the
y’re
looking for their
Elboni
!”

“
Elboni
, you say
.
”
Grandpa
strok
ed
the wiry gray stubble on his chin. “If they're talking
Elboni
, those aren
’
t elves
.
We got ourselves a case of
the
Wybbil
s.
”

“
Don’t
I know
it
,”
Glory
said
, shoulders drooping, feeling tired all of a sudden
.

“Good. Then you know how serious a problem this is.
Your
Nana
and I had a run-in with
Wybbil
s when we were kids playing in Queen’s Mesa
and they’re not to be trifled with
.
Same with the devil-dog you’ve been prattling on and on about.”

So did this mean
Grandpa
actually believed h
er
story
?
Relief
nipped at the edges of the anxiety she’d been feeling
.
Suddenly it occurred to h
er
that
Grandpa
and
Nana
had known all along that
s
he’d been telling the truth, even when
Dad
and h
er
siblings had given h
er
a rough time
.

“
You
and Nana
knew I was telling the truth
all along
but didn’t say anything
—
w
hat kind of
grandparents are
you
anyway
?”