The Paradise Trap (11 page)

Newt flung herself into a corner, folding her arms across her chest.

‘There! Are you satisfied?’ she spat, glaring at Coco. ‘You’ve made me look like a complete loser in front of all my friends!
And
you’ve completely wrecked my chances of ever going out with the greatest bass player in the history of the world! Thanks a lot!’

Coco sighed. She began to massage the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger.

Marcus said, ‘None of those people were your real friends, Newt. The whole thing was a fake.’

‘So what?’ Newt didn’t seem to care. She just scowled at him. ‘How do
you
know?’ she continued. ‘What makes
you
such an expert, anyway?’

Marcus shrugged.

‘You don’t have to be an expert,’ he replied. ‘All you need is common sense.’ Before she could do more than flush angrily, he added, ‘Everyone has a dream holiday. Yours seemed real because there weren’t any giant pink cats or talking dodgem cars in it. But that doesn’t mean it
was
real.’

Newt eyed him as if he were insane. ‘Giant pink cats?’ she echoed. ‘For God’s sake, what are you
on
?’

Sterling, however, was more interested in the dodgem cars.

‘Talking dodgem cars?’ His eyes lit up.’Where were they?
I
didn’t see any talking dodgem cars.’

‘Don’t worry. You will,’ Marcus assured him – just as the lift bounced to a sudden halt.

24

LOST IN THE DARK

M
ARCUS DIDN
’
T KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT FROM
E
DISON
’
S
amusement park. Would the runaway ferris wheel still be rolling around? Would the clowns be back in their boxes? Would the grouchy dodgem cars have smashed each other to smithereens?

He was prepared for almost anything. But when the door opened onto a pitch black interior, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

‘Are we – are we back in the cellar?’ asked Holly, sounding worried.

‘I don’t know.’ Marcus checked his brochure again. Had he got the code number wrong? ‘We shouldn’t be . . .’

‘Of course we’re back in the cellar!’ said Newt. She had no sooner stepped forward, however, than a distant cackle of crazed laughter pulled her up short.

There was a tense silence.

‘What was
that
?’ she demanded at last, in a high-pitched voice that echoed slightly as if she were shouting down a tunnel.

Everyone listened. Marcus sniffed the air. It smelled of dust and damp and something else. Oil? Hot steel? As his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness beyond the lift, he began to pick out some vague shapes: a dense shadow, a thin gleam, a pale patch.

Then someone nearby uttered a long, deathly, gurgling groan.

‘Let’s get out of here!’ Holly squeaked. Newt jumped backwards, reaching for the control panel. But before Marcus could remind her that she shouldn’t waste her time pressing buttons, there was an enormous crash
–
followed by a drawn-out, metallic squeal.

Off to the left, a set of double doors burst open. Light poured in as two rubbery flaps were slammed apart by a four-seater buggy on rails. At the same instant, a luminous green skeleton dropped from the ceiling, swaying and jiggling at the end of a hangman’s noose. For a split second the skeleton’s bony toes were dangling directly over the buggy’s empty front seat. ‘
Haah-ha-ha-hoo-hoo-
hoo!
’ laughed a disembodied voice. Then the buggy changed direction and banged through another set of doors off to the right, its headlights briefly illuminating several plaster gravestones before it vanished.

There was a chorus of screams from everyone except Marcus, who heaved a sigh of relief.

‘It’s the ghost train,’ he declared. ‘Don’t worry, it’s only the ghost train. I
knew
I didn’t get that code wrong.’

‘Ghost train?’ Newt bleated. ‘What ghost train?’

‘Edison’s ghost train.’ Marcus was keeping a wary eye on the skeleton, which was close enough to hear every word he said. ‘This is Edison’s wonderful amusement park,’ he went on, trying to sound enthusiastic. ‘It’s the best place on earth, because all the dodgem cars and things are actually
alive
.’

Jerking his chin towards the suspended skeleton, he pulled a face at his mother – who immediately grasped the message that he was trying to convey.

‘Oh! Right!’ she said. ‘Yes, of course. I’ve heard about this place. It’s the kind of place you’d
never want
to leave
.’

Marcus wasn’t impressed by his mother’s acting abilities. He didn’t find her forced eagerness at all convincing.

Newt, however, seemed completely fooled.

‘
I
want to leave,’ she whined. ‘I want to leave right now.’

‘No, you don’t,’ said Sterling. He was rubbing his hands together in anticipation. ‘Why would you want to miss out on this? You won’t find talking dodgem cars anywhere else in the world.’

‘That’s right,’ Coco chimed in. She too was now nervously watching the skeleton. ‘You’re coming with us, Newt, because this is going to be . . . um . . . extremely interesting. And educational. And fun.’

‘And Prot can stay here,’ Marcus added. He began to spell out his orders, very slowly and clearly. ‘Stay here, Prot. Hold the lift door open until we come back. Understand?’

‘I understand,’ the robot confirmed. ‘I will hold the lift door open until you come back.’

‘But how are we going to get out?’ Holly asked. ‘I mean – which way should we go? It’s all so dark and dangerous . . .’

‘In a
good
way,’ Marcus corrected hastily. ‘Dangerous in a
good
way. Because this is a ghost train and ghost trains are meant to be scary.’

‘Oh, yes. In a good way, of course.’ When Holly flicked another anxious look at the skeleton, Marcus had a sudden brainwave.

He cleared his throat.

‘Uh – Mr Skeleton?’ he quavered. ‘Where do we go to see the rest of this magnificent and enjoyable park of yours?’

In the sudden shocked silence that followed, Holly’s acrylic talons closed tightly around her son’s arm. Newt stared at him in absolute disbelief. Coco winced and Sterling raised his eyebrows.

Then the skeleton turned its naked, gleaming skull towards Marcus.

‘There’ll be a car along any moment,’ it announced, its jaw flapping. And as everyone gasped, the skeleton suddenly disappeared, yanked up into the shadows overhead.

A few seconds later, the promised car arrived.
Boom-CRASH
went the double doors.
Eeeeeek
went the wheels. ‘Haah-ha-ha-hoo-hoo-hoo,’ laughed the invisible maniac. Once again, the skeleton dropped from its hidey-hole in the ceiling.

This time, however, the buggy screeched to a standstill, planting itself directly beneath the rattling bundle of bones.

‘Hop in,’ said the buggy. It had a tired voice and a jack-o’-lantern face. ‘I’m already behind schedule.’

25

ALL ABOARD

S
TERLING DIDN
’
T HESITATE
. H
E JUMPED STRAIGHT INTO THE
buggy’s front seat.

‘Come on!’ he cried. ‘There’s plenty of room if we all squeeze up!’

Coco and Holly exchanged an apprehensive look. Holly said, ‘Are you sure it’s safe in that thing?’

‘It’ll be safer than getting knocked down by another one,’ Sterling retorted. ‘Which is what will happen if we try walking along the rails.’

‘He’s right,’ Coco had to admit. Meanwhile, Marcus was already climbing into the buggy, which had begun to make impatient hydraulic noises.

‘All aboard,’ it droned. ‘All aboard who’s coming aboard.’

‘Quick!’ Marcus beckoned to his mother. ‘Before it leaves!’

Holly made up her mind then. She slid into the back seat beside Marcus, leaving a small wedge of space for Newt. But Newt wouldn’t budge. She hung back, stubbornly resisting all Coco’s efforts to coax her out of the lift.

‘I’m not going,’ Newt insisted. When the buggy released its brakes, signalling its imminent departure with a mighty hiss, Coco gave up. She joined Sterling in the front seat. ‘Just stay there!’ she told her stepdaughter, as the buggy started to move. ‘Don’t for God’s sake do anything you’ll—’

Crash!
Before she could even finish, the buggy slammed through the next set of doors, which opened onto a kind of fake tomb lined with Egyptian hieroglyphs. A couple of bandaged mummies jerked to life; one sat up in its sarcophagus, while another stiffly raised its arms.

Though Marcus wasn’t impressed by this creaky display, he didn’t dare say so. Not while the mummies were listening in.

‘I hope Newton’s going to be all right,’ Coco fretted.

‘She can’t go back home,’ Holly pointed out. ‘Nothing happened last time she pushed those buttons.’

‘Yeah, but she could always tell
Prot
to push them,’ Marcus weighed in. He was about to suggest that they send someone back when Sterling suddenly addressed one of the mummies in a booming voice.

‘Hello there! How’s life treating
you
?’ Sterling inquired, then laughed and corrected himself. ‘Or perhaps I should say, how’s death treating you?’

Holly cringed.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Sterling!’ Coco scolded. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous!’

Marcus didn’t think that Sterling’s question was ridiculous. On the contrary, he wanted to hear what the mummies had to say. So he craned his neck and listened.

But the mummies didn’t say anything. ‘Mmm-mm-mm,’ was all they could manage.

Their bandages were so thick that normal speech was impossible for them.

‘Fantastic,’ said Sterling. Marcus noticed that the buggy gave a little sigh, though he couldn’t work out whether the sigh came from its hydraulic system or its mouth. Then it banged through the next set of doors into a blaze of sunlight.

‘All out. Prepare to disembark.’ Nothing could have been more listless than the buggy’s tone. ‘All out, please, this is the end of the ride.’

Marcus’s eyes were still adjusting to the glare. He had to shade them with one hand as the buggy reduced its speed, grinding to a standstill under a cave-like archway. The fake rock overhead was hung with cobwebs and toy bats. Halloween pumpkins were scattered everywhere. An upended coffin doubled as a kind of sentry box, inside which sat a skeleton wearing a ticket-collector’s uniform.

‘Oh, now this is
really
impressive,’ Sterling remarked. He was looking through a pair of wrought-iron gates, beyond which lay the rest of Edison’s amusement park: the striped tents, the snapping flags, the ferris wheel, the roller-coaster. ‘This is definitely the kind of place that Eddie would love.’

‘Where
is
Eddie?’ Coco demanded – much to Marcus’s dismay. He cut a quick, fearful glance at the nearby skeleton.

‘Yes, we should probably ask Edison what his favourite ride is,’ said Marcus. ‘I bet it’s
brilliant
. I bet we’ll never want to get off, once we’re on it!’

By this time his mother was pushing him out of the buggy. ‘That’s right!’ she agreed. ‘Imagine how much fun we’re going to have!’ Then she put her lips to his ear and whispered, ‘Where did you last see Edison?’

‘On the dodgem cars,’ Marcus replied under his breath.

Holly gave a surreptitious nod before loudly remarking, ‘Let’s go and have a ride on the dodgem cars!’ From the safety of the platform, she then addressed Sterling – who still lingered in his seat. ‘Sterling?’ she said. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘No problem,’ Sterling replied, a little wistfully. ‘I’d just love to have a poke around inside this thing—’

‘No!’ his wife snapped. She too was now standing on the platform. ‘We have to keep going! We have to find Edison!’

‘So we can ask him which of these rides is the most fun,’ added Marcus, wishing that Coco wouldn’t keep talking about Edison. It was dangerous. It was
thoughtless.
It was going to cause trouble.

Boom-CRASH!
All at once, the double doors they’d left behind slapped open again. Everyone jumped. Coco screamed. But she soon relaxed when she spotted the buggy that was clattering towards her.

It had a goblin’s face, a squeaky wheel, and a passenger sitting hunched in its back seat.

‘Newton!’ Coco exclaimed. ‘You changed your mind! Good girl.’

Newt looked sulky. ‘I wasn’t going to sit there in the dark all
alone
,’ she growled, as if someone had forced her to. Holly and Marcus rolled their eyes at each other. But Sterling seemed more interested in Newt’s buggy than he was in Newt. He watched with interest as it decelerated.

When it gently bumped the rear of the buggy in front, Marcus distinctly heard a muffled ‘Ooof!’

‘All out,’ Newt’s buggy wearily announced. ‘Prepare to disembark.’

‘With pleasure.’ Newt stood up and stepped onto the platform. ‘So what now?’ she asked. ‘Where’s Edison?’

Holly flashed her a look of warning. Coco glanced warily at the ticket collector. Marcus opened his mouth to make yet another soothing remark about how Edison must be having the time of his life in such a wonderful place.

Before he could speak, however, Newt’s buggy said, ‘Edison is on the Giant Slide. It’s near the Flume. He’s been wishing you were here to play with him.’

Then both buggies moved off, steering back into the murky depths of the haunted tunnel from which they’d so recently emerged.

26

IN SEARCH OF EDISON

‘W
HAT A WONDERFUL PLACE
,’
SAID
C
OCO
. T
HEY WERE
strolling through the amusement park, between clusters of rides and stalls. To Marcus everything looked picture perfect: the twinkling mirrors, the gleaming toffee apples, the candy-striped awnings, the snow-white picket fences. The sky was a heavenly blue; the grass a lush emerald green. ‘It’s just perfect,’ Coco went on, as if she were reading his thoughts. ‘Eddie would have taken one look at this and the first thing out of his mouth would have been: “I wish Dad were here.”’

‘Maybe,’ her husband conceded.

‘He’ll be wanting to show you everything,’ Coco insisted. ‘And he’ll be wanting Newt to try out all the rides with him.’