SIDE TRIP
by Renee Duke
Available at the following:
Earth-born
adolescents, Meda and Kirsty, are eager to explore the Zaidus system.
They just don’t want to explore it as members of an organized tour
group. The chaperone’s a harridan, and most of the places they’re
forced to visit are really boring. Striking out on their own holds
far more appeal, and despite limited funds and unexpected mishaps,
they manage quite well – at first. But thanks to a bratty little
brother, a dimension-travelling alien girl, and a handsome alien
prince, their independent tour of the Zaidus planets is not without
its complications.
Excerpt
Mrs. Bromley’s decision to sit in the
barge’s windowless main section did not go over well with Simon.
Like most small boys, he likes to watch planets shrinking beneath him
whilst transferring up to a ship. He took a seat, but having what one
of his teachers once called a low regard for authority, he didn’t
stay in it long. The minute Mrs. Bromley turned her back he headed
for the doors leading up to the observation deck.
It was not until she went to take her own seat
that Mrs. Bromley noticed Simon’s was empty. “Where is your
little brother?” she demanded, looking down at Arlyne.
The
query threw my sister into an immediate panic. The Brent siblings all
have dark brown eyes, dark brown hair, and an average build for our
respective ages. Except for our hair (she wears hers long; I keep
mine medium length), she is, physically, a smaller version of me.
That’s where the similarities end. Arlyne is compliant, sweet
natured, and inclined to look on the bright side of everything. I
am…not. I might not clash with the powers that be as often as
Simon, but I don’t always find it convenient to fall in with all
their edicts either.
Arlyne, well, let’s just say adult approval
means a lot to her. The only time she wavers in her ongoing campaign
to please them is if it involves telling tales on Simon. Bitter
experience has taught her he has too many ways of getting even.
Unsure as to how she should respond, she just bit her lip and looked
helplessly at me.
“Simon’s not here,” I said, deciding to
bail her out.
“I am well aware of that. What I want to
know is, where is
he?”
I considered the matter. “Well, he really
likes window seats. Since there aren’t any down here, he’s
probably gone up to the observation deck.”
“I told everyone to stay with the group.”
The astonishment in Mrs. Bromley’s voice indicated that opposition
to her dictates was not within her realm of experience.
“Och, well, Simon never listens to a word
anyone says,” said Kirsty, tossing her short, copper-coloured curls
unconcernedly. “Dinna fash yourself. He’ll come back when we
connect up with the ship.”
“He’ll come back now,” Mrs. Bromley
declared.
She wheeled round, but before she could go in
pursuit of her errant charge, the barge’s launch siren sounded and
she had to strap down. Thwarted, she could do nothing until we had
docked beside the ship and Simon joined us at the connector doors.
Elbowing aside several passengers, she seized him by the collar.
“How dare you go off by yourself after I
expressly forbade it,” she scolded. “You’re a naughty,
disobedient boy.”
Having been called that, and a lot worse, by
a number of harassed educators, Simon did not exactly reel from this
rebuke. Before she could improve on it, the connector doors opened
and we were forced to move onto the starliner’s receiving deck. By
the time boarding officials had scanned our travel documents and
pointed us in the direction of our on-board accommodation, her
annoyance had increased tenfold. She had also got it into her head
that everyone connected to Simon was responsible for his act of
insubordination.
She ranted all the way to the row of
double-occupancy cabins allotted to our group. “Such behaviour is
totally unacceptable. I know good conduct is not your strong
point—reports supplied by every school
you have ever attended revealed that—but
you will find me far less tolerant than the people at your former
institutes of learning. You four have got off to an extremely bad
start with me.”
Arlyne started snuffling. Seeing how upset
she was about this so-called bad start, Kirsty and I hung our heads
and tried to look remorseful.
Simon didn’t bother. Had we known how the rest
of the edu-tour was going to go, we wouldn’t have either.
About Renee
Renee
Duke grew up in Ontario/ B.C., Canada and Berkshire, England. In
addition to this young adult novel, she is the author of the middle
grade time travel novels, The
Disappearing Rose
and The
Mud Rose,
the first two books in the eventual five-book Time Rose series, and
has just completed the third book, The
Spirit Rose.
Visit Renee's Blog Time Traveling with Kids for interesting historical facts and findings of interest to both kids and adults.
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