Attack of the Spider Bots (17 page)

When the car finally reached its destination downtown, the kids scooted out to see a huge white wall with the name of a railroad etched deeply into its stone surface. Sol was taking them on a tour of his real, live railroad company — the one he had been growing stocks in all those years. Of course, he wasn't personally giving the tour. He left that to people who really knew where everything was. As the major stockholder, he was a kind of honorary boss and could get people to do that.

The railroad control center into which they were brought was like the bridge of Darth Vader's star destroyer. There were huge wall displays with the track systems, locomotives, cars, and other parts of a railroad operation mapped out in lights. Computers were placed around the interior like they were at NASA control. As far as Beamer was concerned, he couldn't have had more fun if he
was
at Disneyland. From the look on Ghoulie's face, Beamer suspected that he had a similar feeling. Scilla kept scooting from one end of the lighted wall chart to the other, seemingly fascinated by the system organization. More and more, that seemed to be Scilla's thing — organizing. Nowadays, everything on the tree ship had to have its place. Sooner or later, Beamer figured she was going to start trying to organize him. That would not be a good day.

Beamer looked around for Jack, wondering what was going through his mind. Beamer finally saw him leaning against the water cooler with his hands in his pockets. He had a strange, wistful look as he gazed at all the electronic marvels. Beamer walked over next to him. “Well, whaddya think?” he asked the street kid.

With the colored lights from the wall display reflecting across his face, Jack said, “I'm thinkin' that anythin' like this is way beyond the reach of a kid livin' on the streets.”

Beamer reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper which he handed to Jack.

“What's this?” Jack asked.

“Your mother's address,” he said as he watched the look on Jack's face. “It took a zillion phone calls, but my mom finally found it. Turns out your mom
had
to move when your dad died. She couldn't afford to keep up the house payments. My mom also found out that she's been through a drug-rehab program.”

“You know,” said Scilla as she suddenly appeared next to them, “in all your talk about not needin' your mom, have you ever thought that she might need you?”

“Yeah,” added Beamer, “You just might have given up on your family a little too soon.”

Later that evening, Beamer thought about the idea of “giving up.” Giving up seemed to be a much bigger deal than Beamer had thought. Solomon Parker's dream had finally arrived — a little revised from his original one and much overdue. It was sad to think that if Solomon hadn't given up on God all those years ago, his revised dream might have come much sooner.

Beamer decided he was in no way about to give up on sports. He was going to make a few changes, though. Prompted by Jack's lessons in the trolley yard, Beamer would switch from baseball and begin playing in one of the football leagues the next fall. He wasn't all that big, but he hoped that he had enough coordination to duck his head and run with the ball. Actually, he figured he was pretty good on his feet, or he wouldn't have been able to do so much twisting, dodging, burrowing, and spinning to evade Jared and the other bullies that popped up from time to time.

Yep, dreams are kind of tricky
, thought Beamer as he rummaged through the tree ship looking for wrapping paper.
Things happen — unexpected things, scary things — and it's easy to
get discouraged.
But Beamer was just beginning to learn that, no matter what happened, you couldn't give up on God. After all, if God made us — each one — special for a reason, he had to have a plan for us, right?

Where is that paper?
Beamer asked himself. Tonight was Christmas Eve, and he still had to wrap and deliver the presents for Ghoulie and Scilla as well as his new friends at church. Here it was, his favorite time of year, and he'd almost missed it! But then, as things turned out, he'd probably helped give Solomon Parker the best Christmas present he'd ever gotten. What could be better than getting your life back? Sol had also gotten his sister back.
Chances are they'll be
sharing Christmas dinner together.

Beamer was sure he had brought the wrapping paper out to the tree ship yesterday, along with the box of presents. He remembered going through the attic.
That's where I must have left it.

As Beamer tightroped the branches to his roof, his thoughts returned to Sol — and Weenoh too. After all, the way his people had altered their dreams to create a whole new civilization was totally awesome.
Yep, no question
about it — if you trusted, even in the darkest times, that the Lord
wouldn't desert you, you just might find that God has laid out
another dream for you even bigger than the one you first imagined. All you had to do was hang on for the ride.

Beamer scrambled up the roof and stepped through the window. The afternoon sun filtered through the branches of the tree and cast a dappled glow on the great web. For a moment the web looked like a city as seen from an airplane, with lights shimmering gold amid shadows of the night. It took his breath away. Then he saw something else that really sucked out his breath.

A cold chill sizzled down Beamer's back like frozen lightning. The scientific equipment that had surrounded the web all these months — that buzzing, blipping, beeping, flashing electronic wonderland that had made their attic look like something out of a sci-fi movie — was dead. It was a strangely chilling sight — like seeing a room full of mummies in an Egyptian tomb. They no longer looked like machines, for each was cocooned in a thick coat of spider silk, as if they had been flies caught in the web and painfully deprived of their life juices.

Beamer stepped back out of the attic as his eyes scanned the dark ceiling. There was only one explanation for all this — Molgotha . . . was
back
!!

Character Bios

Priscilla Bruzelski:

Age: 12 / 6th grade, Hair/Eyes: dishwater-blonde/green, Height: 4'9”

“Scilla” refuses to be called by her full name because it's too prissy for this tomboy. She is smaller than your average twelve-year-old, but she makes up for her small stature with a fiercely independent, feisty personality. She lives with her grandmother whom she was sent to live with when her single mother remarried. She has a half-brother named Dashiell who lives with her mother and her mother's new husband. Her grandmother takes her to church every Sunday out of tradition. Scilla loves climbing trees, football, basketball, and anything that's not girly. She doesn't get along with the popular girls at school, but she doesn't mind. She has strong opinions and will fight for what she believes is right.

Benson McIntyre:

Age: 13 / 7th grade, Hair/Eyes: short, wavy, sandy brown hair/blue, Height: 5'

“Beamer,” named from the famous “Beam me up Scotty” line in
Star
Trek
, has an interest in all things science fiction. He hates his given name, so don't call him Benson. You might get a response in wry, sarcastic humor from this energetic teenager. He recently moved with his family from Southern California to Middle America. He has a younger brother named Michael and an older sister named Erin. His father, referred to as “Mr. Mac,” is a theater director, and his mother is a pediatrician called “Dr. Mac.” He loves playing on the computer, likes keeping up with the times, and considers himself on the cutting edge. Coming from a strong Christian family, he analyzes all problems with deep spiritual thought. His love for science extends to his speech, as he often speaks in sci-fi space metaphors.

Garfunkel Ives:

Age: 12 / 7th grade, Hair/Eyes: black/brown, Height: 4'10”

“Ghoulie” got his name from the wide-eyed look he makes when he is excited. He's an intelligent boy who skipped a grade. He's small for his age and is the typical nerd who loves gadgets and computers, which makes him fodder for bullies. The constant bullying makes him jaded and sarcastic, and he would love to get revenge on the bullies. His father is a successful CFO of a large corporation and his mother is a highly-respected lawyer. His parents have little time for a spiritual life — or him — and have left his upbringing to the nanny. His parents have also left him with an extensive computer and gadget collection which he loves to use to quench his thirst for scientific knowledge.

1

Flight of the Pink Carpet

Beamer didn't have a clue where he was. He just woke up and . . .
boing!
— he was circling in the air around a castle. He'd have preferred an F – 18 or a stealth fighter. What did he get? A flying carpet. Talk about obsolete! He could forget Mach one. “Skateboard one” was probably pushing it. What was worse, the carpet had a temper.
How do you hang on to
these things?
“Whoa!” he yelped as he was suddenly flipped into the air. He managed to grab hold of the carpet's fringe just as it dived through a large window in the castle. “Whaaaaoooooooooo,” he exclaimed as his stomach turned inside out.

Incidentally, the castle was pink . . . yeah, pink, as in bubble gum, peppermint sticks, and Barbie toys. Come to think of it, so was the carpet — pink, that is. He hated pink. That was the color his big sister, Erin, wore all the time. Frankly, if he wasn't dipping through the hallways of the castle and holding on for dear life, he'd never have taken a flying pink carpet seriously.

The next thing Beamer knew, he was on the floor looking up at a pink crystal chandelier about the size of his house.
Whoa! If that thing falls on me, I'll be a sparkly porcupine — not to
mention dead.
It seemed like a good idea to get out from under it, but, for some reason, he couldn't move. He felt like he was wearing a straitjacket. He tried to wiggle free — no such luck. Then he looked down. That rascally carpet had wrapped around him like a cocoon.
Great! Now he was a bug in a rug!
“A little breathing room, please!” he called out to the carpet.

That was when Beamer noticed that he was rolled up at the foot of a huge pink staircase. It was shaped sort of like an hourglass, narrower in the middle than at the top or bottom. For all he knew, this could have been the very staircase where Cinderella lost her glass slipper. Why anyone would wear a glass slipper was beyond him. One step is all it would take for his sister to crunch it into smithereens.
Then she could forget being
found by the prince who was posing as a would-be shoe salesman. Of
course, if the only way this prince guy could recognize her was by her
shoe size, he probably needed glasses as thick as binoculars. Either that
or the fairy's spell on Cinderella included some major plastic surgery.

Suddenly Beamer heard loud crunching and splintering. He jerked his head up to see an elephant swinging on the chandelier. Yep, you guessed it — a pink elephant! The big pachyderm was filling the air with pink glass like a hailstorm.