City in the Clouds (6 page)

Eric grinned. “Told you we’d be okay.”

Julie clambered over the mounds of diamonds and hit a button on the wall.

Whoosh!
A door opened.

“The tossing platform!” she said.

They all climbed out. The Droon night was deep blue. Flames licked up the sides of the big ship as Khan pulled his small purple ship closer.

“It’s now or never, folks!” Neal said.

Clutching one another’s hands tightly the four friends jumped from the flaming platform. They landed right in the cockpit of Khan’s wingship.

“Now you are safe!” King Zello said, hugging his daughter tightly to him.

Vrrr!
Khan roared up and away as the giant flaming hulk dived to the earth.

In the sky nearby, the last traces of Ro were fading. The tall, lizard-like people of the city were gathered in the square to wave at the purple ship.

“Good-bye, Guardians,” Neal said. “Good-bye people of Ro. Thank you!”

Suddenly —
ka-whoom!
— Sparr’s silver airship slammed into a snow-covered mountain. It exploded with a tremendous fiery blast. A cloud of black smoke rose from the wreckage.

At that instant, too, a white light shone down from the fading city. The light rippled once and diamonds — millions of diamonds — flowed up from Sparr’s burning ship.

“They did it!” Julie gasped. “They got the diamonds!”

A moment later, Ro drifted into the glowing white moonlight and vanished.

“Hey, I almost forgot!” Eric said. “When Sparr was in the Tower of Memory, he read something at the very top. Then he said the word ‘ice.’”

Galen frowned. “Some new evil that Sparr is planning against our world. You have done well, Eric. You have all done well. Time will tell what this clue means. But one thing is certain. Sparr’s power is growing. Be watchful, be careful...”

“Look! Look!” Max chirped from the backseat. “The rainbow-colored stairs are ahead!”

Khan swooped the ship into the Kalahar Valley. He pulled up to the shimmering staircase.

Eric, Julie, and Neal climbed out and onto the bottom step. They turned to Keeah.

“We’ll be back,” Eric told her. “Definitely”

Keeah looked into their eyes. “Droon is lucky to have friends like you. I am lucky to have such friends.”

“Any day” said Neal. “Anytime.”

“Anywhere the stairs lead us,” Julie added.

Keeah smiled. “The magic is with us all!”

The kids waved good-bye as Khan’s purple wingship circled the rainbow stairs and flew up into the clouds.

The three friends ran up the steps and into the small room at the top. Then they turned once more to the midnight sky of Droon.

The fierce wind had died down.

Droon was at peace for a little while.

At least it seemed so.

Eric flicked the light switch on the wall.

Whoosh!
The magic stairs vanished, and the gray cement floor was beneath them again.

Neal opened the door and they stepped out into the basement. The clock on the workbench had hardly moved at all. They had been gone only a few minutes.

“It seems like we’ve been in Droon for years,” Eric said. He glanced back at the small door under the basement steps.

“I’m really tired,” Neal said, yawning. “But I can’t wait to go back. You might even say I’m
itching
to go back!”

Julie chuckled. “Me, too. I hope it will be soon. Maybe we’ll actually stop Sparr. Maybe we’ll help Keeah find her mother. That would be so cool!”

“Maybe,” said Eric as they headed upstairs to the kitchen. Then he remembered Galen’s words.

Be watchful, be careful…

Eric shivered when he thought of all the bad things that might happen.

He felt cold somehow.

As cold as… ice.

Tony Abbott is the author of more than two dozen funny novels for young readers, including the popular Danger Guys books and The Weird Zone series. Since childhood he has been drawn to stories that challenge the imagination, and, like Eric, Julie, and Neal, he often dreamed of finding doors that open to other worlds. Now that he is older — though not quite as old as Galen Longbeard — he believes he may have found some of those doors. They are called books. Tony Abbott was born in Ohio and now lives with his wife and two daughters in Connecticut.