16 Mapped Out   “Think you could, like, cool it with the snoring or whatever?” Jennifer said to the strange man asleep in the next cell. He snorted awake, sat up, then put his turban back on his head. “Very sorry,” Mr. Horum said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “My Bala always say ‘Predsha, one day you wake yourself up with snoring. Then you see what I live with.’”

17 Osbert and the Psychlotron   “I hope they catch that little punk,” Nuncio said as he kicked the door of his cell. “After I watched out for him too.” “That smells, like, so grody,” Jennifer said, eying the puke pile on the floor. “Nuncio, quit whining and make us some rad laser mop handle. I’ll make the mop head, comprende?” “Check it out,” Axle said, as he approached the

19 Showdown in Old California   Bronson ran out the employee entrance, pulling Cindy out behind him. “Come on. That suit of armor won’t slow them down for long,” he said. They slipped through the crowd, ran up the walkway, then crossed the wooden bridge leading away from Happy Town. When they made it to the other side, Bronson stopped at a movie poster mounted on the nickelodeon theater. The

18 The Grand Re-Opening   Bronson sprang up from his floor bed when the screaming started. Cindy and an older woman stood almost nose-to-nose in the middle of a heated argument. “Mom, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Cindy screamed, shrill and furious. “Cynthia Preston McNeil,” her mother, Tess, said. “First they call me down to that school, then I come home and you have some strange boy sleeping on

20 The Curleyworld Follies   “Cindy,” Dogboy calls. But she’s frozen. Stuck in a second. All the color drained out. Same with everybody else except for Zeph. “I reckon ya’ best come along now, boy,” Zeph say. He floats above the street on a black cloud. “Am… am I dead?” Dogboy says. Zeph shakes his head no. “Then what’s going on here?” “We’s stuck in the jam what’s tween the

21 The Two Watches   Dogboy looks up at the assembled puppets, still unsure if he’s dreaming or dead. He smiles beneath his mask then dives away from the fire ice shooting out the Andrus puppet’s cane. He shoots an orange blast from his palm. It hits the Andrus puppet, melting it down until it’s a pile of goo on the stage. His puppet parents tower over him. The magician

22 Blaze of Glory   Cindy threw her arms over her head as the mallet came down. Blaze jumped in front of her. Hot John’s prosthetic cracked against the base of his skull. The cowboy stumbled. “Guess Andrus was right about you, huh?” Hot John said. He picked Blaze up by his belt, whipped him around then threw him into the trough outside the saloon. “What did you do to

23 The Haunted Castle   Dogboy and Cindy hopped down off the loading dock onto the tracks that steered patrons through the dark halls of The Castle. “This all goes around in a circle, right?” she said, swirling her finger around in the air. “You go right, I’ll go left, and whoever finds him first calls the other one.” “That’s a terrible idea,” Dogboy said. “That’s how they always get

24 Demon’s Dare   “C’mon, Cindy. Cindy McNeil. Wake up,” Dogboy shouted in her face. She sneezed, shook, then opened her eyes. “Are we on a rolly coaster?” she said, still a little out of it. “Yeah, and we gotta get moving right now or it’s gonna kill us.” Dogboy pulled her toward the steps. He waited, trying to time it right so the moving train wouldn’t rip off his

25 Down the Blue River   Upton-Haywood, John. “Guild of Thieves SHOCKER. Fugitives Lure Families to Abandoned Amusement Park.” Colta City Herald 15 Jul. A man allegedly involved in the terrorist attack over the 4th of July weekend has been identified as Osbert Collingwood, former professor of Business Psychology at Goodson University. Collingwood was captured after he and a group of 42 men lured the public to the disused Curleyworld