of my genetic code.
Without this amazing gift, I’d be totally alone in your world.
And alone is never a good place to be when dealing with the likes of Number 2.
“Hey, you guys,” said Willy, coming around the base of the Dare Devil Dive coaster to join us. “I scouted it out. We’re the only ones here! The place is totally ours!”
“Well, duh,” said Dana. “It’s after three AM. The park’s closed.”
“Hmm,” said Joe, licking sugar and chocolate sauce off his fingers, “must be why the funnel cakes are stone cold. Hey, you guys ever eat cold pizza for breakfast?”
“Yeah, right,” said Dana with an eye roll. “Whenever possible, Joe.”
“You should try it, Dana,” said Willy. “When pizza’s cold, the cheese stays locked in place.”
“No sauce drippage, either,” added Joe.
“By the way,” said Willy, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder, “the new coaster looks absolutely amazing.”
“I believe the Dare Devil Dive coaster is the Southeast’s tallest beyond-vertical roller coaster,” said Emma, who had picked up a bunch of brochures and maps when we first entered the amusement park.
“Hey, Daniel,” teased Dana, who, full disclosure, I have a mad crush on. “Part of the park is called ‘Gotham City.’ You wanna head over there and check out this cool coaster called Batman: The Ride?”
“More bats?” I said. “No thanks.”
“Let’s do the Dare Devil Dive!” said Willy. “Get this: you climb ten stories up a vertical lift, then plummet down a ninety-five-degree first drop!”
“Um,” said Dana, “not to barf all over your idea, Willy, but I detect one slight problem.”
“What?”
Dana gestured at the dark rides towering all around us. “Like I said, it’s after three AM.”
“So?” said Willy, who can be as stubborn as he is brave.
“The park is closed, Willy,” said Emma, who was Willy’s little sister and knew him better than anybody. “You can’t ride the rides, because, well, Six Flags very wisely shuts off all its electricity after hours in an attempt to conserve energy.”
I smiled. “Well, you know what they say: it’s a whole ’nother park after dark. Start ’em up!”
And, by the power of sheer imagination, I made every single ride in Six Flags whir back to life!
Chapter 5
YOU KNOW HOW when you go to an amusement park in the middle of the summer and you want to ride the really cool rides, but you have to wait like two hours in a line that keeps switching back on itself, so all you can do is keep staring at the hundreds of people ahead of you?
Well, this was absolutely nothing like that.
When we came to the end of any ride, we didn’t have to unload and run around to the entrance to ride it again. I just imagined the thing starting up and—ZAP!—it did.
We defied gravity, flew through loop-the-loops, felt g-forces similar to those encountered during the reentry phase of interplanetary space travel, and, basically, got to retaste what we had for lunch that day when it flew back up into our mouths.
“C’mon, you guys,” said Willy. “Time to take the ultimate plunge: the Dare Devil Dive coaster.”
Yes, nausea fans, we’d been saving Six Flags’ most incredible thrill ride for last.
We hurried over to the base of the bright yellow-and-red roller coaster. The logo emblazoned on its glowing two-story marquee sort of reminded me of Number 2 and his minions: a helmeted, goggled head with wings sprouting out on both sides and flames blazing up in the background.
“You okay, Daniel?” Emma asked when she caught me staring up at the wicked imagery.
“Yeah. Come on. Let’s give this devil his due.”
Our six-seater roller-coaster car was shaped like a fighter jet.
“Buckle up,” said Emma. “Keep your feet and hands inside the car at all times.”
“Your funnel cakes, too,” Dana added, elbowing Joe.
“Blast us off, Daniel!” said Willy.
Of course roller coasters don’t actually blast off. They kind of creep to a start and haul you up a hill. Coaster cars don’t have engines, so the ride is totally powered by the energy stored up when the car climbs the track’s first hill. After that, gravity and some other principles of physics are all you need.
A hidden chain hauled us straight up toward the starlit sky. When we were perched at the peak of the ten-story tower with our fighter plane’s nose hanging over the edge, the ride seemed to stall.
“Is it busted?” asked Willy.
“Nope,” said Joe, our technical wizard. “Teetering on the edge like this is just part of the coaster engineer’s grand desiii…”
Joe didn’t get to finish that thought.
We plummeted