Free Full Tilt by Neal Shusterman Page A

the support struts holding up the ride. With the icy water at my chest now, the boat crashed down, taking me under. It dragged me along its rough hull, pressing the air out of my lungs, bruising me, and scraping me across barnacles until I couldn’t tell up from down.
    When I finally surfaced, the support struts were gone, the warehouse was gone, but the boat and the waves were still there, much bigger than before. If swimming were not my sport, I would have drowned by now, but even so, it took all my strength to keep my head above the waves. The boat—now a life-size schooner—lurched forward and crashed down over the waves with a motion not all that different from when it had been attached to a greasy axle. Up above, a storm raged in a strange sky the color of dark mustard.
    A rope dangled from the bow, and as the bow plunged I grabbed that rope with both hands, wrapped it around my right leg, and clamped it tightly to the instep of my left foot—just like they taught us in gym class. As the boat rose with the next swell I was lifted out of the water.
    Maybe it was adrenaline, or maybe I just weighed less in this weird world, but I was able to pull myself up hand over hand. I clasped the rope to keep from being hurled off each time the ship hit the bottom of a swell, and I used the upward energy to climb faster each time it peaked, until I finally spilled over onto the deck. My lungs were half full of water and my hands were red and raw, but I was still alive and riding.
    The boat pitched beneath me with a regular stomach-churning rhythm, a feeling that just grew worse witheach wave. And with each of those waves, the old schooner peaked and I heard voices screaming up above. I looked up to see kids—dozens of them—high above the deck, clinging to the web of ropes that hung from the masts and beams. Ratlines, that’s the word. They swung from the ratlines. Some of them swung from the beams themselves, and others gripped the tattered fragments of the shredding sails.
    You know how when you were little, your dad would throw you up and down in the pool until you were giddy with laughter? I know, because it’s one of the few memories I have of my father. Well, that’s how these riders were. Giddy. But when they fell from their high perches, doing cartwheels into the sea, nobody was there to catch them.
    The schooner crested another wave, the bow rising and plunging again. Up above, the riders squealed with joy. Icy water rolled across the deck, washing me up against the foremast. Then a hairy hand grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me to my feet.
    “What nature a’ fool be ya, boy? Rollin’ around on the deck when there’s work t’be done!” The man’s face was covered by a heavy beard. His voice, somehow familiar, was masked in an accent that was almost but not quite like a pirate’s.
    With his hand still on the collar of my shirt, he hauled me to the railing. “Fix your eyes on the sea and nothing else,” he told me.
    Then I caught something huge out of the corner of my eye, almost the color of the waves. I turned in timeto see the tail end of a barnacle-encrusted whale larger than the ship. I was awestruck by the sight.
    “Aye, breach your last to the sun!” the bearded man shouted to the whale. “The hour and thy harpoon are at hand!” The great whale’s fluke cut a wide arc and slipped back into the water.
    Oh no. By now I had a good idea what this ride was.
    A huge wave caught us, the wake of the whale’s breach. It almost washed me away from the railing, but I held on tight. Above us another unfortunate rider plunged into the frothing sea.
    “Drive, drive in your nails, o ye waves. To their uttermost heads, drive them in!” the bearded captain raved.
    I still had the feeling that this ride was neither random nor the manifestation of someone else’s mind. Just as with the carousel, I had a powerful sense that Cassandra had reached inside my mind to create this ride, but I couldn’t figure out