Free Sky Jumpers Series, Book 1 by Peggy Eddleman Page B

“If we leave now, we can be first in line.”
    “Wanna get in line?” I asked Aaren. He gave me a looklike he couldn’t believe I’d suggest something as wrong as missing out on science-related awards, so I sighed and shook my head no.
    “This was a great year for inventions.” Mr. Hudson put his hand on the six-foot-high stone obelisk that sat in the middle of the platform. “Within the next week, everyone who has won today will have their names carved into the Difference of One stone. Congratulations, winners!”
    Aaren’s name would be carved for the fourth time—twice as a grade-level winner, once as a middle-grade winner, and now once as an overall winner. When Aaren looked like he’d finished basking in his win enough to leave, Carina and I pulled him and Brenna to the Twister. There was way too much fun to be had to spend any more time on inventions.
    Apparently Carina wasn’t the only one with the idea to get to the Twister early. Lots of kids beat us to the line next to the twelve-foot circle of wood, raised by a rod in the middle, with a three-foot wall around the outside. Ten kids sat inside at a time, their backs against the wall, while the older kids and adults spun the circle as fast as they could. Trying to stay standing when you got off the ride was almost as much fun as the way the spinning sucked you to the wall during the ride.
    “Puppy!” Brenna squealed as Holden Newberry got in line behind us, cradling his dog.
    Holden put his dog on the ground, and Aaren let go of Brenna’s hand as she bent down to pet him.
    “I’m gonna lift my butt when they first start spinning,” Holden said. “Then when it gets going fast, I’m gonna lift my legs to see if the force will hold me off the ground like I’m floating!”
    “We have to try it,” I said to Aaren and Carina as we moved forward in the line. “We’ll see who can stay up the longest.”
    I could almost feel my guts being pulled backward as I watched the kids on the Twister go around and around. If only there weren’t so many ahead of us in line. The performances might start before we got a second turn.
    “Brenna, do you—” I was going to ask if she wanted to sit between Aaren and me, but when I turned around, she was gone.

“Brenna?” Aaren called out, his voice panicked.
    “My dog!” Holden said. “He’s gone, too!”
    The four of us left the line and searched for Brenna. The crowds were so thick, I couldn’t see her at all. Aaren and I ran to the solar ovens, to the inventions tables, then to the obelisk. Nothing. We were about to leave to search by the horses when Aaren froze. “The river!”
    We rushed all the way to the bank, hoping to see the kids she’d begged to play with, but the bank was empty. Aaren ran left, toward the mill, but something about the path to my right made me take that direction. I didn’t think she’d go past the clump of trees at the edge of the river since it was a natural boundary, but I went past themanyway, calling her name every step of the way. A few hundred feet down the path, I finally saw her, walking toward me with Holden’s puppy in her arms. Two men I’d never seen before walked close behind her.
    “Hope!” Brenna called as she walked to me. Seeing her by the men sent a chill up my spine, but she had a smile on her face, so I guessed everything was okay.
    “Your friend got a little lost,” the taller man said.
    It was a strange thing for him to say, since Brenna knew all of White Rock and he obviously didn’t know his way around at all. There wasn’t any part of the Harvest Festival near the lake, but that was the direction they’d come from.
    I grabbed Brenna’s hand. “Are
you
lost?” I asked the man.
    He smiled, and his voice came out smooth and confident. “Not at all. We were just admiring your beautiful valley.”
    The leathery look of his skin made it hard to guess if he was thirty or fifty. His sun-bleached light brown hair was wavy on top and brushed away