Upbeats

Upbeats

  By Erin Sheena Byrne

  Copyright 2012 Erin Sheena Byrne

  License Notes

  Upbeats does not contain inappropriate material for children and is suitable for young teenagers to adults.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  Observer Scene

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Rockwell was a fairly normal city. You had your shops, your apartments, your suburbs, your downtown, and your outskirts nearer the country and, of course, your crime.

  Nothing the police couldn’t handle.

  Break-ins, robbers, hold-ups, high-speed chases . . . those were a little more on the unusual side, though.

  So it was here that the newest criminal mastermind decided to set up shop.

  He didn’t consider himself the greatest in the country or the world.

  No.

  He viewed himself as the greatest in the whole universe.

  But even that . . . he didn’t want to brag. It was strictly business, as far as he was concerned.

  No one would ever be able to stop his plans . . . he would pull off the greatest crime in the history of planet Earth and no one on this planet, or on any other planet, for that matter, was going to stop him.

  Not police, not detectives, not the military, not the CIA, FBI or MI5 . . . not even Area 51 or District 61 . . . they’d all just be speed bumps along the road.

  He could put up with them easily enough.

  Not even some of his older enemies would pause his work this time around.

  It was a fool proof plan. One he had been coming up with for years.

  He was going to succeed this time.

  And he vowed not to let anything, anyone, stop him . . .

  Chapter One

  I don’t sleep in late often. I’m normally the first to wake up and the first to be ready. I am obsessively punctual.

  But I do have a tendency to sleep in late if I read too much action before bed . . .

  I had been sure to set the alarm clock for seven but Bailey; a happy-go-lucky Golden Retriever, my loyal and trustworthy yet bumbling idiot of a dog; knocked it over, causing it to smash into a dozen pieces as well as scattering a million nuts and bolts all over my bedroom floor.

  Bailey isn’t one for subtle interruptions, but I still slept through it as if nothing had happened.

  It was about eight by the time Jemima (my little sister) bounded into my room and woke me up by shaking me vigorously and shouting: "LUKE, THE BUS LEAVES IN TEN MINUTES!!!" in my ear.

  (She may look all sweet and innocent with her big blue eyes, dimpled, gap-toothed smile and bouncy blonde pigtails but she is just as loud, noisy and as rough as any boy her age.)

  "Huh? What?" I mumbled, drowsily. I tried to lift my head up but just ended up rolling over, away from Jemima.

  Jemima wouldn’t stand for it: she rolled me over and pushed me out of the bed before I could even protest.

  I landed with a muffled thud on the hard wood floor. At least I was bundled up in the duvet and that had softened my landing a little.

  It was a brave attempt on her part but I only propped myself up for a couple of seconds to survey my surroundings through half closed, blurry eyes. I barely made out the small figure of my little sister. I flopped back down and pulled a pillow over my head. "Jem, go away, you’re up too early . . ."

  "Am not," Jemima replied. "You’re up too late. You’ve only got eight minutes to get dressed and grab breakfast, Mom says."

  I didn’t respond.

  I could hear Jemima take up her stance of uncompromising impatience: crossed arms and a tapping foot. "Don’t you make me get the bucket of cold water, Luke Rosenhart . . ."

  "You wouldn’t," I said, warily.

  She ran with dainty footsteps out my room. "I’m running the tap right now!" she called from down the hall, in the bathroom.

  I groaned, deeply, and untangled myself from my soft and warm cocoon. It was getting colder and colder as winter approached. I’d have to pull out my quilt soon. . . .

  I groggily made my way to the bathroom, turned off the tap, shoved Jemima out and closed the door.

  "Good, you’re up," she said, sounding far too pleased with herself.

  I mumbled something, splashed water on my face and looked at my reflection in the mirror.

  Luke Rosenhart, your average fourteen year old.

  Green eyes that were only now starting to clear up and see the world for what it was; blonde hair I’d have to comb before I went out into public and a fairly tall frame I was still getting used to.

  Your typical, run of the mill teenager. You would walk past me in the street and not even stop to look at me.

  I’m nothing special.

  Now, I know you’ve probably heard a thousand times that there’s no such thing as ordinary.

  But . . . there actually is.

  People try to buck against the whole "normal" story by doing something crazy like dying their hair green and wearing torn up or crazy, mix-matched clothes.

  And in the process they forget that that’s just another aspect of normal. People don’t like the classification of "ordinary" so they go and do something crazy, not fully seeing that . . . they’ve lost what really would have made them special: their own personality.

  I accept the fact that I really was a regular kid. I never struck anyone as someone who’d go on to . . . save the world.

  I never did anything that would make me seem like I was special. Maybe it was just that I didn’t like the lime-light and preferred to just stay low profile, or could I really have been born ordinary?

  I shook myself from my thoughts and got back to brushing my teeth while I pulled on my jeans. It’s a skill. One I am yet to master.

  I hopped down the stairs as I yanked socks over my still dripping wet feet. In the rush, I hadn’t even bothered to dry myself properly after my shower.

  I ran through the kitchen, grabbed a slice of buttered toast that was probably meant for my Dad, and shot out the house, racing to get to the bus stop before they left without me. Fortunately, we live only down the road from the bus stop.

  "Hey, Dude, what’s with the ‘Just jumped out the shower, had no time to eat’ look?" Ned Detwiler, my best friend who can sometimes be a pain, commented as I got on the bus, seconds before the doors closed and the bus pulled away from the curb.

  "Because I did just get out the shower and had no time to eat," I panted, taking a bite of my toast as I bent down to tie my shoelaces.

  "You’ve been reading too much action again, huh?" Ned crossed his arms, satisfied that he had worked out a probable diagnosis.

  "You never read, how can you talk?" I grumbled.

  "I do read," Ned protested.

  "1000 jokes, 500 practical jokes and 7500 homemade bombs," I replied, listing everything my friend has ever read.

  "I only got up to 4900 in the homemade bomb book, by the way," Ned said. "I just can’t get a hold of Iron Oxide
. . ."

  "Rust," I supplied.

  "Oh, good, then I’ve got that."

  I had other friends besides Ned. But Ned was my most loyal, most dependable friend. I could always count on him even if I don’t see eye to eye with him most of the time.

  We’re polar opposites, Ned and I, and not just on the outside. (I have fair skin and hair and he’s black African.) But also in personality. Ned is funny and jovial and I’m too serious, he claims. I aim to do my best in school; Ned would rather fire spit balls at the teacher during Math. I never, ever get detention; Ned gets it because he annoys the teachers till they crack.

  But, despite all his nonsense, Ned is, in fact, quite smart. He may be drawing silly cartoons of the teacher in his notebook, but I think he’s got one of those minds that remember things better when they don’t focus on the subject too much.

  Ned also makes issues about small things; things I can let go easily but he won’t.

  Like today . . .

  "The zoo," Ned started ranting. "A dumb zoo that isn’t even finished yet. Whose bright idea was that? I mean, c’mon. There’s only like five major habitats that are finished and there’s not even any animals in them yet . . ."

  "It’s not that bad," I tried to say.

  "They put a vote to the whole school: a day at an unfinished Zoo or Aquarium," Ned said, apparently choosing to ignore me entirely. "They listen to all the votes for the zoo but they shut the kid up who votes for the Aquarium."

  "Ned," I reasoned. "You do realize that’s how a vote works. Majority rules. You were the only one who voted for the aquarium. Everyone else voted for the zoo. You were outnumbered. Badly."

  Ned rolled his eyes. "I hate it when you’re right, Luke."

  "Yeah, but one of us has to be, and you aren’t going to be right anytime soon, so, that leaves me," I said, logically.

  Ned nodded in unconditional agreement and went back to the debate of Aquarium vs. Zoo.

  I eventually tuned out to all of Ned’s ranting and stared out the window at the rain cascading down. It was autumn and rain was a common occurrence. I had never been a fan of getting wet, though. But, it was a zoo and the outdoor habitats weren’t done yet so I’d be inside most of the time.

  Looking back, I don’t actually know why the zoo was even an option. Or why everyone had voted for it. The zoo was only halfway done. Construction was still going on.

  Only the arachnids and reptile enclosures, the aviaries, and the penguin habitats were finished. The other ones, like the African Safari and the Asian Jungle, were still to be built.

  It was a two hour drive, and I had to listen to Ned, voicing his complaints, the whole way. Eventually, it just sounded like a constant droning and I didn’t even make out individual syllables.

  We eventually arrived at the zoo.

  Kids filed out the bus, pushing, shoving, accidently elbowing some poor unsuspecting teacher and then running into the building, into the lobby.

  Each kid had probably only spent twenty seconds in the rain. But, scanning the lobby, every kid was wet. And not just slightly wet. No. Sopping wet: hair plastered to foreheads, jackets hanging with rain water and shoes squeaking on the clean but now slippery linoleum.

  You know, when there’s a huge crowd of people and they’re all talking, how everyone is saying something, you can hear them but you can’t make it out because someone else is always crowding their words out with their own? Do you know how they used to get that effect in movies? They don’t make everyone just say random things. They make everyone mutter "rhubarb" over and over again and you get that effect.

  Well, all I heard in that lobby was a droning of "rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb."

  The teachers were trying to get everyone to quiet down. "Settle down, kids," Ms Ling, who was in charge of the whole operation, was shouting.

  "Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb."

  The young teacher sighed, defeated. But as she resorted to her fellow teachers, a slim, athletic girl with shoulder-length strawberry-blonde hair, stood up on a chair, slid her fingers into her mouth and made the loudest whistle I had ever heard. It split your eardrums in half.

  Everyone spun around to see where the shrill noise had come from. "BE QUIET!!!" she shouted. I doubt she could have been any louder if she had used a megaphone.

  Everyone got the hint. They tend to get the hint when Brooke O’Mackey steps up and demands it.

  Ms Ling thanked her and took over from there.

  Brooke got down off the chair and a slender, curvy girl with long chocolate brown hair, dark eyes and tanned skin, high fived her.

  Robyn Diaz.

  She was a beautiful mix of Spanish and a hint of Asian. Her mother was, somewhere along the genes line, half Asian, with black hair and sort of almond shaped eyes. Her father was Spanish, with thick dark brown hair and tanned skin. Robyn took after her father mostly. She even spoke Spanish and tended to mix a bit of a Spanish accent in with her normal accent. She had her mother’s eyes and shaping.

  Robyn was one of a kind. Quiet, extremely shy, but if she could help, she was never afraid to do it.

  Brooke was just fierce and tough.

  I guess that’s why they were friends, too.

  Opposites attract and complement.