The Star Group by Christopher Pike Page A

Cindy. “Having fun?”
    Cindy was no longer drunk. She edged away from Jimmy.
    “I’ll catch you guys later,” she mumbled.
    Cindy left us. Shena strode toward Jimmy and offered him her dwarf head to carry. He took it and seemed unable to look away from its bulbous black eyes. Shena kept her smile in place. She flashed it at all of us, the strained lips, the shaking teeth.
    “Why don't Jimmy and I give this costume back to its rightful owner and we can join you guys in a few minutes?” she asked. “Where are you going next?”
    We agreed to meet in our usual place, at the Matterhorn, in twenty minutes. Our group was now a lot less carefree. As we walked toward the ride Teri warned us that the sparks were going to fly.
    “When we're in line I'll talk to her,” Gale offered. “I’m not as close to the situation as you guys. It might be better.”
    “It might be better if we went to Magic Mountain instead,” Sal said, naming an amusement park fifty miles away.
    “Jimmy shouldn't have been fooling around with Cindy,” I said.
    Sal shook his head. “Who really knows what goes on between those two?”
    We were about to get an insider's view.
    The Matterhorn line moved faster than the one at Space Mountain. Jimmy and Shena had barely rejoined us when we were ushered into the bobsleds. But Gale did get a chance to talk to her alone for two minutes, and it seemed to do some good. Shena giggled as she jumped to the head of our group. Each bobsled held six, with our questionable couple in front. As the bobsled slowly inched its way to the top of the Matterhorn, it suddenly stopped. None of us was alarmed, rides halted all the time, and Disneyland had measures in place to protect people in case of equipment failure. Yet we were hanging at a precarious angle, our noses up in the air. And we were carrying volatile cargo.
    Jimmy and Shena started to fight.
    We didn't want to listen, but we had to.
    “I wasn't making a move on her,” Jimmy hissed. “I was just being friendly.”
    “You practically had your hand on her breast!” Shena whispered angrily.
    “That's ridiculous! I did not touch her breasts!”
    “Not tonight! What about last night? The night, before?”
    “Shh! We'll talk about this later.”
    “Later? What later? I won't see you later! You should be grateful, you won't have my ugly face in your face anymore!”
    “Shena!”
    “I am not Shena! Shena is dead!”
    With that Shena squirmed out from under the computer-controlled steel bar that kept us firmly in our seats and jumped on to the side of the mountain, literally. Before Jimmy could stop her she began to climb up the side of the Matterhorn, toward a precipice from which it would be very easy to sky dive into Suicide Land. Jimmy was brave, he went after her and Sal chased after Jimmy. The scene would have been comical, the three of them swearing and running on the backside of an amusement park ride, but the angles and height had me worried. One slip, intentional or not, and one of them could die. Teri turned to me.
    “Do something, Daniel!” she cried.
    I fought against the steel bar. It budged slowly. Gale grabbed my arm.
    “You're not going anywhere!” she exclaimed. “You can't help them. The park personnel will be here in a minute.”
    “A minute is a long time,” I said.
    Gale gripped tighter. “No!”
    I released the bar. I shook off Gale's hand and carefully stood. Then I patted Gale on the shoulder. She looked frantic, as did Teri.
    “Today's my lucky day,” I said. “I'll be all right.”
    I leaped on to the side of the artificial mountain; it really was steep. The other three had gone around a bend, and I had to climb twenty feet to find them. The scene was not good. Shena was poised at the edge of a cliff, and the guys were pleading for her to come down. There were maybe ten feet between them and her. Apparently she had already threatened to jump.
    “This is just a misunderstanding,” Jimmy said desperately. “I don't care