Devon Blake and the Starship Crash Read Online Free PDF Page B

Gustav
     
stood there, looking at the three sheepishly.
     
Flim was the first to recover his composure. “Sure, I’m sure that Jacinda won’t mind.
     
You two need to get to know each other better anyway.”
     
Merrell set down his plate and cup and sat down in an empty chair.
     
“Yes, now that we are partners.” Merrell looked straight at Jacinda. H blushed and then
     
continued. “I hope it was okay that I signed us up as partners.”
     
“You did that?” Jacinda asked in surprise. “Why?”
     
“Well, I felt really bad about how we…I mean, how I acted. It was so mean.” Merrell
     
nervously played with his food. “I wanted to make it up to you. I figured that if we were
     
partners, I could keep anyone else from bothering you.”
     
Jacinda was flabbergasted, “I did not…but you…won’t you?” She could not get out a
     
whole sentence because of her surprise. The boys sat there, watching her, especially Merrell. He
     
looked as if his mortal fate depended on what she was going to say. She stopped trying to speak
     
and took a moment to compose herself.
     
“Thank you, Merrell. It would be really cool to be your partner,” she finally answered.
     
“It was very sweet to do this for me. Maybe I was wrong about you.”
     
“You weren’t wrong, at least not then.” Merrell sighed with regret. “Terry and my
     
brothers always give people a hard time. But, something about you made me think about what I
was doing. You are one of the first people that every stood up to us.” He looked up into
     
Jacinda’s eyes, smiling when their eyes met. “It made Terry and the others plain mad, but it just
     
showed me how ridiculous we were acting.”
     
Jacinda reached out, putting her hand on top of Merrell’s. ”It’s okay, you are sure
     
making up for it now.” She paused for a moment, searching the room to see if she could see
     
Terry. “Won’t your brothers be angry about this?”
     
“So what? They’ll get over it.”
     
Flim laughed. “I have seven brothers and eight sisters and none of them would ever
     
forgive me for doing something like that.” Flim stood up and gave Merrell a mock salute. “I
     
salute you.” Everyone at the table laughed at the exaggerated gesture.
     
Devon picked up his mug, lifting it toward his friends. “To a great expedition.” Jacinda,
     
Flim, and even Merrell joined in the impromptu toast.
     
“And to lots of fun and mischief,” Flim added. This made everyone laugh again.
     
Their revelry was disturbed by the loud call of a horn. Everyone in the mess hall turned
     
toward the sound.
     
Deke Jacobs stood in the doorway, holding a stubby bugle.
     
“That’s good people. That is exactly what you should do if you hear the bugle. Stop,
     
look, and listen. Now that I have your attention, I’d like to make some announcements. First,
     
we are on schedule to arrive in orbit above Forrestal at 0300 hours, the day after tomorrow. That
     
is 3 am for all you planet huggers. We will be boarding the drop ship tomorrow night so that we
     
can drop into the atmosphere as soon as we arrive. That gives you all day tomorrow to get any
     
foolishness out of your system. As of 2100 hours tomorrow night, it is all serious business.”
A few murmurs of complaint ran through the crowd of children. Boarding the drop ship
     
tomorrow night meant that they would have to sleep there until they departed.
     
“Second,” Deke’s loud voice cut the complaints short, “I know none of us is looking
     
forward to sleeping on the drop ship, but that is probably the toughest thing you will have to
     
endure on this trip, so I don’t want to hear any gripes.”
     
“Third,” he continued, “I was happy to see that almost everyone found a partner and
     
made my job easier. Unfortunately, we had one member of our expedition drop out at the last
     
minute, so we have an uneven number of explorers this trip. That means that one of you