Ellie Quin - 04 - Ellie Quin in WonderLand Read Online Free PDF Page B

balled and tossed carelessly aside. She spotted clothing draped over a loop of cable, used as a makeshift laundry line and other cables snaking over the top of several of the cubicle partitions. Several cover panels had been pulled from consoles descending from the low ceiling, their innards of wire and circuit boards spilling out. Frasier cupped his gibbon lips with his long-fingered leathery hands and called out. ‘SHELBY!’
    A head shot up from between distant partitions like a startled meerkat alerted by the growl of an approaching predator. The head turned their way and then suddenly jerked with surprise; wide-eyed with a gawping ‘O’mouth. A head topped with an untidy mop of rust coloured curly hair. Beneath the mop, skin as pale as paper and dotted with faint flecks of skin-toned freckles.
    ‘Who…WHO…THE…HELL…IS…THAT?!’

CHAPTER 6
    The head ducked down amid the maze of cubicle partitions. They heard the patter of bare feet and a bin being accidentally kicked somewhere amongst the labyrinth, followed by a muttered curse, then, finally, the head appeared again around the side of a partition just a few yards away from them.
    ‘Frasier! I have no clothes! Hand me my clothes!’
    The chimp hobbled wearily across the floor, bending over and picking up discarded garments as he went, then passed the bundle to the young man who ducked out of sight again.
    Ellie glanced at Jez and they both shared a grin. They could hear the young man behind the partition, wrestling with his clothes, grunting and cursing as he hurriedly untangled them, turned them right-side out and jerked them on.
    Finally he emerged, disheveled and flustered, looking warily at them through narrowed, suspicious eyes. He tried patting down his unruly hair, to no effect.
    ‘Who…who are you? Where did you come from?’ His voice was high pitched, almost feminine. ‘I mean…I mean, we weren’t expecting a supply shuttle for months yet. Not for months!’
    ‘Your monkey said that already,’ said Jez.
    ‘We were dropped here by an automated barge,' said Ellie. 'A barge from a passing freighter.’ She shrugged. ‘We were sort of stowaways on board and they kind of decided to dump us here.’
    ‘That’s not what those fregs promised us,’ said Jez with a sulky grunt. ‘They were meant to be dropping us off at-‘
    ‘Somewhere else,’ cut in Ellie quickly. She looked pointedly at Jez.
    Little information as possible? Remember? We’re on the run?
    The young man’s eyes eyes narrowed further. ‘So why here? No one comes here.’
    ‘We weren’t given a choice in the matter,’ said Ellie. The young man appeared to be extremely uncomfortable, fidgeting with the cuff of his shirt – rolling it up one pale forearm then unrolling it all the way down again.
    ‘I guess this was the nearest place they could find to dump us,' she added.
    ‘No one comes here,’ he said again.
    ‘I’m really sorry we’ve been dropped on you.
Shelby
is it?’
    He was rocking gently from side to side, licking his dry lips, pinching and tugging on the bottom one.
    ‘Yes…yes, I’m Shelby.’
    Ellie waited a moment for him to ask their names. He didn’t.
    ‘Well, I’m Ellie, this is Jez.’
    No second names
. She decided if he asked, she’d better have a bogus second name to hand just in case.
    Jez raised a hand. ‘Are you the only one here? Are you, like, totally in charge of this place?' She grinned. 'It’s pretty awesomoza!’
    He looked at Jez curiously, cocking his head as his small squinting birdlike eyes slowly ran from her head down to her lurid platform boots, trying to fathom what kind of a creature she was. He turned his attention back to Ellie. ‘You’re stuck here on this facility, you know that don’t you? You’re stuck here now.’
    Ellie glanced at the floor-to-ceiling windows, at the beautiful sun-bathed rustic landscape below them. 'Okay.' Stuck here for the foreseeable future didn’t seem to be too bad an option right