Rocky Road Read Online Free PDF Page B

pink—pink shadows, the Pink Shadows. Jets of pink smoke started to stream up from the stage as the drumbeat quickened and the neon-pink screen flashed faster. A voice boomed through the stadium.
    â€˜Live, on the final night of their Decoder Tour, the Pink Shadows!’
    The stage lights went on and the band started to play. The whole crowd went completely crazy, screaming and stamping their feet. EJ joined in, feeling herself pulled into the incredible atmosphere. It was exhilarating. And leading it all, in the centre ofthe stage, was Shady Lady. She was wearing a pink jump suit, glittering with hundreds of silver flecks and knee-high, almost impossibly high-heeled silver boots. She was wearing a straight black wig and her face was completely white, like a Japanese doll. Black-line make-up swirled around her face, like a painting of black ivy trailing her eyes. She looked awesome, a bit scary but awesome. The make-up was like a mask on her face.
    Shady Lady walked down the catwalk that came out from the centre of the stage, prowling, stalking her way down until she was standing almost in the middle of the crowd. Then she raised one arm above her head and pointed upwards. There was a flash and the stadium went dark again except for a pink light beam shooting out from a large black ring on Shady Lady’s finger. The crowd roared and the lights went on as Shady Lady brought her arm down again and started to play her guitar. Then beams of light shot out from rings each of the band members was wearing and they began to play their chart hit, ‘Getting Dark’.
    EJ looked around the crowd, trying to detect anything unusual, but she couldn’t. There were just lots of people enjoying the show, cheering, screaming and dancing to the songs. Perhaps SHINE had been wrong about the message?
    The Pink Shadows had been playing for nearly an hour when Shady Lady shouted out, ‘Okay, do we have any Shadows out there?’
    There was a roar from the crowd.
    EJ started. Did she say Shadows? Did she mean Pink Shadows or Shadows, SHADOW agents? Maybe there is something going on after all.
    Shady Lady went on. ‘Oh yeah, we do I guess. Well I’m talking to you, all you Shadows. Get your heads pink, the song after this is for you!’
    EJ turned around and scanned the crowd again. This time, there was something suspicious happening. Suddenly people seemed to be putting on the pink headsets. As the Pink Shadows started to play the song, EJ did the same, plugging them into her spy-pod. Where else would she plug them? Not surprisingly, she couldn’t hear anything throughthe headset.
    Maybe mine are broken, she thought but as she looked around her, she could see other people doing the same thing, taking off their headsets, shaking their mp3 players and looking irritated. They can’t all be broken, can they? Then, still watching the crowd, she noticed something else. Some other people were still wearing their headsets and everyone who was seemed to be wearing a crazy Shady Lady pink hair wig. A coincidence? EJ checked out different parts of the stadium and yes, everyone still with their headsets on had pink hair.
    The song finished and then Shady Lady cried out, ‘Okay Shadow peeps, hold on to your hair, this is it, rock on!’
    Hair. Suddenly things started to join up for EJ. Shadow peeps, hair, all the people still using the headsets wearing the Shady Lady hair. It had to be connected but how? Were all the people wearing crazy hair SHADOW agents? Did you need to use both the hair and the headset at the same time? EJ wasn’t sure but there was only one way to find out.She grabbed her wig and as she held it upside down to put it on she noticed the label.

    Headset Hair? What did that mean? EJ looked closely at the wig and lifted the label. There was nothing there. Or was there ... EJ looked again, even more closely than before and this time she could see something. A tiny hole. A little hole to