Read Online Beyond the Knock Knock Door by Scott Monk - Free Book Online Page A

planet sprinkled with thousands of islands. He gently touched it with his index finger and information scrolled beside it, responding to his request. As they studied it, he inquisitively reached out his whole palm. The droplets of the star map flew from all sides of the room and converged at a single point, reshaping into a giant model of the same island planet and its three moons. ‘I want to go there,’ he said.
    Suddenly, trouble. The sphere blinked from black star map to white stormwater then to black again. It grew more urgent until – boom! – the Knock-Knock Door swung shut.
    They desperately swam towards the tunnel but it collapsed. They tried digging through the bubble but its torrent was too solid. Around them, the room pressurised with a long, horrible hiss, and Michael shouted, ‘Sam! What’s going on?’
    â€˜I don’t know!’
    Without warning, the giant model planet imploded, swallowed by a vortex. The hole grew and grew, devouring the star map and pulling in the triplets. They screamed as every part of their bodies ripped apart anddissolved into trillions of atoms, corkscrewing into the vortex. The bubble burst – and zip . They rocketed into the stars.

7
    Hurtling as comets of energy, the triplets pinballed across the universe. One moment, they flashed past Jupiter – the next, who knows! They streaked past planets, red giants and multicoloured nebulas, feeling no pain but an overwhelming sense of being stretched. They skimmed the triple rings of a large moon, spiralled into a wormhole, whistled among sky castles and then flashed through a raging starship battle. Lasers from a thousand gunports blazed between armadas before a villainous cruiser detonated and threw them into a distant galaxy. Most of the time they were blurs, travelling faster than the speed of light, then suddenly, without warning, they’d slow above a civilised world. Just as they spotted an amazing canyon city or a swamp tribe, they’d be yanked through space again.
    Within minutes, their course straightened. The blue-green island planet loomed before them, growing larger and larger until they burst through its atmosphere and sped towards a rainforest. They collided witha mountain range and darted through the rock like ghosts. Everything turned black before their atoms reformed again. A deluge of stormwater knocked them off their feet, sweeping them along a dark shaft. They rode on their backsides towards an archway of dull sunlight curtained by cascading water, until they shot through it and –
    â€˜AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!’
    â€“ fell from the sky!
    Splash!
    â€˜AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!’
    Splash!
    â€˜YAAAAHHHHOOOO!’
    Splash!
    Luke plunged into the rock pool last, kicking free from the bottom and breeching. He shook water from his head like a dog then shouted, ‘What a ride!’
    Coughing, Michael flailed about until Samantha pulled him on land. ‘Do you always have to be such a boy ?’ she asked Luke.
    He barely heard her, however. Above them, a waterfall thundered over a cliff and hammered the rock pool. Its stream flowed east through a rainforest thick with ferns, orchids, vines and gigantic trees. The canopy blocked the morning sunlight, and mountain peaks sliced open the clouds. Where were they?
    â€˜The other side of the park?’ Luke guessed.
    â€˜Cities don’t have rainforests,’ Michael said.
    He retrieved his knight’s helmet, while Luke poured out his jetpack. Samantha, yearning for her soft bedback home, collapsed face-down on a boulder to dry. They jumped when Luke suddenly panicked. He slapped his pockets until, with a relieved sigh, he held up the toy robot warrior he’d won at Rajan’s birthday party. ‘I thought I’d lost it,’ he said, only to be answered by his siblings’ groans.
    When his strength returned, Michael circled the rock pool and pointed to the top of the waterfall. ‘I think we