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Chapter 13 continued...

XL turned back to the phone and turned off the mute. "James," he said, "I'm sorry you can't come. You and I can get together some other time."

"It's O.K.," said James.

Then they said their good-byes and hung up their phones.

XL pulled out his school phone book, which had contact information for each child in each class. He looked over his own class list. He had already invited the friends that he usually played with, but there was one other boy that sometimes joined him at recess. He phoned him, but unfortunately he was already busy on Saturday afternoon, at a game of indoor soccer with his team.

"Oh well," thought XL, "we have enough guests for a birthday anyway."

There were five school days before XL's birthday, and they all seemed like long days to XL. There was lots of math, and social studies, and English, and French, and also lots of fun at recess. XL liked to learn but nevertheless recess was his favorite part. Finally the weekend arrived. On Saturday afternoon at the appointed time, XL and his family parked their car at Anti-Gravity Land. They went into the lobby with their gifts and cake, and soon XL's friends arrived too.

Along with Max, Larissa, Anna, and XL, his friends Beeba, Frederick, William, and Mark were there. Mark was XL's neighbor who was a year younger than him, but they had been friends since they were little so XL had invited him.

The first attraction in the park was "Upside Down Town". They entered a tunnel. It was circular, about two meters wide. It curved to the left, then the right, and then they walked through a section where the tunnel was turning underneath their feet as they walked. It reminded XL of an old-fashioned amusement ride he went on once. When they came out of the tunnel, they were standing in a room - on the ceiling!

XL walked to the middle of the room, followed by his family and friends. There was a lamp sticking out of the centre of the ceiling, near his feet. He looked up, and he could see the floor above his head, with desks attached to it. It was a classroom! There were books open on the desks, and windows with roller blinds. On a couple of windows the blinds were open, and they could see the fields outside - except that the sky was at the bottom and the grass was at the top! It gave XL a really weird feeling!

James walked to the doorway, where there was another room beyond. The door was open, but it didn't reach all the way up to the ceiling. James stepped over the wall at the top of the door, and went into the next room, while the others followed.

They went through a hall, a small library, the principal's office, and the teacher's lounge - all upside down! Then they went through a rotating, curving tunnel again, and came out at the entrance to the second attraction: Hoverboard Alley.

Now everything was right side up again. There was a young man there who served as a guide, and he provided everyone with helmets, knee pads, and elbow pads. After suiting up, they walked out onto the hover floor, where they were each provided with a hoverboard.

Each hoverboard was about the same size as an old-fashioned skateboard, but without wheels. It was thicker than a skateboard--about 5 or 6 centimeters thick, XL estimated. And there was a fog emanating from the sides of the board.

"I've read about these!" said XL's dad, Max. "They have superconducting magnets on the inside. The fog is from the liquid nitrogen that keeps them cooled. The floor is magnetic in the opposite polarity."

"I don't know if I can do this," said Larissa. "I tried a skateboard when I was a kid, and I could barely stand up on it without falling."

"You can just watch if you prefer," said the guide. "However, you might try. These are computer controlled to automatically stay positioned underneath you."

Beeba put one foot on his hoverboard, and pushed off the floor with his other foot. He glided smoothly and quietly over the floor.

XL and the others followed. The room was a large oval, with banked edges around the perimeter. At one end, there was an off ramp. It had a rubbery surface, and it served as the only way to stop apart from falling.

Soon they were all zooming around the oval. "This is way faster than a wheeled skate board" yelled out William, who had experience with the latter. He was going faster than all of them. Each time he pushed with one foot, his board went faster.

After a while, the guide signalled for them to come off. Mark came off first, and the guide gave him a long tube with a handle and trigger at one end. "This is a foam ball launcher," he said. As you zoom around the hover floor, try to launch the balls into the baskets that are mounted on the walls. The faster you are going, the more points you get for each basket.

They all did that, and it was great fun. After a while their time was up, and they exited at the off ramp. Beeba was thrilled. The electronic scoreboard showed that he got the highest score from shooting the foam balls.

Then they went to the final attraction of Anti-gravity land, still wearing their helmets and pads. It was the Super Flying room. Each of them got a turn in the room, which was a large cylinder, about 8 meters wide, and two stories high, with green walls all around. At the bottom and top there were steel grids.

XL stepped into the room first, and he could feel the whoosh of air coming up from below him. He leaned forward, and soon he was lying flat on his stomach with his arms and legs outstretched, going up! He rose until he was about at the centre of the room. From there he could manoeuver a bit to the left or right by leaning to either side. It was so cool (literally - the air was not hot!).

After XL finished his turn, Beeba took his turn to fly, while XL walked to a large computer screen. The screen showed a video of XL flying, but instead of a green wall, there was scenery behind him in the picture. There were several buttons by the monitor, each with a small picture beside it of a different background. By clicking a button he could change the background. At the bottom of the console, there was a box of memory sticks, with a card that send "take one".

XL inserted a memory stick into a slot in the console and pressed the "save" button. Now he had a video of himself flying over the background of his choice, just like Superman!

After that, they all went to the party room, where they all sang "Happy Birthday" to XL. Then, as per ancient tradition, XL blew out all the candles on the birthday cake. Finally, he opened his birthday gifts.

His friend Beeba gave him a board game, "Race Around the World", to add to his collection. All the others gave him gifts too. His favorite items included a pair of wristwatch "spy" communicators (like walkie-talkies, but with sound and picture) and swim goggles with a zoom lens.

Then it was time to depart. He said goodbye to each of his friends, one by one as their parents came to pick them up.

"Oh, there is just one more thing, that I almost forgot," said Max. Florence gave you a birthday card. XL opened the card, and inside was a gift card. It was like the one she gave him before, for the ice cream store. Also there was a little note inside, saying: I received a reply from Fred. Thank you very much for helping me to find him."

Copyright Arthur de Leyssac, 2017. All rights reserved.