Oceania: The Underwater City by Eliza Taye (novels for teenagers .TXT) 📕

several times to figure out the perfect location for me to stand or sit. His determination paid off and eventually we settled on me standing on the bolt sticking out from the rear wheel spoke and him pedaling. I had never been on a bike with someone else and it was awkward as can be, especially with Dylan on the pedals. Even though he was steady at first, when he got to the section of the road that went downhill, he had problems stabilizing the bike and we nearly rammed into the fence several times before we finally made it to town.

All the while, Dylan kept pointing things out, asking what they were and wanting to know how they worked. The hover cars especially fascinated him since he’d never seen a car before. The standalone shops downtown were a marvel to him because nothing had its own building in Oceania.

Finally, we made it to Gran’s house. The blue shades of early dawn had long gone and the sun shone down on the front of the house, illuminating even the small porch. Dylan stared in awe at the freestanding house, taking in as much of it as he could.

I left him out front and climbed into my bedroom through the window I had left cracked. Patiently, I waited for Dylan’s knock on the door and went to answer it, passing Gran watching TV on the couch in the living room. Pretending to have just awoken, I faked a yawn and stared groggily ahead of me.

Opening the door, I greeted Dylan as if I hadn’t just seen him moments before. “Hey, Dylan, come on in.”

Footsteps caused creaking on the old hardwood floorboards, alerting me to Gran’s presence.

“Well, well, this must be Dylan Baker. It is very nice to meet you.” Gran extended her hand toward Dylan.

“And you as well,” Dylan shook her hand and followed us inside the house.

“Dylan, are you hungry at all? I was just about to make breakfast. Is there anything in particular you want?”

“Uh.”

Dylan didn’t seem to know what to say, so I quickly rescued him, in case he suggested a food item we didn’t have on land. “Eggs and toast are fine, Gran.”

Gran looked over at Dylan as if she wasn’t certain if that was okay for him or not. “All right, then. Eggs and toast it is.”

We ate with idle chatter at the table. Gran wanted to know everything she could about Dylan, which of course, were all lies that we’d cooked up this morning. Gran seemed satisfied by his answers and before we knew it, all the food was eaten.

“Thank you very much for breakfast,” spoke Dylan, rubbing his stomach.

“You’re very welcome.” Gran smiled, the wrinkles on her face multiplying. “Alexandria and I just need to get our things and we’ll be ready to go. You can wait here if you’d like.”

Dylan nodded. “Okay.”

Rejoining in the foyer with our bags, Dylan picked up his pack and followed us to Gran’s hover car. I noticed his eyes grew large when he saw it and I was glad that Gran couldn’t see them.

I have to admit I’d wished Dylan could see the hover cars that we had in the cities. Gran’s model was very old—from 2250. It had a rust orange color and was shaped like the body of a beetle. One big hump in the center was the cab where people sat and the shorter front area housed the technology. The trunk encompassed the back end and solar panels dyed to match the color of the car covered the roof. Like all hover cars, they were self-driving, but Gran’s old car still had the option of manual driving, unlike the newer ones.

I opened the door to the back seat and climbed in, followed by Dylan. We both threw our bags in the trunk and then returned the middle seat to its former position.

Gran climbed into the driver seat and then turned around to face the both of us, a smile gracing her face. “Are you two ready to have an awesome weekend in San Francisco?”

I could feel Dylan’s excitement radiating off him, an excitement that mirrored my own as he exclaimed quite loudly, “Yes!”

Chapter 18

The hills and isles of San Francisco came into view, gray and green peaks jutting out in a sea of turquoise. The Golden Gate Bridge loomed over it in the distance, partly clouded in fog. Skyscrapers towered up into the atmosphere like trees in a forest, their bases just above the lapping waves of the sea.

The hover car glided about five feet from the reaches of the waves as it veered towards the carport of San Francisco. It joined many other vehicles on their way to the city—still one of the largest in the country. Joining the fray of the double lines, the automatic cars followed an invisible road.

Looking over at Dylan seated to my left, I couldn’t help but smile when I saw his expression. His clover green eyes increasingly broadened at his first views of the city. The Golden Gate Bridge seemed to garner most of his attention even though it only hovered about a hundred feet above sea level, nearly half of its original height.

Gran must have glanced in the rearview mirror and noticed Dylan’s face because the next thing I knew, her voice was reaching back to us. “Are you shocked, Dylan? Have you never been to San Francisco before?”

“No, I haven’t. It is incredible!”

Gran guffawed. “If you think this is amazing, you should have seen it years ago before the sea began threatening to take it over.”

“Is there a way I can?” wondered Dylan with wide eyes.

Gran furrowed her brow but didn’t say anything about the awkwardness of his statement. “Well, if you really want to…I could take you to the San Francisco Museum. They have