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we stumbled out into the desert afternoon.
it was a hundred and ten degrees, easy, and we must've looked like deep-fried vagrants, but everybody was too interested in the wild animals to pay us much attention.
we passed the monte carlo and the mgm. we passed pyramids, a pirate ship, and the statue of liberty. well, it was a small replica, but whatever.
i hated this city. i just wanted to leave.
i wasn't even sure what we were looking for. maybe just a place to get out of the heat for a few minutes, find a sandwich and a glass of lemonade, make a new plan for getting west.
we must have taken a wrong turn, because we found ourselves at a dead end, standing in front of the lotus hotel and casino. the entrance was a huge neon flower, the petals lighting up and blinking. no one was going in or out, but the glittering chrome doors were open, spilling out air-conditioning that smelled like flowers — lotus blossom, i'm pretty sure.
the doorman smiled at us. "hey, kids. you look tired. you want to come in and sit down?"
i'd learned to be suspicious, the last week or so. i had a weird feeling. i've been to las vegas a few times, and this seemed to be a pretty high class hotel. why have i never heard of it then?
percy, nodded his said and said we'd love to come in. i glared daggers at the back of his head the whole time. inside, we took one look around, and grover said, "whoa."
the whole lobby was a giant game room. and I'm not talking about cheesy old pac-man games, like at the arcade me and my dad go to every weekend. there was an indoor waterslide snaking around the glass elevator, which went straight up at least forty floors. there was a climbing wall on the side of one building, and an indoor bungee-jumping bridge. there were virtual-reality suits with working laser guns. and hundreds of video games, each one the size of a widescreen tv. basically, you name it, this place had it. my dad would've loved it here. there were a few other kids playing, but not that many. no waiting for any of the games.
