Tom lurched back into his seat as she started firing information at them. He began scribbling on a piece of paper, as if he was taking notes, but a second or two later the paper came slithering across the table.
Robert reached out for it but, before he could take a look at it, Mrs. Pearson was glaring at him again. Just waiting to catch him reading it.
“I hope you’re remembering all this information,” she said sharply. “Where have I told you to be in period four, Robert Doherty?”
She was in the worst kind of mood, just looking for an excuse to hand out punishments, but she wasn’t going to catch him like that. Robert returned her look with wide, innocent eyes.
“We have to go to the auditorium for a talk,” he said.
She nodded, grudgingly. “And what will you need?”
He’d missed that bit while he was reaching out for Tom’s note, but it didn’t sound too hard to guess. “Pens and paper,” he said, as confidently as he could.
“Pens and notebooks,” Mrs. Pearson said, pursing her lips.
It wasn’t enough of a mistake to lose him his break, but he suspected that he couldn’t afford another one. It was another two or three minutes before he risked looking at Tom’s note, and when he did, it didn’t make any sense.
What kept you? it said. Did you meet him again?
Did you meet who? He didn’t know what Tom meant—but it wasn’t sensible to ask him at that moment. If they upset Mrs. Pearson again, they’d be in real trouble. So he crumpled up Tom’s note and pushed it into his pocket.
By the time Mrs. Pearson reached the end of the notices, he’d forgotten all about it.
ALL DAY, AT SCHOOL, HE THOUGHT ABOUT FREEZING TO DEATH. About blood growing solid and sharp ice crystals piercing the lungs. It was the kind of day when everyone made a rush for the seats at the back, near the radiator. People kept their jackets on in the classroom and skulked in the cloakrooms at break time, trying to avoid being sent outside.
Robert couldn’t concentrate on anything except the cold. He wanted to invent a way of making a second brazier and getting it into the cavern without enlarging the tunnel. But his mind couldn’t make that work. It kept bringing him back to the same depressing conclusion. The only thing that would really help the people in the cavern was to get them out of there, and back to normal. He’d done it for himself and there had to be a way of doing it for them, too.
But what was it?
By the end of the day, he was feeling stupid and frustrated. He’d completely forgotten that he was supposed to stay behind for a basketball practice and he was already heading out of the gate when Tom came running after him.
“Hey, Robbo! What are you doing? Dazzer’ll go nuclear if you miss this practice, too. Have you forgotten there’s a match next week?”
Robert stopped and turned around, frowning. Yes, he had forgotten. And even now he’d been reminded, it all seemed impossibly trivial. He could hardly believe that basketball had once been the center of his universe. He’d missed the last two practices without even noticing.
“I don’t have my gear,” he muttered.
“It’s in your locker,” Tom said. “Been there for weeks.”
Robert looked back at the school. “Don’t you think it’s a bit of a waste of time? With all we’ve got to do?”
Tom shook his head. “You’d be dumb to miss it. Unless you want Dazzer asking lots of awkward questions.”
There was no arguing with that. Mr. Dawson wasn’t a man who gave up on things. Reluctantly, Robert started back toward the gym.
Tom was absolutely right about his gym clothes. They were there in the locker, still clean, because he’d forgotten the last practice, too. He pulled them out and followed Tom into the gym.
“You’re late!” Mr. Dawson yelled. “Get yourselves changed and get out here! And remember you’re not the only varsity player in the squad, Doherty. Don’t think you can drift in and take your place for granted.”
That was an empty threat, and everyone knew it. Robert was the best player in the school. Not just because he was tall, but because he was fast and intelligent and knew the game inside out. If he was available, he’d get picked. No competition.
By the time he’d changed, Tom was already out in the gym, dribbling along the back line. As soon as he saw Robert he fed him the ball.
Robert shot out a hand to trap it, without really thinking. He and Tom had been passing balls to each other since they were five and it was completely automatic, like breathing. Tom never got it wrong.
But he did this time.
The ball went sailing past and cannoned off the changing room door with an embarrassing thud. Bret Leavenholme scooped it up, looking smug, and lobbed it back to Robert. Insultingly slowly.
“You need to play a bit of patball, Robbo. You’re losing your touch.”
“That’s what happens when you start skipping practices,” Mr. Dawson said sourly. “Get your stretching done, Doherty. And then I want you and Hastings passing up and down the court for five minutes.”
Robert pulled a face and went into his warm-up stretch routine. Basketball might not be the most important thing in the world, but he was determined not to give Dazzer another excuse to bawl him out. From now on, he was going to get everything a hundred percent right.
It was much harder than he thought it would be.
As soon as he and Tom started passing, he knew there was something badly wrong. Tom’s first mistake hadn’t been just a stray fumble. All his passes were like that. Just slightly skew. And it was the same when he sent the ball back. Tom was reaching for it in the wrong place. If Robert hadn’t fed it to him carefully he would have missed three passes out of four.
“What’s up?” Robert hissed, the second time they turned at the end of the court. “Why are you fooling around?”
“I’m not fooling,” Tom muttered. “It’s just—”
He didn’t get to finish the sentence. Mr. Dawson spotted them talking and bellowed across the gym. “OK, ladies! If you’re good enough to stop for tea and a chat we’ll have you dribbling now. And shooting from the dribble. Ten each. Go!”
Tom groaned and started down the court, but it was a disaster from the beginning. He missed every shot.
He wasn’t a natural, like Robert, but he was a moderately competent player—and he didn’t usually miss like that. Steadying himself too long and frowning up at the basket, then pitching the ball over his head at the completely wrong angle.
Mr. Dawson thought he was doing it on purpose, of course. By the end of the practice, he was so angry that he had Tom running laps around the court while the others played one short. And Tom ran around perfectly happily, as though he would rather have been doing that than actually playing.
“What’s the matter with you?” Robert muttered again as they went off to the changing rooms. “I could play better with my eyes shut. What were you doing?”
Tom hesitated. For a second, Robert thought he was going to say something. Then Peter Wimborne came up behind and jeered at him.
“What did you do, Hastings? Disconnect your brain before you started? You were seriously lame.” And he dug Tom in the ribs, in an amiable way.
Hitting the precise place where Robert had seen the bruise.
Tom drew in his breath sharply—and then tried to disguise it by slipping into his Dazzer imitation. “That’s no way to behave in the changing room! Where’s your team spirit, boy? This team’s never going to top the league until you learn to support each other on and off the court!”
Wimborne laughed and disappeared into the toilet. Tom sat down on the bench and quickly pulled on his sweatshirt over his basketball uniform.
“There is something wrong, isn’t there?” Robert said.
Tom hesitated. “This isn’t the place—” He ducked sideways, peering back into the gym. “They’ll all be in here in a couple of seconds.”
Robert nodded. “Come back to our house and have some soup then. Before you take He
lga out.”
“If you want,” Tom said. He shrugged and started to undo his shoes.
They were out of the changing room while the others were still hunting for their socks and they cycled away from the bike sheds down an empty drive. Most people had gone home an hour earlier and the street was almost deserted, but there were the usual loiterers around the corner shop.
As Tom and Robert cycled away from school, one of them peeled off from the crowd. “Hey, Robbo!” he shouted. “Someone’s looking for you.”
It was a boy from Emma’s class. What was his name? Phipps? Phipson? Robert couldn’t remember exactly, but he recognized him all right. A real joker.
“Don’t stop,” Tom muttered. “It’ll be some kind of nonsense. We’ll get stuck for hours if we start talking to Fipper.”
Robert had no intention of stopping. He cycled on, pretending not to hear. All he wanted was to go home as fast as he could, so that he could ask Tom some serious questions.
But he didn’t get to ask anything. When they came around the corner by the park gates, there was a bus just leaving the stop outside his house. As it drew away, Emma came charging out of the front garden, onto the pavement. She stared left and then right, turning her head wildly from one side to the other as if she was searching for something. Robert had never seen her like that before.
She looked hysterical.
“HE WAS RIGHT BY THE WINDOW,” EMMA SAID. SHE WAS STILL shaking so hard that her coffee slopped out of the mug and onto the kitchen table. “I opened the curtains and he was there. Staring straight at me.”
Robert and Tom had taken her into the house and made her sit down. She could speak coherently now, but she couldn’t stop talking about the intruder.
“He was crouching down, and his face was so close it was like—like—” She moved her hands and the coffee slopped again.
“Who was it?” Robert said. “Did you recognize him?”
“I couldn’t really see his face. He was wearing some kind of mask. Like a balaclava. But his eyes looked horrible. And I was so feeble.”
“It wasn’t feeble to chase after him,” Tom said very quietly. “Not when you were frightened.”
That hadn’t struck Robert before. He put a hand on Emma’s shoulder. “Pretty brave of you,” he said.
“Pretty stupid,” Emma said. She was starting to sound more like herself. “Suppose he’d had a knife?”
“Did he look violent?” Tom murmured.
“How would I know?” Emma shrugged. “I just saw him crouching at the window—only his head—and then I was running. By the time I came out of the front door he’d disappeared.” She leaned back in her chair and drank down half her coffee in a single gulp. “That’s better. Chuck the cloth over here, Rob, and I’ll clean up this mess on the table.”
She started wiping energetically. Not much wrong with her, Robert thought. For once he was glad to see her organizing things.
She balled up the cloth and tossed it into the sink. “At least I got across to the park before it happened. I’ve stacked up a load of wood for them.”
“Is that where he saw you?” Robert said. “Did he follow you back?”
Emma thought it over. “I don’t think so. I checked very carefully before I went into the woods. There was no one around at all. And I checked again when I got to the cavern, just to be on the safe side.”
“It’s probably just some random snooper,” Tom said mildly. “Nothing aimed specifically at you. Forget about it, Em.”
Emma nodded. “That’s what I want to do. I’m sick of all this drama. I’d just like things to be normal again.”
Tom looked hard at her and Robert thought he was going to say something else, but he didn’t. After a second, he stood up, pushing his chair away from the table. “I’m off then. Before Helga goes completely berserk and thinks I’ve abandoned her. See you tomorrow.”
He waved a hand and let himself out of the kitchen door. As he closed it behind him, Emma looked up at Robert.
“D’you think he’s right?” she said. “Was it just some random intruder?”
Robert hesitated. “I don’t know. It seems a bit of a coincidence, having so many weird things happening at the same time. I wondered if it was—”
“One of the Armstrongs?” Emma said quickly.
“Ye-es. Or maybe—” Robert glanced down. “What about the man we saw yesterday?”
“For goodness’ sake!” Emma stood up impatiently. “Why do you keep going on about him? Don’t complicate things. There’s enough to worry about without that.”
She walked out of the kitchen, leaving Robert staring miserably at the table. He wanted to talk to her, to tell her about Tom’s bruise, and the odd way he’d been behaving. But she obviously wasn’t going to listen. And Tom had gone off, too, without answering any questions. No one was interested in talking about the strange man.
But Robert was sure he was important.
THAT NIGHT, HE HAD A SLOW, DETAILED NIGHTMARE, FULL OF dark images. He was in the woods, unable to move or speak, but seeing everything around him with agonizing clarity.
He saw Mr. Armstrong standing beside the ditch, looking across at the low hedge bank and the tiny cavern entrance. Everything was utterly, unnaturally silent. There were no car sounds from the road. No leaves rustling as a fox padded through the undergrowth. The woods were motionless, holding their breath around the dark, menacing figure beside the ditch.
And then the figure moved. One instant it was on the far side of the ditch. The next it was kneeling in front of the hedge bank with its huge, brutal hands going out like grabs toward the earth. It pushed the soil aside so fast that a great pit opened up in seconds. And then—and then—
Robert saw Lorn’s tiny, defenseless face gazing up in horror as the ground opened over her head and the cold air flooded in. He saw the dark figure reach down into the earth and scoop her up.
For a split second, she was there in the palm of the great left hand. Lorn. Hope. The friend he would have given anything to rescue.
Then the giant fingers closed around her living body, not clenching tight and squeezing her to death, but trapping her forever. With its hands cupped, the massive, ugly figure strode away into the trees.
Robert woke suddenly, sweating and appalled. For the first time, he understood that being small put Lorn into a new kind of danger. If her father got hold of her now, he would be able to hide her in his pocket. Or keep her in a matchbox. Or shut her into a tin. No one would ever be able to rescue her again.
For five or ten minutes, he couldn’t do anything except lie still, paralyzed with fear. But gradually he became aware of sounds coming through the wall. It was before four o’clock in the morning, but someone was moving around in Emma’s room.
Why was she awake? Had she had a nightmare, too? He listened for another couple of moments and then he slid out of bed and went to find out.
8
HE TAPPED ON EMMA’S DOOR AND SHE OPENED IT CAUTIOUSLY. When she saw who it was, she stepped back quickly to let him in. Her room was dark and the curtains were pulled wide open.
“What are you doing?” Robert whispered.
She put a finger to her lips and shut the door behind him. “It’s them,” she muttered, nodding at the window. “They’re outside. Go and take a look. But keep out of sight.”
Ducking down, Robert crept across to the window and knelt down to one side of it, peering out at the orange darkness of the street. Emma slipped into place on the other side, frowning as she stared down. For a few seconds, there was nothing to see. Then Emma tapped Robert’s arm and pointed.
Someone was coming along the pavement. A person in a long coat, with the hood pulled up. The dark figure stopped opposite them and looked up, scanning the front of their house.
Robert’s heart twisted and he caught his breath. That was how Lorn moved. That was how she lifted her head.
“It’s too small for Mr. Armstrong,” Emma whispered.
Did sh
e really not see who it was? Robert could hardly believe it. There was only one person he knew who moved like Lorn. Who looked exactly as Lorn would look in forty years’ time—if she managed to live that long.
“It’s Mrs. Armstrong,” he whispered back. “And if she’s here, he can’t be far off. They’re not going to let go, Em.”
“Then we’ll just have to be smarter than they are,” Emma said stoutly.
She sounded as though it was a game. Something they could “win” if they tried hard enough. Robert didn’t know how to explain what it was like to be caught up in something that might not end.
It was like the moment in the nightbird’s tree when he’d realized, for the first time, that he was trapped in a body the size of a bean. That he could be stuck with being small for the rest of his life. What worried him most, then and now, was the idea that he might just—give up.
If protecting Lorn became too dangerous, too much of a burden, would he shrug his shoulders in the end and give up on the whole thing? Because I’m never going to see her again. . . . He couldn’t bear the thought of that.
“We’ve got to get rid of them!” he said fiercely.
Emma pulled a face, warning him not to raise his voice, but she was too late. They heard a door open and feet came toward them across the landing. There was a soft tap on the door.
“Emmie?” It was their mother.
Emma went across to open the door. “Sorry, Mom. Didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“You’re in the dark,” Mrs. Doherty said.
No direct question, of course. She never asked questions aloud, even when the air was thick with them. Robert went across and turned on the light.
“It’s my fault,” he said quickly. “I had a nightmare and I came in to see Em. But I’m fine now. I’ll go back to bed in a minute.”
“So will I,” Emma said. “We were just having a bit of a chat.”
“You should close the curtains,” Mrs. Doherty said faintly. “The room will get cold. And if you’re not all right, Robbie—”
The Nightmare Game Page 7