by Patty Jansen
Cory put his bag down next to the loose wall panel and pushed it open, still panting from having run all the way from his unit. He'd had so much to do this morning. Find Theariki some clothes, get her breakfast, and go looking for Flopsy. He crawled onto the mesh walkway in the maintenance tunnel. In the dark, his hand hit something. It bounced off the mesh platform onto the tangle of wires below. Oh ferrets!
He peered down.
The food container he had placed here the day before yesterday lay on the metal floor - empty. Something rustled at the end of the tunnel and there was a pile of little balls on the tunnel's floor.
'Flopsy?'
He peered into the dimness.
'Hey, Cory!'
Cory started and hit his head on the panel above the door. 'Ow!' He crawled backwards and straightened in the corridor, blinking against the harsh light.
'What were you doing?' It was Alma.
'The rabbittooh's in there.'
'I told you so.' She glared at Cory through her glasses. 'Where were you? Didn't you get my messages?'
Cory pushed down the irritation that crept up inside him. 'What messages?'
'Didn't you turn on your computer?'
'No. I was rather busy.' But a hot flush crept up his cheeks. He had intended to check, but had forgotten.
'Whoa, who ate your cookies this morning?' Another spacefarer's expression.
Cory jammed his hands in his pockets. 'You, for all I know. You didn't want to talk to me yesterday, like I was some sort of idiot. You left me to deal with everything . . .'
'What everything?'
'After you left, I asked Theariki how she knew Rocky has been snooping around the docks at night and as it turns out, she is practically homeless. According to her people's customs, kids don't live with their parents, so they assumed things are the same with us, that she would be cared for with other kids at the station.'
'Yes—and?'
Cory spread his hands in a gesture of frustration. 'Don't you see? I had to take her home with me.'
'Home? Do her parents know?'
'No.' Who cared about if her parents knew? They were the ones who didn't want to look after her.
'Cory, aren't you taking this being friends stuff a bit far? I mean—if it's not their custom to live with their parents then why didn't they leave their children at home? That's not your problem, is it?'
'Alright Miss Know-it-all, if you discovered she was sleeping in the docks, would you leave her all by herself while her parents think she's being cared for by some creche?'
Alma took a deep breath, let it out in a hiss. She sagged back against the wall. 'Probably not.'
'So there.'
A few moments of angry silence hung between them. What was it about Alma that always made him angry? She was, after all, the only one in the school who would speak to him. He sighed and continued in a milder tone, 'Now—why were you so keen to talk to me?'
The irritation fell from her face. 'I'm sorry about your stepmother. Dad said she's in emergency.'
'She'll be fine.' His father had said that Erith would be home later today, and he really didn't want to talk about Erith right now.
Alma bent close to him. 'I have to tell you something.'
Cory glanced at the clock above the classroom door. Still ten minutes before lessons started, but voices in the corridor came closer. Classmates no doubt, maybe those horrid twins. He grabbed Alma's arm. 'Come.'
The corridor ended in a set of double doors that said, Danger High Voltage. Next to it: was the door leading to the emergency ladder. Cory pushed it open. It was freezing in here, and cramped. Cold metal rungs poked in his back when Alma tried to squish herself in. Cory grabbed the rungs and pulled himself up so Alma could shut the door. 'Quick—what is it?' His voice sounded strangely muffled in the confined space. The air made him want to cough.
'I was on that site last night, you know—'
'The Terran League?' He resisted the temptation to make a sarcastic remark.
'There is a new game.' She took the reader from under her arm, balanced it on the ladder's rungs, switched it on and pressed a few keys. 'Look.' Her breath steamed in the freezing air.
Cory twisted his body so he could see the screen somewhere in the vicinity of his knees. It displayed the familiar volcano and the white dragon in the corner like in the previous version, but the date in the corner was different.
'So—what's in it?' he wished she would hurry up; his mouth felt dry.
'I don't know. I have never played.'
'Then why are you asking? I thought you believed all this was silly.'
'I did, until I saw this.' Using the touch pad, she moved the dragon up the volcano, from where, like before, it had a view over what looked like a military base. She moved to one of the sheds and with a press on a key, displayed its interior. Four dragons sat at one side of a table, and four demons sat on the other. In the middle of the table lay a document. Moving over it displayed the text: torture your enemy. As soon as he had read it, the message curled up and burst into flames.
Cory frowned. 'Why did this change your mind?'
Alma let out a great sigh. 'Really, Cory, you are just so dumb I can't believe it. The Union delegation. There are four delegates. There will be four Nations of Earth delegates. That's just too much of a coincidence. This game has to be about the conference. Someone is going to do something bad.'
' . . . and the game will provide instructions how to do it. So does this mean you finally believe me?' He leaned his back against the opposite wall of the tunnel; his arms hurt from hanging onto that ladder and the cold was starting to bite into his skin.
She shrugged.
'Alma, does that mean you're not going to tell me I'm an idiot anymore?'
'Yes, OK?'
A tense silence fell. Guess the word sorry wasn't part of her vocabulary.
'Does it matter what I believe? You heard your father yesterday. We're kids. We should go back to the kindergarten room and play with our toys. We can't prove anything anyway. It is just a game after all.'
'I think they will believe us if we find out what the instructions are.'
'But how can we do that?'
Cory rolled his eyes at the ceiling in an imitation of her earlier gesture. 'Alma, you're so stupid I can't believe it. We're going to play the game, of course.'
For a moment, she stared at him, as if debating whether to get angry or not. Then she said, 'But I'm no good at games, and neither are you.'
'No, but we know some kids who are.'
'You're not . . . How are you going to get them to do anything for you?'
Cory grinned. 'You wait and see. Alma . . . could I borrow your reader?'
Alma frowned at him, but nodded.
'Now let's get out of here. I'm freezing.'
When Alma opened the door, it was to a volley of jeering.
A voice rose over all others. 'He's still inside, get him out.'
Cory clenched his teeth. The twins. And he was supposed to ask them for help?
His legs were so stiff from standing on the ladder that he stumbled out the door, warm air enveloping him like a suffocating blanket. All his classmates stood in a half-circle around him, laughing.
'Cory has a girlfriend!' bawled one of the twins, doubled over with laughter. Pia let out a great squeal.
'That's a filthy lie!' Alma shouted. Spots of red had risen to her cheeks.
The boys broke into a chorus. 'Cory has a girlfriend, Cory has a girlfriend.'
'That is not true,' Alma shouted. 'We were—'
'I know, kissing in there,' Pia jeered.
'We did not!' Her voice rose into a squeak.
'Cory's got a girlfriend, Cory's got a girlfriend.'
'Stop it, you bullies, stop it. Listen to me.'
One of the twins grabbed Alma's bag, with the reader inside. Cory gasped—it might fall out and break, and then they would have to start all over again.
Cory lunged forward, half-tripping over Alma's sensib
le black shoes, and grabbed for the bag. The boy—was it Leon or Marnix?—squealed and tried to push Cory off, holding the bag above his head.
'No, stop it!' Alma reached for his arm at the same moment the other brother dived forward for him. Cory took a step back to balance himself, but crashed into Joseph, who fell backwards against the wall. Joseph screamed; one of the twins tripped over Joseph's legs. Hanging onto Alma's skirt, Cory stumbled and went face first into the wall, Pia yelled, 'Get him, boys!' and above all this sounded Miss Rosier's voice, 'Stop it, children. Stop it now!'
The fight disintegrated into a moaning silence. Miss Rosier crossed the corridor in a few steps, eyes blazing. 'What has happened here?'
The twin on the ground heaved himself up and pointed at Cory. 'He started it.'
Alma breathed in. 'Oh, that is just so unfair, he—'
But Bianca clamped her hands over her mouth. She squealed, 'Look . . . look!'
Everyone looked. There was a big bump in Joseph's arm halfway between the wrist and the elbow.
Pia screamed.
All colour drained from Miss Rosier's face. She crouched next to him. 'Are you all right, Joseph?'
Joseph's lips moved in a ragged whisper, his hand hovering over the funny bump under his skin. 'It . . . hurts . . .'
Alma snorted. 'Of course he isn't all right. It's broken. I'll call my father.'
Miss Rosier scrambled to her feet. 'No, I will do that. We have procedures to follow. Doctor Savage has to be notified by the teacher.' Her voice recovered her harsh tone, although her hands trembled. 'Now, you all, go into the classroom and start your work.'
Chapter 18
Miss Rosier ushered everyone into the classroom like a mother hen. Her face was still deathly white and every now and then, she swallowed visibly. She grabbed a chair and put it near the door for Joseph. When she called emergency, her hands trembled uncontrollably. Cory found it strange, because she reacted much more upset than his teacher had done after the attack on the Nations of Earth assembly. Weren't teachers usually trained to give first aid?
No one spoke a word. Only Joseph's soft sobs pierced the silence.
Alma's father ran into the classroom not much later, stethoscope around his neck. Sullivan was with him, as well as a blond-haired, prune-faced woman Cory guessed was Joseph's mother.
Joseph froze. 'Dad?'
Sullivan gave his son no more than a glance, but his mother ran across the classroom. 'Oh Joseph, sweetie, are you alright?'
The twins sniggered and Cory didn't know where to look. He hated people who called children 'sweetie'.
Alma's father spent no more than a second examining Joseph's arm. 'Hmmm, that's broken all right. He'll need to come to the hospital room.' He gave Joseph a pad to wrap around his arm, and ushered him out the classroom, followed closely by his mother.
Sullivan was about to leave, too, but halted in the door opening. 'Pauline, I need you to come, too. I want a report.'
Miss Rosier flinched. 'Me? What about the children?'
'I'm sure the children are responsible enough not to blow the place up for half an hour. I need your report on what happened and why you didn't administer first aid. There is a first aid box in the corridor. It has cold packs.'
Miss Rosier gulped visibly. 'I . . . I didn't . . . His arm was broken . . . I didn't think . . .'
'Maybe you would have thought to use it if you had completed the First Aid course as is required for teachers.'
Redness rose to Miss Rosier's cheeks, but she said nothing. Cory was astonished.
Only when Sullivan had left did some talk return to the room.
'Cory's got a girlfriend,' Leon whispered, or at least that was the name on the screen on his desk.
What babies! Couldn't they think of anything else? Anyway, now Miss Rosier was gone, he could get started on solving the game. That was a bonus, because he had thought he could start after school at the earliest. Cory put Alma's reader on the desk, bending over the screen.
'What are you doing?' sneered the other. Cory noticed how he had a slightly narrower face than his brother. That one was Marnix.
The screen now displayed the volcano and the white dragon. Cory covered it with his arm. He mumbled into the picture, 'Something.'
Marnix grabbed Cory's arm again and tried to pull it off the screen. 'Tell us what you're doing.'
'No.'
They both gaped at him.
'What I am doing is too hard for your miniscule brains.'
That had the desired effect. Both of them lunged forward. With the two twins hanging onto his arm, there was no way Cory could keep it over the screen. Soon both of them stared down at the game. Their eyes widened. 'What? You're playing Doomland? I thought you said games were stupid?'
'This isn't stupid. It's the real version.' Oh, how he liked this.
'That is not the real version, that's . . . ' Marnix snatched the reader off the desk. If he noticed that Cory did nothing to stop him, he didn't say. His meaty fingers slid over the touch pad. 'Whoa!'
'What?' His brother leant over his shoulder.
'Whoa, look at this. Level twenty. This must be—like—the adult version.'
Cory reached out for the reader. 'Too hard for you?'
Marnix held the reader out of his reach. 'Who says?'
'I bet you can't complete it.'
'You bet? You wanna bet?'
Cory folded his arms over his chest, leaning back in his chair and trying very hard to hide a smile. 'Yes, I'll bet.'
'What for?'
Ferrets. He should have foreseen that question. 'I don't have any money.'
Leon snorted. 'Money's useless, nart. How about a pack of Doomland playing cards. Real holographic Earth ones, not the printed crap we have here?'
Cory's heart sank. He had no idea how to get that. Use his father's account? Yeah—right. He cast about for ideas. 'How about I ask my father if you could have a look in the control room?'
A brief look of wonder played in two pairs of dark brown eyes before they returned to hardness. 'And the receiving dock?'
Cory breathed in, wondering how his father would take this. 'All right.'
'You're on.'
* * *
Cory leant on his elbows, watching Pia work.
She raised her head and gave him a disdainful look. 'If you don't finish your sums, you're going to be in so much trouble when Miss Rosier comes back.'
However much he wanted, Cory couldn't concentrate on his work.
Leon and Marnix hunched over Alma's reader, whispering to each other. How long would it be before Miss Rosier came back? Would Leon and Marnix get to finish before that time?
Finally, the door slid aside. Miss Rosier came in with Joseph, pale-faced, his arm in a sling. He didn't look at anyone when he crossed the classroom slid into his seat.
Miss Rosier shut the door with a thunk. 'Now children. I want you all to show me your work. Anyone who hasn't done it can stay after school until it's finished.'
Across the aisle, Rory squeaked, 'What?'
'Be quiet! Sunil and Bianca, show me your sums.' She strode to the other side of the classroom.
Uh-oh, she was in a foul mood. Cory tapped Marnix on the shoulder, motioning for them to give him back the reader. 'Have you finished?'
'Finished? What do you think we are? To finish a game like that will take days.'
Days? They didn't have days. The Union delegates were arriving in two days' time. 'Come on, give it back.'
Miss Rosier yelled, 'Be quiet, I said!' Red blotches had risen to her cheeks. She abandoned Sunil's work and strode across the classroom, straight for Leon and Marnix. 'Whenever there is trouble in class, you two are involved—what's that?'
Cory cringed. The reader. She picked it up, glaring at the screen. For a moment, she froze, then turned abruptly and put the reader on her desk. 'How many times do I have to say that Alma is the only student who needs a reader in class? You can collect it after school. Show me your work, you two.'<
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The redness in her face increased when she flicked through the screens at Leon and Marnix's desks. 'Is that all you've done?'
Leon stammered something about not understanding the sums.
'The textbook is on the system. You could have checked. I really cannot believe this. I am gone for barely an hour and all you do is play games?'
Leon shrugged.
'Is that all you have for an answer? What about being polite? School rule number two: respect your teacher.'
'Yes Miss.' Coming from Leon's mouth, it sounded almost sarcastic.
Miss Rosier snorted. 'I am disappointed, appalled. I will have no more talking, no more games in my classroom. You will do work, and every time you break one of the rules, I will contact your parents.' Her eyes met Cory's. 'And what about you? How much have you done?' She reached for Cory's stylus and tapped it at the screen, the only screen where Cory had done any work—that was—he had filled out the marvellous number of three sums. 'What is this, Cory?'
Cory opened his mouth, but she cut him off.
'No, not a word. I will not hear a peep out of you, and you and you.' She pointed at Cory and the twins in turn. 'All of you can stay in class until you have finished every single sum.'
Chapter 19
Detention, a whole afternoon of it.
A whole afternoon of watching Leon and Marnix's backs, bent over their sums, of watching Alma's reader on Miss Rosier's desk, while knowing that clues to the Terran League's actions during the conference were hidden in the game. A whole afternoon wasted.
Miss Rosier told the three of them to finish up when the clock said almost six. At the door, she returned Alma's reader to Cory with the words, 'I believe this is yours.'
He managed a, 'Thank you, Miss,' and scampered after the twins, who were almost in the stairwell. 'How far did you get?'
'You are in a hurry, aren't you?' one of them said. Cory was almost certain it was Marnix.
'I . . . have a bet with a friend.'
'A friend?'
'Yes.' Cory cringed. Next thing they would ask him who the friend was. 'Just tell me what you've discovered so far.' He would keep going tonight. Cory took the reader from under his arm and pressed the on button.