Читать книгу Hunt and Power - Stephen Hayes - Страница 8

My mind was working harder than it had all week as I walked home by myself. Memories of what I had experienced inside the magical box thing, whatever it was, were filling my mind, and I was trying to understand why the box had chosen to use those things against me.

Hall had said that the box used magic to extract as much as possible from my mind and use it against me. This most likely meant two things: the box couldn’t present me with any factual information that I didn’t already know; and the behaviour of the people inside the box was decided on how I viewed them, rather than how they actually were. Or perhaps it wasn’t how I viewed them, but how I thought and felt about them, and hoped they would behave. Hall should have included fear on his list, because the actions of Tommy and Lena could only fit that category. The logical part of my mind knew their behaviour would never be quite so extreme, but those thoughts must have come from somewhere. Was I secretly scared of them?

That business with Natalie was nothing more than fantasy, but it was certainly within the realms of my imagination. And the way she knew how I felt? I expected that was just magic pulling something together that I was sure to believe. I remembered the feel of her hands, but again that was nothing I hadn’t experienced already. About a year earlier, we’d played a game where we had all held hands in a circle. I’d been next to Natalie. As for the kiss, well, it couldn’t have taken place because I had no idea what it was going to feel like. That was probably why we’d been interrupted.

The business with Tommy? I’d never seen him behave like that, though I expected he could probably do so (apart from multiplying himself), so of course the box was able to make it happen. That was another thing holding me back with Natalie: If Nicole was okay with it, then that should have been the green light, because she was the one who would have made it most difficult for me if she disapproved, being Natalie’s best friend. But I could remember her telling Stella that she knew who Natalie liked, and I now knew that had been me, so she must have been okay with it.

Or was she? She had never made moves to get us together, never showed any encouragement to the idea, and never tried to get Natalie in my good books, not that she would have needed to. Perhaps she already suspected me. Maybe Peter or James had let something slip…

There was nothing unusual about the classroom scenario. Certainly everyone in there had acted as I would expect them to in that unusual situation. Well, everyone except Serena. I remembered that she had taken my hand too, and it took me a moment to think when it had happened before. Then I remembered a sunny day a few weeks earlier, when Serena and I were wrestling together in the Jade River. But I had never imagined her hitting Wilwog. I tried to remember anything that might have given me that view of her, and the only thing I could think of was when we were fighting Moran; she’d taken some pretty furious swipes at him that day.

There was nothing particularly unusual about what had happened in the last room, either. Marc had acted exactly as I would have expected him to, as had Moran and his spook gang. I’d never seen that ghost woman attack anybody, like she did Lena, but my mind was certainly capable of imagining it. As for Moran telling us who she was, well he couldn’t have done, because that information wasn’t inside my head.

And Lena? Her behaviour was similar to what she had shown late the previous week, though it was far more exaggerated. If we had been swimming together, I could imagine her trying to drag me in if I didn’t want to swim with her, although I doubted she would strip me in the process. That had definitely been based on fantasy, rather than reality. I tried to remember where I had seen her in a bikini; I must have got a clear view of her somewhere, or I wouldn’t have been allowed such a view of her in the box. I’d never seen her naked either, of that I was certain. In fact, while I thought about it, I couldn’t remember what she’d looked like when she’d been naked in the box. Was that because I’d been too preoccupied to take in the details, or was it because I wasn’t supposed to know?

I thought very hard, and most of it started to added up. I’d never seen her naked, but I had felt rather a lot of her body during one of the obstacles guarding the Sien-Leoard Crystal. She was unconscious at the time, and I hadn’t been up to anything dodgy, but I’d been forced to feel a bit of her body to help bring her around. There were also several instances where she had pressed herself against me, which probably came into effect as well. I also knew that she was pretty strong, given that she had lifted me off my feet; only a foot or so, but that was still something. In reality, there was no way she could be strong enough to tackle a dozen Tommys at once, or throw me that high into the air. The box must have taken my thought that she was strong and exaggerated it.

As for the bikini, I could only assume that I must have caught a glimpse of her swimming, but I honestly couldn’t remember it. She had probably been a good distance away. But then an image came to the fore of my mind that I had completely forgotten about: I had seen her before. Before she got in the pool during that afternoon activity the previous week, I had caught a glimpse of her standing with Amelia, also in a bikini, and even then I had admitted to myself that she was pretty damn hot! I’d completely forgotten about that in the wake of far more vivid memories of Lena.

So everything inside that box had been taken from my mind; that made sense, except for one thing. If all that was true, why was I able to use that stunning device? I was fairly sure it was the sort of thing the Hammersons would use, but I’d never seen it before. Why had I been allowed to use it? Why had I even been allowed to even see it?

This preoccupation lasted all the way home, and by then, the only conclusion I’d reached was that perhaps the last person to use the box had dropped the stunning device in there, and it just wanted to present it as another temptation.

* * *

The first people I saw when I got in the house were William and Carl. They were watching television in the Playman lounge room and commenting on how much it had changed since the ‘70s. It was good to have my grandfather and James’s grandfather back in the family; I had always wondered about them and had imagined them to be like Dad and Charlie. Dad and Charlie had changed a bit too; they just seemed so much happier than usual, as though the rest of the world’s troubles could go to buggery as far as they were concerned. I was happy for them, but I was finding the experience rather awkward.

Mum and Marge seemed to feel the same way, because they kept insisting that the pair of them do something constructive with themselves now that they’d been given a second chance at life. The rest of us considered it pointless to attempt to persuade the authorities to accept that two people who had been dead for thirty years were suddenly back among the living. So far, they had spent all their time hanging around the house, just trying to adapt to the twenty-first century, although I had overheard them talking about making contact with the Woodwards. Clearly they hadn’t forgotten what it was like in the Woodward Army, and thought it would be good to get back to something they knew and were comfortable with. That was probably the best they could do since we no longer lived on a farm.

“Hello there, John,” said William when he saw me heading for the stairs.

“Hi—er—grandpa,” I said uneasily. Never having known a grandfather before, I wasn’t exactly sure what I ought to call him. I was tempted to just say William, but figured that would be disrespectful.

The two of them chuckled, and I had a feeling they knew what I was thinking about. “You got it, mate,” said Carl. “Had a good day?”

“Yeah, not bad,” I said. “Bit boring, but that’s school for you.”

“Yeah, but you have to go all the same,” said Carl, looking back at the television.

“I’ll see you at dinner,” I said, continuing for the stairs. “Loads of homework.”

“Yes indeed,” said William pompously. “Study hard, and then you can play hard.”

I smiled in spite of myself and went upstairs, enjoying the idea of having the place to myself for once. Peter was still in detention—his was three hours today. James was probably with Erica again—no hesitation in spending loads of time with her now that he had cleared the initial barrier of his hesitation. I guessed the girls were next door, because Nicole’s room was silent as I went past. I would have liked to use this time to look up stuff about the Light Crystal, but my mountain of homework was weighing heavily on my mind as I settled in front of the computer. I struggled with myself before opening my bag and pulling Mrs. Parker’s horrible exercises from it. This was going to take an eternity … or at least it would have, if I didn’t have the Light Crystal.

Before I set to work on the Maths, I did what I always did when starting up the computer: check emails, check Facebook, and check the girls’ rooms for activity. What the girls did not know was that Peter, James and I had set up a network of wireless microphones, allowing us to listen to what was going on in the two rooms without them being any the wiser. At least until they found the microphones. The network had only been in place a few weeks and so far, and we’d learnt very little from it. In fact, all I could remember learning was the knowledge that Amelia had the hots for Marc.

Nicole’s room was silent, as I had thought, and the girls were, as I had suspected, in Felicity and Jessica’s room. It seemed at once that homework was in order because Lisa and Natalie were there as well, and it sounded like they were working on the history of magic projects. I plugged headphones in and continued to listen to them while setting to work on my Maths homework.

The project was desperately dull, and only a few questions in, I decided I would use the Light Crystal to get through it a little quicker. I understood what I was doing, but there was just so much there that at this rate, I would take all night. I gripped the crystal and, remembering how my previous two requests had been made, thought to myself, I wish I could get through this Maths homework quicker. I felt it go warm, as it had the previous times it had worked, but I couldn’t see any difference to my Maths homework.

Almost instinctively, I knew what had to be done. I picked up my pen and began writing. What I was writing, I didn’t know. All I knew was that I was writing faster than I had ever written in my life. Within minutes, I had done several pages, and by half past 4 I was done. I looked back over my work (I still called it my work, given that I had written it) and found I had answered all the questions, complete with working, though I’d hardly known what I was doing. Almost all of them were correct, bar a couple, which I had to fix up, but this was even better; at least that made it look more authentic.

Feeling considerably more cheerful, I put the work back in my bag, making a mental note to do the same for Peter when he got home; he didn’t have a chance of getting it all done tonight, with how late he was going to be. Then I leaned forward and rested my head against the computer screen, my exhaustion finally catching up with me. I wasn’t sore from the day’s experiences, but I certainly was tired. Perhaps it was a sort of mental exhaustion, because even though I hadn’t brought any aches, pains or broken bones with me out of the box, I’d worked very hard to get through it. The voices of the five girls next door were still in my ears, but I had hardly paid them any attention. I focused dimly on what they were saying for a moment, but when I realised it was still homework, I gave up and allowed myself to relax.

I couldn’t recall dozing off where I sat, but I must have done, because the next moment I was being roughly shaken. I looked up and saw James standing over me, looking amused at the sight of me leaning against the monitor.

“You want to watch out,” he said when I pulled the headphones off my head. “It’s no good for you to be that close to the screen.”

“Says who?” I asked irritably. “My eyes were shut.” I checked my watch. It was now just after 5 o’clock; I really had dozed off.

“What were you doing, anyway?” he asked, sitting down on my bed and looking at me.

“Just finished homework,” I said. “That maths. Used the crystal to get me through it (Peter and I had filled him in about the crystal the previous afternoon) and I was just listening to the girls, but they’re not talking about anything interesting.”

“Must have been boring if it was enough to send you to sleep,” said James, sniggering.

“I don’t know,” I said reasonably. “The stuff in chick flicks is normally pretty juicy and I’m pretty good at sleeping through that too. Besides, I was really tired. I had a—er—unusual detention.”

“Yeah? What did Hall make you do?” he asked nervously.

“Long story,” I said. “Explain when Pete gets back.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “Unplug those headphones; I want to hear too.”

“It’s only homework,” I said. But I unplugged them anyway, so that Nicole’s voice was suddenly coming from the speakers. “Where’ve you been anyway? With Erica again?”

“Yeah, around her place,” he said. “She seemed to think it was high time I met her parents.”

“You’ve been with her for two days,” I said scornfully. “At this rate, you’ll be engaged by this time next week.”

James laughed. “I see your point, but I think it’s felt like a lot longer for her after—you know—the last couple of weeks. She’d told them all about me anyway, and they were pretty cool, considering they’re city people.”

I sniggered. The general consensus in Chopville was that people from the city took much for granted while us country folk appreciated the simpler things in life.

“When’re you going to bring her round here to meet the parents?” I asked.

“Well, she’s already met them once,” he said. “But I suppose we should give her a proper introduction now that we’re on. How does 2017 sound to you?”

I laughed, but didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing. James seemed to be expecting me to tease him about finally having the guts to get a girlfriend, but my mind was a long way from doing that, so instead we listened briefly to the girls’ voices, still coming from the computer.

“No, listen,” Lisa was saying. “I’ve read about all this. They’re known as itchicans.”

“Or some sort of chickens anyway,” said Nicole, and all but Lisa burst out laughing.

“Why itchicans?” asked Jessica finally once they’d settled down. “Surely they could have come up with something more sensible; itch-seers or something.”

“I have no idea,” said Lisa. “All I know about them is that they see red marks on a person’s skin where that person may be feeling itchy, and the itchier, the redder. But I can’t find any known cases of it; they’re not recorded.”

“Well just say that then,” said Natalie, who sounded like she was heartily sick of talking about it.

“Oh come on, Nat,” said Lisa, exasperated. “How’s that going to look in the project? ‘I’m sorry teachers, but I don’t know if itchicans really exist because I can’t find any record of one admitting it. We only go by the Sorcerers’ word, but they could well be lying.’”

“You don’t have to word it like that,” said Felicity. “Just say that no record of itchicans exists.”

“Which came first,” asked Nicole, “the egg or the itchican?”

They all burst out laughing again, even Lisa this time. Trust Nicole to crack jokes when the rest of them were trying to concentrate; that was such a Playman thing to do.

“You ever heard of itchicans?” I asked James.

He shook his head. “No, but Lisa was telling us the other day about people who’ve been cursed to see things differently. I suppose this is just another one of those.”

“Come on,” said Lisa finally, sounding stern again. “Let’s just get this last bit done, then we can call it a day.”

“Thank god, ‘cause I’m starving,” said Nicole. “But not for chicken.”

“I wish they’d talk about something interesting,” I said.

“Hang on, they might in a minute once they’ve finished,” James was saying, but I’d stopped paying attention. The Light Crystal was still in my hand in my pocket, and as I had spoken, it had suddenly gone warm again.

“How’s this,” suggested Jessica. “’Itchicans are believed to be people who can see red marks on people’s skin where they feel itchy, the state of the redness depending on the’—er—‘intensity of the itchiness.’ Is that a word, itchiness?”

“Sounds good enough to me,” said Nicole.

“’But today, no records of itchicans exist, so no one knows if this enchantment is the same as other birth-made enchantments.’”

“Perfect,” said Natalie. “Get that, Lis?”

“Hang on,” said Lisa, and we heard rustling of paper. “Just say all that again Jess, and slowly.”

Jessica did her best to repeat what she had said as Lisa copied it down.

“Thank the blessed heavens that’s over,” said Nicole with a great sigh. “I don’t reckon I’ll be able to eat chicken for a week after all that.”

“Told you,” said James, grinning at me. I grinned back, knowing that he had no idea what I’d just done.

There was a bit of a pause as the girls packed their work away. Then Nicole said, as though the heavens were awake to what James and I wanted them to talk about, “Do you reckon, with this party on the weekend, that we’re supposed to take dates?”

James and I looked at each other, grinning. “Here we go,” he said eagerly.

“No idea,” said Felicity. “Hardly matters, does it?”

“If there’s dancing, it might,” said Jessica.

“But you can just pick up someone on the night,” Felicity answered.

“Oh yeah, fantastic,” said Lisa sarcastically. “Tell me, who’s likely to be the better mover, Hignat or Wilwog?”

A few of them laughed, and Felicity said, “Not those two; only go with the ones you know. There’ll be a few guys there you know, from the Young Army. A bit of a dance with them wouldn’t hurt.”

“You could bring Michael, Jess,” said Natalie, and they all giggled, bar Jessica.

“Who the hell is Michael?” hissed James, and I could tell he was furious at the idea that some guy was feeling up his sister.

“Give it a rest,” Jessica said bemusedly. “He won’t be there; he’s not part of what we’re doing. And besides, we’re long finished.”

“But he was okay, wasn’t he?” asked Nicole.

“He wasn’t bad,” said Jessica. “But sex was all he cared about, and that was about as far as his talents stretched.”

Now James looked mutinous. This was the first I’d ever heard about Jessica’s relationship with some guy called Michael, and it looked like it was his first time as well. She had done a very good job keeping it quiet. Judging by his look, that had been smart.

“What’s up with you, Nicole?” asked Lisa a moment later.

“Nothing,” she said in a tone that clearly said otherwise. “It’s just … I know who I’d like to dance with, but I don’t want to have to compete with Amelia on the night. She’s so much prettier than me.”

“Cheer up,” said Jessica. “He might stick with you if you get in quick enough.”

“That’s what I mean,” said Nicole. “You reckon I should ask him out before we get there?”

“Blimey, don’t let him think you’re desperate,” said Natalie, and my stomach churned. Anything Natalie had to say on this subject made me very nervous indeed.

“Maybe I am, though,” said Nicole, and for a moment I actually felt a bit sorry for her. “I mean, I’ve done my best to be suggestive, but either he’s not getting the hint or he’s not interested. How do I know which it is if I don’t do something about it?”

“Don’t go down that path, Nicole,” said Lisa. “Nothing less attractive, at least to guys who’re actually worth something. Just do your stuff on the night and I’m sure he’ll see how sincere you are.”

Nicole groaned, and even I could see, from a guy’s point of view, how difficult it would be for her to have to compete against the likes of Amelia—partially because Amelia really was better looking, but more so because Nicole’s lack of confidence would immediately put her on the back-foot.

“You’ll do better than me anyway,” said Natalie, and my blood went even colder. “Look who I’ve got to compete with.”

“Not again,” groaned Felicity. “Haven’t we all agreed that he doesn’t want Lena?” That was all the confirmation I needed—it was me they were talking about now. I swallowed and leaned closer to the computer.

“Yeah, but you never know what’ll happen after a few drinks,” said Natalie, sounding more resigned than anything else. It made my blood go even colder and I wished I had the guts to just run through the tunnel and set things to rights myself. James was smirking at me—he knew what was going on too.

“That’s kind of true,” said Jessica. “I mean, look at James and Erica … she persisted with him and it paid off in the end. Lena’s probably going to do the same thing, and someone as hot as her…”

“Give it a rest, Jess,” said Lisa reprovingly.

“I have no idea how far she’ll go either,” said Nicole. “I’ve never seen her like this before. I would have said it was impossible for her to be so forward.”

Suddenly I was reminded of what George had said, and now my insides were writhing. I wished more than anything that we had followed Harry and Simon’s joking suggestion weeks ago and put cameras in there instead of just microphones. Seeing Natalie’s face would have told more than anything else could have.

“Stop being so pessimistic and give yourself a chance,” said Nicole after a few more seconds, and that was extremely rich of her, after the way she’d been talking about her chances with Marc.

“You think I’ve got a chance?” asked Natalie, clearly looking for encouragement.

“As much of a chance as you want,” said Jessica. “We’ve told you that loads of times. You’re as sexy as anyone when you swing it, plus you’re a virgin—”

“Oi, come on,” Natalie said resentfully.

“Guys like that clean idea, a fresh chick,” Jessica went on. “I don’t know about Stella or Lena, but it puts you in a good position. You can do it, Nat.”

“I should have done it ages ago,” she said sadly. “If I’d just flirted more when I had the chance—”

“That’s not your style, Nat,” said Lisa, grinning. “You’re no ho. Your way is better; I know how it feels now, but it’ll be worth it when he finally comes to you.”

“It just feels like there’s a new chick after him every couple of weeks,” Natalie said, and I had to admit that was how it was feeling for me too.

I looked across at James, who was leaning back with his hands behind his head, loving the show. It couldn’t have been more obvious that James was glad to have a girlfriend, and no longer had to worry about all this crap.

“I tell you what, Nat,” said Felicity. “If you find he’s paying more attention to Stella or Lena, you do the same; find some other guys to dance with. There’ll be plenty of options. It’ll make you feel better, and it might get his attention back on you.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Nicole. “Plus it’ll help your confidence, which should attract him more.”

“Right,” said Natalie, and she sounded like she just wanted to get it all over with.

“Look,” said Nicole, “if you want to head the others off, why not just go across now and tell him how you feel?”

My stomach lurched. As much as I wanted to hear that very thing, I wasn’t ready for it. James sat bolt upright, staring at me in horror.

Natalie gasped. “I can’t—I can’t—”

“Sure you can,” said Lisa. “I think once you start telling him, it’ll be much easier to keep going, and then it’s all out of the way, and he knows, and you can get on with your life. All you have to do is come across as interested, not desperate; he’ll probably go for that.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s on his own in there,” said Jessica, and I thought I heard her stand up. “Peter’s not back for ages, though I don’t know about James. Now’s the perfect chance; you’ll probably have a hard time getting a better one, with the boys always around him.”

“But won’t he think I’m desperate if I do that?” Natalie asked, sounding horrified.

“Don’t know, but I know he’ll like Lena once she’s all dressed up and ready to fly,” said Jessica grimly. “I guess if you don’t want to compete—”

“Tell you what,” said Felicity. “We’ll come across with you, but we’ll leave you alone with him when you’re ready to get things moving, ‘kay?”

There was a silence, and I could imagine the girls all staring at Natalie.

“What should we do?” asked James. “Have you worked out what you want to do with her?”

I was completely torn in at least two different directions. Everything I’d ever wanted could be mine if I disregarded Lena, and to a lesser degree Stella; I still wasn’t entirely sure my friendship with her was of that kind, so I didn’t mind that as much. I knew I didn’t want Lena, not in the same way I wanted Natalie.

But if I got with Natalie today, I probably wouldn’t get the chance to see things out with Lena the way I’d like to. I wasn’t entirely sure what that would be, but after what George had said, I wanted to be as gentle in rejection as I could. If Natalie was serious about wanting me, that meant that I wouldn’t have to compete with Tommy after all, which was a huge relief. So reluctantly, I shook my head, only understanding days later that I had made a huge mistake in not taking the chance that presented itself to me. Nicole’s joke about me being gutless was clearly truer than I had realised.

“Whataya think, Nat?” asked Lisa when Natalie didn’t answer.

There was another silence and then, as though she wanted to spill the word before she lost her nerve, Natalie blurted out, “Okay.”

James stood up quickly as Jessica said, “Good on ya, Nat. You’ll be so proud of yourself after this, whatever happens over there.”

“I won’t feel so proud if I’m sprinting home in tears,” Natalie replied, but now I could hear a nervous excitement in her voice.

“I’ll go head ’em off,” said James, hurrying to the door. “Perhaps you should pretend you're sleeping, just in case they get up here anyway. For the record, though, I reckon you should grab Nat sometime tomorrow and take the matter out of her hands—she’d love you for it.”

I nodded, unsure if this would work, but thinking that at least I’d get a bit more time to consider it while I waited. I unplugged the microphones from the computer so that they wouldn’t know we’d been listening (not that much sound would come through from their rooms with nobody in them), then got up and crossed to my bed as James shut the door behind him. I lay down on my bed and allowed my body to relax, wondering if I would actually fall asleep. I didn’t think I could; my heart was thumping so hard that it alone could have kept me awake, not to mention James’s use of the word ‘love’ clanging around in my head.

I wasn’t sure if James’s plan was to delay the girls in getting up to my room, or attempt to prevent them from coming up at all. I only hoped he didn’t do anything to change Natalie’s mind altogether about me. I felt rather pathetic about having to do this, and when I thought about it, I didn’t even know why I was doing it. All I knew was that I was going to have to make my own mind up about what I wanted to do, before someone else did it for me. There were too many people around who had ideas about what they wanted me to do. Gutless, John; you’ve got a hell of a lot of growing up to do. If Natalie knew what was going on in your head, she’d be turned off so damn fast…

I lay there listening to the silence around me, waiting for some sort of sound outside the room; footsteps or talking or anything to let me know when to screw up my courage. I could hear talking downstairs; James was talking, and I thought I could hear Mum and Marge talking as well, plus a few of the girls’ voices. No one sounded like they were arguing, which was a good thing. But minutes passed, and no one came upstairs.

I was burning with curiosity to know what they were talking about, but knew I couldn’t go and listen. I’d already made my choice, and that meant staying up here and hiding. I sat up though, giving up on the idea of getting any sleep, and simply leaned back against the wall, trying hard not to let my thoughts stray to what I could be doing with either Natalie or Lena in a matter of weeks; perhaps days. Then, without warning, I heard soft footsteps outside the door. A moment later there was a knock.

“Yeah,” I said, amazed at how croaky my voice was. If I hadn’t known better, even I would have mistaken that nervousness for tiredness.

It opened a crack and to my surprise, Peter stuck his head in. “You okay?” he said, pushing it open and slipping in. “James said he found you asleep at the computer when he came in.”

I had the distinct impression that James, perhaps for authenticity, had tried to stop Peter coming up here too. But my brother had managed to slip up anyway, probably to drop off his things, which he did as I watched him.

“Yeah,” I said, preferring to be honest, or at least partly honest until I knew the coast was clear to tell him what James and I had overheard. “I had a weird detention.”

“Yeah? What did he make you do?” he asked curiously.

I hesitated, but I hadn’t told James alone and I couldn’t see why Peter should be any different. “Wait ‘til James is here—”

The door opened again, interrupting me, and James entered with impeccable timing. His fabrications had clearly not worked, because Nicole, Felicity and Jessica came in as well. Natalie and Lisa weren’t with them; perhaps Mum and Marge had made them go home. It was half past 5, after all.

“I said not to come up here, man,” said James, glancing at me and then glaring back at Peter.

“It’s my room too,” snapped Peter. “And besides, he was awake; well, kind of—”

“I’m okay,” I said, because the girls were looking at me with concern. “You’re early anyway, Pete. Did Hall let you out early or something?”

“Yeah,” said Peter, still sounding amazed at the idea. “He let us all out early. He just said he had important business to attend to. Looked rather excited about it, really.”

“What business could he possibly have that’s more important than dishing out detentions?” Nicole asked scornfully.

My thoughts drifted from the conversation as I watched the girls settle down. I wanted to tell James and Peter about my detention, but I didn’t want to have to go into details about Natalie and Lena in front of the girls, particularly after what they had been talking about only minutes earlier.

Once again, however, the matter was taken out of my hands when Peter said, “So John, what did he make you do?”

I hesitated, but I couldn’t exactly tell the girls they weren’t allowed to know. “Well, Hall had this magical game that was supposed to test my powers of resistance,” I said shortly, preferring to just answer their questions, as it was rather hard to explain. “I have no idea why he would make me do something like that.”

“You mean like a video game?” said Peter. “That’d be cool.”

“It certainly wasn’t cool,” I said. “Do you think Hall would ever give me a cool detention? Nah, I actually went inside it.”

“Wow,” said James. “No wonder you were so tired.”

“So how were your powers of resistance tested?” asked Jessica.

“Did you pass?” asked Felicity.

“Well I passed in the end,” I said, trying to think of an answer Jessica’s question. “’Cause Hall said I could have been killed if I didn’t pass. He said I would suffer more the more I gave in.”

“Blimey,” said Peter in a low voice.

“So you did okay, then,” said Nicole.

“Eventually,” I said, “but I got hurt a lot. There were about twenty Tommys chasing me, and they beat the crap out of me, and Wilwog was there trying to make trouble. Even Moran and his ghosts made an appearance. And Marc was trying to get me to help him get his crystal back. It was only when I refused to help him that I finally got out of there.”

That should cover it without having to go into the more embarrassing details.

“That would have been more fun than what I was doing,” said Peter. “Even if it did hurt.”

“What were you doing, exactly?” Felicity asked him, frowning.

“Summarising newspaper article after newspaper article with Harry and Simon. He was running out of ideas for lines to give me.”

We sat in our room and talked some more. I told them about the stunner and how suspicious it was that I could use it, and I also shared the news about the Light Crystal with the three girls. But for much of the conversation my mind was on Lena, Natalie and Stella, and I was completely lost. How on earth could I get through this without hurting any of them?