Dangerous Games

About the Author

Also by Mardi McConnochie

Title Page

Copyright

A Summons

Boys

Draz

The Worst Night of Soph's Life

The Hunt

Secret Destroyer Business

Angie

The Road?

Punch

Hangover

Change

In Cold Blood

Invitations

The Mission

Stranded

Disaster

In and Out

Attack of the Toaster

Soph's Party

Finn

Afterwards

Grounded Again

The Citadel

Mardi McConnochie is an award-winning novelist and screenwriter. Her novels include
Coldwater
,
The Snow Queen
and
Fivestar
, and she has written for a number of popular TV series, including
Home & Away
,
Always Greener
and
McLeod's Daughters
. Her first novel for younger readers,
Melissa, Queen of Evil
, won the 2006 Aurealis Award for Best Children's Fantasy Novel.

Also by Mardi McConnochie

Melissa, Queen of Evil

MARDI McCONNOCHIE

PAN
Pan Macmillan Australia

First published 2007 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
1 Market Street, Sydney

Copyright © Mardi McConnochie 2007

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

National Library of Australia
cataloguing-in-publication data:

McConnochie, Mardi, 1971–.
Dangerous games.

For primary school children.

ISBN 978 0 330 42335 9 (pbk.).

I. Title.

A823.4

Set in 11.5/14.5 pt Janson Text by Post Pre-press Group
Printed in Australia by McPherson's Printing Group

The characters and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Papers used by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

These electronic editions published in 2007 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

Dangerous Games

Mardi McConnochie

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Mobipocket format 978-1-74198-065-3
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‘W
hat's the matter with you, are you blind?' my dad shouted. ‘Oh, I don't believe it – look at that – he's going to – somebody stop him – Arghhhhh!'

The crowd roared and my dad writhed in his chair as if somebody had just stabbed him in the back with a pitchfork. It was another Saturday afternoon in front of the football, and our team was losing.

‘That umpire's got to be a deep cover agent for the other side,' Dad grumbled, reaching for the biscuits. ‘Dodgiest refereeing I've seen in a long time.'

‘Oh, come on,' Ben said. ‘You guys don't need any help from the umpire. You're perfectly capable of losing on your own.'

Dad turned to me. ‘Why do we keep inviting this kid over?' he asked.

‘Can't remember,' I said.

Our team, the mighty Reds, were the worst team in the competition. They could lose anywhere, at any time, to anyone. Losing was what they did. It was what they were good at. The mighty Reds were so hopeless,
a team of well-trained emperor penguins could beat them.

Ben barracked for the 'Pies, which was a bit of a problem, since at our house we believed that only idiots and yobbos barracked for the 'Pies. But Dad liked Ben, so we'd decided that we'd overlook this one flaw in his character.

The ball went back to the centre and we watched as play restarted, hoping for a last-quarter fightback. But as I watched the opposing team steal the ball effortlessly from the Reds and drive towards the goal-line like a Panzer division, I felt an odd sensation. At first it was a strange niggling feeling, like that feeling you have when you've forgotten something. And as I began to search my mind for what it could possibly be, the sensation changed. It began to feel like someone was mentally prodding me, or tugging at my sleeve, or trying to get my attention. But it wasn't something in the room. It was something in my head.

I felt something moving against my wrist, and when I looked down at the snake bracelet I always wore, I saw that its eyes were glowing green. The bracelet gave a little squirm and I felt a shiver run up the back of my neck and at last I realised what the weird sensation was.

Someone was calling me.

Perhaps I should explain.

The bracelet isn't an ordinary bracelet, and I'm not an ordinary girl – not anymore. My father bought the bracelet for me about four months ago from a market stall in China, and as soon as I put it on weird things
started happening to me. When I got mad at somebody, bad things happened to them. One girl got struck by lightning. My maths teacher's house burned down. The minute I put the bracelet on I suddenly had access to the forces of destruction. Or, to be more accurate about it, the forces of destruction had access to me.

This is how it was explained to me. There are two forces at work upon the world: the forces of destruction and the forces of order. My side, the forces of destruction, are trying to tear things apart. The other side, the forces of order, are trying to hold things together. Ideally you want both forces in balance, with just enough chaos to keep things interesting and just enough order to stop everything falling apart. The only problem is, of course, they're never in balance. The world swings wildly back and forth between order and chaos, and that, I guess, is where we come in. Both forces have agents on earth – people who do their stuff for them. Destroyers destroy things, while agents of order – well, I don't know exactly what they do, but I think they mostly just try to get rid of all the agents of destruction. So when I'm not zapping people with lightning bolts, that's one of the other things I have to do as a destroyer: stay out of the way of the agents of order, or risk getting neutralised.

Everything I know about the forces of destruction I learnt from Ben. He's another destroyer, and he's my guide. We met because he got a summons through his bracelet one day, just like the one I was getting now, and he knew he had to come and find me. The bracelets are kind of cool that way – you can use them to
communicate with other destroyers, and if you need to find each other, they show you where to go.

When another destroyer calls you it's like hearing a voice in your head, although you feel it as much as hear it. And you can usually tell from the tone of it what kind of call it is. The first time Ben called me, it was like a warm little voice whispering in my ear; the second time was like a shout and it had an acidic, adrenaliny flavour to it that set my nerves jangling. Both times, too, the voice and the feeling had been unmistakably Ben.

This time, it wasn't.

But if it wasn't Ben, who could it be?

I looked across at him, and found that he was staring at me, a look of shock on his face. He'd obviously felt it too. His hand had already moved to cover his own snake bracelet, but between his fingers I could see the tiniest glint of green. What the hell was going on?

‘Come on! Come on! Go you good thing! Yes! Yes! Ahahaha!' The Reds had scored. ‘This is it, this is the fightback,' Dad said encouragingly to the screen. ‘Come on boys, you can do it.'

The summons was clawing away at the inside of both our heads. It was not the kind of thing you could just ignore. We had to go and answer it.

‘Dad,' I said, ‘we have to go out.'

Dad tore his eyes away from the screen. ‘Where are you going?'

‘I promised I'd drop something off at a friend's place,' Ben said. ‘Melissa's going to keep me company.'

‘Can't it wait until the end of the game?'

‘We're going to lose,' I said.

‘Traitor,' Dad said, and turned back to the telly. ‘Let us know if you're going to be late for dinner.'

‘So who do you think is calling us?' I asked, as we stepped out into the drizzle and hurried to Ben's ancient car, which was parked on the street.

‘No idea,' Ben said.

The car was freezing. ‘Don't you have a heater?' I asked, as I climbed into the passenger seat.

‘It's got two settings,' Ben said. ‘Roasting or off.'

‘Could we try roasting for a while?'

Ben shrugged and switched on the heating. It came on with a roar. It was like standing in front of a hairdryer.

Winter. I hate everything about it. The rain and the cold mornings and the sitting in classrooms that smell like wet wool and the short days and the absence of sunshine and the fact that there's no cricket. I am not a winter person, and I think anyone who
is
a winter person clearly has something wrong with them. Normally it would take something pretty exceptional to coax me outside on a day like this, but I guess a new destroyer would have to count as pretty exceptional.

The summons was strong. I could feel the tug of it, as if someone had hooked a line into my sternum and was slowly reeling me in. The streets were quiet as we drove along, following the call of that other destroyer. The image of a park filled my head insistently: gravelled paths winding through grass, the rounded shapes of shrubs, a children's playground, a rotunda decorated
with iron lacework. Whoever was calling us, that was where they'd be waiting – the rotunda.

Ben reached over and switched the radio on. Over the roar of the heater, we listened as the Reds went down in a screaming heap.

‘At least we've defended our position at the bottom of the ladder,' I said.

‘It's important to be consistent,' Ben agreed.

At last we reached our destination. Ben pulled over to the side of the road and killed the engine. The heater whirred to a halt. Outside, the drizzle had turned into slanting rain.
Why couldn't they have chosen a nice cosy shopping mall as a meeting place?
I wondered.
Somewhere with undercover parking, indoors.

‘This had better be worth it,' I said grumpily.

Ben gave me his lopsided smile. ‘Let's do it,' he said, and climbed out of the car.

Hunched against the rain, we ran across the sodden grass towards the rotunda, while the cold wind pressed my jeans against my legs and whipped my hair into a demented frizz. I crashed up the steps of the rotunda, losing my footing on the slippery boards, and just as I was about to take a nosedive, a hand reached out to steady me. I felt a jolt as if I'd touched a live power cable, and when I looked up into the new destroyer's face he was so gorgeous I suddenly found it hard to breathe.

‘Are you okay?' the owner of the hand said. ‘I'm Finn.'

Finn had grey-green eyes and fair hair that curled and the face of an angel – sweet and boyish – but behind that angelic façade I could sense the forces of destruction
surging around inside him, barely contained. It was hard to tell how old he was, but I guessed he was just a little older than Ben – maybe eighteen or nineteen. He was dressed plainly and casually in jeans, a black jumper, a battered black coat.

‘Sorry to drag you out in this weather,' he said, ‘but it's safer to do this kind of thing out in the open.'

‘Hey, that's okay,' I said, a little breathlessly. ‘We don't mind.'

Ben gave me a slightly amused, what's-up-with-you look, then said, ‘So what's this all about, mate?'

‘Whenever I come to a new town I put a call out to all the destroyers in the area,' Finn began, looking from Ben to me. ‘Do you know if there are any more of you?'

‘As far as we know,' Ben said, ‘we're it.'

‘Wow,' Finn said. ‘Just the two of you, huh?'

‘Ben's my guide,' I said. ‘He taught me everything I know.'

‘What happened to yours?' Finn asked, looking at Ben.

‘Neutralised.'

‘That sucks,' Finn said, frowning. ‘Sorry to hear that.'

Ben shrugged his acknowledgement.

‘So tell me,' Finn said, ‘have you had much to do with the white circle yet?'

The white circle was another name for the forces of order.

‘A bit,' Ben said casually.

‘Actually it was more than just a bit,' I said, eager to let Finn know that we weren't the novices we probably
appeared to be, and I told him about the five agents who'd come after us and how we'd dealt with them all (well, nearly all) the night of my school social.

When I'd finished, Finn was smiling at me. ‘You guys kick ass,' he said, although he was mostly looking at me.

I blushed and said thanks, basking in his approval. ‘And what about you?' I asked.

‘Ah, you know,' Finn said modestly. ‘I've had a few close calls.'

‘Like?'

‘Well,' he began, ‘there was this one time I was hanging out with a mate in this little country town. Two pubs, 40 inhabitants – you wouldn't think there's going to be an agent of order in a place like that, right? I mean, what'd be the point? So anyway, we're just being complete idiots, fooling around out the back of town blowing stuff up, and this lady drives up –'

‘What do you mean, blowing stuff up?' I interrupted.

‘Come on,' Finn said, giving me a wicked smile. ‘Don't tell me you've never used your powers to blow something up, just for the hell of it?'

‘Well,' I said, and I couldn't help smiling back, ‘maybe once or twice.'

‘So there you go,' Finn said. ‘This place used to be a mining town, and there are all these old houses out in the back-blocks where nobody lives anymore. They're all deserted and they're falling apart and so me and my mate decided we'd just help nature along a bit. Hey, have you got the flame-thrower working yet?'

‘Flame-thrower?' I squeaked.

‘I'll show you. You'll love it,' Finn said, giving me an
irresistible smile. ‘Anyway, we've torched all these old houses and the flames are going about a mile high, and suddenly this ute drives up, and it's being driven by this old battle-axe who looks like a rugby player in a dress. And I'm thinking, uh-oh, here comes the fun police, and she says, “What do you think you're doing?” And I said, “We're just having a bit of fun, we'll be moving along now, sorry about the damage,” and she says, “I don't think you will, sonny jim.” And she just pointed her hand at me and wham – I couldn't move.'

‘What – you mean she was going to neutralise you?' I gasped.

‘Yep.'

‘But I thought they had to touch you to neutralise you,' I said.

‘Not this lady,' Finn said. ‘Strongest powers I've ever come across. She was like Medusa, she could turn you to stone just by looking at you.'

‘So how did you get away?' I asked.

‘My mate had gone for a slash and she hadn't seen him, and when he came back and saw what was happening he chucked a bottle at her and broke her concentration. If it wasn't for him I'd be neutralised now.'

‘So how come he wasn't affected by her powers?' I asked.

‘He was a civilian,' Finn said. ‘All that neutralising stuff doesn't work on them.'

‘Wow,' I said. I was very impressed, not so much by the story but by the sense of a lifetime of adventure that must have begun at a staggeringly young age. ‘Lucky you had him with you,' I offered, letting my mind drift
for a moment over the plucky and ingenious things I might have done to rescue Finn if I'd been with him instead of his civilian mate.