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Authors: Gabrielle Lord

November (3 page)

BOOK: November
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‘Take a breather. The helicopter can’t see you in here.’

‘You’re really trying to help me?’ I gasped, doubled over. There were so many other questions I wanted to ask him, but now wasn’t the time.

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Better than a night of tagging. And it’s not like I can keep on tagging when the entire police force has descended on the city. That would be asking for trouble.’

‘So do you know somewhere we can hide?’

‘I have a better idea. Nothing beats a good relay race, Cal.’

‘A relay race?’

‘Pass the baton, bro!’

Before I could even comprehend what he was saying, he grabbed at my blazer, wrenching it from me, while shrugging off his check shirt.

‘Quick, let’s swap,’ he said, as he began pulling on my blazer, over a singlet. ‘I’ll continue the chase for you. Put my shirt on and stay here. We don’t have much time.’

‘But if they catch you—’ I started to say.

‘Don’t worry; they’re not going to catch me. Not if I can help it. Come on,’ he urged, passing
me a cap to wear. ‘Anyway, if they do catch me, they can’t arrest
me
, can they—I mean, I’m not you, am I?’

Stunned, I buttoned up the shirt he’d given me to wear. He pulled my blazer’s collar up around his face.

‘Wish me luck,’ he grinned, only his sunburnt nose showing. ‘I’ll take them on for as long as possible. I won my school’s under-15
cross-country
race last year, so I should be able to give you plenty of time to get away.’

I was about to tell him that I’d won
my
school’s under-15 cross-country race last year too, when he stepped out of the alcove, nodded to me, turned and ran.

The sound of his footsteps soon disappeared, and then the sirens picked up their wailing again, clearly having spotted Ryan—posing as me—emerging from the station.

I sank into the alcove as the SWAT team, chasing Ryan on foot, ran right past me and my hiding spot. I held my breath as they thundered by, intent on capturing the lone figure in the blazer ahead of them.

The identity switch had worked!

Carefully I peered out. The brilliant beam from
the helicopter was sweeping over the cityscape, just beyond the station. I waited about ten
minutes
before silently making my way towards the basketball courts and hauling myself up the perimeter fence.

From my vantage point, high up the wire
netting
, I could just make out Ryan in the distance, a running silhouette in my clothes, circled in the chopper spotlight, leading the chase far, far away from the ‘real’ me.

The drone of the fugitive chase was fading with every metre that Ryan led the fierce hunt away. Around me, the sounds of the night had almost returned to normal. I hung from the netting like an exhausted monkey, before finally releasing my grip and letting myself drop to the ground.

I plodded up the stairs to Winter’s flat,
climbing
like I was about a hundred years old. I owed Ryan Spencer big time. He’d shown up like a decoy clone, saved my exhausted butt, and left me behind with my mind spinning.

We were so similar, he
had
to be my twin, but nothing made sense. What had happened to us?
I recalled his November birth date. We didn’t share the same birthday and we didn’t share the same mum … It just wasn’t possible.

Ryan had always run away from me in the past, why had he suddenly decided to help me?

Finally at the top of the stairs, I could see Winter’s flat. It wasn’t in complete darkness—the flicker of her TV screen was visible, glowing through a window.

I knocked softly at the door.

‘Winter, it’s me.’

I thought I heard a gasp, and then the volume of the TV was turned down.

‘Winter,’ I whispered again, ‘can you let me in?’

Something tumbled to the floor as her
scurrying
feet approached. The door opened slowly and her smoky eyes peered through at me.

She looked dazed—maybe she’d been asleep on the couch. Slowly she stepped back and let me pass, all the time staring at me like I was a ghost.

‘But how can you be here,’ she murmured, ‘when you’re also over there?’

I glanced over to where she was pointing. On the TV screen, a grainy, shaky aerial image showed Ryan’s figure, circled by chopper light, running along the Georges River.

She looked at me for an answer. ‘It’s meant
to be live footage,’ she said. ‘I just saw you—a close-up of you, Callum Ormond! How did you get from there to here?’

‘I can explain.’

‘And what are you wearing?’ she frowned,
tugging
on the check shirt that Ryan had swapped with me. ‘You’re covered in flecks of white paint, or something.’

‘Can I please get a drink first?’ I asked as I collapsed in a chair at the table. I ran my hands through my hair and realised it was full of grit and dirt from the explosions.

Winter looked at me, then back at the screen. ‘What’s going on? If you’re standing right here with me, then who’s that on the TV?’

‘My ultimate body double,’ I said, catching the popper she’d tossed to me.

‘Ryan? Ryan Spencer? Is that what you’re saying? What do you mean? How could that be?’

‘Has Boges filled you in on what went down at the chapel?’

‘You stopped the hitman and the wedding. Your uncle, mum and Gab are OK; he told me all about it,’ she rushed, ‘but we had no idea what happened to you, or whether you got away OK. Please just hurry up and explain
that
,’ she said, pointing to the TV once more.

‘They chased me for ages, all the way from the
chapel down to Central Station. Then just when I thought I’d run out of chances, Ryan Spencer turned up. It was crazy. We swapped clothes and then he ran off—’

‘—and led the chase away so that you could escape,’ Winter finished for me. ‘It’s genius! The perfect decoy! And he can’t be arrested, because he’s not you!’

‘Exactly,’ I agreed. ‘Although I hope it doesn’t come to that—he’d have a lot of explaining to do. I hope he gets away,’ I said, noticing that the newsflash had ended and the screen had returned to some late-night fitness infomercial.

I lay awake on the couch, replaying images from last night at Chapel-by-the-Sea. I recalled Gabbi, pulling at the flowers in her hair. I cringed as I pictured Mum and Rafe standing together—about to be wed. I couldn’t get my head around it, but I reminded myself that I had succeeded in what I had set out to do. I was there to protect Rafe from the assassin, and that’s exactly what I had done.

Next I pictured that weird old fungus guy, Dr Leporello. He’d issued me the warning, for whatever reason, and I was relieved I’d taken
him seriously. Otherwise, Rafe, or some other innocent person, could have been taken down by a bullet.

For the time being, at least, the wedding was off. Now I had to return my focus to the real job: locating the Ormond Riddle and the Ormond Jewel and getting them both—together with myself and my friends—to the Keeper of Rare Books at Trinity College in Dublin. And that was only the start of the Ireland investigation.

A long time had passed since that fateful New Year’s Eve warning. There were only sixty-one days left in the countdown to December 31st, and in that time we had so much to do. It seemed absolutely impossible. Not only did we have to retrieve the Riddle and the Jewel, and get
ourselves
over to Ireland, we also had to be the first to put together the clues and uncover the secret of the Ormond Singularity … and find out what really happened to my dad.

Then, of course, there was the matter of
clearing
my name so that my life on the run could finally come to an end.

We needed to get a serious move on.

The flat was empty but Winter had left a note.

I pulled my phone off its charger and called Boges.

‘Boges, it’s me. I’m OK.’

‘I know,’ he said in a hushed voice. ‘Winter already called me this morning. Crazy night, huh?’

‘Insane!’

‘Dude, I’m at school and am about to sit a big exam, so I’ll have to go in a sec, but just quickly—I was really worried about the amount of magnesium I used in the Special FX. Did it work?’

BOOK: November
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