Killer Game Read online

  ‘Here!’ Whitney, one of the other girls in my year, plucks a rolled up piece of paper from one of the skull’s eye sockets. She turns the paper round to us, with a flourish. There’s a number four on it, in black ink.

  ‘4 p.m.?’ I guess.

  Whitney blinks her big baby blues at me from underneath an artfully ragged fringe of black hair. She has a brother in a rock band and a not-so-secret tattoo, and she thinks she’s hella edgy. ‘You’re going to go far with that detective work, Cate.’

  ‘The first Summoning,’ thrills Martin. ‘The Killer will be selected! I cannot wait.’

  ‘Where’s the Place Most Holy?’ I say. ‘The amphitheatre?’

  ‘Way too public,’ says Whitney. ‘And during the day it’s overrun by the drama crowd, shouting, or whatever they do.’

  ‘Hey, there’s a map!’ It’s Emily, a long-limbed sporty girl who was harvested first, earlier this week. She’s found something at the back of the black book. A very basic map of Skola is inked on the inside cover. ‘PMH, it says.’ She taps a short, teal fingernail. ‘Hazarding a guess that’s Place Most Holy. Here on West Beach.’

  ‘The beach?’ Tesha says. ‘Brrrr!’

  ‘No, the caves.’ Martin’s eyes gleam, pupils dark and wide with pleasure.

  ‘Really?’ I say. ‘OK . . .’

  ‘Dangerous,’ says Tesha. ‘But I guess that’s what we signed up for.’

  The bell rings for the end of breakfast, we pocket our books and clean up the Guild’s mess, as Alex predicted. I glance at the clock on the wall; twenty minutes before lessons start, joy of joys. But just enough time.

  I duck out into the corridor and hurry towards the side door, crossing the courtyard of the school’s Main House at pace. Then it’s a quick sprint down by the side of the art studios to the small prefab building that houses The Loathsome Toad – the school’s newspaper. There’s a cluster of pine trees to the rear, and a small wooden shed. I walk round to the back, and there, on a big, flat boulder, looking out to sea, is Marcia. She’s smoking a cigarette.

  ‘You were the lucky one last night, then?’ She doesn’t bother turning round, just runs a hand through her heavy, brown hair. She has the longest hair, and it’s utterly gorgeous, a thick sheet hanging down her back.

  ‘I was?’ I perch beside her on the rock, the smoke piercing my nostrils and making my eyes water. She proffers the cigarette in my direction and I shake my head, as I invariably do. She looks at me, her down-turned hazel eyes smiling, an amused dimple twitching in her olive cheek.

  ‘You got to go face down in the doo-doo.’

  I huff. ‘Martin and Tesha swore they wouldn’t tell!’

  ‘Relax,’ Marcia says. ‘They didn’t say a word.’

  I frown at her. ‘So how—’

  ‘Guild knows everything, darling,’ she purrs, her voice rich and low, with only the slightest hint of her Spanish homeland. ‘Soon as you accept that, the happier you’ll be, young apprentice.’ She winks one heavy-lidded eye, trying not to smile. ‘But what a trial!’ She takes my hand and squeezes it. ‘You must forgive us. It was very tough.’

  I clench my jaw, remembering the taste. ‘It was crappy, Marcia.’

  She nods, serious. We look at each other. We scream, she hugs me.

  ‘I’m in!’ I yell, rocking her from side to side. Her long hair covers my face, smelling sweet and spicy.

  ‘Of course you are!’ she says, giggling. ‘My lovely, we are going to have a ball!’

  We tip and roll off the rock, screaming some more, then picking ourselves up, still laughing.

  ‘Oh!’ I fling my head back to the sky, letting the relief run through my body. ‘I really didn’t believe it was going to happen. I am so stoked!’ I can be truthful with Marcia, she’s probably the only one. With everyone else there’s an element of cool that has to be maintained. I beam at her. ‘And there’s a Summoning this afternoon! The Killer will be selected, right?’ I delve for the book and flash it at her. ‘Is this your work?’ I ask.

  She tilts her head. ‘Some of it. Rules don’t change that much year to year, but you’ve got to write them down in a new and exciting way. And sometimes there are little twists.’

  ‘Hmm.’ I flick through the book. ‘I bet there are. Nice font, by the way.’

  She laughs. ‘Thanks, sweetie. Thriller was getting so predictable, come on . . .’ Her mouth forms a pretty moue.

  ‘So, the Summoning is in the caves?’ I shake my head in wonder. ‘That’s where you’ve been hanging out every autumn term?’

  ‘No,’ she stubs out the cigarette and flicks it to the grass, exhaling a dragon-blow of smoke from her red lips. ‘This is new for us too. The oldies always used to meet there, back in the beginning, but then Ezra declared it out of bounds.’

  I nod. ‘Because it’s too dangerous? Because of the tides?’

  ‘Tides and tunnels and sinking sand.’ She shrugs. ‘Plus they used to drink and play dumb games.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ I say, smiling. ‘And there’ll be absolutely none of that with us.’

  She raises an eyebrow. ‘It’s a place we won’t be discovered, won’t be disturbed. That’s the main thing.’ She frowns at me. ‘Speaking about fun and games, have you had a chance to talk to Daniel yet? Properly.’

  Instantly my excitement is dulled.

  ‘No.’

  Marcia sighs. ‘Did you see him over the holidays?’

  I say nothing.

  ‘Message him?’ She rolls her eyes. ‘Anything at all?’

  ‘Don’t have a go!’ I groan at her. ‘He hasn’t talked to me, either. It takes two to tango.’

  ‘Hmm. I don’t think that’s what you two were doing at the pool last term . . .’ She tuts at me.

  ‘It was just a stupid kiss!’

  ‘Maybe.’ Marcia shrugs. ‘But it’s up to you to tell him you’re not interested.’

  ‘Why?’ I moan.

  She looks at me closely. ‘Because he is.’ She puts a hand on my arm. ‘Interested. In you. Like that.’ I look down, embarrassed, but she goes on. ‘You owe him the talk, at least. He’s a good friend, Cate. And let’s face it, you don’t have that many.’

  ‘Thanks!’ I snap. But I can’t exactly argue. She’s right on both counts.

  She gets up. ‘Come on, we’re going to be late.’ She grabs her huge carpet bag. ‘Ah! I cannot wait for you to see the cave, it looks so spooky! Spooky!’ She elongates the ‘o’s, as she swings the bag over her shoulder and heads up the path back to relative civilization again. ‘See you later.’

  ‘Any tips?’ I shout after her.

  She turns round, frowns. ‘For Daniel?’

  ‘No!’ I shake my head. ‘For the Game.’

  She laughs, and sets off again. ‘Don’t get Killed!’

  I stay on the rock. ‘But what if it turns out I get to be the Killer, Marcia? Ever think what would happen then?’

  This stops her sure enough. She turns round and blinks at me, face suddenly serious. ‘Then I would be afraid. Very afraid.’ She does a little salute, laughs and then turns, her hair swaying after her.

  ‘You and me both,’ I mutter.

  CHAPTER 3

  Big things on my mind; and none of them Daniel.

  It’s not like I don’t feel for Daniel. I know what it’s like to lust and lose someone, it sucks; I had that scene with Alex. Well, same but different. With Alex, we had that one snogfest, and then he expected me to come back for more, and remarkably, I didn’t. I wanted to, I’ll admit it, but he’s messy with exes and way more in love with himself than with anyone else. He’s also Popular, Hot and A Great Kisser, but I just knew I shouldn’t go there, not again.

  To my terrified delight, Alex actually chased me a little afterwards, which was a first for him, as far as I know. He turned the charm on again, and guess what? I didn’t bite. He tried to act casual, but I think it rocked his world that I said no. Not something he’s used to hearing.

  And me? I was shaken up by t
he whole thing so much I ended up kissing one of my best friends on the rebound. Daniel. Ever accommodating. Now I’m terrified he might think we’re something other than friends. Since we’ve been back at school Daniel and I have only said hi, smiled, done the pleasantries. I hope he doesn’t expect that we’ll soon be whispering sweet nothings.

  We won’t. I like him as a friend, but I don’t really fancy him. He’s not bad to look at in a wiry, hipster kind of way. Scruffed-up hair, chocolate eyes. What’s more, he’s funny, he’s clever and quixotic, and he keeps my brain ticking over. On the flipside, he’s just too intense, and let’s face it, he has issues.

  If I was a social pariah when I was first at Umfraville, Daniel was the bug on my boot. Actually, he was probably the bug in the field in another county, he was so absent. It’s your classic story of musical genius, I suppose. Crazy parents, prodigious kiddo, hours locked away raking a bow over strings. Zero socialization. School happened, and bullying with it. His parents weren’t rich and he went to some inner-city place with hundreds of kids. He was picked on, beaten up, humiliated, the full works. He says music got him through, and it certainly got him out. He won a scholarship to a private school, but the bullying didn’t go away; his tormentors just had posher accents this time. I suppose some people are always victims. The way he tells it, this stuff follows him around. The truth is, when he was at the Lausanne, he had a mini-breakdown, and one of his teachers gave his parents a good talking-to. They pulled him out and sent him to Umfraville, in the hope it would give him some normal. Yeah, well.

  He’d been here a term or two and Marcia interviewed him for The Loathsome Toad. The two struck up a friendship. She likes collecting loners and losers; she collected me, after all. And through her, Daniel and I became friends. Last term at the summer party, with end of term recklessness and the ache of rejecting Alex, Daniel and I became more.

  Anyway . . . Marcia flits between different social groups, and last year, she dragged Daniel into the Game. I was sore at the time, because she didn’t get me in too. But she said they’d only give her one choice of new member, and it had to be Daniel, because he needed it more. Now I’m in the Game, we’ll all be in each other’s pockets whether I like it or not.

  Oh, hell. I have to speak to him. Soon.

  But today, there is only the Game.

  It is usually the law of the universe that when you have something to look forward to, time moves abominably slowly. It’s always tough having school on a Saturday; it seems to go against the natural order of things. Saturday mornings should be for kicking back with several bowls of cereal and crappy kids’ TV, lazily texting your mates to sort out the wheres and whens for meeting later in the day. But for the last three years here at Umfraville I haven’t been able to have the lie-in. I haven’t been able to have the texting, either, but I’ll get to that later.

  I can’t really complain too much. Last year I had Maths and double French on a Saturday, which licked the sweat off a dead man, but this year I have it cushy: triple Art. I love Art; I get lost in it. Three hours always rushes by. Full immersion. There’ll be no thinking about Danielgate, or how my parents haven’t called, or wondering if I’ll eat a proper tea tonight or sacrifice it for a guilty chocolate bar and a flatter stomach. With Art, I just exist in the work, and it feels good.

  And my Art crew are pretty easy-going. Sure, we have some full-on prodigies here – like, kids who have exhibited in London and New York, and not just on their parents’ fridges – but they’re cool. Loony, but chill. And Mr Flynn is our teacher, which is most wonderful.

  OK, I’m going to just pre-empt the Mr Flynn thing with you, because I know what you’re probably thinking. Rest easy, folks. Before you go having those thoughts that something inappropriate is going on in my head about Mr Flynn – or, yuck, something is going on in his head about me, don’t even. We have a strictly platonic relationship. Granted, it’s a little more than student-teacher, and we’re both fine with that. I think Ezra and some of the other staff might have something to say about it, and I know my parents would freak if they knew that we’re friends, because adults have filthy minds about these things.

  Actually, kids do too. My friends have given me grief about it, it’s true. Marcia teases me, more than anything. Daniel is more hard-line, but I think that’s because he’s jealous. Face it, I’m too boring to be major news within the general populace. And Mr Flynn would back off wholesale if he thought we were seriously being gossiped about.

  So, this is it: we hang out with each other sometimes. As I said before, he was the first person I felt any kind of connection with here, the only person who talked to me like I was someone. It started with me stopping by the studio to work in my spare time, but then there was nothing unusual with that, most of the kids who are serious about art practically live there. But then I was working on a project with driftwood, and so Mr Flynn would take me to where the best stuff washes up, and help me lug it back from the beach to the studio in his bucket-of-bolts car. We talked about art, and music, and movies, and London. We found out that we both laugh at the same things, and are randomly freaked out by pomegranates. But mostly I bonded with him because he listened to my nonsense and insecure babble, and because he kind of got me in a way that nobody here does. Oh, I know it sounds utterly boyfriend/girlfriend-y, and as if I have some loser-type of pash for him, so you’ll just have to trust me. He’s old, anyway. Eighties kid. Thirty-five or forty, I don’t know. Yes, he’s fit. But in that way your mum would like. When I started being friends with Marcia and Daniel, Flynny and I kind of dialled it down, but he’s still my favourite teacher, no doubt.

  According to the clock, I get to the lesson five minutes late, which is skilful, considering I was loitering with Marcia just down the path from the studio. Mr Flynn is in full flow when I enter, outlining the things we’ll be covering in the upcoming term. He has an air of agitation about him. He arrived back to school a week late this term, for reasons unknown. The rumours were varied – a split with his girlfriend, the death of a parent, or most juicily, an arrest. The kids are nothing if not imaginative here. I’ll get the truth from him at some point, probably.

  He doesn’t comment on my tardiness to class, as I slip into my place in the studio and quietly begin unpacking my stuff. I’m glad to be home. And this is home.

  The next three hours fly by, and when the bell for the end of school sounds, I’m floating so high above myself that it’s a real effort to come back down to earth. But then I do, and I get that lovely excited feeling of having something even better to look forward to. The Summoning! As I gather up my belongings and glance out of the window for Marcia, Mr Flynn walks by my table. He nods to the Guild’s band on my wrist.

  ‘You’re involved with that shenanigans this term.’

  I smile pleasantly, as kids file out past us. ‘Do I detect a hint of jealousy?’ I say, sotto voce.

  He eyes me, face set. ‘Would I jump at the chance to be in your shoes? Er, no, Cate, I would not. Whatever devilry unfolds over the next few weeks is sure to be nothing but hard work for everyone else.’ Then something in him relaxes a little. ‘But I hope you enjoy it.’

  I fling my remaining things into my bag and stand up. Much as I like the chat, I have places to be. Everyone else has left by now, mostly to catch the bus back to the mainland.

  Mr Flynn puts a hand on my shoulder. My stomach jumps and I look at him, surprised. Physical contact between us is unprecedented, probably because he knows how it might seem to others.

  ‘Just be careful, OK?’ His eyes are grey, cool. ‘They throw some seriously stupid stunts sometimes. Don’t get over-involved.’

  Ha, if only you knew what I was doing last night.

  He removes the hand. ‘All I’m saying is, don’t lose focus. It’s an important couple of years for you, and you need to channel your energy.’ The cool greys dart around the studio. ‘This is where you belong. We’re going to get you into art school, aren’t we?’

  I nod,
smile, but inside my heart is flipping. Blimey. How about putting the pressure on, first day you’re back, Flynny? I’ve got two full years before I have to quit this joint and work out what I’m actually going to do with my actual life. Unlike most people here, I don’t have my every move planned out for me.

  ‘Sure.’ I nod, tight-lipped, and make a run for the door. I glance back and see him still watching me. Something’s off. Maybe he was late back because of some hideous trauma during the summer hols? I’d kind of thought it was just a music festival.

  As I jog past the Main House courtyard, I see crowds boarding the two buses bound for the mainland.

  I head towards the clock tower quadrangle, which comprises the library building and the sixth-form studies and common room. A few people are still milling about, but the small study I share with Marcia is empty. I dump my art stuff on my desk and take a glance at my laptop to see if I have any new IMs on the Umfraville intranet.

  Yes, intranet. Umfraville is weird and trying in many ways, because it’s on an island, and it’s an island that we only get off once every few weeks. What’s even worse, however, is that we are cut off from the real world in a much more significant way. We have no phones, no internet.

  I know. Can you imagine teenage life without them?

  I’m exaggerating slightly. There is phone reception here – patchy, in the north of the island, almost two miles away from the school buildings – but use of mobiles is strictly forbidden anywhere. We have to hand our phones in when we get here, and we’re only allowed them back for the rare Saturday exeats off-island. There is a coin payphone in the dorms, and one more in a cold porch off the common room.

  Of course, we have computers . . . and laptops, tablets, e-readers. It’s not the Middle Ages here, and with the kind of special kids we have, it’s not like you can deny people access to the World Wide Web. However, Ezra is completely against ninety-five per cent of the internet. His view is that Umfraville is an academy of excellence, and his prodigies have no business being distracted by the junk-yard of the web. We have a school intranet, set up and policed by the technology teacher, Ms Lasillo. Through this we have instant messaging, The Loathsome Toad newspaper site and access to timetables and shared files. And once a day during evening study, you can get online to the rest of the world for a whole sixty minutes – send emails home and visit approved (read: educational) sites. But no social networking, no gossip pages. It would probably be easier to find information on how to build a home-made bomb than watch a movie trailer or look at shoes. Of course, if there’s something that you particularly want to peruse that is behind the firewall, you can make your case to Ezra and maybe he’ll let you have a peep. Supervised, usually. Because Ezra knows that once there’s a chink in the armour, a leak in the dam, before we know it the whole world will come crashing down on our shoulders. And what are we, here, if not protected from the world?