Hunt and Power. Stephen Hayes

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СКАЧАТЬ but couldn’t see anyone else from the so-called Young Army mixed in with the mass of students. Harry opened his locker a moment later, causing a rather large gap between the nearest students, large enough for me to get a glimpse of Mr. Hall, our least favourite teacher and the one who had given us so many detentions, prowling the locker bay. The gap was caused because when Harry had opened his locker, about seven or eight of his textbooks had gone flying through the air; his locker appeared to be cursed, sending its contents across the room whenever he opened it.

      “You didn’t say—you never—you should have told me that was yours,” shouted Amelia over the racket, straightening up after she’d dived sideways to avoid Harry’s Maths book. She gave the locker a pointed glance, making it obvious what she was talking about.

      “I forgot,” he said, giving his locker a hip-and-shoulder to close it. It was trembling, apparently wishing to send more books out. “But can you…”

      “I did that,” she said. “That was mine last year.”

      “What?” Harry’s jaw gaped, and Peter made a spectacle of standing on his toes to get a good look at Harry’s tonsils.

      “I thought of leaving a little surprise for the next person to use my old locker.”

      “Can you fix it then?” he asked. “’Cause it's been driving me mad all year.”

      “I’ll think about it,” she said slyly.

      * * *

      After that the morning was extremely dull; Science and French passed without any incident, apart from perhaps Mrs. Lynch giving the French class a good talking to for not completing the work she’d set for us in her absence (although I personally couldn’t remember Hall handing it out). Home group was mildly amusing, for when Harry asked Hall why he’d shortened the number of students for that afternoon’s detention, the teacher replied that he didn’t think (as Simon had suggested) that he would be capable of handling so many trouble makers in one place at one time.

      We all met up at recess again; we Playmans, Thomases, Harry, Simon, Natalie, Lisa, Marc and Tommy, anyway. Thankfully none of the others joined us, although Erica had followed James into the locker bay and was whispering something to him. James was listening with an unreadable expression on his face, which was a change from the way he had been ignoring her completely a week ago. When she walked away, Peter and I stared pointedly at him, but he passed no hint of what she had said. We didn’t have time to think about it though, because a moment later Amelia had turned up, looking extremely anxious.

      “Er—Marc, can we have a word?” she asked nervously. All us boys glanced around at each other, smirking; Amelia had the hots for Marc. Nicole, who also had a spot for him, scowled at Amelia.

      “Er — I guess,” said Marc awkwardly, clearly thinking the same as the rest of us.

      “We’ll meet you at the toilet block, bro,” Tommy called after him as the two of them disappeared into the mass of students.

      “She can’t be serious,” I heard Nicole whispering furiously to Natalie as we walked towards the toilet block, our proffered recess and lunch hang-out spot, five minutes later. “With the amount of danger he’s in right now and she wants to go and get him all side-tracked? Why didn’t I just…”

      “Maybe it’s not what it looks like,” said Natalie, but the tone of her voice told me that she didn’t really believe what she was saying.

      As it happened, Marc returned well into recess. We’d all finished eating by that stage, and he hadn’t even started. My mind was racing, trying to imagine what he and Amelia had been doing all this time.

      “So, how’d it go?” Harry asked in a voice that would have made me want to hit him if I’d been in Marc’s shoes.

      “Interesting,” he said uneasily. “Something rather unusual is going on.”

      “Nah, nothing unusual about it, mate,” said Simon, grinning broadly.

      “Would you like me to explain what I’m talking about, then?” Marc asked the twins. They both fell back, clearly wondering how grossed out they were about to be, but Marc was grinning. “Well, I was talking to Amelia and Stella,” he went on, and my heart fell; it was about the Crystals. It must be. “And Stella was telling us about something that happened with her family last night.”

      “Oh fantastic,” said Peter. “They don’t know about us—about the army—do they?”

      “Don’t say that around here,” hissed Marc, staring around wildly for eavesdroppers. “If anyone hears that name, they’ll certainly be onto us. That’s for our ears only.”

      “Sorry,” said Peter, abashed. “But do they?”

      “No idea,” said Marc. “They probably do. I mean, they know I’ve got two Crystals, so I’d say so. Anyway, Stella’s birthday’s on Sunday, right, and her family—”

      “Is it really?” asked Harry buoyantly. “Why didn’t you say so? We’ll have to get her a present, Simon. Any suggestions?”

      “Never mind that now,” said James impatiently. “What’s with her family, Marc?”

      “They want to celebrate it,” he said shortly.

      The group went quiet, staring at one another. Stella’s family celebrate her birthday, after everything they had done to her? After all the torture and humiliation they had inflicted upon her—after I had watched them use an agonator on her in front of hundreds of people—they would suddenly turn around and do this? I doubted they’d ever celebrated her birthday before now, so what was going on? Why now? Finally Peter voiced what I was thinking.

      “That is extremely dodgy.”

      “Isn’t it though,” said Marc, nodding. “And they’re determined to make it something big for her.”

      “What’s in it for them?” asked Peter.

      “That’s what we don’t know,” said Marc. “My guess is that they want to gain her trust and use her against the Woodwards, but I can’t help wondering if there’s more to it than that. Anyway, she made them seal a pact making it safe for us all to attend.”

      “No way, man,” said Tommy. “You know they want me—”

      “What do you mean, ‘seal a pact’?” Nicole asked nervously.

      “It’s a magical promise that they cannot break,” said Lisa promptly before Marc could open his mouth.

      “And if they do?” asked Felicity.

      “They get bad luck—the worst luck—”

      “I’m not superstitious enough to believe that,” said James. “They’re up to something, though; that, I'll believe.”

      “Exactly what did the pact say?” I asked Marc. My insides had chilled because although I’d never heard anyone speak about a pact before, Marc’s words sounded horribly familiar.

      “That they will not use their magic, or a device they’ve created СКАЧАТЬ