Hunt and Power. Stephen Hayes

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СКАЧАТЬ thing I could do if I was serious about Natalie.

      “Are you close to her?” I asked George, turning back to the situation at hand. I didn’t think my own sister would ever share that kind of information with me or Peter. I wasn’t aware of her having a boyfriend in the past. I knew of her crush on Marc, but only as passing knowledge; she had never gone into detail about her feelings. As for Felicity and Jessica, I knew nothing at all about their love lives. If Lena told George about her feelings, they obviously had a different relationship than the rest of us.

      “Close enough to know what she’s going through,” he said. “Perhaps having Belinda around has made her see what she’s been missing out on. She’s always been a quiet, studious type. Nobody really knows her on the inside—they just see how attractive she is. But I’m trying to get her to change that, make her more outgoing.”

      “And that she has been,” I said darkly, remembering how openly she had flirted with me on camp. Even at Marc’s house the previous day, she’d been trying to catch my eye.

      “Good,” he said. “Should be a lot of fun, then.”

      I said nothing, my stomach writhing with panic. George was a big guy, about as tall as Harry and Simon, though more muscular and clearly tougher; not the sort of guy you’d want to go toe-to-toe with any day. He sounded protective of Lena, and I knew he’d knock my lights out if I hurt her. But what about Natalie? What on earth was I going to do? All I wanted to do now was get out of here and talk to James and Peter; get some much-needed advice. I therefore got to scribbling with my lines once again.

      “You’re not interested, huh?” he asked.

      I looked at him and decided the truth was my best bet for now. Evidently my face was going to give me away, no matter how hard I tried to hide it. “Sure I am. Who wouldn’t be? The thing is, I’m more interested in someone else. I don’t want to screw up my chances there if I can help it.”

      George shrugged. “Maybe you’ll change your mind about that.”

      “Ah, I see there’s plenty of chatter going on,” said Hall, making the class go completely quiet. I suddenly noticed that we’d been talking a little louder than we should have been; not loud enough for most people to hear over the twins, but enough for Hall to know we weren’t doing enough work. Further to that, it seemed as though Peter and Belinda had also been in conversation.

      “Well, I think we’ll just have to do a bit of shuffling,” Hall noted. “Remember, none of you can leave 'til you’ve completed your task. Naval, Pensinger, you two swap places. Time, you look like a man in need of an education; you come up here and take Playman’s seat. Playman, you take your brother’s seat, and you,” he stared at Peter with hatred all over his face, “can sit in Time’s seat. Move!”

      Feeling that this detention couldn’t finish soon enough, I stood up and took my things to where Peter was sitting.

      “What were you talking about?” I hissed curiously at him at he went past.

      “Him,” he muttered, jerking his thumb at Hall before moving to sit in Justin’s lonely seat. I sat down and was joined a moment later by a frustrated-looking Tulip.

      “I wasn’t looking for personal opinions,” Hall said to Harry when he showed him his first summary. “Go back and do it again. Summarise the article; don’t give me your opinion of the journalist. If you’ve done the same thing,” he said to Simon, “then you might as well start again now.”

      “Grrr!” the twins said in unison as they returned to their seats.

      “And another thing, you two,” Hall said. “If you give me identical summaries, I will send you both back to do them again.”

      The twins looked extremely annoyed for a moment before scrunching their summaries up and tossing them across the room, where they landed cleanly in the rubbish bin. They then resumed discussion of the article they had been studying for the last fifteen minutes.

      I got going again with my lines. ‘I will show respect and adoration to my teachers at all times.’ ‘I will show respect and adoration to my teachers at all times.’ ‘I will show respect and adoration to my teachers at all times.’ It was desperately dull, but I was now in the eighties and fast moving towards the hundred mark. My writing was very untidy, even by my standards, but I hardly cared at this stage. I also had to contend with Tulip, who kept muttering things about Hall out of the corner of her mouth at me which, although they were distracting, were also hilarious, and caused me to make several mistakes.

      Minutes passed in silence. Harry and Simon had stopped talking, as they were writing summaries of their own about an article they’d already discussed to death. George and Justin were in whispered conversation, but I had no idea what they were talking about. Peter and Belinda, too, were silent as they scribbled away. I could see that Tulip wanted to talk to me, but I kept my head down and kept plodding along with my lines. I just wanted to get out of there.

      * * *

      I was first out of the detention, having scribbled my last twenty-or-so lines quicker than ever. Over the following ten minutes, the others (bar the twins) were allowed to leave too. When Peter came out, we set off for home. I was dying to tell him about what George had said, but now that I was free to think about things, I was also eager to discuss the information Marc had given us earlier.

      Neither our parents or grandparents were in sight when we arrived home, but Nicole was waiting for us in the Playman kitchen, where she had spread her homework out over the kitchen table.

      “You were ages,” she said. “That was longer than half an hour.”

      “A hundred and fifty lines,” said Peter dully. “Blimey, he’s getting worse and worse.”

      “That’s not that bad,” she said. “I mean, I know it's boring as all hell but—”

      “No, he really is getting worse,” I said. “The way he was treating us—his blows were far more stinging today than they’ve ever been, plus he had one poor guy decontaminating a box of condoms that could have come from anywhere.”

      Nicole made a choking sound. “He can’t do that, can he?”

      “I prefer not to think about it myself,” said Peter. “Hall enjoying himself, I mean—”

      “I don’t know if he can,” I said dully. “George and Belinda went to put in a complaint when they got out; they called it ‘cruel and unusual punishment’.”

      “I bet they were all just him and his hand anyway,” said Nicole, smirking. “Listen, come upstairs, I just got a call from Marc.”

      “Yeah? Any news?” asked Peter as the three of us shot upstairs, where we shut ourselves in the bedroom Peter and I shared.

      “Well he talked about this so-called party with Lucien,” she said, sitting down on my bed. “And he thinks we’ll be okay. It seems that the Hammersons can’t use their magic, but if Amelia goes then she’ll be able to. Marc says he’s asked Stella about what will happen if they use their magical devices, and she’s not really sure, so I think she’s going to try to make another pact with her family.”

      “They’ll probably torture her for suggesting it,” I said darkly.

      “That’ll СКАЧАТЬ