Bedlam. Derek Landy

Чтение книги онлайн.

      “Empty your mind,” Miss Wicked said, and someone muttered, “That was fast.”

      Omen grinned as the class chuckled. Everyone shut up quickly and Omen knew that Miss Wicked had just used one of her glares. He couldn’t see it, of course. He was too busy sitting there with his eyes closed.

      He heard them all around him. The shuffling of feet. The creaking of desks. The entire class was watching Auger and him sitting opposite each other, trying to speak to each other without making a sound.

      All he had to do was concentrate, Miss Wicked had said. Focus. Twins had a higher chance than most of getting this right. For once, Omen could be ahead of everyone else. If he could just manage this one simple thing.

      Oh, God. He wasn’t concentrating. He was thinking too much.

      He stopped thinking.

      Stopped.

      It wasn’t easy.

      Every time he tried to stop thinking, it was like a thousand thoughts were knocking on the door of his mind, screaming to be let in.

      He was doing it again. He was thinking about his thoughts. Dammit. OK. He was definitely going to stop now. Definitely.

      Was Miss Wicked reading his thoughts right now? Was she checking on him? No. That could interfere with what they were trying to do. She wouldn’t do that. He hoped she wasn’t doing that. He hoped.

      But what if she was?

      So many thoughts about her, so many images, getting worse, filling his mind, one after the other, an unstoppable flow of images and thoughts and—

      Take a breath.

      She wasn’t reading his mind. Relax. Focus. Empty the mind.

      Empty as a tin can. An empty tin can, not a tin can full of peas or something. Maybe it once had peas, but now it didn’t have anything. It was just—

      That wasn’t working.

      Not a can, then. A box. A box was better. An empty box. Obviously, an empty box. Maybe it had once been full, but now it was empty. Maybe it had been full of cans of peas.

      Peas again. Why peas? Why was he thinking of—

       OMEN!

      Omen shrieked and fell out of his chair.

      He hit the floor, eyes open, and Auger stood up, a delighted smile on his face.

      “You heard that, right?” Auger asked. “You heard that?”

      “I … I heard it,” said Omen.

      “That was so cool,” Auger said, pulling him to his feet. “It was like there was a tunnel between us. Did you feel it?”

      “Well done, gentlemen,” Miss Wicked said. “Auger, you spoke to Omen. Omen, did you answer?”

      Omen hesitated.

      “I think he was about to,” Auger said quickly. “I could feel him about to say something, but I think I did something wrong and I broke the link.”

      “Is that so?” Miss Wicked murmured. “Omen, do you think you could re-establish that link?”

      “Probably not,” he said.

      “Could you try?”

      “I … suppose.”

      There was a knock on the door. Kase poked his head in.

      “Miss Wicked, excuse me,” he said, “but could I, uh … Auger and Never are needed in the … the, um … They’re needed.”

      Miss Wicked raised an eyebrow. “Are they now?”

      Kase nodded. “Urgently. Please, miss.”

      She sighed. “Auger, Never – it would appear that you’re needed elsewhere. I trust you won’t be long.”

      “We’ll try not to be,” said Auger, suddenly all business, and the class watched as he followed Never out of the door.

      They all knew what was going on. There was something happening, something terrible and something dangerous, and only Auger Darkly and his friends could stop it and save the day. The rest of them had to just sigh with envy and get back to work.

      Except Omen didn’t really sigh with envy any more. He’d been in the thick of the action and he didn’t really want to be there again. Saving the day, in his experience, usually meant a lot of running and quite a bit of hiding, with some really scary bits in between. He was fifteen years old and in school. He had enough running, hiding and scary bits as it was.