The Nightmare Game

Table of Contents

 

 

DUTTON CHILDREN'S BOOKS
A division of Penguin Young Readers Group

 

Published by the Penguin Group

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2007 by Gillian Cross

 

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Published in the United States by Dutton Children's Books,
a division of Penguin Young Readers Group
345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
www.penguin.com/youngreaders

 

eISBN : 978-1-101-52535-7

 

ZAK STROKED THE DRUM THAT LAY IN HIS LAP, LEANING BACK AGAINST THE WALL of the cavern and looking at the others as they settled into a circle. Their faces were hidden, except where the firelight caught them, and they were already silent and expectant. Waiting for the story to begin.

When everything was still, Zak tapped the drum skin lightly and took a slow breath. “Once upon a time,” he said, “there was a man who kept his daughter in a hole in the ground.”

Lorn sat forward sharply, her eyes widening.
What are you doing? You can't make a story out of that.

But he could. He was.

“The man had a wife and a son,” he said, “and he loved them well enough. But his daughter was the special one. She was more important than anything else in the whole wide world. Every morning he said to himself, ‘I'll bring her out of the hole tonight.' But every evening, when he lifted off the lid and looked down at her—he couldn't do it.”

Bando burst out into one of his loud, incongruous laughs. “She was too heavy to lift!”

“No, she wasn't heavy.” Gravely Zak shook his head. “She wasn't heavy at all. She was as slender as a stalk of silkskin, as light as a moonbeam lying across the grass. He could have picked her up with one hand. But every time he saw her he thought,
She's too beautiful and fragile for the ugly, unkind world. If I take her out, greedy people will come and steal her away. She's safer where she is.
So every evening he put the lid back in its place and shut her away under the ground again.”

“Why did he do that?” Bando said, his simple, heavy face frowning and bewildered.

“Ssh!” Cam said impatiently.

She was trying to keep him in order, but for once her voice had no effect. She ran everything else that went on in the cavern—but Zak's stories were beyond her control. Zak had his own kind of authority and he used it now, ignoring Cam and weaving Bando's question into the story.

“The old man shut his daughter away because she was so precious to him. When he looked at her, all his troubles vanished. So he called her Hope and kept her away from the harsh, ugly world outside.”

Lorn felt herself grow hot and angry in the darkness. How could he know so much—and be so wrong? Stories were supposed to be made up, out of nothing, but this one was
real
. Somehow, Zak knew Hope's story—
her
story—and he was twisting it. She had been that poor, imprisoned girl, but not because a kind old man was keeping her safe. He'd locked her away in a deep, dark hole, because—because—

The words locked in her throat. She wanted to scream at Zak, to stop him before he said anything else, but she couldn't make a sound.

Zak leaned forward, lowering his voice. “And then, one evening, three evil robbers came snooping around the old man's house.”

Bando caught his breath.

“They crept across the garden,” Zak whispered, “and peered through the cracks in the shutters. They saw the old man lift the lid off the hole where he kept his daughter safe.”

Bando had his hands over his mouth now, and the others were totally silent. Everyone but Lorn was caught up in the story.

“The robbers crouched by the window,” Zak said softly. “They watched the old man looking down at his beautiful daughter. They watched as he stretched out his hands to her, and they saw him hesitate. Then they saw him replace the lid and settle himself beside the fire to sleep. So, when he and his wife and his son were all asleep—”

This time, his pause was long and dramatic. At the other end of the cavern, the cold wind roared in the entrance tunnel. Outside, the nightbird called from the top of the bitter-nut tree. But they were distant, insubstantial sounds. Nothing was real except Zak's voice in the flickering shadows.

“When the poor old man was fast asleep,” he whispered, “the robbers sneaked up to his door—and smashed the lock.”

His voice rose suddenly, in a great crescendo.

“They broke into the house and ripped the lid off the hole in the ground—AND THEY SNATCHED HIS DAUGHTER OUT AND STOLE HER AWAY!”

THEY'D STOLEN HOPE. HER SECRET ROOM WAS UNCOVERED, WITH its trapdoor tossed away to one side, and the space under the floor left gaping and exposed. She'd gone.

Warren stood on the edge of the hole, shivering in his pajamas. The conservatory door was wide open, but he couldn't make the effort to close it and shut out the cold night air. He couldn't do anything except stare down into the shocking emptiness in front of him.

Hope should have been down there. All his life, he'd had a secret sister, hidden in her room under the floor. All his life, he'd known that he mustn't say anything about her. Mustn't even speak her name—
Hope Armstrong—
in case he gave her away to the rest of the world. Locked inside his head, the letters of that forbidden name had swirled around, making cryptic, hidden patterns.
Prongo Hamster. H. Poor-Garments. Grasp the moron.

But none of those meant anything now. There was nothing left to hide.

His mother and father came running downstairs, pulling on the rest of their clothes. His father snatched up the car keys and his mother took the big flashlight from the hall table. Neither of them stopped to tell him where they were going. They hadn't told him anything.

But he knew. They were going after the kidnappers. They were going to find Hope and bring her back home, where she belonged, back to the secret room that kept her safe.

He heard the front door open and close. He heard the car start up, sliding out of the garage and down the drive. It slipped away into the night, leaving him on his own, standing in the cold conservatory.

He shook his head from side to side, trying not to imagine Hope out there in the dark. She would be in an unfamiliar place, with people she didn't know. How could she understand what was going on? She'd be terrified.

He might have saved her, if only he'd yelled in time. The memory ran over and over in his head, repeating endlessly. He'd crept downstairs, because he couldn't sleep, and when he'd opened the kitchen door—there they were, carrying Hope out of the conservatory.

That was when he should have shouted. Bellowed, with all the breath in his lungs.
Dad! Wake up! They're stealing Hope!
If he'd done that, his father might have rescued her.

But he'd been afraid—because it was his fault. He'd seen the boys before. They'd been ready for him when he came off the school bus, yesterday, blocking the pavement and hassling him. Threatening terrible things unless he promised to turn off the burglar alarm. He hadn't even thought that they might be kidnappers, but he should have stood up to them. He should have realized—

No.
He blocked out those thoughts.
It's not my fault. There were three of them, counting the girl. All bigger than me. And how could I have guessed what they were planning?

But the accusing voice in his head didn't stop. To deaden it, he went into the kitchen to look for something to eat. There were no chips left, but he made himself a sandwich, squirting mayonnaise onto the peanut butter and topping it with a slice of cheese. Chewing on the first mouthful, he went back to the conservatory and switched on the light.

It looked even more of a mess now that he could see properly. The wooden lid that should have been covering the secret entrance was lying upside down near the door. The carpet that went over it was rolled up in one corner. And the TV—which should have been standing on the carpet—was pushed to one side, with the screen facing the window.

It was still turned on, as usual. Warren let the sound wash over him and munched his sandwich, struggling to believe what had happened. His father had always said,
If people know Hope's there, they'll come and take her away.
But that had never seemed real, even though he'd heard it all his life. How could Hope go away? She belonged in her special room. He couldn't imagine her anywhere else.