Chapter Seven

A Theory and a Big Bang 

By Tania Hutley

While he was swimming, Mote was thinking hard. What was with all these weird animal clues the saboteur was leaving, warning them of his plans for ruining the games? It was almost like he was playing chicken with them.

Wait a minute. Playing chicken? The egg-throwing event was about to begin!

No time to wait for Debussy to catch up. Mote pulled himself out of the swimming pool and raced to the arena. Sure enough, the egg throwers were limbering up. Pricilla Byrd was sitting right in the front row, her head cocked to one side, her eyes bright.

Could Byrd be the one doing all this? Mote slid into the chair next to her. If she tried anything, he'd be right there to stop her. And his gut told him egg-throwing was just the type of event that would be a target for the saboteur.

The timer was counting down the seconds before the event started. In front of him, the Black Scramblers had their slings loaded and ready to fire. All their spare eggs were in one basket, but one of those eggs glinted as it caught the light. Mote squinted at it. What on earth?

"Mote!" Debussy came running into the arena, waving her arms and screaming. "There's a grenade! He's planted a grenade!"

Mote gaped at her for just a second, then her words connected in his brain. He leapt from his chair and dived for the basket. He meant to grab the grenade and throw it as far away as he could, but his feet tangled in the chair legs and instead he fell heavily right on top of the basket, crushing all the eggs - and the grenade - underneath him.

He lay still, heart thudding, eyes scrunched closed, waiting for the grenade to go off. Too scared to move in case he triggered an explosion.

"Are your brains scrambled?" The angry shout came from just above him and Mote cracked open one eye to peer upwards. One of the egg-tossers stood over him, arms folded, face red. Byrd was beside him, an unreadable expression on her face. Was she trying to hide a smile?

"Mote!" Deb skidded up. "What are you doing?"

"I saw something sparkle in the basket." Mote said.

"My lucky, championship-winning, gold-glittered egg!" The tosser's voice rose into a furious roar. He grabbed Mote by his collar and hauled him off the crushed basket. A colourful egg-mash decorated the front of Mote's shirt. There was no grenade.

"Sorry," said Mote, picking bits of gold glitter out of the mess on his front.

"Sorry," called Deb over her shoulder, as she grabbed Mote's arm and hustled him away from the glares of the egg-throwing teams. As they reached the edge of the main stadium she said, "If there was no grenade, then I guess the egg clue must have been a red herring."

"First sheep, then wolves, a polar bear... and now herrings!" Mote snapped. "What kind of evil plot is this? It's way too random. Like someone's just making it up as they go along!"

"There's got to be a pattern," said Deb. "If we can figure it out, we can work out where they're going to strike next."

"Wait a minute!" Something sparked in Mote's brain and he grabbed Deb's arm to stop her. "Do you remember hearing something about before the first Titanic Games, someone was trying to start a different kind of games?"

"Oh yeah, that's right." Deb nodded. "It didn't have cool events like floss-flicking and belly-flopping, but weird ones... what were they again?"

"Wolf wrestling. And wasn't there sheep hurdling?"

"Who'd want to watch lame events like that?" snorted Deb.

"What if whoever wanted to start those games is angry they didn't get the chance, and that the Titanic Games got started instead?"

"You reap what you sow!"

Mote grinned. "Let's go tell Dad."

They spotted their father and Kate Pejalmer standing near one of the stadium exits, talking intently. When he saw Mote and Deb racing towards them, Mendelssohn looked guilty. He said something to Pejalmer, who nodded and walked quickly away.

Mote lost his grin. His father had too many secrets! What was it his father had said right after the sheep went splat on top of the bellyflopper? Something about it being his fault and that he should have told them everything. By 'them' had he meant Mote and Debussy?

"Don't say anything for a moment," hissed Mote. "Dad knows more about this than he's let on. Before we tell him what we suspect, I'm going to get some answers!"

Just as they reached him, an announcement came over the loudspeaker.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, we apologise for the delay of the egg-throwing event. The event is now starting. Please return to your seats."

Their father looked at Mote with concern. "What's that mess on your shirt?"

"Never mind that," said Mote. "Was there was something you were going to tell us? You said all this was your fault!"

His father nodded, wearing a grave expression. "You're right, Mote. There's something I should have told you a long time ago. I can't keep it a secret anymore." The look on his father's face was so serious, Mote knew at once that it would be something big. "I'm only sorry you have to find out like this." His father took a deep breath, as though preparing to give them terrible news. "I have to tell you that-"

From the direction of the egg throwing event, a starting gun suddenly went off. A moment later there was another explosion, and Mote was surrounded in bright pink smoke. It billowed around him, burning his throat and making his eyes sting. He coughed and spluttered, his lungs full of the foul smoke. He couldn't see!

"Dad?" he croaked. "Dad, are you there?"

There was no answer.

"Debussy?"

Silence. Mote's heart pounded as he frantically tried to see something, anything, through his streaming eyes and the thick pink smoke. What had just happened? Where were his father and sister? Why weren't they answering him?

**************************************************************************************
Chapter Eight next week, and we're almost at the end! (There'll be nine chapters in total). Chapter Eight should either contain, or work up to, the big climax. The chapter should be fast and exciting, and it should set things up for the final chapter in which all questions are finally answered!

Chapter Three

TO CATCH A WOLF

By Michele Powles

Mote recoiled, holding his hand to his mouth and trying not to be sick.

“Wuss,” said Deb, taking in his pallor even as she leaned in closely over the sheep.

“Don’t. Like. Blood.” Was all Mote could manage before he had to turn away.

“It’s not blood, it’s a bit of red balloon.” She pulled the limp red streak off the sheep’s belly and waved it in front of him.

“I knew that. Didn’t want you to…you know, get scared or anything.”

Deb rolled her eyes.

“I’ll take that thank you. Might be evidence.” As if he’d been there the whole time, Inspector Barker loomed over them and snatched the balloon fragment, secreting it away in a plastic bag. Mote shivered as the Inspector’s sleepy eyes seemed to scan him like a barcode.

 “I’m not sure this is the place for children. Shouldn’t you be…I don’t know. At school or something?”

Deb narrowed her grey eyes, the steel in them glinting like polished metal. When she added an arched eyebrow, Mote groaned inwardly.

Deb pursed her lips and used the tone that got their father totally riled. “It’s a hol-i-day. And our dad is in charge. I don’t see you solving much. In-spec-tor.”

Inspector Barker swivelled his eyes away and to Mote it felt as if a nasty buzzing had stopped in his ear.

“Debussy, that’s quite enough thank you,” Mendelssohn Finnegan said even as he reached for his ringing cell. “I have to go. Carry on Inspector. Don’t get in the way, and get back to the grandstands. Your mother will meet you there.” He scurried off.

“Bring him this way.” The Inspector demanded of the stretcher bearers and started off up the corridor.

“Hang on.” Deb’s eyebrow was still up and Mote put a hand on her arm but she shrugged him off. “Where are you taking him?”

The Inspector’s eyes lost their sleepy look for just a moment and Mote felt a cold rush wash over his body as if the corridor had turned into a fridge. “I’m taking him to the hospital.”

“What about the sheep?”

“Evidence. It’ll go to Scotland yard.” The Inspector waved his hands at the stretcher bearers and the lot of them shuffled up the corridor and around a corner. Mote turned to his sister. “Are you mental? He’s from Interpol. He could have you arrested.”

Deb shrugged her shoulders and put her hand in her pocket. “Not very good at his job then.” She pulled out a curled up piece of paper.

“What did you…where did you get that? You’ll have messed the fingerprints.”

“Almost impossible to get fingerprints off paper. But I’ll be careful.”

“ Shouldn’t we give it to the police?”

“Sure. And we will. As soon as we’ve worked out if we can trust them.”

“What about Inspector Barker then. Interpol is like…police times ten. Or maybe even times a hundred.”

“I don’t trust him. He makes me feel all…” she shivered and rolled her eyes back in her head.

It felt strange to agree with his sister twice in one day but that was exactly how the Inspector made Mote feel. He shook himself to get rid of the last remains of the corridor fridge feeling.

“It takes a wolf to catch a wolf.” Deb had unrolled the paper and was holding it carefully by the edges.

“Oh man. Wolves have big teeth.”

“Yeah, and their bite is twice as powerful as a dog’s.”

Mote thought through the day’s events. “The wolf-whistling contest. Do you think…”

“Don’t be dumb. That’s way too obvious.” Deb chewed on her finger. “To protect the sheep, you need to catch the wolf.” Her eyes lit up. “Wolf pack leaders have to fight to keep their position. Maybe there’s someone trying to get the top job and this is their way of getting rid of their opposition.”

“Which top job?”

“Exactly.” Deb frowned. “Who would benefit from the opening ceremony going wrong?”

“Someone who wanted Dad’s job? Or to be Head of Security,” Mote suggested.

“Or top of police, the head of SAS or the SIS. Pretty much anyone who was in the room with us for the opening.”

“We should tell Dad that there’s a wolf out to get him.”

“We don’t know for sure. But we do know that whoever did this isn’t going to stop. You reap what you sow, remember. This could get really nasty.” She pulled something small out of her pocket.

“Hey, what’s that?” Mote took it and turned it over in his hand. “Could be a piece of a flash drive.”

“Definitely a clue,” said Deb. “But it’s not helping now. This wolf is leaving plenty of clues but we’re no closer to solving any of them.”

They were both silent a moment. Then Mote pulled out the day’s Titanic games program from his back pocket.

“What are you thinking?”

Mote held up a finger and incredibly, Deb was quiet. “The pool,” he said finally.

“We don’t have time to watch events,” Deb said but the spark in his eyes must have been as hot as it felt and she didn’t nag him further.

“We won’t be watching the events,” Mote said. “The Byrd lady said she was going to the opening of the Titanic pool tonight, and the Tuatara said he’d go with her.”

“That’s two wolves,” Deb said, getting his drift. “I think I heard Captain Pejalmer say she would go with them too. But what about the Inspector? He gives me the creeps.”

“I didn’t hear him say where he was going. But three out of four is a good place to start.”

“True. You think they’ll still go, after this?”

“I think Dad will make them. Keep up appearances and all that.”

“Good point. Right, come on then.”

The Titanic swimming complex was connected to the main stadium by an underground tunnel with a travellator running the whole distance and illuminated blue koru patterns set into the curved walls and ceiling.

                “Check me out,” said Mote, doing an almost perfect moonwalk as they glided alone.

                “Nice,” said Deb, not even looking as she gazed at the Titanic games venue map she’d grabbed on the way down.

                “Deeeebussy.”

                “Shhh, I’m concentrating.”

                Mote sighed and looked up at the blue ferns they were passing. “Um, Deb.”

                “I said, I was concentrating.”

                “You’ll want to see this.”

                They’d just reached the entrance to the swimming complex and in front of them the blue koru patterns from the ceiling swooped down to twine around the door. Only they didn’t. They swooped fine, they just didn’t twine around the door because where the door should have been was a gaping hole.

                “Holy floating polar bears,” said Deb.

                “I know,” said Mote. “What could have done that to the door?”

                “No. I mean holy floating polar bears,” said Deb.

                Mote followed her finger and wished he hadn’t. Floating in the pool was a lump of ice and standing on it, its teeth dripping with something that didn’t look like a red balloon, was a large and very crotchety polar bear. 

                                                 *************************

Now it's your turn to write chapter four. In chapter four, the kids get deeper into their own investigation but now they are in danger themselves.

You can read the winning child's chapter and the judge's report at Winning Writing

Coming soon to a screen near you ...

Welcome back to all those existing FaBo-istas, and hello to all the newcomers. Start exercising those writing muscles. Get limbering up for the Titanic Games. FaBo Story 3 is going to use both of those things in this round of writing mayhem, and it all kicks off at the beginning of the third school term. But in the meantime, while you're waiting for the excitement to begin, here are a few memories from FaBo Story 1 and FaBo Story 2 (otherwise known as Planet Fabo).