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?

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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 Six

Exploding Eggs

By Elena de Roo

Deb swam to the far side of the pool where she'd seen her father, the polar bear and Captain Pejalmer disappear. Vicious or not, she hoped the stunned polar bear was awake enough to know it should hold its breath underwater. She trod water and turned to see how far behind her brother was. Only minutes before he'd been swimming right on her heels, but now, the pool was empty.

"Mote! Mote! MOTE!!!! Where are you! If you're playing a trick on me, I'll, I'll ..."

Bubbles floated to the surface an arm's length away. So, that was it. Typical Mote. Showing off again. He must have swum down ahead of her to find the underground entrance. She didn't want to contemplate the other option. Either way, there was no time to waste.

Making sure the lid was screwed on tightly, Deb buttoned the spiders into the leg pocket of her cargo pants, took a few deep breaths and dived down. Under the water, it was quiet. There was only the distant hum of the pump. No more bubbles followed. Far below, she could see a grate lying crookedly at the bottom of the pool. It looked a long way down. She was relieved when the entrance turned out to be only a few metres away from her, in the pool wall.

It took more courage than she had thought to swim into the tunnel mouth, even though it was easily wide enough for a person, a polar bear even. Could she make it in one breath? It helped that she could already see light from the other end, and to know Mote and her father had done it before her. One stroke ... two strokes ... she pushed the water behind her ... three strokes ... she was through. She kicked upwards, lungs bursting and swam towards the light.

Deb grabbed the metal ladder, allowing herself some time to gasp in air, before hauling herself up the steps and over the side. She wiped the water out of her eyes. No sign of Mote, her father or Captain Pejalmer. She was standing at the junction of three dimly lit underground tunnels.

"Mote! Mote!" Deb's voice echoed down the tunnel, but there was no answer. Then she heaved a sigh of relief. She'd spotted several sets of wet footsteps leading into the tunnel directly in front of her. One set was about Mote's size. There were some animal prints as well, bear prints, which went down the tunnel to her left. The polar bear must have recovered and broken free. She shivered. She wouldn't be going down that tunnel.

The air was damp and her clothes dripping, but with no towel, the best she could do was to squeeze the water out of the ends of her pants. She took the jar of spiders out of her pocket, where it had been banging annoyingly against her shin. The wolf spiders seemed unbothered by their journey and were busily crawling over a small roll of paper. Another message? Why hadn't she noticed it before? Maybe it had been wedged under the lid and come loose during the swim.

There was no way she was putting her hand into a jar full of spiders. Deb unscrewed the top, watching as the spiders scuttled for cover in the dark crevices and corners of the tunnel, before extracting the roll of paper. There was just enough light to make out the words written inside.

A sheep for a sheep

A scrambled surprise

Is an egg just an egg

or GrenadE in disguise?

She wished now she'd asked her father more about his past. Like, why he had an old lab coat hanging in his wardrobe? Then, maybe she'd have some idea what that whole Katie-Kat thing was about. Or why her father thought everything was his fault? One thing was clear though. With the words egg and grenade in the same sentence, this threat had egg throwing event all over it.

Deb pulled the games guide from her top pocket and prised apart the wet pages. She checked her watch. The egg throwing would be starting any moment now in the main stadium. If she was quick she could warn them, stop the event. Her intuition told her the tunnel straight ahead should take her in the right direction. It was also the direction the trail of footsteps was leading, and since no one had come back that way yet, Deb reasoned, there must be another exit.

She was right. The tunnel sloped gradually upwards, ending in a solid looking metal door. She tried the handle. It wasn't locked. No wonder bad things were happening if security was this slack. Deb opened it a crack and saw the dark outlines of mops and buckets. The tunnel ended in a cleaner's cupboard.

There was no time for mucking around. Even as the door clicked shut behind her, she already had her next step sussed. A crack of light was coming from under a door on the opposite wall. On the other side, she could hear the hum of people and muffled bursts of applause.

A few seconds later Deb emerged into a side corridor next to the ladies' toilets in the main stadium. She shouldn't have complained, it was working in her favour that nobody seemed to lock anything around here. Everything was going to plan. Except for the fact she didn't actually have a plan.

Deb raced into the packed arena. She'd cut it finer than she'd thought. The egg timer was already counting down. Only sixty seconds to go. The two teams, The Gold Yolks and The Black Scramblers, were already lined up on opposite sides of the arena. Each team stood with slingshots at the ready, about to launch a barrage of eggs - yolks appropriately dyed team colours - at their opponents, just as soon as the timer sounded.

It was down to her. Thirty seconds left. Somehow she needed to stop the event without causing mass panic. But what if she'd got it all wrong? Then Debussy saw something which was both wonderful and terrible at the same time. It was Mote. He was in the front row of spectators, wet hair plastered behind his ears ... and about as close as you could get to the Gold Yolk's line of fire. Not only that, but Priscilla Byrd was sitting right next to him, her beady hen-like eyes darting from left to right.

Okay, now it was personal. She'd been wrong about the mass panic. Mass panic was exactly what this situation called for.

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Now it's your turn to write Chapter 7. Another major turn in the story should up the stakes for the kids and put them in immediate danger. They may find out the truth behind the villain's plans for the games, and it is a diabolically clever and evil twist that no one saw coming.