ALSO BY BARRY JONSBERG
Pandora Jones (Book 1) Admission
Pandora Jones (Book 2) Deception
Pandora Jones (Book 3) Reckoning
My Life as an Alphabet
Being Here
Cassie
Ironbark
Dreamrider
It’s Not All About YOU, Calma!
The Whole Business With Kiffo and the Pitbull
For younger readers
Blacky Blasts Back: On the Tail of the Tassie Tiger
A Croc Called Capone
The Dog That Dumped On My Doona
First published by Allen & Unwin in 2016
Copyright © Barry Jonsberg 2016
The moral right of Barry Jonsberg to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the United Kingdom’s Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.
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ISBN (AUS) 9781760290153
ISBN (UK) 9781743368763
eISBN 9781952533839
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Cover & text design by Ruth Grüner
Cover images by R-J-Seymour (iStockphoto), jaroon (iStockphoto), duncan1890 (iStockphoto), Meplezii_Ck (iStockphoto)
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CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
PART TWO
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
PART THREE
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
Clouds part and moonlight steals through my curtains, a silver intruder.
I sit upright in bed and the gun is clasped in my right hand. I have been in the same position all night; the pillow is rucked against my back and there is a pain in my neck. My hand aches from gripping the gun’s handle too hard. I have not slept, though I tried at first.
Killing someone with a gun is not easy. I know this from the research I’ve done. There are two elements to consider – the physical and the psychological. The psychological poses the most obvious problem. It’s one thing to fire at targets on shooting ranges, quite another to point a gun at something built of flesh, blood and mind. This is well known. Even those who hunt animals – people who enjoy snuffing the life from a pig or a kangaroo – find it’s very different shooting a human being. Look someone in the eyes, point the gun, apply even pressure to the trigger, knowing there is a point when the hammer punches a cap that explodes a charge that propels a bullet that tears and bores through air. Less than a second. Much less than a second, from the finger’s tipping-point to the violation of body, metal tunnelling through flesh, destroying all it touches. Everything is cause and effect. But this effect is monumental, far out of proportion to the physical cause. The tiniest of pressures, gentler than a caress. Life ended.
I have never fired a loaded gun. Until today.
Then there is the practicality of death by gunfire, the physics involved. Most people don’t consider this because television makes it seem so easy. Television makes everything seem easy. I will admit that a rifle with a scope would be different. So too would an automatic weapon. Press the trigger and bullets stream out. Provided you are holding the weapon somewhere near the target you are bound to do damage. This is why it is the weapon of choice for psychopaths whose demons lead them to school buildings and shopping malls.
I have a hand gun. They are notoriously inaccurate, even if they are of good quality. I suspect mine isn’t.
A hand gun kicks, which moves the barrel, which alters the bullet’s trajectory. It is very easy to miss. In fact, without practice, it is much easier to miss than hit. I have had no practice. I will have to be close. Close enough to see the widening eyes, to smell the fear. Up close and personal. Many of my hours throughout the night have been occupied with these thoughts. They circle in my head, buzzing like insects.
I swing my legs out of bed and place the gun next to me. My hand is stiff. I hold it up before my eyes and work the fingers, loosening the muscles. It feels like a claw, looks like a claw. Then I stand and walk carefully to the window, draw the curtains. I know my bedroom, know where the boards creak, so I do not make a noise. I look out. Dawn is an hour away. There is the thinnest smear of orange on the horizon. Above, one cloud squats, its white edges dissolving into the blackness of night. It is time to go. It’s not the time for my appointment. That is over three hours away. But it’s time for me to go.
Before I went to bed I set my clothes out. Dark jeans and a black T-shirt. Black runners. I feel like a cliché but I get dressed anyway. Pulling on the T-shirt, I smell myself and it is sharp, unpleasant. I am tempted to tuck the gun into the waistband of my jeans, in the small of my back, but I settle for pushing the barrel as far down into my right pocket as I can. I check that the safety is on. For the hundredth time. That was another image. The gun going off and shooting me in the leg. It’s absurd enough to happen.
It used to be that Summerlee – my older sister – would come home at three or four in the morning and stumble up the stairs, crashing into things, and Mum and Dad would never wake. She would laugh about that. I was so shitfaced I could barely crawl, and they slept through the whole thing. Now Dad cannot sleep. If I were to open my door at night, he would be there, eyes wide with fear and looking like death. His hair is grey and thinning by the hour. I imagine him in bed, propped up like I have been all night, staring into nothing and weaving nightmares from it, one hand twitching at the bedcovers. I cannot leave by the door. Not just because of Dad but also because there are two police officers camped in our front room. This is why I left the window open all night; one reason – not the main reason – why I didn’t sleep.
The backpack is under my bed, the rope attached to its handle. It is heavy and my muscles cramp as I lower it to the ground. Once I feel the weight ease, I drop the rope after it. Then I throw one leg over the sill and reach for the drainpipe with my left hand. I put the other leg out, so
I am sitting on my window ledge. The gun is bunched up in my pocket and its heavy bulk is uncomfortable. My bedroom is on the first floor, hence the drainpipe. I am not athletic. It is not in my nature to shin down pipes but I manage without falling. I am relieved I have made it so far without waking anyone.
I stand on the lawn and look around. Bushes and trees crowd me with thick shadows and everything is unfamiliar. I detach the rope from the backpack, which I ease onto my shoulders. I take the gun out of my pocket and tuck it now in the back of my jeans. It is time to go but I am reluctant. It is like the tipping-point of a finger on a trigger. Once I move away from my house, take that first step on the journey, then I will set in motion a train of events leading to one conclusion or another. Cause and effect. I shiver but I am not cold. Somewhere an owl hoots. The sound is mournful and thin. I take the first step and the second is easier, the third easier still. My body moves and my mind is subservient, still and cowardly, happy to let the rhythm of muscles take charge and move me, second by second, to whatever destination awaits.
I walk into the road and turn right. I keep to the track of broken lines in the middle of the street. Everywhere is dark. Everywhere is quiet, except for the soft kiss of rubber soles on tarmac.
Game theory has brought me to this point and I must follow where it leads.
Even though this is not a game.
CHAPTER 1
‘Tell me again.’
‘I’ve told you ten gazillion times.’
‘Ten gazillion and sixty.’
‘So why do you want to hear it again?’
‘To make it ten gazillion and sixty-one.’
‘That’s not a reason.’
‘It is too.’
‘Not.’
‘Is.’
Phoebe wore the pyjamas I’d bought for her sixth birthday, nearly two years before. They had mathematical equations all over them. E=mc2. The Drake theorem. I’d gone crazy. I had a Fourier series: and quadratics: She had no idea what most of them were. Seven years old, okay? But she loved them. I’d bought some plain PJs and taken them to a custom print company, the kind that does corporate logos on work shirts. Each equation was done in a different colour. They’d cost a fortune, but I didn’t care. Now she refused to wear anything else at bedtime. Mum had to wash and dry them during the day, so she never missed a night. Phoebe had grown and the material had shrunk, so the sleeves were only just below the elbows and the legs halfway down her calves. It looked like she was preparing for a flood. Some of the equations had faded and the material was pilled, but she still didn’t care. Phoebe wasn’t interested in mathematics. She liked stories. But she was interested in me, her brother, which was why she loved the pyjamas.
She knelt on the bed, her skinny butt on her ankles, and bounced up and down. I loved it when she did that.
‘There’s this gorgeous princess and her name is Phoebe.’
‘Why is she gorgeous?’
‘Because she has long, straight hair all down her back.’
‘None on her head, just all down her back.’
She liked to beat me to the punchline.
‘Am I telling this, princess, or are you?’
‘You are.’
‘You bet your skinny butt I am.’
‘Go on, then.’
‘She is so drop-dead gorgeous, so fantastically pulchritudinous, so “oh-my-god-I-can’t-believe-she-is-not-bursting-into-flames-she-is-so-hot” that suitors come from far and wide to beg for her hand.’
‘It must be a great hand.’
‘It is a fabulous hand, but they want her other bits as well.’
‘But mainly the hand.’
‘Indeed.’ I really wanted to tickle her in the side until she curled into a foetal position and begged for mercy, but I couldn’t until I’d finished the story. Phoebe had standards and she had rules. Tickling came later. I folded my legs into a lotus position and rested my chin on interlocked fingers. ‘The suitors are reduced to three. Their names are . . .’
‘Luke, Alex and Corey.’
The names changed according to Phoebe’s whims. Corey was always there because he was Phoebe’s best friend in Grade Three – a strange looking kid with thin hair and a big nose; but there’s no accounting for taste. Luke sometimes made an appearance, but Alex was new to me. He must have been nasty to Phoebe at school recently. I filed the information away.
‘They decide they’ll have a fight and the winner will win Phoebe’s hand.’
‘And her other bits.’
‘Indeed. So they choose their weapons . . .’
‘Rats.’
‘What?’
‘Rats.’
Phoebe changed the weapons when she felt like it, as well. We’d had guns, bows and arrows, even purses filled with explosives. But rats were new. She wanted a pet for her eighth birthday, which was a couple of months off, so she had become a little obsessed. Mum wasn’t keen on the idea, on the reasonable grounds that she didn’t want to share the house with a rodent whose sole notion of social skills was to run around a wheel while shitting prodigiously. Phoebe thought this was an entirely unreasonable position to take, and often made her views plain.
‘Ninja rats,’ I agreed. ‘When you threw them they latched onto the jugulars of their targets and bit them to death. The thing was, Luke was an expert ninja-rat thrower. He never missed. If he threw a rat three times, it hit three times. Alex was pretty good as well. He hit . . .’
‘Two times out of three.’
‘Correct. But poor old Corey. Well, he wasn’t great at rat-chucking. He only hit one time out of three. So, the suitors stand at the points of an imaginary equilateral triangle, rats in hand. They are, as a result, an equal distance from each other. Fair’s fair. And then Princess Phoebe . . .’
‘The gorgeous Princess Phoebe.’
‘The exceptionally gorgeous Princess Phoebe says: “In order to be really fair, the suitors must take turns in throwing their rats until only one person remains standing. But they have to throw in turn. And, what’s more, it’s only fair that the worst ninja-rat chucker gets first go.”’
‘That is fair.’
‘Indeed. So Corey will go first, followed by Alex, followed by Luke. If there are still two standing, then they will continue to take turns in that order until only one suitor remains to claim Princess Phoebe’s hand. And her other bits.’
‘So who should Corey aim at first?’
‘That, dear sis, is the question.’
Phoebe bounced up and down on her bed and ran her hands through her hair. This was so cute, I didn’t know whether to shit or pick my nose. I didn’t do either, just fixed my eyes on hers. She scrunched up her brow in concentration.
‘For his first go he should aim at Luke because Luke never ever misses, so if he could get rid of him then that would be brilliant and give him the best chance of claiming the gorgeous Phoebe’s hand.’
Phoebe knew the answer because we had been over this on ten gazillion and sixty occasions, but we had to go through the same routine every time.
‘Wrong, bozo,’ I said. ‘Spectacularly wrong. Corey has only one chance in three of killing Luke. Even if he gets super lucky, that leaves Alex to go next and he only has Corey to target. And that means there’s a two in three chance of Corey being cactus.’
‘I know, I know.’ She bounced up and down on the bed again. ‘He should aim at Alex.’
‘Even worse, bozo,’ I said. ‘Super spectacularly wrong. If he is really lucky, then Alex is dead and that leaves Luke’s turn and he never misses. So Corey is definitely cactus.’
‘This is dumb.’
‘You’re dumb.’
‘Not.’
‘Are too.’
‘Tell me.’
‘I’ve just told you. You’re dumb.’
‘No. Tell me the answer.’
‘Okay.’ I made as if I was going to shift my position on the bed, but then grabbed her under the armpits and flipped her onto her back. She squealed
and tried to kick out at me but I was too quick. I bounced on top of her so she was pinned, my knees in the crook of her elbows, my butt on her scrawny legs. I put my head down so my fringe tickled her face. She thrashed her head from side to side, but she was laughing so hard stringy bits were coming from her nose. ‘Yeeuk, gross,’ I said. ‘You are so gross. You are a gross, dumb bozo.’ She was screaming by now but trying to talk at the same time. It came out all strangled.
‘But I’m . . . also . . . gorgeous.’
‘Granted,’ I said. ‘A gorgeous, gross, dumb, bozo princess. Listen up, poo for brains. This is game theory and that means you don’t just think about what you are going to do, but what others will do. That’s the point of it. If it was Alex’s turn first, who would he shoot at?’
‘Luke.’
‘Correct, bozo. Because if he doesn’t, he’s dead. Luke knows that Alex is his biggest threat, so he will shoot him first. If Alex kills Luke then Corey gets the next go and he stands a chance. So what Corey should do is shoot his gun in the air.’
‘HIS RAT, poo for brains.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘His rat. By deliberately missing, he’s guaranteeing one of the others will die because they will target each other. Either Luke or Alex is dead and it’s Corey’s turn next. So he will get the first shot in a duel. It is statistically his best option of getting the hand of the gorgeous Phoebe, not to mention her other bits.’
‘And does he?’
‘Does he what?’
‘Win.’
‘I don’t know. That’s not the point. It’s game theory, bozo, not a fairy story.’
‘And you call me dumb! You don’t even know how the story ends.’
I hopped off and pulled the bedclothes over her. She instantly snuggled down so that just her nose peeped over the blanket. There was a broad, slimy patch on the material where her nasal discharge had found a glistening home. I ruffled her hair and made for the door. I was halfway through when I turned back.
‘Okay. Corey does win. He wins the gorgeous Phoebe but after a week he finds out that she is a dumb bozo with poo for brains, so he throws his own rat at his own neck. That’s how bad she is.’
‘He’ll miss two times out of three.’
Game Theory Page 1
