“That sounds great!” I looked at my brother. I hadn’t come up with anything to occupy us over the summer. “We’d enter even without the prize money. Right, Will?”
Will shrugged.
“There’s nothing in here we can’t do.” Lizzie bounced on her toes. “We’ve got Grady’s gaming skills for puzzle-solving. Will was the best orienteer when we did Duke of Edinburgh and we all know his brain is a miracle. You can fix practically anything, Ben – and Car, you were brilliant when Noah broke his leg last year. If we pass the assessment and get through the lottery, we could totally win this.” Lizzie looked at Carmen. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know, chica.” Carmen avoided her gaze. “I’d have to take time off work. I told the salon I could work full time, starting next week.”
“You enjoyed Duke of Edinburgh.”
“I liked helping at the animal shelter. But when I agreed to do DofE you promised that we’d have a fun summer. This does not sound like fun.”
“A million pounds, Car.” Will brushed his hair out of his eyes. “It would pay for vet school.”
“That was a secret.” She glared at him. “A stupid dream.”
“You never told me that’s what you wanted to do!” Lizzie adjusted her glasses and sat next to her. “You have to come with us. You’d be a fantastic vet!” She smiled. “We can’t do it without you.”
“Fine.” Carmen threw up her hands. “I can always get another floor-sweeping job if I lose this one.”
“What about you, Grady?” Lizzie asked.
He grinned. “I’m in if you guys are.”
We’d only let Grady join our Duke of Edinburgh squad after Noah’s accident left us a man down and his dad put him forward but, despite his oddities, I was glad we had. Grady never went anywhere without his ‘bag of tricks’ – he took that old Scout motto Be prepared to heart. Also, Will seemed to like him, which was a definite plus.
“We’re entering, then?” I looked around.
“This is going to be amazing, you guys.” Lizzie leaped up and clicked on the link to download the entry forms.
My phone blinked and vibrated. “Will, Mum’s calling.”
“She’s calling you.” Will didn’t even look up.
I left my drink and went out to the landing. There was no telling what mood she’d be in. I took a deep breath, let the phone ring for as long as I dared and then accepted the call.
“Where are you?” she snapped.
“Hi, Mum. We’re at Lizzie’s.”
“Will’s with you?”
“Where else?”
“Don’t take that tone with me.” I could picture her sitting on the chair in the hall, her pale brown fringe hanging over her face. Her hair was just like Will’s – mine was ginger, like Dad’s. “Are you watching him?”
“He’s almost seventeen, Mum.”
“You know how delicate he is.”
My jaw tightened. “Yes, I’m watching him.”
“You have to be there for him, Ben.”
“Yes, Mum.”
“He was the worst affected when your father left.”
“I know, Mum.”
Her tone changed. “You’d better not be eating anything over there. I’ve got your dinner on.”
“Yes, Mum. I mean, no, we’re not eating.”
Will and I were only allowed what Mum put on the table. This month we were doing the Atkins diet. I never thought I’d miss carrots and I’d kill for a plate of chips.
“Just like your father! You make promises then you go and do whatever you want.” She was working herself up; probably standing now, pacing.
“I’m sorry.”
I held the phone away from my ear as she began to yell at me. “… your responsibility … don’t you go thinking you’re too good…”
I waited until she calmed down, then said, “Everything’s fine here, Mum, honestly. We’ll be back for dinner.”
“Promise?”
“Why don’t you make a cup of tea and relax?”
“That’s a good idea, Ben.” Her voice softened and I sighed. I couldn’t figure out if she’d worry more when we left home or less. She was the one who had let Will do his exams a couple of years early and apply to Oxford. She wanted to be able to brag about her genius son.
I took a deep breath. “I’ll see you later, OK?”
Will looked up as I walked back in. “The usual?”
I tossed the phone on to the bed. “The usual.”
The forms had to be filled in by hand and posted, so Lizzie had printed them out. The others had already started. Carmen hummed tunelessly until Lizzie reached over and switched on her old record player. Nina Simone’s deep voice filled the room.
“Are you sure your mum will let you come, Will?” Lizzie asked. Her fingers had gone back to her hair, worrying. I wanted to hold her hand to calm her; I gripped my pen tighter.
“She’ll be fine with it,” Will said.
I snorted. “She won’t be ‘fine with it’. But Will should be able to talk her round. It would be easier if we could tell the local paper we were applying – she’d love that. But the prize money should go a long way towards persuading her.”
“I don’t understand this dumb confidentiality clause – why can’t we tell the papers?” Grady frowned. “It seems suspicious to me. If this was all above board, it would be everywhere.”
“It’s on the Internet, Grady.” Lizzie tapped her pencil impatiently. “It is everywhere.”
“It’s not a bad thing,” I said. “The fewer people who know about the competition, the more chance we have of getting through.”
“Anyway,” Carmen added, “do you really want to be in the papers saying, ‘We’re entering this competition’? If we lose, everyone will know. If we win, we’ll be hounded for the money – it happened to my Uncle Javi.”
“You have a millionaire uncle?” I asked.
Carmen let out a laugh. “Chico! No! He won a year’s supply of ham. All he had, day and night, were calls from people wanting free ham.” She rolled off the bed. “I don’t know my blood type. I need to call Mami. Can I use someone’s phone?”
“Out of credit again?” Lizzie tossed hers over.
Carmen caught Lizzie’s phone. “Always.” She danced into the hall and down the stairs. “Buenos días, Mrs Bellamy. You look lovely today!”
I started my own form while Carmen was out of the room, looking up only when she jumped back on to the bed saying, “I am O negative, by the way.”
“That’s unusual, isn’t it?” Lizzie frowned.
“I am Spanish, remember!” Carmen said, as if that explained it.
“Actually,” Grady said, “it means you’re descended from the Nephilim … or aliens. Opinion is divided on which it is. I’ll send you a link.”
Carmen grinned.
“Ben, have you got to part two?” Lizzie asked me. “These questions are nuts – listen to this. Success is based on survival of the fittest; I don’t care about the losers.”
I turned over my page. “I’m not there yet…”
“What are we meant to answer, though? I mean, what do they want us to say? Look at these.” She shoved her form at me.
I pointed to the question at the bottom of the page. “That’s easy – we’ve got to strongly agree, right? Show that we’re going to think things through, not rush into dangerous situations.”
“Carmen would have to lie, then.” Lizzie ducked as Carmen threw a pillow at her head. “Seriously though – I don’t know what they want.” She looked at Will. “What do you think? Should we tell the truth?”
Will folded his arms. “You’re asking me if I think you should manipulate the system?” He showed his Will-grin; a semi-scathing twist of the mouth.
I looked at my form. “You’re really OK with cheating, Lizzie?”
“For a million pounds, are you kidding?” she cried.
I shook my head. “There are two hundred questions here. It’s designed to trip
us up. And you don’t know what they’re looking for – I think we need to answer honestly.”
Will nodded. “Ben’s right.”
“You want to be honest?” Lizzie’s eyes were round. “You – Will Harper?” She turned to Carmen, who flicked her pink-tipped dark hair over one shoulder. “Carmen?”
“It’ll be easier to do it as myself, chica. More fun.”
“I agree.” Grady tossed his pen in the air but dropped the catch.
“Of course you do,” Lizzie muttered. “Fine. But I’m going to blame you guys if we get rejected before we even reach the lottery.”
Copyright
STRIPES PUBLISHING LTD
An imprint of Little Tiger Group
1 Coda Studios, 189 Munster Road,
London SW6 6AW
First published as an ebook by Stripes Publishing in 2018.
First published in Great Britain in 2019
Text copyright © Gabriel Dylan, 2019
Cracked glass photo © Shutterstock/Emilia Kun
Cover copyright © Stripes Publishing Ltd, 2018
eISBN: 978–1–78895–108–1
The right of Gabriel Dylan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any forms, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
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