Skymaze Read online

  Ben had a different set of memories. He had blotted out large chunks of the time they had all played Space Demons. Remembering it now made him feel extremely uncomfortable. He had no intention of letting Andrew embroil him in anything like that again. And besides, he really was not sure how much of it had been real, and how much had been simply their imaginations running wild.

  ‘You were going through a pretty crazy time last year, you know,’ he told Andrew. ‘You were imagining some weird stuff. Everyone thought you were going nuts.’

  ‘Mario didn’t!’

  ‘What would he know? He’s totally and utterly insane himself. You wouldn’t have had anything to do with him if you hadn’t been going mad too.’

  ‘I can’t have imagined the whole thing, though,’ Andrew said stubbornly.

  ‘Why not? You were obsessed with computer games, you were going through a tough time, you escaped into a fantasy. People do it all the time,’ Ben replied. ‘You see them on the buses talking to themselves!’

  ‘What about this, then?’ Andrew held up the piece of paper. ‘This is the address to send off to for the next game. Don’t you remember, the game wiped itself out because we got through it successfully. And then this address came up on the screen, and Mario told me to write it down. You must remember. We were all here in this room. Elaine Taylor was here too. There’s the computer!’

  Ben looked across at the blank screen. It looked too innocent now ever to have been the source of such menace. ‘Why didn’t you send off for it then?’ he countered.

  ‘I was going to, but then there was too much else going on. All the fuss about the divorce, and then Dad getting tied up with Rose in Sydney, and Mum going all swimmy-eyed over Keith, and then starting at St Hugh’s. I kept meaning to send off for it, but it never seemed to be quite the right time.’

  ‘There you are,’ Ben said triumphantly. ‘That proves it. You never sent off for it because you know at some deep level that there’s not going to be anything unusual about it. You’d rather hang on to your fantasy than test it and find it’s untrue.’

  ‘What a load of crap!’ Andrew replied. ‘Where do you get all these phoney ideas from? You’re as bad as Keith!’

  ‘Dad’s doing a counselling course. It tells you a lot about people’s ulterior motives. It’s really neat!’

  ‘Huh!’ Andrew dismissed the counselling course with a snort of contempt. ‘You’re absolutely wrong. And just to prove how wrong you are, I think I’ll send off for the new game.’ He didn’t sound hopeless any more. He was grinning with delight. The idea cheered him up immensely. ‘It’s just what I need to take my mind off my unbearable circumstances.’ He stretched over to the next drawer of the chest, and pulled it open. ‘There should be some writing paper in here somewhere. I’m going to send off for it right now!’

  Ben straightened up the stack of magazines with a vague feeling of foreboding. ‘You’re going to be disappointed,’ he warned. ‘It’ll only be an ordinary game.’

  ‘Then you won’t mind coming over to play it, will you?’ Andrew replied. ‘Come on, let’s get the rest of the stuff packed up. Then we can burn down to the Post Office.’

  ‘Okay,’ Ben agreed, but only because it seemed marginally preferable to playing Hunter in the streets with Darren. All the same, he had an uncomfortable feeling he was getting out of the frying pan and into the fire.

  2

  A few weeks had passed and Andrew had settled into the house in North Adelaide before the package arrived. His mother mentioned it in the car on their way home from school. ‘Something came for you from Japan today, Andrew.’

  Zing! His whole body thrilled in excitement, as though he had touched an electric current.

  Paul, who was in the front seat, turned round. ‘What is it?’ he asked jealously.

  ‘Always shoving his big nose into things,’ Andrew thought with dislike. Paul’s nose was rather big, and he was very inquisitive. Everything Andrew did fascinated him, although he pretended to ignore him, and any secret Andrew had Paul always ferreted out. He also kept a strict balance sheet on the way the two parents treated the stepbrothers, and was very quick to draw attention to anything he thought unfair or any way he thought Andrew was being favoured.

  Since the death of his mother when he was six, Paul had grown unusually close to his father, and he viewed with some alarm Andrew’s intrusion into their lives. On the whole he did not mind his father’s remarriage; he liked Andrew’s mother, and he had to admit it was pleasant to have a woman in the house again, after their rather spartan male existence. He just thought it was a great shame that Andrew had to be part of the package, especially since Andrew’s confident and charming manner was quite unlike Paul’s own rather intense and introverted personality.

  ‘I don’t know yet, do I?’ Andrew replied guardedly.

  ‘Is it some sort of present?’ Paul insisted. ‘Who paid for it?’

  ‘None of your business,’ Andrew retorted rudely.

  ‘Oh, isn’t it?’ Paul glared at Andrew over the back of the seat. ‘I just might make it my business.’

  ‘Boys,’ Marjorie pleaded as she pulled up outside the house, thinking in despair that Paul could start an argument over anything.

  ‘Give us the key, Mum, I’ll open the door for you.’ Andrew took it from her and sprinted up the path to the front door, where he rapidly tapped in the digits to deactivate the burglar alarm, and put the key in the lock.

  ‘You can help me with the shopping,’ Marjorie said firmly to Paul, who was preparing to pursue him. She didn’t really think it was any of Paul’s business either, and though she tried very hard to be fair to him at other times, she thought this time she would give Andrew a head start.

  By the time Paul had reluctantly carried in the shopping and helped Marjorie put it away, Andrew was safely locked in his room. He looked at the packet carefully. He didn’t want to miss any important clues. It was a padded bag with his address typed on the label, and some rather ordinary Japanese stamps. No indication of the sender; nothing else that seemed of any significance. He opened the bag very carefully, and drew out the disc. Then he ran his fingers round the inside of the bag to make sure there was no accompanying message. It was quite empty.

  He turned his attention to the disc, barely noticing that his pulse was starting to speed up, and his fingers were tingling.

  Across the top of the case ran the title of the game.

  skymaze.

  Andrew spoke the word aloud in high satisfaction. Below it was a picture that he recognised instantly. It was a black sky studded with silver stars, and below it was the faint impression of a cliff top. Andrew grinned like a maniac as he remembered the last time he had seen that cliff top and those stars. The game must be a continuation of Space Demons. It started from the place where Space Demons ended. Peering at the sky, he could see a sort of network that connected the cliff top with the stars.

  Skymaze!

  He couldn’t wait to play it. He would show Ben that it was not just an ordinary game. His heart was jumping with excitement, and his eyes were gleaming. Life was definitely improving!

  There was only one problem—where was he going to play it? He thought with a flash of bitterness of his old house, where he had the computer all to himself in his own room where he could lock the door. Now, because he had to share it with Paul, the computer was kept in a study off the family room at the back of the house. There was no way Andrew could use it in private—and if Skymaze was anything like Space Demons, privacy was what he was going to need.

  He was still thinking about the problem when the door handle rattled and Paul’s voice called, ‘Hey, Andrew!’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘You want to have a game of pool?’ Paul’s voice sounded unusually friendly, and this made Andrew suspicious at once. ‘He probably only wants me to play so he can find out what w
as in the parcel,’ he thought. ‘Darn it, how am I going to get to play this game without anyone seeing?’

  ‘No thanks,’ he said back through the closed door.

  There was a moment’s silence during which Andrew hoped fervently that Paul was removing himself, but then the older boy remarked, ‘I’ll tell Dad you vetoed.’

  Andrew swore to himself. This was one of Keith’s plans for Happy Family living. No one was allowed to refuse a reasonable request or suggestion from another member of the family. If you did, you were using the veto, which was the same as rejecting the other person and refusing to recognise their right to exist and their right to relate to you. ‘We have to learn to say yes to each other, not to say no,’ Keith explained to Andrew. Sometimes it could be an excellent rule, like when the boys suggested to Keith that he should take them to a movie or out for dinner, but Andrew wasn’t so keen on it when it involved Paul.

  ‘I’ve got to do my homework,’ he said, not quite truthfully.

  ‘Ha ha!’ Paul replied. ‘You can do it later. Just a short game. I’ve got homework too, and then I’m going to have a game of squash with Dad.’

  ‘Great!’ Andrew thought with satisfaction. ‘They’ll be out for an hour at least. I can get on the computer then.’

  ‘Okay,’ he conceded. He hid the disc under his pillow, and opened the door.

  The two boys descended the stairs and walked down the corridor to the back of the house. It was a large nineteenth-century mansion with spacious rooms and wrought-iron verandas, surrounded by small, formal grounds and protected by a complex electronic security system. Andrew could see that it was gracious and beautiful, but privately he rather disliked it. It was too stately and dignified, and too dark inside. He preferred his old house, and he had liked living in the foothills. North Adelaide felt like the middle of the city. He was thinking about this with half his mind as he followed Paul to the games room. The other half was still busy with Skymaze.

  The games room was under the house, in what had been a summer parlour. It had a decorated ceiling, and its windows looked out on to the garden, where the flower beds were at eye level and the shrubs gave a greenish light to the room.

  ‘I didn’t know you knew anyone in Japan,’ Paul observed, selecting a cue and chalking it.

  ‘My father has some friends over there,’ Andrew replied non-committally, setting out the balls and mentally congratulating himself on being right about Paul’s ulterior motives. ‘Are we playing pool or snooker?’

  ‘Pool. I’ll let you break. Nice friends to send you presents.’

  Andrew did not reply. He removed the triangle from the pool balls and prepared to break. It was a lucky shot: two balls rolled gently into the top pocket.

  ‘Hey, look at that,’ he crowed. ‘Ace shot!’

  ‘Fluke,’ Paul sneered.

  ‘No fluke,’ Andrew contradicted him, promptly sinking another ball. ‘I just happen to be a brilliant pool player. You should know that by now. Are we playing for money?’

  ‘No, we’re not playing for money, you mercenary little beggar. We’re playing for pure brotherly love. Nice, isn’t it?’ Paul took his turn, got two balls down, and then missed an easy shot. ‘What was in the parcel?’

  ‘What’s it matter to you?’ Andrew said, concentrating on the shot.

  ‘Why’re you being so secretive?’ Paul countered, chalking his cue again elaborately.

  Andrew was on the eight ball by now. ‘Don’t bother chalking,’ he said. ‘The game’s over!’ The eight ball disappeared with a satisfying clunk.

  Andrew turned to Paul with a grin of triumph, and caught the look of frustrated anger on his stepbrother’s face. ‘Gee, he hates to lose,’ Andrew thought. ‘But what am I supposed to do? I’m not going to lose on purpose just so he can feel good. It’s not my fault that I’m better at pool than he is.’

  ‘You want to play again?’ he asked, expecting Paul to say no.

  ‘Okay,’ Paul said. ‘My break. But let’s play for something this time. If I win, you have to show me the present you got.’

  ‘All right,’ said Andrew. ‘And if I win, you have to shut up about it for ever.’ It seemed like a sure thing. Nine times out of ten he beat Paul at pool. But on his second shot he hit the 10 too hard. It ricocheted on to the eight ball and sent it into the pocket.

  ‘My game,’ Paul said evilly.

  Andrew swore. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘That was just bad luck, you know it was. Put the eight ball back and we’ll play on.’

  ‘No way.’ Paul gave an exaggerated laugh of indignation. ‘We made a deal. You lost the game. Now you show me what was in the package.’

  Andrew felt strongly that he was morally in the right, enough to make a stand on it. ‘Well, I’m not going to,’ he retorted. ‘You can get stuffed.’ He put his cue back in the rack and turned to walk out of the room.

  Paul grabbed him by the arm. ‘You little creep,’ he hissed in Andrew’s face. ‘You’re so darned arrogant. I’d like to teach you a lesson!’

  ‘Let go of me,’ Andrew yelled angrily. He wrenched his arm away from Paul’s grip but somehow in his rage the pulling away turned into a pushing towards and he found himself smacking Paul on the nose.

  Paul grunted in surprise and anger, and smacked Andrew back hard on the side of the head. Then he stood there, hands still raised, as if daring Andrew to retaliate. Neither boy was particularly fond of fighting, but Andrew was enraged enough to risk another punch, socking Paul this time in the ribs. Paul clipped him over the ear again.

  It was still not really a fight, more like slow-motion sparring, neither of them wanting to go over the top and completely out of control, when they were interrupted by a cheerful shout from above: ‘Paul, Andy! Are you down there?’ and Dr Keith Freeman came leaping boyishly down the stairs.

  The two boys jumped apart, but there was nothing they could do to disguise the violent atmosphere. Keith’s cheerful face lengthened noticeably as he looked from one to the other.

  ‘Paul, please tell me how you are feeling at the moment?’ he enquired, trying to sound patient.

  ‘I feel Andrew is a conceited creep and a cheat!’ Paul responded furiously.

  ‘Ask me how I feel!’ Andrew exclaimed. ‘I feel Paul is a bully and a snoop!’ The two boys glared at each other.

  ‘You’re bound to have hostile and negative feelings towards each other,’ Keith said reassuringly. ‘It’s perfectly natural. But it’s against house rules to express these feelings violently.’

  ‘I was trying to be friendly,’ Paul said with disgusted virtue. ‘I asked him to have a game of pool. And when he lost he wouldn’t keep the deal.’

  ‘Is that a true version of the facts, Andy?’

  ‘Not really,’ Andrew said, wishing for the hundredth time that Keith wouldn’t call him Andy. ‘He only asked me to play so he could worm something out of me. It’s a secret, and I don’t want him to know about it.’

  ‘You can share secrets with us, Andy. We’re your family now. You don’t need to keep things to yourself so much. You can trust us. When you won’t tell Paul things, he feels rejected by you—’

  ‘That’s right!’ Paul put in swiftly.

  ‘—and that’s no way to build a trusting relationship. I know it’s not easy for you and I know it’s going to take time. But we all live in the same house now—we have to sort things out.’ Keith nodded two or three times to himself at the end of this speech, and smiled at the boys. Then he put his arms round them both and gave them a hug. ‘You are both terrific people,’ he said. ‘I know you’re going to come to appreciate each other. Now, what about that game of squash?’

  ‘You’re on,’ Paul said.

  ‘Andy?’

  ‘I’ve got something else I want to do right now,’ Andrew said, disentangling himself from the hug, and retreating up the stairs. He could feel his
stepfather’s eyes on him, and knew just the sort of quizzical, concerned look that would be on his face. It didn’t make him feel any better to hear Paul say, as he reached the hallway, ‘That’s just typical of Andrew, Dad. He’s not even trying to be part of us.’

  ‘I don’t want to be part of you,’ Andrew muttered to himself as he raced up the stairs. ‘I just want to be on my own and play Skymaze.’

  Andrew’s room was at the side of the house, over an extension that had been added as a garage. He heard the doors open, and he watched Keith’s white Lancia back out and disappear at speed in the direction of the Leisure Centre, where the Freemans would play a few games of squash, and no doubt take a turn in the sauna and the spa. Then he took the disc out from under his pillow and went quietly down the stairs, his footsteps muffled by the thick carpet, and into the study. He switched the computer on and put the disc in. He took a deep breath and typed in RUN SKYMAZE.

  He held the joystick with fingers that trembled slightly. The computer screen gave a flicker. Letters began to print themselves rapidly across the screen.

  WELCOME TO THE HYPERGAME SKYMAZE. YOU ARE WARNED NOT TO ATTEMPT THIS GAME IF YOU HAVE NOT MASTERED THE PREVIOUS GAME IN THE SERIES, SPACE DEMONS.

  That was all. No further instructions followed. Andrew read the message through again, and since nothing else happened, he experimentally pressed the fire button on the joystick. The screen cleared. Its original blue colour darkened to almost black. One by one silver stars appeared as though in the night sky, above a cliff. It was a scene that was exhilaratingly familiar, one that Andrew had dreamed about often and longed to be able to return to. With mounting excitement he peered at the stars.