The Nightmare Game by Gillian Cross Read Free Book Online Page A

Hope.”
    That was the most frightening thing of all. Warren had never even imagined his parents on different sides. Now he was being asked to choose between them and he didn’t know how. His whole life had suddenly become impossible.
    â€œBut what can I do?” he muttered. “I’m no use—”
    â€œYou can help me shadow them,” his mother said quickly. “And when the right moment comes, you’ll have to help. I can’t do it on my own.”
    Warren didn’t say anything. Looking at her, he understood that it was too late to draw back. Somehow, without realizing it, he’d already become part of the plan. He and his mother were going to kidnap one of the kidnappers.
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    â€œTHERE WERE THREE KIDNAPPERS,” SAID ZAK. “A TALL ONE, A SHORT ONE, and a witch with ginger hair. They carried off the old man’s daughter and took her far away from home.”
    Bando leaned forward anxiously from his place beside Lorn. “Did they kill her?”
    All around the circle, people held their breath—and so did Lorn. Are you going to make that up, too, Zak? she thought bitterly. Are you going to twist the story some more?
    But Zak shook his head at Bando. “Oh no, they didn’t kill her,” he said. “Nothing as simple as that. They wanted to keep her alive. So they took her far, far away, into a great dark forest. And there they cramped her and bent her and squashed her and SHRANK her—”
    He lifted his hands from the drum skin, spreading the fingers like claws. Twisting them cruelly to compress the empty air until Lorn could almost see the tiny, soft body of the old man’s daughter, shrinking, shrinking, shrinking . . .
    â€œThey squeezed her smaller and smaller and smaller,” Zak whispered. “Until she was no bigger than a bean. Until she was—as small as we are.”
    A long, shocked sigh ran around the cavern. Suddenly, the story had come very close to everyone. They all knew what it was to be snatched away from the ordinary, familiar world and plunged into a totally different life. They all knew what it was to find themselves trapped in bodies so small that each day was a fight for survival. Every person there had been snatched away and shrunk—without knowing why or how.
    Was Zak’s story going to explain all that at last? Was it going to unravel the mystery? That was what they all wanted and their longing drew them deep into the story. Lorn saw their faces grow rapt and intent.
    And she knew they were all on the side of the old man and his family—and against the robbers who’d snatched the old man’s daughter away.
    It wasn’t like that, she wanted to shout. You’re hearing it wrong. It wasn’t like that at all. But she couldn’t say the words. How could she interrupt and break the spell of the story?
    Zak waited until the cavern was completely silent again. Then he went on. “They shrank the poor stolen girl until she was no bigger than—this.” He held up a hand, with the thumb and forefinger nearly touching. “Then they squashed her into a hole in the ground and stopped up the hole with thorns. She couldn’t escape. She was trapped in the forest, unable to go home to her father. And as for him—”
    As for him —A huge, dark shape loomed suddenly in Lorn’s mind, blotting out the firelight and the familiar, friendly faces. As for him— She could hardly breathe, hardly hear Zak’s voice as it went steadily on and on.
    â€œThe old man’s heart was broken,” Zak said. “The hole in the ground was empty. His daughter was gone.”
    For a second, he let the words hang. Then he rattled his fingers sharply against the drum skin.
    â€œHis wife and his son couldn’t bear to see him so distraught. They pulled on their battered old boots and their shabby hats, picked up their walking sticks and set out into the world to find the