Ant began to ask whether they’d argued about Operation Wipeout, but she talked over him. He remembered that she couldn’t hear him. Kelly had filmed this many years before.
‘So this is where you come in,’ she said. ‘You and your dragon can now defend any game. I’ve been training you both up, hoping you will help protect the world from whatever my darling brother has in mind. I’ll be watching, too, if I’m still around. So, all I can say is good luck.’
‘No, no, no, don’t go!’ cried Ant, but it was too late: Kelly Crunch sighed, reached over and pressed a button. The video stopped and the screen shrank then disappeared from the sky.
Now it made sense why Kody hated Kismet so much: it had been Kelly’s creation, not his. Ant started to feel annoyed with Kelly. Why wasn’t she here right now, protecting the world from her brother? Where was she?
Ant felt lonelier than ever. Then he remembered he had Griff and Rubie by his side. And, of course, Pradahl. If she were able to play with them in any game, think what that would mean for their games detective agency!
He turned and rubbed her nose and she butted her forehead against his shoulder, then they started to walk through the mist. Before long they came to a curved edge, over which the clouds tumbled like a waterfall. Ant gasped as he saw, a long way below, a slowly rotating disc of stars and planets and masses of cosmic dust.
‘It’s the whole of Kismet Cosmos,’ he whispered, overwhelmed by its beauty. From where they stood, he could pick out the individual planets they both knew so well: Zoberne and Aneome, even tiny Mantros. Now he realised that all those planets had simply been training them up, him and Pradahl, getting them ready for bigger adventures ahead. Kismet Heaven wasn’t the end: it was just the beginning.
‘Pradahl, our little team has a huge job to do!’ said Ant. ‘Kody Crunch is bound to try Operation Wipeout again. But between us all, we can take him on.’
Pradahl nudged Ant’s shoulder and huffed happy puffs of smoke.
First published in 2019
by Firefly Press
25 Gabalfa Road, Llandaff North, Cardiff, CF14 2JJ
www.fireflypress.co.uk
Copyright © Ruth Morgan
The author asserts her moral right to be identified as author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act, 1988.
All rights reserved.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form, binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781910080993
ebook ISBN 9781913102005
This book has been published with the support of the Welsh Books Council.
Cover illustration by Sernur Isik
Cover design by Isabella Ashford
