‘Griff?’ Paula, as Lady Cora, jumped down from the horse.
‘Is that your mum?’ said Lyle. ‘It sounds just like her.’
‘Hello, Mrs Landsdowne,’ said Boom politely.
‘Mu-um! Leave me alone,’ Griff hissed. ‘I’m with my mates.’
‘Never mind your mates,’ said Paula. ‘I haven’t played for days and soon as I get back on, guess what? Something’s missing from my cache. Would you know anything about that?’
‘What are you talking about?’ said Griff, in what he hoped sounded like honest bewilderment.
‘That thingy in my cache. The one I told you about.’ Fortunately, Paula had forgotten the rareio’s name.
‘How can I get into your cache? It’s impossible,’ protested Griff. Lyle and Boom were looking at him suspiciously. He had to get them away.
‘I am on level 21,’ Paula said accusingly. ‘You might have wanted to see what that was like?’
Lyle and Boom looked at one another.
‘Is your mum seriously on level 21?’ whispered Lyle.
This was turning into a disaster. ‘Mu-um! As if I’d be seen dead in your suit. Anyway, it only responds to you. Shush, you’re embarrassing me,’ Griff said, through gritted teeth. ‘Look, I’m really sorry you lost your … whatever it was, but we’ve got to go. See you later.’
Griff grabbed Lyle and Boom and dragged them down the path to the lake, praying his mum wouldn’t suddenly remember the rareio’s name and call after him. He swatted away their questions. He was furious with her for showing him up.
A small crowd had gathered by the lakeside. The air was buzzing with excitement and Griff, Lyle and Boom pushed their way through. They’d have bumped into the Zen destroyer if it hadn’t been surrounded by a thick force field.
Griff guessed immediately this was the special destroyer DJ Choonetto had been talking about. It was the most fearsome enteo he’d ever seen, a pale peppermint-green flavour, with fangs protruding from the sides of its blood-red mask.
Griff’s heart leapt to his throat in excitement. He could see stats floating about the Zen destroyer’s head. They were crackling and glitching a bit, but he could see them. With mounting joy and fear, he realised that he could only see these stats because he had the same flavour rareio in his cache!
The huge creature was doing what looked like tae kwon do moves, punching and kicking its shaggy arms and legs as it rotated on the spot. The crowd gazed in fascinated horror. Nobody knew what to do. The clock in Griff’s eyeline showed fifty seconds left.
‘I’ve got it!’ he whispered, hardly daring to say the words. ‘I’ve got the matching collector! It’s – it’s the rareio in my cache.’
‘Well, use it, buddy!’ Boom squeaked in excitement.
Griff gulped. This was the moment he’d both hoped for and feared. He’d been bigging up the rareio for ages. If this didn’t work, he was going to look stupid, or worse… Would it work, a level-17 player using a corrupted level-21 rareio? But, if it did work, imagine the glory! Everyone would worship him as a total hero!
There was no time for debate. They had stumbled across the special Zen destroyer. Perhaps the creature zapped from town to town and this was Westford Abbey’s one and only chance to capture it. Lyle and Boom stared at Griff anxiously. Whatever he was going to do, he was going to have to do it quickly.
Griff pressed the ‘C’ icon and instantly found himself back in his cache. He steeled himself, stood right in front of the rareio and said, the way you were supposed to, ‘Wanna play?’
The invisible chains keeping it prisoner simply melted away. The rareio rose to its blobby feet, still glitching. As it removed its mask, Griff could see a look of pure hatred on its face. Hatred for him. Nevertheless, the rareio glided towards him, rose and dissolved over the top of him. It was a really unpleasant feeling: a kind of sick shudder from head to toe.
Griff was back with the destroyer at the water’s edge. The horrible feeling went away and he felt invincible. He remembered the time he’d worn a very expensive new footie strip at primary school, and everyone had been so jealous of him. He felt incredible!
The Zen destroyer stopped rotating. It clawed at the air, challenging Griff. The force field around it vanished and its stats were going wild. The clock was at five seconds.
‘Destroyer!’ cried Griff.
The metallic mask fell, revealing a nightmare face, all menacing eyebrows and fangs. Its eyes were wells of boiling blood.
A bolt of white lightning shot from Griff’s double fist, skewering the destroyer. With only one second left on the clock, it exploded, covering the whole crowd in nauseating flob. Everyone groaned.
Through the lumpy wetness, Griff saw the scoreboard expand to fill the entire sky. Triumphant invisible trumpets filled the air as the numbers spun in a blur. They were counting down: eight hundred … six hundred … three hundred.
The crowd held its breath, spellbound.
One hundred and fifty … one hundred … seventy-five.
The excited buzz began again.
Forty-five … twenty … ten.
When it got to one, virtual fireworks exploded and the crowd went wild. Westford Abbey was in first place on the leaderboard! First place in the entire country! The main competition was over. Westford Abbey had won!
10
Frozen
The gamers celebrated wildly. Griff the hero was getting virtual hugs from everyone, but then he felt a hard tap on his shoulder.
‘So, you did have it!’ his eighteenth-century mum shrieked in his face.
‘Oh no, don’t do this,’ pleaded Griff, backing away.
‘Somehow, you took that rareio out of my cache, Griff. That was the one I found the other day. You stole it, you little toad.’
The gamers nearby stopped cheering. They were listening in. Lyle and Boom looked tense.
‘Mum, stop, will you? Westford Abbey’s in first place. Can’t you just be happy?’
‘You must be joking.
