Free The Game by Diana Wynne Jones

Mercer, you know – and Mercer would tell Uncle Jolyon at once. It’s blackmail really.”
    The trophy cabinet was in a small room off the lounge. Although the lounge was now dry and polished, nobody had yet got round to the small room. On its wet and muddy floor stood a tall glass-fronted cupboard which Harmony unlocked with a special key from the plastic bag. Inside, on the rather dirty shelves, were little heaps of tiny objects: quite a pile of inch long glass shoes, almost a nest of grey curly hairs, six miniature Aladdin’s lamps, a bunch of tiny bright feathers and a cluster of little bottles, among other things. Harmony ceremoniously put the new objectsbeside the old, small ones, where they sat dwarfing them. Last of all, she put Troy’s big gleaming dragon scale beside the three tiny ones already there. Then she locked the cupboard and turned to give the plastic apple into Hayley’s hands.
    â€œThere,” she said. “I’m giving the prize to Hayley because she was pretty brave to go. Is that OK, Troy?”
    â€œFine,” Troy said, in his calm way. “I’ve won a hundred times anyway.”

Chapter Seven
    F or the next few days, Hayley enjoyed herself more than she had ever done in her entire life. Once the aunts had finished drying and cleaning the house and Mercer was able to set up ladders and start the repainting, Troy explained the rules of hide-and-seek and the other indoor games. Hayley rushed shrieking through the rooms and corridors with her cousins as if she had been doing it all her life. She ate huge meals. She went with the rest of them in a convoy of cars to the seaside, where the sea took her breath away, first by its size and strength, and againwhen Troy and Harmony tried to teach her to swim and an enormous wave rolled in and swamped all three of them.
    â€œGetting quite rosy and plump, isn’t she?” beautiful Aunt Alice said to Aunt May as the two of them lay stretched on towels, watching. And Aunt May agreed, rather proudly, feeling personally responsible for the change in Hayley.
    Apart from that one day by the sea, the young ones played the game most mornings and Hayley soon began to feel a veteran of the mythosphere. Harmony always insisted that Hayley went with Troy for safety, but Hayley did not mind, even when Tollie chanted, “Baby, baby! Has to have her hand held!”
    â€œTake no notice,” Harmony said. “He’s a brat.”
    â€œI know,” said Hayley. “Harmony, why do you always manage the game? Don’t you ever want to play too?”
    A thoughtful, amused look came over Harmony’s face. “Well,” she said, “for one thing, I’m the only one who can manage it. And for another, when I was small, I used to ramble all over the mythosphere, until my mother caught me at it and threatened to tell Uncle Jolyon.”
    â€œDaren’t you go now?” Hayley asked anxiously, thinking of how angry Grandma had been.
    Harmony laughed. “Don’t worry. I still go out there a lot – but mostly when I’m away at Music College, so that I won’t get Mother into trouble.” She took up the bundle of markers and looked around the paddock, where everyone was waiting to start that morning’s game. “Where’s Troy got to?”
    Troy came into the paddock as Harmony asked this. He said to Harmony, “Mercer’s going to finish the painting today.”
    Hayley was surprised. She had grown so used to seeing Cousin Mercer up a ladder painting water-stained ceilings that it almost seemed like his permanent occupation – and from the number of ceilings needing painting, anyone would have thought Cousin Mercer would be up a ladder at least for the next year.
    Harmony looked musingly down at the card table, with the clock and the bundle of cards on it. “I think we’d better make this the last game then,” she said.
    Everybody groaned.
    Harmony