Free The Game by Diana Wynne Jones Page A

simply fixed Tollie with a meaning stare. “Isn’t that so, Tollie?”
    Tollie shuffled his trainers in the trampled grass. “I told him all about the game. He’s going to phone Uncle Jolyon as soon as he’s finished,” he admitted.
    â€œYou little sneak,” Harmony said to him, in a dangerously kind, cheerful voice. “I hope you realise you’ve spoilt your own fun too.”
    Tollie pointed at Hayley. “It’s her fault. She shouldn’t be playing.”
    Harmony tossed her hair back angrily. “ None of us should be playing,” she said. “Don’t you understand, you silly little brat? No, you don’t, do you? Right everyone. As this is our last game, we’ll add a bit of variety. Each of you take your own marker and plant it where you like. That should change the strands you use quite radically. Then come back and get your card.” She spread the markers out in a fan on the table and then picked up the cards and shuffled them, still staring at Tollie. “If I didn’t know you’d cheat,” she said, as Hayley picked up her marker and went off beside Troy to plant it, “I’d make sure you got theSlough of Despond or the cave of Polyphemus, Tollie. Polyphemus is a man-eating giant and just what you deserve.”
    Tollie gave Harmony a smirk. He planted his marker right beside the card table and held out his hand for a card. Harmony handed it to him with a sugary smile. “There you are, dear Tollie. Fetch a roc’s egg and I hope it chokes you. And I warn you – if you bring me the ostrich egg from Aunt May’s office, I shall break all my promises to Mercer and spank you.”
    She handed cards out to everyone else. From the looks on all their faces, the instructions on the cards were not the usual ones. Lucy went quite white as she read hers. “I’m afraid of witches!” she whispered to James.
    â€œBad luck,” James said unsympathetically. “You’re lucky – I’ve got to get through a dirty great thorn hedge, and I don’t even know what a spindle looks like! What happens if I wake Sleeping Beauty up?” he asked Harmony.
    She handed a card to Hayley. “Why, you get married and live happily ever after, James my sweetheart,” shesaid. “Look on the bright side. You’d be safe away from Uncle Jolyon if that happens.”
    It was evident that Harmony was very angry indeed. As they went back to their markers, Troy said nervously to Hayley, “What does she want us to do?”
    Hayley looked at her card. It said, FETCH A GOLDEN APPLE FROM THE ORCHARD OF THE HESPERIDES. Though it was as used and battered looking as any of the other cards, when she showed it to Troy, he said, “I’ve never seen that one before! But it doesn’t look too bad. Last time she got this angry, I had to go to Mercury and bring her a mad robot. And the time before that, I had to pinch Arthur’s sword out of the stone. I couldn’t pull it out and he came along and hit me for trying to steal it. And before that— Oh, forget it. Let’s go.”
    Behind them, the clock started to tinkle. This time its tune was Over the Rainbow , which made Hayley laugh, because it seemed exactly right. She followed Troy down to the bottom of the paddock, where there was a small gate that led into the orchard. That struck her as exactly right too.
    The next moment she was wondering if it was right.Troy pushed the gate open and walked in among all the bushy apple trees. Hayley followed him before the gate swung closed again, but there was no sign of Troy when she was in the orchard. Since there was a clear path trodden through the long grass, Hayley followed it, expecting all the time to see Troy ahead of her beyond the next tree. Instead, she came to another fence with a gate in it, that led out into a wide field. She could not see Troy anywhere in the field. But in the distance