Free Launched! by J A Mawter

in a smooth arc he hooked the rider around the arm. The rider squealed, caught by surprise, as his bike went one way and he stayed behind.
    ‘ Dam Lao! ’ A sinewy fist struck the rider’s helmet at the level of the temple. ‘ Da Canh! ’ A diagonally applied kick to the hip brought him to his knees. There was a quick scissors kick around the chest with a body twist to finish him off. It took all of a few seconds. Tong resisted the urge to jump on his opponent, and instead stood a short distance away, ready to spring at the slightest provocation.
    Mio dealt with the other rider. She, too, used a combination of keri (kicks), tsuki (thrusts) and uchi (arm strikes) to defend herself. She smiled as ‘the way of the empty hand’ brought him down.
    Spurred on by Mio and Tong’s success, Darcy ran at his rider and flung himself at his opponent’s chest. He flinched as a jarring pain shot through his shoulder but quickly forgot it as he wrestled the boy to the ground. There was a fierce scuffle, with dirt and dust clouding the air. The boy fought hard but Darcy fought harder, and soon he was using his weight to pin the boy to the ground.
    Now there was only one assailant left, in a deadlock with Bryce. He was twisting and turning, trying to prise his way out of Bryce’s grasp, butBryce clung on. The boy brought his knee up hard, catching Bryce by surprise in the low, soft part of the belly. As he doubled up with pain, he screeched to Clem, ‘Run!’ Clem hesitated, torn between her desire to help Bryce and her desire to save herself and Bella.
    ‘Arr-yee-ah!’ Starbursts of pain shot through Bryce’s head as his opponent headbutted him in the face. Blackness enveloped him. Blood mingled with sweat and spittle. He could feel his legs going from under him, but from somewhere deep inside he also felt an explosion of fury—fury that he’d got his friends into a stupid, stupid fight. It was up to him to end it.
    The uppercut to the ribs stunned his attacker. Those one or two seconds were all Bryce needed to claim this fight back. Grabbing the boy by the shirt, he shoved him face down, wanting him to eat dirt. But he couldn’t. The helmet had to go.
    Bryce slid his hand under the boy’s chin and tried to snap the chin strap open, but he couldn’t get a grip. As the boy jerked away Bryce could see that his hair was long. It hung from under the helmet in rivers of sweat caked with dust, which was quickly turning to mud. Bryce flipped the boy over and straddled his chest. But as a cry welled to the boy’s lips, it faltered and died. ‘You!’
    The boy rocked and writhed under Bryce’s weight, legs and arms flailing, till with a superman push he managed to get away. He scurried to his bike and leapt on, but as he sped off something dropped from his jacket.
    It was a headless doll.

Chapter Ten
    ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ said Clem, the following morning before school. The kids were gathered in the canteen drinking hot chocolate. In front of them on the table lay the headless doll. ‘What boy plays with dolls?’
    Mio picked up the doll’s body, inspecting the gaping hole where a head should have been. ‘What boy rips their head off, more like it?’
    Darcy took the doll from Mio and stuck his thumb and index finger in the hole, then flipped the doll upside down, pretending it was a puppet. There was something really creepy about the chubby little body, with dimples in its hands and feet, and bandy baby legs where a head should’ve been.
    ‘Give it to me,’ said Clem. She pulled a doll’s head from her pocket. With a push and a twist she eased the head back onto the body. It was a perfect fit.
    ‘What’s this tell us?’ asked Mio.
    ‘That the boy on the bike’s a sissy,’ joked Darcy, but at the look on his sister’s face he shut up.
    ‘No,’ corrected Clem, her voice thick with impatience. ‘It tells us that at some stage the doll lost its head and somehow it ended up in the tunnel and somehow the body