Mind Games Read Online Free PDF

to.’
    My stomach is churning already. ‘A big formal dinner with candidates from four schools?’
    ‘It’ll be fine.’
    ‘Has Jezzamine got an appointment?’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘Then this could be some other version of fine: not fine .’
    She shrugs. ‘Just ignore her.’
    ‘And that’s just the start of it. What about the Test? I think I’m going to be sick.’
    ‘You’ll do fine, Luna. You were always smarter than me. Your grades were miles better when you bothered to try. Anyhow, you can’t study for an IQ test. And nobody knows what the RQ test is.’
    I cross my arms over a churning stomach that is doing a good impression of a Realtime reaction even though I’m resolutely in the here and now. Am I smart? OK, I am quicker to work things out than some people, but that is only half of it. No one has ever accused me of being too rational. What the consequences would be of being branded clever-stupid, like Goodwin said, I don’t want to think about.
    I shake my head. Nanna might have been having an episode in the middle of the other night with her warnings, but they echoed what she told me when she was totally with it years ago. Don’t let them notice you .
    I can’t do well at this even if I’m able to, can I? Don’t let them notice you’re different .
    There is only one answer: I have to fail the first test.
    By the time Sally calls us to a late lunch we’ve managed to catch up on the last five years, and the very surprising fact that Melrose is v-dating Hex. Hex? A Hacker? Not sure what her dad’ll make of that, even if it’s just virtual. And we’ve worked out that I have nothing that fits our school’s agreed long midnight blue off-the-shoulder dress for the formal, and desperately need to go shopping. Melrose has persuaded me that there is only one way to make that happen.
    ‘Sally? There’s something I have to tell you.’
    ‘What is it this time?’ Her face is a picture of alarm.
    ‘I…ah…that is to say…’ Some devil inside makes me draw it out.
    ‘You tell me right now.’ Sally is starting to freak out; Jason stops eating to hear what it is. Even Nanna stops rocking in her chair.
    Melrose laughs. ‘Spit it out already, or I’ll do it for you.’
    ‘I’ve got a Test appointment. Next week.’
    Whatever Sally was expecting to hear, this wasn’t it. ‘A Test…?’ She looks to Melrose for confirmation.
    ‘It’s true,’ she says.
    ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Sally demands.
    ‘I just did. Tell you.’
    ‘You idiot girl. You clever thing!’ Sally says, gets out of her chair, and then her arms are around me for a too-tight hug. I roll my eyes over her shoulder at Melrose, who coughs to hide a laugh.
    ‘Mum?’ Jason says and a note in his voice makes Sally release me and us both turn instantly. Nanna’s arms are wrapped around her head. A high-pitched keening moan starts inside her.
    I put an arm around her. ‘Nanna? Everything’s fine, OK?’
    But my words and touch don’t soothe her like they usually do; she suddenly lashes out with both hands, swiping dishes off the table that crash onto the floor. She starts screaming.
    ‘Take Jason,’ I say to Melrose. She’s frozen. ‘ Do it!’ And she pulls Jason into the other room. I wrap my arms around Nanna and try to rock her back and forth, but she struggles. Sally is on the phone to the doctor before I can say wait, see if she settles , but she’s not settling: she’s screaming louder and louder as if she is being tortured by my touch, and tears are starting in the back of my eyes and spilling out.
    The doctor must have been lurking in the bushes, he is there so fast. He makes me hold Nanna tight while he gives her an injection. She struggles, and I feel like a traitor.
    She gradually slackens; her eyes start to close, then flutter open. She stares into mine. ‘Eleven,’ she says, and then she’s gone. Unconscious.
    Unease walks up and down my back with cold feet. Eleven is a warning: danger, or