Mind Games Read Free

younger Goodwin could make me cry. Not any more. I struggle to hold the pain inside, to keep it from my face, but she knows it is there.
    She smiles, and picks up my right shoe in her hand. ‘And then we come to this interestingly decorated object, casually left behind in my outer office. Placed behind a plant where it wasn’t immediately seen, but easily found on a search. No doubt with your fingerprints all over it. Why?’
    ‘I dropped it. That’s all!’
    She shakes her head. ‘Don’t bother, Luna. So. My first thought: that isn’t clever. My second thought: it is irrational. Or is it ? What would leaving evidence of your identity behind at the scene of your breaking and entering, and assault upon my person, actually achieve? And I’ve come to one conclusion. You wanted to get caught . But why?’ She pauses, as if waiting for an answer, but I’m too stunned she worked it out to come up with anything.
    ‘The answer is obvious. I’m not giving you what you want, Luna. Your elaborate plan has failed. You won’t be expelled.’
    ‘ What?’
    ‘You heard me. But that doesn’t mean you won’t be punished, oh no. Once the tests are under way next week, we’ll find some interesting extra lessons for you to do for the rest of the school year. I haven’t decided quite what yet, but they will be very… interesting . You can alleviate your fate, in part, if you identify your accomplice.’
    ‘I acted alone.’
    ‘Oh, really? You, a Refuser, hacked into the school security system? And not only that, you did it at the very same time as entering my office?’ She shakes her head. ‘Even you aren’t that clever. Now get to class.’
    She has Robson escort me to my classroom door. When I open it, every face looks up with shock. It seems consensus was that I’d never be seen again. I sit down, and Rachel squeezes my arm.
    I’m a minor celebrity. Even though I don’t confirm or deny anything, everyone put Goodwin’s clown face and Robson hauling me off at lunch together, and by the end of day came up with the right answer for a change. Students who’ve ignored my existence for years break into spontaneous applause when we go down the stairs.
    Despite being totally weirded out by what Goodwin said, worried about what will happen next week and, most of all, upset that I didn’t get expelled so I could spend the last pointless months of school before work placements away from this place, it is kind of fun.
    Until I get home.

3
    My stepmother Sally is waiting for me as soon as I walk through the door.
    ‘Bea tells me you were trying to get expelled. Are you insane?’
    There is a very big disadvantage to having my stepmother going to the same virtual gym as my head teacher. I walk through to the kitchen to get a drink, and she follows.
    ‘What were you thinking?’ she says. ‘I’ve a good mind to get your father in here, and—’
    I look up. I know an empty threat when I hear one. ‘Please do. I haven’t seen him in weeks.’
    There is a giggle from the corner, and I go and slip an arm over Nanna’s shoulders. She switches back to humming, rocking back and forth slightly in her seat.
    My stepmother flops down in a chair in front of us. ‘Luna, I just don’t understand. Why would you try to get expelled?’
    And she looks genuinely distressed, and worried, and I’m contrite.
    ‘I’m sorry, Sally. I don’t want to upset you. But what is the point to finishing the year? I’m well out of the grade bracket to get a Test appointment. The rest of the year is just all the failures marking time, before whatever dire work placement headed our way begins.’
    ‘If she’d expelled you, that’d be on your record forever, Luna. We’ve got enough problems in this family without you adding to them more than you have already.’
    And I stiffen. Now and then I think she is human, but it always comes back to that: her shame at being associated with our gene pool, that her son is tainted by it forever – by a