Stormbreaker

and so on.
    But I’m willing to bet that you don’t manage to score at all.”
    “How much?”
    “Ha ha!” Sayle laughed. “Suppose I were to bet you ten pounds a ball?”
    “As much as that?” Alex looked surprised.
    “To a man like myself, ten pounds is nothing. Nothing! Why, I could quite happily bet you a hundred pounds a point!”
    “Then why don’t you?” The words were softly spoken, but they were still a direct challenge.
    “A hundred pounds?” Sayle gazed thoughtfully at Alex. “But how will you pay me back if you lose?” Alex said nothing and Sayle laughed. “You can work for me after you leave school,” he said. “A hundred pounds a point if you get them in. A hundred hours working for me if you don’t. What do you say?”
    Alex nodded, feeling suddenly sick. Adding up the balls, he could see that there were twenty-four points left on the table. Two thousand four hundred hours working for Herod Sayle! That would take years.
    “Very well.” Sayle was still smiling. “I like a gamble. My father was a gambling man.”
    “I thought he was an oral hygienist.”
    “Who told you that?”
    Silently, Alex cursed himself. Why wasn’t he more careful when he was with this man? “I read it in a paper,” he said. “My dad got me some stuff to read about you when I won the competition.”
    “Very well, let’s get on with it.” Sayle decided to take the first shot without asking Alex. He hit the cue ball, sending one of the reds straight into the middle pocket. “That’s a hundred hours you owe me. I think I’ll get you started cleaning the toilets…”
    The jellyfish floated past as if watching the game from its tank. Mr. Grin picked up the footstool and moved it around the table. Sayle laughed briefly and followed the butler around, already sizing up the next shot, a fairly tricky black into the corner. Seven points if he got it in. Seven hundred hours more work! “So what does your father do?” Sayle asked.
    Alex quickly remembered what he had read about Felix Lester’s family. “He’s an architect,” he said.
    “Oh yes? What’s he designed?” The question was casual, but Alex wondered if he was being tested.
    “He was working on an office in Soho,” Alex said. “Before that he did an art gallery in Aberdeen.”
    “Yes.” Sayle climbed onto the footstool and aimed. The black ball missed the corner pocket by a fraction of an inch, spinning back into the center. Sayle frowned. “That was yourbliddy fault,” he snapped at Mr. Grin.
    “Warg?”
    “Your shadow was on the table. Never mind! Never mind!” He turned to Alex. “You’ve been unlucky.
    None of the balls will go in. You won’t make any money this time.”
    Alex pulled a cue out of the rack and glanced at the table. Sayle was right. The last red ball was too close to the cushion. But in snooker there are other ways to win points, as Alex knew only too well. There was a snooker table in the basement of the Chelsea house and he’d often spent evenings playing against his uncle.
    This was something he hadn’t mentioned to Sayle. He aimed carefully at the red, then hit. Perfect.
    “Nowhere near!” Sayle was back at the table before the balls had even stopped rolling. But he had spoken too soon. He stared as the white ball hit the cushion and rolled behind the pink. He was trapped—
    snookered. It was impossible to hit the cue ball now without touching the pink. For about twenty seconds he measured up the angles, breathing through his nose. “You’ve had a bit of bliddy luck!” he said. “You seem to have accidentally snookered me. Now, let me see…” He concentrated, then hit the white, trying to curve it around. But once again he was out by less than half an inch. There was an audible click as it touched the pink.
    “Foul shot,” Alex said. “You touched the pink. According to the rules, that’s six points to me.”
    “What?”
    “The foul is worth six points. I was down one point, so now I’m up five points. That’s five hundred pounds you owe me.”
    “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Saliva flecked Sayle’s lips. He was staring at the table as if he couldn’t believe what had happened.
    His shot had exposed the red ball. It was an easy shot into the top corner and Alex took it without hesitating. “And another hundred makes six hundred,” he said. He moved down the table, brushing past Mr. Grin. Quickly Alex judged the angles. Yes …
    He got a perfect kiss on the black, sending it into the corner