Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz

light, feeling the woman's eyes, like daggers, stabbing into his back.

NIGHT VISITORS
    HEROD SAYLE WAS playing snooker when Alex was shown back into the room with the jellyfish. It was hard to say quite where the heavy wooden snooker table had come from, but Alex couldn't avoid the feeling that the little man looked slightly ridiculous, almost lost at the far end of the green baize. Mr. Grin was with him, carrying a footstool, which Sayle stood on for each shot.
    “Ah ... good evening, Felix. Or, of course, I mean Alex!” Sayle exclaimed. “Do you play snooker?”
    “Occasionally.”
    “How would you like to play against me?” He gestured at the table. “There are only two red balls leftthen the colors. I'm sure you know the rules. The black ball is worth seven points, the pink six, 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