DARREN SHAN - Shan, Darren - Cirque Du Freak 12 - Sons of Destiny

�

Dad's not as freaked out as Mum, but he's not happy. He tells me how disappointed he is. They've warned me so many times about the dangers of smoking, how it destroys people's lungs and gives them cancer.

"Smoking's dumb," he says. We're in the kitchen (I haven't been out of it since Mum dragged me home from school early, except to go to the toilet). "It's disgusting, antisocial and lethal. Why do it, Grubbs? I thought you had more sense."

I shrug wordlessly. What's there to say? They're being unfair.Of course smoking's dumb.Of course it gives you cancer.Of course I shouldn't be doing it. But my friends smoke. It's cool. You get to hang out with cool people at lunch and talk about cool things. But only if you smoke. You can't bein if you'reout . And they know that. Yet here they stand, acting all Gestapo, asking me to account for my actions.

"How long has he been smoking? That's what I want to know!" Mum's started referring to me in the third person since Dad arrived. I'm beneath direct mention.

"Yes," Dad says. "How long, Grubbs?"

"I dunno."

"Weeks? Months? Longer?"

"A few months maybe. But only a couple a day."

"If he says a couple, he means at least five or six," Mum snorts.

"No, I don't!" I shout. "I mean a couple!"

"Don't raise your voice to me!" Mum roars back.

"Easy," Dad begins, but Mum goes on as if he isn't there.

"Do you think it's clever? Filling your lungs with rubbish, killing yourself? We didn't bring you up to watch you give yourself cancer! We don't need this, certainly not at this time, not when �"

"Enough!" Dad shouts, and we both jump. Dad almost never shouts. He usually gets very quiet when he's angry. Now his face is red and he's glaring � but at both of us, not just me.

Mum coughs, as if she's ashamed of herself. She sits, brushes her hair back off her face and looks at me with wounded eyes. I hate when she pulls a face like this. It's impossible to look at her straight or argue back.

"I want you to stop, Grubbs," Dad says, back in control now. "We're not going to punish you �" Mum starts to object, but Dad silences her with a curt wave of his hand "�but I want your word that you'll stop. I know it won't be easy. I know your friends will give you a hard time. But this is important. Some things matter more than looking cool. Will you promise, Grubbs?" He pauses. "Of course, that's if you'reable to quit�"

"Of course I'm able," I mutter. "I'm not addicted or anything."

"Then will you? Foryour sake � not ours?"

I shrug, trying to act like it's no big thing, like I was planning to stop anyway. "Sure, if you're going to make that much of a fuss about it," I yawn.

Dad smiles. Mum smiles. I smile.

Then Gret walks in the back door and she's smiling too � but it's an evil, big-sister-superior smile. "Have we sorted all our little problems out yet?" she asks, voice high and fake-innocent.

And I know instantly � Gret grassed me up to Mum! She found out that I was smoking and she told. The cow!

As she swishes past, beaming like an angel, I burn fiery holes in the back of her head with my eyes, and a single word echoes through my head like the sound of ungodly thunder�

Revenge!

�

I love rubbish dumps. You can find all sorts of disgusting stuff there. The perfect place to go browsing if you want to get even with your annoying traitor of a sister.

I climb over mounds of garbage and root through black bags and soggy cardboard boxes. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to use, or in what fashion, so I wait for inspiration to strike. Then, in a small plastic bag, I find six dead rats, necks broken, just starting to rot.Excellent ! Look out, Gret � here I come!

�

Eating breakfast at the kitchen table. Radio turned down low. Listening to the noises upstairs. Trying not to giggle. Waiting for the outburst.

Gret's in her shower. She showers all the time, at least twice a day, before she goes to school and when she gets back. Sometimes she has one before going to bed too. I don't know why anybody would bother to keep themselves so clean. I reckon it's a form of madness.

Because she's so obsessed with showering, Mum and Dad gave her theen suite bedroom. They figured I wouldn't mind. And I don't. In fact, it's perfect. I wouldn't have been able to pull my trick if Gret didn't have her own shower, with its very own towel rack.

The shower goes off. Splatters, then drips, then silence. I tense with excitement. I know Gret's routines inside out. She always pulls her towel down off its rackafter she's showered, not before. I can't hear her footsteps, but I imagine her taking the three or four steps to the towel rack. Reaching up. Pulling it down. Aaaaaaaaannnddd�

On cue � screams galore. A shocked, single scream to start. Then a volley of them, one running into another. I push my bowl of soggy cornflakes aside and prepare myself for the biggest laugh of the year.

Mum and Dad are by the sink, discussing the day ahead. They go stiff when they hear the screams, then dash towards the stairs, which I can see from where I'm sitting.

Gret appears before they reach the stairs. Crashes out of her room, screaming, slapping bloody shreds from her arms, tearing them from her hair. She's covered in red. Towel clutched with one hand over her front � even terrified out of her wits, there's no way she's going to come down naked!

"What's wrong?" Mum shouts. "What's happening?"

"Blood!" Gret screams. "I'm covered in blood! I pulled the towel down! I�"

She stops. She's spotted me laughing. I'm doubled over. It's the funniest thing I've ever seen.

Mum turns and looks at me. Dad does too. They're speechless.

Gret picks a sticky, pink chunk out of her hair, slowly this time, and studies it. "What did you put on my towel?" she asks quietly.

"Rat guts!" I howl, pounding the table, crying with laughter. "I got� rats at the rubbish dump� chopped them up� and�" I almost get sick, I'm laughing so much.

Mum stares at me. Dad stares at me. Gret stares at me.

Then �

"You lousy son of a �!"

I don't catch the rest of the insult � Gret flies down the stairs ahead of it. She drops her towel on the way. I don't have time to react to that before she's on me, slapping and scratching at my face.

"What's wrong,Gretelda ?" I giggle, fending her off, calling her by the name she hates. She normally calls me Grubitsch in response, but she's too mad to think of it now.

"Scum!" she shrieks. Then she lunges at me sharply, grabs my jaw, jerks my mouth open and tries her hardest to stuff a handful of rat guts down my throat.

I stop laughing instantly � a mouthful of rotten rat guts wasn't part of the grand uber-joke! "Get off!" I roar, lashing out wildly. Mum and Dad suddenly recover and shout at exactly the same time.

"Stop that!"

"Don't hit your sister!"

"She's a lunatic!" I gasp, pushing myself away from the steaming Gret, falling off my chair.

"He's an animal!" Gret sobs, picking more chunks of guts from her hair, wiping rat blood from her face. I realise she's crying � serious waterworks � and her face is as red as her long, straight hair. Not red from the blood � red from anger, shame and...fear ?

Mum picks up the dropped towel, takes it to Gret, wraps it around her. Dad's just behind them, face as dark as death. Gret picks more strands and loops of rat guts from her hair, then howls with anguish.

"They're all over me!" she yells, then throws some of the guts at me. "You bloody little monster!"

"You'rethe one who'sbloody !" I cackle. Gret dives for my throat.

"No more!" Dad doesn't raise his voice but his tone stops us dead.

Mum's staring at me with open disgust. Dad's shooting daggers. I sense that I'm the only one who sees the funny side of this.