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    Dicing with Death
    Dicing with Death
    Dicing with Death
    Ebook100 pages1 hour

    Dicing with Death

    By Beth Chambers

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    About this ebook

    Max used to be an ordinary boy... until he offered himself up to Death in the place of his little sister, and somehow ended up as Death's assistant! Life in the Underworld isn't all bad though, despite housekeeper Liah's abysmal cooking.

    Above ground, someone has worked out how to bring the dead back to life, with potentially universe-destroying consequences. Can Max and Liah stop the culprit in time? Or will Max get a lot more than he bargained for?

    A darkly comic fantasy adventure in the Black Cats series: short, gripping stories for newly confident readers aged 8-12.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateAug 15, 2013
    ISBN9781408180426
    Dicing with Death
    Author

    Beth Chambers

    From a very young age Beth Chambers knew she wanted to be an author. She grew up in South Wales where, when she wasn't climbing trees and building dens, she could be found scribbling on pieces of paper. Some years later Beth has had just under thirty books published for children, all written under pseudonyms. When she can manage to tear herself away from her computer she assesses people for Specific Learning Difficulties at the University of Glamorgan in Wales close to where she lives. This is her second title for A & C Black.

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      Book preview

      Dicing with Death - Beth Chambers

      Sixteen

      Chapter One

      ‘Mummeeee!’ Amy screamed.

      Max winced. His little sister had the ability to reach a glass-shattering decibel level.

      Amy stood in the doorway, her mouth open, her eyes wide.

      There were bits of doll everywhere. A severed head swung gently from the light shade.

      Max snapped his fingers at their dog Toby, who was playing catch with a plastic leg. Toby ignored Max completely and trotted over to Amy. Saliva drooled from his mouth as he proudly spat out the torso of a well-chewed doll.

      Max covered his ears as Amy gave another scream. This one wouldn’t stop at shattering glass – it could probably bring down entire buildings.

      ‘I’m telling Mum!’ Amy stamped hard on Max’s foot and marched out of the door. Max didn’t bother going after her. He knew without fail that he would get the blame for Toby sneaking into Amy’s room and decimating her dolls. Whatever he said, his mother would take Amy’s side.

      Max was more wound up about it than usual because so far he’d babysat every day of the Christmas holidays.

      A door banged somewhere downstairs.

      ‘Maximus, you get down these stairs right now.’ His mother sounded beyond annoyed. ‘I’ve only got a half-hour lunch break. I’m going to be late back to work. The last thing I need is you winding up your sister!’

      Max ran his fingers through his short black hair to flatten the spikes that had a mind of their own. He had a quick peek in the mirror to check that he was wearing his most innocent expression. He had a range of them – this one was called, Who me? Never!

      Twenty minutes later Max headed down the street with Amy in tow. His sister had refused to go anywhere near Toby since the doll incident, so he’d had to leave the dog at home. He walked quickly, knowing that Amy’s little legs would have to jog to keep up.

      ‘What’s the matter, Max?’ Amy called.

      ‘Everything,’ he said shortly.

      Angry thoughts zoomed around his head. He could pinpoint exactly when everything had started to go wrong. It had been seven years ago, when his dad had walked out.

      No, slunk out, Max thought, kicking a stone, and not just down the road. Ooh nooo. Dad’s got to head off to New Zealand on my fifth birthday. While I’m at Nan’s blowing out candles, he’s at home, packing his bags and blowing out his family.

      Max had only ever seen his mother cry once, and that was when she had read the note his dad had left on the kitchen table. After that she had put on a brave, although frequently stressed, face, and they had got along just fine.

      That was before she had met David.

      ‘Where we going, Max?’ Amy tugged on his coat.

      ‘The woods,’ he muttered.

      ‘Can I go piggy bank?’ she continued, undaunted by his mood.

      ‘I told you before, it’s called a piggy back,’ snapped Max.

      ‘Can I go piggy back then?’

      ‘No.’ But he slowed down so that she no longer had to jog to keep up.

      He had been seven when David had barged into their lives. By the time he was nine his mother had married David and, if that wasn’t bad enough, delivered Amy as a small, mewling rug-rat.

      Reaching the end of the street Max squeezed through a hole in some old fencing and scrambled down an overgrown bank into the forest. He turned to wait while Amy slowly inched her way through the gap.

      ‘Hurry up,’ he urged as she caught her pink jacket on a splinter.

      ‘Max, it’s torn!’ she wailed.

      ‘No it’s not. Look, if I just snap the thread like this…’ he began. What had been a small snag in the sleeve suddenly became a hole large enough to wiggle his finger in.

      Amy shrieked.

      Max hid a grin. ‘Whoops!’

      ‘I want to go to the den.’ Amy sniffed.

      Max pretended not to hear. He turned and crunched along the pine needle strewn path. The den was his private place. He’d built it deep in the forest where no one else would find it. Recently he had taken a plastic milk crate down there to use as a table. Surprise, surprise, it had been another babysitting day, and he had made the fatal mistake of taking Amy with him. Since then all she had done was nag him to take her back.

      ‘I’m not taking you. We’re going to the lake instead,’ Max told her.

      ‘Why?’

      ‘I’m going to get myself one of the trees planted there.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Because this Christmas I’m having my own tree in my own room.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Because this Christmas,’ Max said, rubbing his hands up and down his arms to keep warm, ‘I’m spending on my own. No Mum, no David…’

      ‘No Amy?’ Amy said in a small voice.

      ‘And no Amy,’ Max said firmly. ‘This Christmas is going to be family-free.’

      Chapter Two

      ‘Will you still get presents from Father Christmas?’ Amy pouted, looking upset.

      Max stared at her. ‘What?’ he snapped. Not looking where he was going, his foot suddenly sank into something mushy, steaming and very smelly. ‘Shhh…ugar!’

      He did his best to scrape his trainer clean while ignoring Amy’s giggles. By the time they had reached the lake, Max could cheerfully have thrown her in. Knowing that he might have a question or two to answer at home if he did, instead he picked up a pebble and skimmed it across the black expanse of water. His real dad had taught him how to snap back his wrist and send the pebble scudding across the surface. He’d taught him other things too, like how to make bows and arrows, how to belch the national anthem and how to produce the most awesome farting sounds from under his armpit. He’d been a great dad. Not like David with his, ‘Tidy your room, Max,’ and ‘Let’s work out a payment plan for this broken window, Max.’

      Deep down, Max knew that his real dad was going to come back. He would have come back aeons

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