The Trophy Trap Read online

The Trophy Trap

  Emma Laybourn

  Copyright 2012 Emma Laybourn

  One Thousand Lollipops

  I Can’t See You

  Megamouse

  Mummy Mania

  Emma Laybourn’s website is at:

  www.megamousebooks.com

  Licence notes

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  The Trophy Trap

  Chapter One

  “I am the champion! I am the tops! Nobody can beat me!” chanted Abby. She danced down the road holding the silver trophy high in the air. It was as big as her head. And it had her name on it.

  “We are the champions,” said Liam, walking behind her. “Us. Two of us. It was doubles, remember?”

  Her older brother was not nearly as excited about the trophy as Abby. He did not dance: he trudged.

  “I played the winning shot!” she reminded him.

  “And I made eighty per cent of the other winning shots. That means eighty out of a hundred. Four out of five.”

  “I know what per cent means! Anyway, you didn’t.”

  “Yes, I did, and you know it,” growled Liam. “I won four times as many points as you because I’m four times as good.”

  “No, you’re not!”

  “Yes, I am,” said Liam. “So I should have the trophy. Give it here.”

  With three loping strides, he caught her up and tried to wrench the trophy from her grasp.

  Abby shrieked like a steam train. She kicked him in the shins and sprinted off with the trophy. Although she was three and a half years younger than Liam and a good deal smaller, she was quicker off the mark. The more Liam grew, the clumsier he seemed to get.

  So she reached their house a fraction before he did. She burst through the door, yelling,

  “Mum Mum MUM look look LOOK! I won, we won the trophy, isn’t it beautiful?”

  She thrust it out to show Mum her name.

  “Wow,” said Mum. As Liam came in, Abby hugged the trophy to her chest.

  “I want to put it in my room,” said Liam.

  Abby shrieked like a steam train again.

  “NO!” said Mum, clapping her hands to her ears. “Not in the house.”

  “Sorry,” said Abby. “But why? Why should Liam have it? I’ve never won a trophy before, and I’m younger than he is. Why can’t I keep it?”

  “We can put it in the living room,” said Mum.

  “He’ll nick it.”

  “She’ll nick it.”

  They glared at each other.

  “Here,” commanded Mum. She held out her hands. Reluctantly Abby placed the trophy in them.

  “I am not having a ping-pong ding-dong in this house,” Mum announced firmly.

  “It’s table tennis,” said Liam.

  “Whatever.” Mum took off her glasses and peered at the lettering. “That’s very good. Well done to you both. I see Liam’s name is first, so he gets to keep the trophy first.”

  “Yes!” Liam punched the air.

  Abby was appalled. She opened her mouth to shriek, and then thought better of it. Instead she shouted at the top of her voice.

  “That is so unfair! That’s just because he’s older! He gets everything first, because he’s older.”

  “And better,” said Liam.

  “Stop it, Abby,” said Mum. “You are not five. Liam gets to look after the trophy for a week. Then you get it for a week.”

  “But that’s too late!” yelled Abby.

  “Too late for what?”

  “The prize assembly in school! It’s on Friday!”

  “Tough,” said Liam.

  Mum took her glasses off again and rubbed her eyes. She looked tired. “Abby, they have a prize assembly every month. You can take the trophy in when it’s your turn to look after it. Or if you’re very nice to your brother, he might let you have it this Friday.”

  “No chance,” said Liam. “She kicked me.”

  Abby turned round and kicked him again. Mum handed the trophy to him over Abby’s head. Liam grabbed it and ran upstairs.

  “Abby, you are grounded for kicking,” Mum said sternly.

  “I hate Liam.”

  “No, you don’t. You’re just not good at sharing.”

  Abby did not attempt to answer this. She did not want to think about it. Instead she said, “Can I be grounded in the garage?”

  Mum sighed. “If you must. Anywhere that Liam isn’t.”

  “Excellent!” Abby ran off to the garage, leaving Mum shaking her head.

  There was no car in the garage. It was not actually big enough for a car: as Mum said, once you’d driven in, you would have no room to open the car doors and would therefore be trapped inside for ever. Abby had declared that having a car with a sun-roof, or possibly a built-in blowtorch, would solve this problem. Having any sort of car would be nice, said Mum.

  Instead of car, the garage was full of ping-pong table. You had to climb over or under it to get to the other end. Over was easier, because under it were toolboxes and paint tins. However, this did mean that there was a long crack in the table, as well as several dents and scratches.

  Abby crawled over the table and set up her smash-board at the far end. This was a sheet of hardboard which Mum had cut for her so that she could practise against herself.

  Then she crawled around the floor to collect the scattered ping-pong balls. When she had twenty-three, she began to practise her smashes. She was already pretty good at smashes and really should, she knew, be trying to master topspin: but she felt more like smashes.

  Today the smash-board was Liam. He was hopeless. Lame. He returned her smashes with limping shots that barely made it back across the table. She smashed again and wiped him out.

  After ten minutes of this she felt better. She felt calm enough to sit on the table cross-legged and contemplate revenge.

  She would get that trophy. Easy. Liam’s bedroom door had no lock.

  No, not so easy. She couldn’t just walk in and take the trophy: Liam would complain to Mum, who would make her give it straight back.

  Abby let out a deep sigh of longing. She wanted to see that trophy. To hold it. To read again those magical words engraved on the silver surface: Winners. And her name.

  It occurred to her that Liam might well hide it. But if she found out where it was, she could sneak it out of the house on Friday morning and take it into school for prize assembly. Liam would be as mad as a wasp in a bottle, but so what?

  “Easy peasy,” said Abby. “Lemon squeezy. Nothing is too hard for me. I am ingenious. Bring on the ping-pong ding-dong. I want that trophy – and I’m going to get it.”