Edge Escape Room

eBook
ISBN: 978-1-78800-795-5
Verlag: Nosy Crow Ltd
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 208 Seiten

Reihe: Escape Room

The latest mind-blowing novel from award-winning author Christopher Edge, Escape Room is a thrilling adventure that challenges readers to think about what they've done to save the world today. When twelve-year-old Ami arrives at The Escape, she thinks it's just a game - the ultimate escape room with puzzles and challenges to beat before time runs out. Meeting her teammates, Adjoa, Ibrahim, Oscar and Min, Ami learns from the Host that they have been chosen to save the world and they must work together to find the Answer. But as he locks them inside the first room, they quickly realise this is no ordinary game. From a cavernous library of dust to an ancient Mayan tomb, a deserted shopping mall stalked by extinct animals to the command module of a spaceship heading to Mars, the perils of The Escape seem endless. Can Ami and her friends find the Answer before it's too late? With cover illustration by David Dean. 'A writer of genuine originality' - Guardian Check out these other brilliant books from Christopher Edge: - The Many Worlds of Albie Bright - The Jamie Drake Equation - The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day - The Longest Night of Charlie Noon

Christopher Edge is an award-winning children's author whose books have been translated into more than twenty languages. His novel The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day won the STEAM Children's Book Prize and his last four novels were all nominated for the prestigious CILIP Carnegie Medal. Before becoming a writer, he worked as an English teacher, editor and publisher - any job that let him keep a book close to hand - and he now lives in Gloucestershire with his wife and family, close to his local library. Find out more about Christopher at christopheredge.co.uk and find him on Twitter @edgechristopher

Autoren/Hrsg.

Edge, Christopher

Leseproben

This is The Escape.

It looks just how I imagined it would look: a neon blade of a building rising above the dark windowless warehouses that surround it. LED lights shimmer across its mirrored surfaces as I approach, catching my reflection in a kaleidoscope of colour.

I’m buzzing with excitement. This is my reward for working so hard: an evening of adventure at The Escape.

That’s if I can find my way in.

I’m not sure at first if this is part of the game. I skirt round the edge of the building, searching for the entrance, but all I can see is an endless wall of glass. It’s as though whoever designed this building forgot to put in a front door, which is a bit of a problem if you want to pay them a visit. Maybe that’s why they called it The Escape – because it’s so hard to find the way out.

Then I spot it. Halfway along the wall, what I thought was a reflection is actually a revolving door, the sleek panels that are wrapped round the rest of the building bulging gently outwards in a smooth curve of glass. I come to a halt in front of this door, my mirror image reflected in stereo. Stepping forward, I push against the right-hand panel, eager to get the game started at last.

It doesn’t move. The door’s locked.

Looking up, I see the black ball of a camera lens staring down from the ceiling, a red dot at its centre. Someone’s watching me.

I give a friendly wave to the camera.

“It’s me – Ami Oswald,” I say with a hopeful smile on my face. “I’m here to play.”

There’s a moment of silence as I wait for an answer. Then the revolving door clicks as the lock is released. This first test passed, I push against the panel again and, as the door swings, I step inside The Escape.

The air feels instantly cooler, the low humming sound of the traffic outside replaced by a hushed silence as the revolving door closes behind me. I’m in some kind of lobby, a large circular space that looks like the bridge of a spaceship. The curved walls ripple with the same soothing patterns of colour that shimmered across the outside, while the lobby is lit by concentric circles of lights that shine down from the ceiling. There’s a round reception desk in the middle of this space, its surface gleaming with the same bright whiteness that covers the floor. It looks like you could fit a thousand people in here, but, as I look around, there’s only me.

I step towards the reception desk, hearing the sharp rap of my footsteps echoing back across the empty lobby. I thought there’d be somebody here to greet me, but as I reach the desk, the only thing I can see is a name badge left waiting for me.

AMI

Picking it up, I pin the badge to my top. At least they’ve spelled my name right – Ami with an “i” not a “y”.

When he made the booking, Dad said that this place was home to the ultimate escape room. Some people call them escape games or locked-room adventures, but the way they work is always the same. A team of players is locked in a room together to solve the clues and puzzles they find before time runs out. I like solving puzzles, so Dad reckoned a trip here would be the perfect gift for me. But it looks like I’ll be playing alone.

“Hello.”

The greeting makes me jump halfway out of my skin.

I turn to see a girl standing right beside me. Her eyes are hidden behind shocking pink sunglasses, but the smile on her face beams even more brightly than they do. Dark braids fall loosely round her shoulders, a handful of freckles dotted across her dark brown skin. She’s wearing a cap-sleeved T-shirt with a vintage games console on the front, black-and-white checked trousers and neon-green trainers. This girl looks seriously cool.

“Do you work here?” I ask.

Removing her sunglasses, the girl shakes her head and points to the name badge on her T-shirt.

“I’m Adjoa,” she says with a smile. “I’m here to play the game – just like you.”

I smile back at Adjoa; her enthusiasm is infectious. Inside, I feel the same surge of excitement that I felt when I first laid eyes on The Escape. Maybe this is going to be fun after all.

“So where are the others?” Adjoa asks, raising a quizzical eyebrow. “I thought we were meant to be a team.”

As if in reply, we hear the whirr of the revolving door and turn to see two boys entering the lobby. They look about the same age as me – the same age as Adjoa too now she’s taken off her sunglasses – but apart from that I can’t help noticing how different they seem.

The first boy moves quickly, his short blond hair turning ash-white beneath the lights as he strides purposefully towards us. His restless eyes dart from side to side.

“So this is the place?” he asks, his voice echoing across the cavernous space. “Doesn’t look like much to me.”

With his black zip top and running trousers, he looks like he’s heading for the gym, although this is probably a wise choice of outfit. As well as solving puzzles and clues, escape rooms can sometimes make you sweat a bit too, with physical challenges to beat. You might find yourself dodging past tripwire traps or crawling through a laser maze. It all depends on the theme of the game you play.

Across the lobby, the second boy is still standing just inside the door, looking around in wide-eyed wonder. With his baggy grey jumper and khaki cords, he doesn’t look ready for any kind of physical challenge. Not unless we’re going to be escaping from the fashion police. But my eyes are drawn to the Rubik’s cube that he’s holding, his long fingers absent-mindedly twisting its squares. Intrigued, I watch as the colourful patterns flickering across the faces of the cube echo those still shimmering across the walls.

The first boy swaggers to a halt at the desk.

“Hi,” I start to say, but the boy just ignores me, reaching across to pick up two more badges that I hadn’t noticed before. Pinning one that says OSCAR to his zip top, he looks back over his shoulder.

“Hey!” he calls out to the boy still dawdling at the door. “Are you Ibrahim?”

Glancing across at the sound of Oscar’s shout, the second boy nods. His dark scraggly hair is swept back from his face and his angular features shift into a pensive frown. “That’s me.”

Ibrahim hurries to join us, the cube still click-clacking in his hands. Oscar holds out the badge with IBRAHIM printed across the front.

“Thanks,” Ibrahim says as he sets his Rubik’s cube down on the reception desk, the puzzle now solved with each face showing a single colour. Taking his name badge, he smiles shyly at the rest of us. “Are you all here for the game too?”

“Welcome to the team!” Adjoa says brightly, turning the full beam of her smile in Ibrahim’s direction. “Do you think we should call ourselves the Awesome Foursome or maybe the Fantastic Four? We need to pick a name that’ll look good on top of the leader board.”

“We don’t need a stupid team name to win this game,” Oscar sneers, but then a new voice chips in with a suggestion.

“How about the Five Mind?”

Turning round in surprise, I see a girl standing on the other side of the reception desk. She doesn’t look much older than me – twelve or thirteen maybe. Her straight black hair is cut into a sharp bob, dark eyes shining from beneath her fringe. It takes me a moment to work out what she’s called as her name badge is lost among all the others covering her denim jacket. Then I spot it, nestled next to the smiley faces, superhero symbols and CND signs.

MIN

“I mean, if this game really is as tough as people say it is,” the girl continues, “we’re going to have to put our heads together to win.”

There’s a silent pause as we all try to work out where she’s come from. Shifting patterns of colour flicker across the curved walls. The only door into this place is the one we all walked through and I didn’t see Min come in.

“I like it,” Adjoa says, breaking the silence. “It’s a pun, isn’t it? Like a hive mind where people share their intelligence? There are five of us and if we all work together then we’ll be five times as smart.”

Min nods her head. “Maybe even smarter,” she says. “What do you think, Ami?”

I glance around the lobby, wanting to make sure that nobody else is hiding out of sight. There are no more name badges waiting to be collected. Standing beneath the bright lights, Adjoa, Oscar, Ibrahim and Min stare back at me. It looks like this is my team.

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