Evil Star

that. Gavin was terrified.
    Mr. O'Shaughnessy tried to take charge. "Someone get the matron,"
    he snapped. "And we'd better clear the room. There's glass everywhere. . . ."
    People were already moving. They didn't know what had happened.
    They just wanted to get out of the dining hall before the whole ceiling came down. They seemed to have forgotten Matt for the moment.. . but if any of them had looked for him, they would have seen that he was already gone.

    Chapter 3 A Second Gate
    The streets were beginning to empty by the time Matt got home. The summer months were fast approaching and more tourists were arriving every day. The queues around the Viking museum and The Minster were getting longer. The medieval walls were more crowded. Soon there would be more people visiting York than actually living there, or so it would seem. From city to tourist Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star attraction. It was a process that was repeated every year.
    Matt stood in the narrow, cobbled street called the Shambles and looked up at the flat located three floors above a souvenir shop. He had been happy here for a while. Living with Richard was odd —
    the journalist was more than ten years older than him — but after all they had been through together in Lesser Mailing, it had sort of worked. They needed each other. Richard knew that Matt could provide him with the newspaper story that would make him famous.
    Matt had nowhere else to go. The flat was just about big enough for the two of them, and usually they were both out all day. On weekends they went hiking, swimming, go-karting. .. whatever. Matt tried to think of Richard as a big brother.
    But during the past weeks he had become increasingly uncomfortable. Richard wasn't his brother. The two of them had only met by chance and as the memories of their shared nightmare faded, there seemed to be less and less reason for them still to be living together. Matt liked Richard. But there wasn't going to be any Pulitzer Prize-winning scoop, and the simple truth was that he was in the way. That was why he had suggested going back to the LEAF
    Project. Despite what Richard had said, an ordinary family somewhere in the country couldn't be so bad. He surely wasn't going to end up with a Jayne Deverill a second time.
    Matt wondered if the school had phoned Richard and told him what had happened. There was no reason why they should. Despite Gavin's accusations, none of the teach-ers seriously believed he had been responsible for the explosion in the dining hall. But Matt knew differently. He had felt the power flowing through him. It was the same power that had stopped the knife and snapped the cords when he had been a prisoner, tied down in Omega One. But this time there Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star had been one difference. It had been directed at someone his own age. Gavin wasn't his enemy. He was just a stupid kid.
    He couldn't stay at Forrest Hill. Not now. Another taunt from Gavin, another bad morning with Mr. King and his English class, and who could say what might happen? All his life, Matt had known he was different. He had been aware of something inside him . . . this power . .. whatever it was. Sometimes, when he'd gone to movies like Spider-Man or X-Men, he'd wondered what it might be like to be a superhero, saving the world. But that wasn't him. His power was useless to him because he didn't know how to use it. Worse than that, it was out of control. Once again he saw the blood oozing out of Gavin's hand, saw the terror in his face. He could have torn the chandelier out of the ceiling. He could have crushed the other boy, buried him under a ton of twisted metal and broken glass. It had almost happened. He had to leave, go far away, before it happened again.
    There was a movement behind the first-floor window, and Matt saw Richard, standing with his back to the street. That was strange. The journalist had said he wouldn't be late, but even so, he was never home before seven o'clock. The editor of The Gipton Echo liked to keep him in the office just in case something happened — although it very sel-dom did. Richard was talking to someone. Thatwas unusual, too. They didn't often have visitors.
    Matt let himself in and climbed up the stairs that ran past the souvenir shop. As he went, he heard a woman's voice. It was one he recognized . . . and it filled him with dread.
    "There's a meeting in London," she was saying. "Three days from now. We