Mamba Point Read Online Free Page B

which was some of our stuff that we needed right away, like clothes and dishes. The rest of our stuff was coming later in what they called sea freight. I put everything away really quickly. Mom popped in, and I was worried she was going to see that I’d crammed all my clothes into the drawers without folding them—you could see a sleeve here and there leaking out—but she didn’t.
    “We need you in the family room,” she said.
    Oh, no. I followed her to the family room. I didn’t know what she needed me to do—the TV was already set up, along with the VCR and the Atari.
    Wait. We didn’t have an Atari. I’d
begged
for an Atari back home, and my parents said I couldn’t have one because they didn’t want me to go blind or turn into a drooling idiot. There was one now, though—a black box about the size of an encyclopedia, and two joysticks waiting to be used. We even had two games: Pac-Man and Space Invaders. Who needed anything else? I stared at it, stunned. Video games … at home. It was absolutely the greatest thing I could imagine. I looked up and saw Mom and Dad grinning at me.
    Law came in, noticed the game, and grinned. “Neat! Thanks!”
    “Surprise!” Mom said with a
voilà
gesture.
    “Thanks.” I hugged her and Dad, then turned everything on so Law and I could play. I guess Mom and Dad figured moving to Africa meant we needed entertainment more than we needed vision or brains.
    I went first, navigating my yellow hero through the maze, chomping dots. It was easier than the arcade version. Pac-Man was faster, and the ghosts were dumber.
    “When do I get to go?” Law asked.
    “When my guy gets eaten.”
    “You mean like now?” he asked, taking a swipe at my joystick.
    “Knock it off.” I pulled away from him and barely managed to make my Pac-Man turn the corner instead of sailing into the mouth of the pink ghost.
    “How about now?” Law waved his arm in front of the TV.
    “Jerk.” I tried to read the screen in between waves of his arm, but missed the chance to nab the apple before it disappeared.
    “How about now?” Law covered my eyes from behind.
    “No! Arrgh!” I heard the familiar downward musical spiral and double blip of a Pac-Man biting the dust.
    “You’re such a jerk.” I gave him the joystick anyway, so he could have a try.
    “Nah, you go again. It’s more fun to watch you.”
    I didn’t argue. I grabbed the joystick and played.
    *   *   *
    When I sat down to dinner that evening, I felt like everyone was looking at me funny.
    “I guess he likes the game,” Mom said to Dad. “He’s been playing for four straight hours.” Sometimes they talked about us in the third person, even when we were right across the table.
    “I like the game,” I admitted. “Thanks again. It’s great.”
    We ate. Dinner was some funny-tasting meatballs on noodles. Not bad, just different. I ate quickly and got up to play some more Atari.
    “Why don’t you sit down and finish dinner with us?” Mom asked.
    “But I am finished.”
    “I think you need a break,” Dad said.
    Well, why did they buy the thing if they didn’t even want me to play? I sat, bored and anxious, while they labored over their meatballs. Well, at least if I showed them how patient I was about it, they wouldn’t think I was a video-game addict or whatever.
    “We can play dinner-table Pac-Man,” said Law.
    “Huh?”
    He curled his hand into a Pac-Man and started moving it back and forth, chomping. “Waka waka waka waka.”
    I snickered.
    “Waka waka waka waka …” He made a move at a meatball. “Power pill!” he announced, then came after me. “Waka waka waka waka. I’m gonna eat a ghost.”
    His hand was supposed to look like a Pac-Man, but with his arm waving around, it looked a little bit like a snake.
    “Knock it off.”
    “Waka waka waka …” He made like he was chomping on my arm, until his power pill ran out and he had to go back for another meatball.
    “Kids…,” Mom said.
    “Power