Cruise Control by Samantha Turnbull

Author:Samantha Turnbull
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2015-11-18T05:00:00+00:00

At least 96.8 per cent of the Capricorn Princess’s passengers are talking about the snorkelling at Ningaloo Reef yesterday.

Which makes it 127 times more difficult to deal with the sadness we’re all feeling after saying goodbye to Cameron.

Dad is sleeping it off in his suite. Grace is swimming laps. Chloe has her head in an astronomy journal. And Bella is sketching another one of her dolls – I think it’s the one modelled on herself.

‘I’m going to move away from the pool a bit,’ I say to Chloe and Bella. ‘I don’t want my laptop to get splashed.’

They barely look up as I grab my computer and look for a spot to practise Maze Break.

I see an empty table with two chairs fifteen metres away from the edge of the pool. A meteor would have to land in the water for any droplets to hit me from that far away.

I take a seat and log into the Maze Break website. I leave the chat function off but notice Jake_can_break17, Skywalker2000 and Will_will_will are online.

I start to move my pigeon avatar through the next maze. In the earlier levels, the mazes were much easier and you could simply turn left at every junction and backtrack to eventually find your way out. Now, some of the mazes are disjointed and sometimes you get plonked in the middle of one to find your way out instead of starting at an entrance.

‘If only there was an algorithm you could use for them all,’ I mutter.

A deep voice replies from behind me. ‘There is.’

I pause my game and crane my neck around. There’s a guy, sitting with his back to me, at the table next to mine. He’s wearing a pale blue rugby-style top with JW on the back.

I lean sideways and notice he’s playing a computer too. ‘What did you say?’ I ask.

He doesn’t turn around. ‘I said, there is an algorithm. It’s called Trémaux’s Algorithm. Trémaux was a French mathematician, and his basic rule for getting through any maze was: when you get to a junction you haven’t already visited, take any path. When you get to a dead end, turn around and go back. When you get to a junction that you have already visited, take a path that you haven’t previously taken. If you’ve already taken each path, then take the one that you haven’t taken more than once. If you’ve taken all the paths more than once, turn back to the last junction you visited.’

I process what he’s saying. ‘So, basically, as long as you don’t take the same path more than twice you should find your way out,’ I say. ‘I’m pretty sure I already follow that rule, even though I didn’t know it was invented by someone called Trémaux.’

The JW on his back jiggles around a bit as he laughs. ‘Well, you’re a natural-born mathematician,’ he says. ‘You must be in the Maze Break showdown.’

I gulp. JW is onto me. ‘Um,’ I say. ‘You just reminded me, I need to go and find my dad.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.