REVENGE CONSPIRACY 365 TEACHERS NOTES

CONSPIRACY 365 TEACHERS NOTES

                                      REVENGE
SYNOPSIS
Callum Ormond, or Cal, survived many threats to his life in his year-long quest to solve the
mystery of his family’s past. Now a wealthy celebrity, he has to endure one more onslaught:
the relentless enthusiasm of the media in their pursuit of stories and pictures that will be
sold around the world. This is almost worse than being hunted by armed thugs and Cal has
had it.

When he suddenly finds a wax-sealed envelope on his pillow, the old fear returns. He has
been enjoying life at home once more with his mother and his sister, Gabbi, but it appears
someone is after him again. The note says ‘30 DAYS’. He accuses Ben Willoughby, a
journalist, of sending it. Then he is poisoned, loses consciousness and his friends take over
the narrative.

Mrs Ormond, Gabbi, and Cal’s twin brother Ryan are puzzled when Cal goes missing. It’s not
like him to take off with no explanation. His best friends Boges and Winter find his bag and
his phone. Now they are sure something is wrong, but they keep their concerns to
themselves.

When Boges switches on Cal’s phone late at night and finds a message from the Ormond
family, he pretends to be Cal, replying that he will be home tomorrow. That gives him and
Winter time to track Cal down. They catch Ben Willoughby snooping around. He taunts
them by mentioning the mysterious note Cal accused him of sending, and then publishes a
story in the paper about Cal being on the run once more.

Winter and Boges are called by a kidnapper who says he has Cal and that there is a note for
Cal’s mother in the Ormonds’ letterbox. The note turns out to be a handwritten apology
from Cal. While Boges and Winter try to make sense of the note, they follow the kidnapper’s
instructions and are ambushed. At an unknown destination, a television screen reveals
Winter’s nemesis, the infamous thug, Vulkan Sligo. Cal himself also appears—sick, drugged
and imprisoned. He says he knew his friends would ‘work it out’.

His friends notice that some of the characters in Cal’s note have been smudged. They
suspect a coded message and figure out that the smudged characters spell the word ‘coffin’.
Their suspicion that Cal is imprisoned at the undertaker’s turns out to be wrong. Similarly,
Boges’s new invention, the Vipercam, proves that Cal is not in the Ormond Mausoleum.

Cal’s friends collect forensic evidence from their own clothes and bodies to pinpoint the
place where Sligo had them taken to and where Cal is being kept. The evidence includes
particles from a rare acacia.

Sligo exploits the plans for a forthcoming charity auction, at which a jewel donated by Cal
will raise money for homeless children. It appears in a famous painting of Queen Elizabeth I,
was a gift to Cal’s family and is valued at $10 million. Sligo wants the jewel, $20 million and
access to the auction telecast. In exchange he will release Cal and provide the antidote to
the poisonous drug that being used to control him.

Boges’s friend solves the mystery of Cal’s location when she tracks the origin of the acacia
particles to four locations: one of which is Coffin Bay, an isolated inlet with an abandoned
lighthouse an hour and a half to the south. At Coffin Bay, Cal’s friends find a Bible that
suggests someone had been there recently, and when Boges falls from the edge of the cliff
he is snagged—and saved—by an acacia tree, confirming that this is where their abductors
brought them.

Boges uses his Hawk-moth robot-cam for surveillance of the area around the lighthouse.
Later when they view the footage, they see a shadowy figure emerge from an underground
den. Cal and his captors had been right under their feet all along. They head back to the den,
but it is deserted. When Sligo returns, Ryan turns the tables him.

Armed with a syringe and Boges’s miniature explosive, the friends locate Cal, and Sligo
reveals that his plan included using the auction telecast to broadcast Cal’s death. Before he
slips into unconsciousness—or death—Cal’s friends force an admission from Sligo that there
is no antidote to the Toxillicide he has used on Cal. Their rescuing of Cal has been pointless.
He will die anyway.

The shadow in the surveillance footage turns out to be the snooping journalist Ben
Willoughby. Everyone is amazed that he has actually tried to be helpful . . . in exchange for
an exclusive interview. Ben enlisted the support of a famous expert in toxins, Dr Leporello. If
anyone can find an antidote and save Cal, he can—and he does.

Cal is back home and everything is okay, so his mum and Gabi leave for their cruise, despite
Winter’s feeling that something is still wrong. Then they discover that Cal has received
another note: this time it says simply ‘1 DAY’. Reviewing the footage for clues once more
and thinking about all that has taken place, the friends realise that Sligo is planning to bomb
City Hall on the day of the charity auction.

Although they eventually pinpoint a bomb, they are too late to save City Hall from the
explosion. There were to be two bombs, but one was missing. The mysterious Elijah Smith
contacts them and says that he has been behind the whole plot. He never cared about the
money, however: what he has been after is revenge. It’s Cal that he wants to destroy and he
warns them to look out for one final supernova.

Cal realises that this is a clue: the cruise liner his mum and Gab have sailed on is called the
Sapphire Star. The second bomb has been planted on the liner, so that Cal will be forced to
watch his mother and sister destroyed.

Their old mate Repro flies the friends out to sea in a helicopter and lands them on the
Sapphire Star. When they find the bomber on board, sitting with his laptop, he turns out to
be a boy. Elijah Smith reveals that he is the son of Cal’s uncle Rafe, and he wrongly accuses
Cal of killing his father. This is why he has stolen the second bomb and why he wants
revenge.

As Cal and his friends try to force Elijah to tell them the four-digit code that can be used to
disarm the bomb, Sligo appears. When a worker overhears them and spreads the word that
there is a bomb on board, pandemonium breaks out. Cal tries to persuade his family to save
themselves, but his mum says they won’t leave him. With only seconds to go, Winter cracks
the code. That Bible they found at the lighthouse has been bothering her and she realises
that the verses she saw marked in it contain the digits they need to disarm the bomb.

Her solution works and once again Cal is a celebrity. They return to land and the nightmare
of Revenge is finally over.

WITH YOUR STUDENTS:
Gabrielle Lord does her best to provide recaps that will help
readers unfamiliar with the previous 12 novels in the series.
It’s a tough call though and, in the long run, Revenge will work
best for readers who know the series, rather than those who
approach it as a stand-alone novel.

Ask your students why they think this sequel is called Revenge.
What does the word ‘revenge’ mean? (payback, punishment
inflicted to repay some injury or hurt).

Which characters do they think might want revenge? (Sligo or
Oriana—although revenge would be difficult as she is in jail)

Might Cal himself want revenge? (Probably not—he is relieved that the nightmare of a year
on the run is over. He is happy to be back home.)

Ask your students where else they have seen the kind of startling cover image used on
Revenge:

      Emily Rodda’s Deltora Quest books,

      bookmarks,

      games,

      pencil cases,

      greeting cards etc.

Tell them that this is an example of ‘lenticular printing’. Together, look up ‘lenticular
printing’ on the internet and find out how it is done.

Ask, ‘What is the effect of having a lenticular cover?’

      Makes the book stand out from others on the shelf,

      Makes the fantasy seem ‘real’,

      Gives the story ahead an impression of sharp reality etc.

Briefly brainstorm with your students the main plotlines of Conspiracy 365 to refresh their
memories. For example:

      Cal’s life is threatened and he spends a year running from certain death.

      His family has a connection back to Queen Elizabeth I, which involves a significant
       inheritance.

   He is pursued by many crooks, including Oriana and Sligo, and helped by loyal
       friends, including Boges, Winter and Repro.

      At the end of the series, the mystery of his family’s past is solved and his life and
       their fortune safe.

Ask, ‘If you were writing a review of this series, what would you say were the main features
of the narrative?’

   Example: A lot happens! Cal gets into one scrape after another and just manages to
   survive, due to his own ingenuity and that of his friends. There are lots of inventions.
   The series is often funny and Gabrielle Lord sends up her use of extreme action and
   coincidence.

As in the preceding 12 novels, the page numbers of Revenge are in reverse order. Ask your
students what effect this has:

      the numbers have a constant disorienting effect—something is visibly wrong,

      they act as a countdown to the conclusion,

      they increase the tension,

      they reassure the less confident readers that they won’t have to keep reading for
       much longer – but who are they? This book is so pacy and exciting that readers are
       unlikely to tire of it!

At the beginning of Revenge, Gabrielle Lord has fun with a cheeky reflection on the
impressive success of Cal’s story. He is so much in demand from the media that all he wants
is to enjoy a quiet life at home, with the financial benefits his success has brought.

One of the distinctive features of a thriller or a crime novel is the unexpected plot twist. Just
when the characters think everything is okay, or the mystery solved, they find that it’s not.
Brainstorm with your students and list on the smartboard some of the moments in Revenge
when the plot takes an unexpected turn.

      Cal finds a letter p.193,

      Cal’s thigh is pierced and he stops being the narrator p.188,

      Vulkan Sligo is Cal’s kidnapper p.138,

      there are tiny smudges on some of the characters in Cal’s note and they form a
       coded message p.130,

      Cal is imprisoned at Coffin Bay p.104,

      there is no antidote to the poison Sligo has used on Cal p.76,

      Cal receives a further threat p.58,

   Sligo’s plan is to blow up City Hall p.52,

      the bombs are hidden in two decorative pillars at the auction, but one pillar is empty
       p.39,

      the second bomb is on the cruise ship that Cal’s mum and sister Gabbi are on p.32,

      the bomber turns out to be a boy called Elijah Smith p.14,

      Winter suddenly realises why the abandoned Bible has been bothering her p.2

Tell your students that each member of the class is now a profiler responsible for drawing
up a dossier on the main characters in Revenge. A profiler notes character traits and past
experiences and uses them to predict potential behaviour. Ask your students to prepare
notes on Cal, Boges, Winter, Sligo, Willoughby, Mrs Ormond and Elijah. When all the
profilers have done their research, have them as a group compile dot-point summaries on
the board for each of the characters.

NASA is so impressed with Boges’s inventions that they have travelled to Australia to
interview him. Ask your students which of the inventions in Revenge they enjoyed most.
Suggest that they describe and draw a new invention that Boges can include in his portfolio
next time he has an opportunity to meet NASA.

Divide the class into pairs. Each student should devise a code, write or draw (or both) a
coded message and exchange messages. Once the code has been cracked and the
‘translation’ written on the original, swap messages again and see whether the decoding is
right.

Read the epilogue with your students. Ask them whether they think there will be another
adventure featuring Cal and his friends, and why.