‘What’s up?’ said Ben.

‘Nothing. I just need to know where everybody is. Can you make sure you’re in the dormitory by eleven o’clock with everyone else?’

‘Why?’ Bernie asked. She’d never much liked Achilleus, and resented his bossy manner.

‘Why? Because I say so. I need everyone to stay together.’

‘What is it, like a curfew?’ said Ben.

‘Dunno,’ said Achilleus. ‘What’s a curfew?’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘We’re busy anyway,’ said Bernie. ‘Might not be able to make it by eleven.’

‘You will be able to make it,’ said Achilleus. ‘I’m not asking you – I’m telling you. If you’re not there things’ll go bad for you.’

‘What about Maxie?’ said Bernie. ‘She gonna be there?’

‘She’s in the sick-bay,’ said Achilleus.

‘She all right?’

‘Yeah. She’s looking after Blue.’

‘Well done in the fight by the way,’ said Ben, to try to stop the situation getting heavy. Achilleus merely shrugged.

‘You look like you should be in the sick-bay,’ Ben went on. ‘I heard your ear got a bit mashed up.’

‘That tosser nearly cut it off.’

‘So when’s Blue coming out?’

‘Do I look like a doctor?’ said Achilleus.

‘No,’ said Bernie. ‘You look like a patient.’

‘I ain’t neither, darling. I’m a fighter and right now that’s the most important type of person around. You got it?’

‘If you say so, big man,’ said Bernie with a slight mocking sneer. Ben flashed her a warning look. Bernie was one of those girls who didn’t mind what they said to people, which meant that the boys with her quite often got beaten up.

Luckily, Achilleus only grinned.

‘If you two losers hadn’t made life bearable back at Waitrose I’d have given you both a good slap a long time ago.’

‘Yes, well, I think you’ll find that you need losers to make the world go round,’ said Bernie.

‘You said it.’

‘So you concede that we might be of some small use as well as a big tough fighting man like you?’

‘Small is right,’ said Achilleus. ‘Now just make sure you’re in the ballroom by eleven. We’re going to be checking everyone. Got it?’

‘Sir, yes, sir!’ said Bernie, standing up and saluting, and Achilleus laughed before sweeping out with his caddie and leaving them to their cold potatoes.

62

Maxie lay on her bed and stared up at the patterns of light that the candles were making on the ceiling of the sick-bay. She felt flat. Physically flat, like a sheet of paper, with no room inside for any emotions. She’d exhausted herself worrying about David and how Ollie and Achilleus had betrayed her. She’d gone through anger, shame, fear… She’d felt stupid and abused and mocked. There was nothing left to feel any more except the oddly comforting ache in her side. She’d even gone beyond tiredness. Resigned herself to whatever lay in store for her.

A blank sheet of paper.

‘I’m sick and tired of feeling sick and tired,’ she said.

‘I know how that feels,’ said Blue, who was also lying on his bed staring at the ceiling.

‘I think some pharaoh had that carved on his tomb,’ Maxie added.

‘Yeah? Times don’t change much, do they?’

‘I don’t know about that,’ said Maxie. ‘I can’t think of any other time in history when most of the population of the world was wiped out by some unknown illness.’

‘What about the Black Death?’ said Blue. ‘The plague. I think about half the people in Europe died during that one. We still made it through, though. We’ve done it before. We can do it again.’

‘You’re optimistic, aren’t you?’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s just that life’s been pretty crap lately, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

‘Yeah. I noticed.’

Maxie looked over at Blue just as he looked over at her. He smiled.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘We’ll get outta this jam. We’ll be OK.’

‘You know,’ said Maxie, still looking at Blue. ‘You’re much nicer when you’re away from everyone else. You don’t try to keep up such a front.’

‘You gotta be tough to survive, girl. Don’t show no weakness to no one.’

‘Yeah, well, it’s easy for you. You’ve been tough all your life. I was just an ordinary girl before. Nothing special. I wasn’t even that sporty.’

‘You don’t know me at all, girl.’

‘Oh yes I do. I knew loads of boys like you before the disaster,’ said Maxie. ‘They used to strut about the place, intimidating people.’

‘You know what my nickname was before all this?’ said Blue.

‘I dunno,’ said Maxie. ‘Killer? King Dude? The Boss?’

‘Bookface.’

‘Bookface?’

‘Yeah.’

‘That’s a crap nickname.’

‘Don’t I know it.’

‘What does it mean anyway?’

‘A lot. Not a lot.’

‘No, come on, what does it mean? Like you always had your face in a book, or that your face looked like a book?’

Blue sighed. ‘Everything that happened, right, it changed people. It’s changed me. I had another nickname as well.’

‘Surprise me.’

‘Fat Boy.’

Maxie laughed. ‘You’re not fat.’

‘I used to be. I was a fat nerd.’

‘No!’ Maxie came up on her elbow and leant towards Blue with a shocked smile on her face.

‘Straight up.’ Blue laughed. ‘I had two brothers and two sisters. You know how families are, everyone finds their space. My oldest brother, Akim, he was trouble. My next brother, Felix, was into sport. My big sister, Lulu, was obsessed with fashion, looking good and all that. My other sister, Sissy, she was into boys. My thing, I was the brainy one of the family. I was always good at school. Didn’t really try, just came easy to me. Because I was good at it, I quite liked it, lessons and all, though I couldn’t tell anyone back then. They found out that I read lots of books, though. Gave me a bare hard time for it. I didn’t much care. I didn’t get out much. I spent hours on my computer, and not just playing games. My mum used to go on about me not getting enough exercise, but at the same time, she liked the fact that I was learning stuff. She wanted me to go to university. I didn’t know about all that. Akim, he was into gangs. Mum didn’t want me having nothing to do with that way of life. Some kid from our school was stabbed. It was big news, Mum was scared. But I was never part of that world. Never got in a fight or nothing. When it all kicked off I had to learn fast, man. You know what? The first to die were the tough kids. They went out there on the streets. No more coppers. No more adults telling them what to do. No more rules. All the gangs just went crazy and fought each other. Killed each other. Stupid jerks. For a little while it was like a war zone out there. Soon those that didn’t kill each other began to realize who the real enemy was. So then the gangs went up against the grown-ups. Most of them died early on. Not all, though. Me, I kept my head down. I watched, I learnt, it was what I was good at. Who lived and who died. Was a lottery. Just raw luck. Like in a war, the first to get it are the regular army, the trained soldiers. After that the army takes whoever they can get. I’m who they got. The disaster made me tough, Maxie, and that’s why I have to try hard when there’s people around. Because it don’t come easy for me.’

‘Aren’t I a person?’ said Maxie.

‘You’re different. You understand all this stuff.’

‘Sometimes I think I do, sometimes I think I don’t.’

‘It’s funny,’ said Blue. ‘Lying here, I feel I can talk to you about anything. It don’t matter no more.’

‘I’m glad you told me all that,’ said Maxie.

Blue rolled on to his back and looked away. ‘Maybe I just want you to like me,’ he said.

‘Oh yeah?’

‘I know we haven’t always agreed on stuff, Max. But you know what it’s like. With no adults around to tell you what to do all the time, you’d think we’d all just want to stay up late and drink, and smoke, and take drugs and shag. And I know a lot of kids did do that at first. But when you’re scared, struggling just to stay alive, those thoughts go right out the window. Sometimes, though, you get feelings.’