‘Yeah, maybe. Not sure I’d want everyone to know about what happened to Olivia, though.’

‘It’s part of it,’ said Justin. ‘And if you want to be in charge you have to think about that sort of thing. You have to be responsible for everyone. You have to make hard decisions.’

‘Who said I wanted to be in charge?’

Justin sighed. He’d remained calm throughout their conversation, unlike DogNut, who was sweaty and hyped up, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, his head bobbing on his long, scrawny neck.

Justin waited for him to stop jigging and once he’d got his full attention he carried on. ‘I may be a lot of things, DogNut,’ he said. ‘I’ve been called just about every name you could think of, and some you couldn’t, but I’ve never been called stupid.’

‘Did I call you stupid?’

‘I’ve talked to everyone who went out today,’ Justin continued. ‘Robbie included. That’s what my meetings were about. It’s obvious what you’re up to.’

‘Oh yeah? And what am I up to?’

‘You think you can stroll in here and take over.’

‘No way, man. That’s not my game,’ DogNut protested. ‘I don’t want to step on no toes. This is your party. Whatever you been told you been told wrong.’

‘OK. Good. As long as that’s clear.’

‘Crystal.’

‘Is it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Because I don’t want anything to happen here that could screw things up. We’ve worked hard to make this a good place to live. Apart from the sickos in the lower level, it’s just about perfect.’

‘Yeah. Brooke told me about that. How many you got down there?’

‘Don’t know for sure. Not that many. You know how they love the dark, how they love to be underground. It was too dangerous to try and clear them out, so we just secured all the doors so that they can’t get through to our bit. One day we ought to hire some hunters to go in and flush them out, but they don’t really bother us. You remember they used to say you were never more than ten feet away from a rat in London? Or something like that?’

‘Yeah.’

‘But you never saw them, did you? They kept out of our way, just like the sickos do now.’

‘So we safe, yeah?’

‘The museum’s built like a fortress, so it’s easy to defend. Plus there’s plenty of land to grow food on. It works well, but it’s complicated. It’s not just running around smashing sickos’ heads in. We’ve moved on from that.’

‘If you say so.’ DogNut shrugged.

‘Let me tell you what I do, DogNut,’ said Justin. ‘As the boy they voted to be in charge of all this. And you think about it. Think about what sort of life you want for yourself. I get up at dawn. I check with all the kids who’ve been on late duty that nothing’s happened overnight. I personally go to every entrance and exit and make sure that they’re secure. Then I check with the kitchen staff what food we’ve got for the day. Do we need to find more? Is there enough water? Do we have enough fuel for cooking? What are the menus for breakfast, lunch and supper? Will everyone get enough ascorbic acid in their diet? Then we have morning council, where any kids with any problems, complaints, questions, whatever come and talk to me. After that I …’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right,’ said DogNut. ‘I get the picture. Is boring, right?’

‘Not for me it isn’t, no,’ said Justin. ‘I find it all fascinating. But for you …’

‘It don’t have to be that way, blood,’ said DogNut. ‘At the Tower Jordan Hordern is a general, a fighting man …’

‘You’ve seen a few other settlements recently, haven’t you?’ asked Justin.

‘Yeah.’

‘And the kids in charge – were they more like Jordan or were they more like me?’

‘Well … I guess they was more like you. Nuts.’

Justin laughed. ‘You’re probably right,’ he said. ‘Now come and look at this. I want to show you something …’ He went over to the windows and pointed down to a big courtyard inside the museum buildings that had obviously been used as a car park.

‘What am I supposed to be looking at?’ DogNut asked.

‘The rather large white object with wheels.’

‘OMG!’ DogNut cried. ‘Look at that. It’s the beast!’

Parked on one side of the car park was the Tesco lorry.

‘Yep,’ said Justin. ‘We parked it there when we arrived. Hasn’t left the car park since.’

‘I guess the food ran out ages ago.’

‘Lasted about two weeks. The lorry’s still useful, though.’

‘What for?’

‘Safe storage.’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘Come with me and I’ll show you.’

40

They didn’t like it around here. Shadowman had led them across the wide Euston Road, and the effect had been like crossing a river from one country to another. The six-lane highway seemed to act like a boundary between the safe area to the south and the wild lands to the north. Maybe it only felt that way to Shadowman, who hadn’t been north of Euston Road in over a year, but he was sure the others sensed it too. It wasn’t helped by the sun going behind heavy black clouds just as they reached the far pavement. The day grew dark and chilly. In the cold gloom everywhere looked very different. The buildings here were grey and dirty and dead.

Tom and his girlfriend, Kate, picked up their pace and kept close to Jester and Shadowman. Alfie had been entertaining them by singing old disco songs. He’d gone through ‘YMCA’, ‘Thriller’ and ‘Staying Alive’. That was their favourite. They’d all joined in, their high voices rising to the heavens.

‘Ha, ha, ha, ha, staying alive …’

None of them had Alfie’s energy, however, and he’d carried on singing long after the others had stopped.

But as they came past Euston station Alfie shut up as well. All they could hear now was the sound of their footsteps bouncing back off the walls of the buildings. It was so quiet. A quiet like London hadn’t known for hundreds of years. The whole buzz and hum and bustle, the engine throb of a city, had been silenced. There didn’t even seem to be any birds around. It unsettled the kids and made them nervous. They’d seen a couple of strangers earlier, solitary ones, badly diseased, slow and feeble. No threat at all. Laughable. One of them had even been shuffling along the pavement on his bottom, pulling with his heels and pushing with his knuckles.

Tom and Kate had perked up and wanted to attack them for the hell of it. To boost their confidence. But Shadowman had insisted they press on. Noise and the smell of blood would only attract other strangers. It was best to keep moving while the going was good. They had no idea what lay ahead, after all.

They hadn’t seen any other children yet. Not one. They hadn’t passed any obvious hiding-places, strongholds that they themselves might have picked to live in. The last time Shadowman had come up this way there had been lots of kids around, squatting in the houses. They must all have either been killed or had clubbed together into larger groups and moved into safer buildings, like David’s group at the palace. Shadowman was wondering how far they’d have to go before they found anyone else of their own age.

‘Have we got a limit?’ he asked Jester, trying to break the tension of these gloomy streets.

‘A limit to what?’

‘How far we go. How long we stay away. You haven’t really said. Do we go back tonight? Tomorrow? Next week?’

‘I vote we go back now,’ said Tom.

‘Wait, surely we’re going back before tonight,’ said Kate anxiously, holding on to Tom’s arm. ‘I’m not staying out in the dark somewhere strange. You never said we were going to be away overnight.’

‘That’s because there is no definite plan,’ said Jester. ‘There can’t be.’

‘That’s just great,’ said Kate.

‘No,’ said Jester. ‘What I mean is … we don’t know how far we’ll have to go to find any other kids. OK, to be fair, if we haven’t found anyone by this evening, then we head back before it gets dark. Does that sound all right? If we do find other kids, though, then it might make sense to stay with them until tomorrow.’