‘Courtney’s like Jackson,’ said DogNut. ‘All the guys are scared of her.’
‘You look better since you ain’t so fat,’ said Brooke.
‘Thanks.’ Courtney loaded the word with as much sarcasm as she could.
‘No, I mean it. You’re kind of hard-looking now, muscular, like an athlete. Looks good on you.’
Courtney blushed deeper. In truth she had no idea how she looked to other people. Then she got cross. Brooke had skilfully switched the focus of attention off herself and on to Courtney. She was being deliberately vague because she didn’t want to tell them the truth.
‘So you ain’t got, like, one special guy?’ said Courtney.
‘No. No one here’s really my type.’
Brooke’s type. Courtney knew all too well what type that was. She always went for the best-looking, most popular boy around. Didn’t care if she liked him or not, but it was important to her to be seen with the guy that all the other girls wanted. The top dog. But here that was difficult, because the guys in charge were all nerds and geeks. It was hard for Brooke to operate properly. Robbie was the closest thing to a football star, but there wasn’t much going for him. He was butters, and ever since DogNut had said he was weak and not really cut out to be a leader that was how Courtney thought about him. That left the field open for DogNut to make a move. Maybe his plan would work. And once he was king of the castle Brooke would want to be seen with him.
Unless Courtney could put a stop to it somehow …
‘You should visit the Tower with us,’ she said. ‘There’s lots of fit guys there.’
‘Maybe I will.’
‘The fittest guy from the Tower ain’t home right now,’ said DogNut. ‘He’s sitting right behind you, gyal.’
Brooke turned round theatrically and pretended to be looking for someone.
‘Move out the way, Donut,’ she said, ‘I can’t see him. Where is he?’
‘Ho, ho, ho,’ said DogNut. ‘Lol and all that. I’m all you need, babes. Show me someone here in Nerdville can compete with me!’
‘That’s why you’ve come here,’ said Courtney, smiling. ‘Admit it. You’re the halfway ugly guy in the country of full-on uggs. You know that back at the Tower you don’t stand a chance. The guys there make you look like nothing.’
‘Like who?’
‘Jordan Hordern.’
‘Freak.’
‘Tomoki.’
‘Boring.’
‘Ed …’
Courtney was pleased to see a spark light up in Brooke’s eyes when she said Ed’s name. There was still something there.
‘How is he?’ Brooke asked, trying to sound casual.
‘Cool,’ said Courtney. ‘He’s, like, second in command to Jordan Hordern. Everyone really likes him.’
‘Are you in love with him then?’ said DogNut, and he made some smoochy noises with his lips.
‘Me? No.’ Courtney’s voice shot up an octave.
‘Sounds like you are.’
‘No way.’
‘You should hear yourself, Courtney. You’re, like, “Oh, Ed’s so cool, Ed’s so buff, Ed’s such a leader of men, Ed’s got lovely shoes”.’
‘I like Ed,’ said Courtney.
‘Me too,’ said Brooke, and DogNut leapt in again.
‘Yeah, well, don’t get too excited,’ he said. ‘I asked him to come along on the expedition with us and he said no thanks, not interested in finding you, said you were like ancient history.’
Courtney had to turn away to hide the massive grin that she couldn’t keep off her face. He’d said just about the worst thing he could. DogNut was fun, she loved him, but sometimes he could be pretty dense. He didn’t understand Brooke at all. Telling her that a boy wasn’t interested in her meant that she’d do everything in her power to change his mind.
Ed was a challenge now.
There was nothing Brooke hated more than a boy not being interested in her. If DogNut had said that Ed spent his whole time writing poems about her and drawing her face on walls, she would have laughed at him and crossed him off her list.
DogNut’s own naked enthusiasm was all too clear to Brooke. She would play him and tease him and offer him the odd crumb until she’d ruined his life and then go off with someone else.
‘Yeah, well,’ she said. ‘Maybe I do need to come to the Tower with you and remind Ed just what he’s missing out on.’
‘Brooke,’ said DogNut, laying everything on the table in a pathetic last-ditch stand. ‘You don’t want to go there. I came all this way to find you. Me, I did that. Not Ed. Don’t that mean nothing to you?’
Brooke put on the sort of face you would make to a crying toddler and turned to give DogNut a playful kiss.
‘Oh, Donut, you’re so sweet. You’ll make somebody a lovely husband.’
‘There’s only one person I want to marry.’
Brooke stood up, bursting with mock excitement.
‘Oh, really, really … and I know just who it is!’
‘Yeah, right,’ said DogNut, leaning back in his chair and putting his hands behind his head.
‘It’s my girl, Courtney, isn’t it?’ Brooke cried.
‘Courtney?’ DogNut looked horrified. ‘You’re joking.’
‘Oh, thanks, great,’ said Courtney, who was still reeling from what Brooke had said. Red-faced, her cheeks burning, she jumped to her feet, not sure which of the two of them she was most angry with.
‘No, Courtney, Courtney,’ said DogNut, throwing up his hands. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. I love you to bits and all, but you’re like a mate, like my sister, you ain’t exactly …’
‘Ain’t exactly what?’
Courtney was going to start crying if she wasn’t careful and that would blow everything big time. All she could do was turn round, kick her chair out of the way and storm off between the statues.
‘I’ll leave you two alone together,’ she shouted as she got to the astronaut. ‘You can have a good laugh about me.’
‘No, no, Courtney, come on …’
‘You idiot,’ said Brooke once she was sure Courtney had gone.
‘What?’ said DogNut, looking hurt. ‘What have I done now?’
‘Can’t you see it?’
‘See what?’
‘You really are a dumb-ass. Dumbo Donut, as dumb as they come.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘That girl is nuts about you. You are all she thinks about.’
‘Courtney? No way … Not Courtney …’
‘I’m gonna go and see she’s all right,’ said Brooke. ‘I shouldn’t have said nothing. I couldn’t help it. Me and my big stupid mouth. You wait here for Justin. One guy who understands women even less than you do.’
Brooke followed Courtney back into the other part of the museum. DogNut got up and was about to go after her when Justin appeared, carrying a torch.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ he said, ‘but I’ve been in meetings all morning.’
It was such a ridiculous thing for a fifteen-year-old kid to say that DogNut burst out laughing.
39
Justin led DogNut through the museum away from the public areas, into the warren of corridors, offices and backrooms that were hidden behind the scenes. He had grown a lot more confident in the last year, the way a nerd often can. He had blossomed from being an outsider and loner into being respected for his cleverness. He was among his own people here, and DogNut could tell that they liked him and looked up to him. He had the self-assuredness of an adult.
‘Brooke told me you’ve had an exciting morning,’ he said as they walked. ‘Out there ridding the streets of filth and vermin.’
‘Something like that.’
‘So, Paul got his revenge?’
‘Yeah.’ DogNut thought about this for a moment. ‘I’m not sure how much good it’s done him, though. The guy’s a mess.’
‘He was a bit unstable before all this, if you really want to know,’ said Justin. ‘He’
s been acting weird for the last few weeks. I think he’s been pretty depressed.’
‘Well, he’s seriously depressed now,’ said DogNut. ‘All the way back he was either blubbing or raving “You shouldn’t’a let her die, you abandoned her, you’re all to blame, boo hoo hoo.”’
‘He has a point.’
‘Come again?’
‘You didn’t protect her, did you?’
DogNut stopped and confronted Justin.
‘You weren’t there, Justin. You don’t know how it went down. I don’t suppose you get out much, don’t get to see any sickos up close and personal. But maybe you remember what it was like when we found the lorry back in the day?’
‘It’s not something you can forget. That lorry saved all our lives.’
‘Yeah, well, remember you and me sat in the cab and tried to drive the bastard?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘Now, think back, Justin,’ said DogNut. ‘You’re sitting there popping cold hard sweat, crapping yourself, swearing at the engine. You remember?’
‘Yes. I remember I couldn’t get it started.’
‘Now, tell me, at the time, did you have any idea what anyone else was up to?’
‘Not really, no,’ said Justin. ‘I was too busy concentrating on trying to get the lorry to move forward.’
‘Exactly. When you’re in a fight like that, you got to look after yourself; you can’t be thinking about what everyone else is up to. You don’t know what’s going down. Back then, in the lorry, it was just you and me.’
‘Yes, but I wasn’t in charge, DogNut.’
‘Say what?’
‘I wasn’t in charge. I had a job to do. To drive the lorry. And I was doing my job. Ed was in charge, not me. He was making sure everyone else was all right. That was his job.’
‘Ed, Ed, Ed …!’ DogNut slapped his forehead. ‘Why’s everyone keep going on about Ed?’
‘Ed was a good leader. And that’s the sort of thing a leader has to do.’
‘He wasn’t perfect!’ DogNut protested. ‘He nearly left that bird behind when we drove the lorry off, the one who was sick, the French girl – what was her name?’
‘Frédérique.’
‘Yeah, her. We nearly went without her.’
‘Yes, but we didn’t.’
‘You’re confusing me,’ said DogNut.
‘You said yesterday that I was to blame for abandoning David on the bridge,’ said Justin.
‘Did I? Yeah, maybe I did.’
‘Well, you were right. I don’t mind accepting responsibility. At that moment I was in charge. And looking back, knowing everything I know about David now, I think I did the right thing.’
‘Probably.’
‘OK, and you probably did the right thing when you left Olivia behind. You had to think about everyone else. Paul’s pissed off – he always will be; he’ll never forgive you – but you’re just going to have to deal with it.’
‘I didn’t do the right thing,’ said DogNut miserably. ‘That poor little girl. I shouldn’t never have left her behind.’
‘You did what you had to do,’ said Justin, and he pushed open a door.
It led into a library, flooded with light from windows down one side, lined with shelves and shelves of old books. A spiral staircase led to an upper gallery where two boys were leaning on the railing discussing something. They stopped when Justin and DogNut came in.
‘That’s Chris and one of his librarians,’ said Justin. ‘You remember Chris?’
‘Yeah, the book guy. Hiya, Chris!’
Chris nodded back. Like a lot of the kids at the museum he was wearing old-fashioned clothes, in his case what looked like robes. He had grown a rather sad fuzzy beard and moustache in an attempt to look older.
‘Don’t mind us,’ said Justin. ‘I’m just showing DogNut around.’ He lowered his voice and moved closer to DogNut. ‘You should have seen Chris’s face when he discovered the library here. You’d have thought it was a hoard of sweets and chocolate or something, not dusty old books. And it’s not just these ones. There are libraries all over the place. This is mostly geological books, I think, but he’s moving a lot of them out and replacing them with other ones from the different libraries, making his own collection. He even found a first edition of The Origin of Species.’
‘Yeah?’ said DogNut, trying to sound like he knew what Justin was talking about.
‘He virtually lives in here now,’ said Justin. ‘Calls himself the Librarian. He has a study group working through all the books. Reckons the knowledge in them and the way we use it is what’s going to keep us alive. I can’t argue with that.’
‘Why’d you bring me here?’ asked DogNut, hardly listening. He was looking around the library, distracted, feeling shut in by all these books.
‘He’s writing his own book,’ said Justin. ‘Of all our stories, so that they’ll never be forgotten. He writes everything down in these big ledgers he found. The lives of every kid here. It’s so that we have a proper record of what’s happened, so that we won’t forget it, and hopefully there’ll be useful information in there as well, about the sickos. The Chronicles of Survival, he calls them. He tells the best stories to the younger kids at night – finding the lorry, the Battle of Lambeth Bridge, the great fire – it’s all written up.’
‘Yeah … and?’
‘It’d be good to get your story down, DogNut.’
‘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.
&n
bsp; ‘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
The Fear Page 20