The Fear

‘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 go

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.’