The washing-machine box is cramped and cold, and actually a horrible place to spend the night, but I parked myself next to some other cardboard boxes, so I’m hoping that no one’ll notice me. Things rustle all around, in and out of the boxes, creeping through the undergrowth. Other things howl and grunt; I can’t tell if they’re animal or human.
At what must be about five o’clock, I give up and pull on my balaclava. It makes me feel safer. Leaving almost everything in the washing-machine box, I eat an orange and fill my backpack with Derf guns.
I creep towards the ring of statues.
The people who were there last night have gone, but my Derf pellets are still lying on the ground, so I pick them up and reload. I feel very slightly safer, and watch as the sun comes up over Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
I wander round to Ursula’s house. Outside the hospital I pass three melons and a collection of footballs skewered on a Belisha beacon. There’s something nasty about it; somehow they remind me of heads. A little further on, a flock of sheep grazes in the garden centre, surrounding a small round hut hung with shoes; but when I reach Ursula’s road, it all looks normal. Why have her parents not built a pyramid? Why is she not in training to be a high priestess?
I feel a curious mixture of pride and fear as I remember Mum’s words.
But orifices? Yuk.
I chuck a fir cone at Ursula’s window and her face appears instantly. She looks white, and maybe scared.
A second later and she’s standing fully dressed outside the front of her house.
‘Trojans,’ she mutters. ‘They’ve turned into Trojans. They’re getting ready to fight the Greeks from the takeaway, but the Greeks from the takeaway aren’t interested and have barricaded themselves into their shop.’ She puts her hands over her ears. ‘It’s not nice, I wish they’d stop. I’ve hardly slept – Mum’s throwing pots on the old record player, she’ll blow herself up soon.’
Perhaps being an Egyptian priest isn’t so bad.
‘What’s the time? Are we going to school?’ asks Ursula, looking in her camera case.
‘To see what Miss Primrose is up to?’
Ursula checks her camera. ‘Maybe not; anyway, it’s only five to six’
I hand her a Derf gun. ‘Let’s go and find Henry,’ I say.
‘Henry? Why? We’ve only just got rid of him.’
‘Who fired that first shot last night?’
‘Henry did.’
‘Exactly,’ I say.
We sit in Henry’s garage, watching his dad, Genghis Khan, attacking the neighbour, Attila the Hun, with a bicycle pump. Ursula’s filming it through the open door and Henry’s peeling an orange.
The last time I came to Henry’s house, it was all spick and span. This time, it’s draped with stinky animal skins and I can see where they’ve been cooking because there’s a pile of charcoal dotted with burned supermarket ready meals in the driveway.
‘So, I think we’d all say, there’s something really wrong,’ says Ursula.
‘Ursula?’ I say. ‘Have you only just noticed?’
She sticks her tongue out at me, while Henry clicks Derf pellets into the gun.
‘What about your sisters?’ I ask Henry. ‘Are they weird too?’
‘You can’t tell with the twins,’ he says. ‘They’re always peculiar. They’ve shut themselves into their bedroom; been there for hours. They’re living on Easter eggs and candy pigs they stole from Mum’s cupboard.’
‘Marcus’s fine. But Finn’s not.’ Mum didn’t say what was going to happen to Finn. Perhaps he gets to be a farmer or something harmless. I hope I’m not expected to mummify him, I wouldn’t want to go anywhere near his ‘orifices’.
‘They were Stone Age last night,’ says Henry.
‘Actually they weren’t,’ says Ursula. ‘I think you’ll find they were Bronze or even Iron Age.’
‘Surely not,’ he says, going a slightly darker shade of brick. ‘They built in stone.’
‘Yes, but they had metal tools.’ Ursula looks smug.
Henry glares at Ursula. I can’t imagine how irritating it must be living with two identical Ursulas. Poor Henry. At least Marcus is mostly silent except for things dying on screen, and Finn mostly goes to bed in the evenings.
‘Someone should do something about it,’ says Henry. ‘Like the army – perhaps we should call the army?’
‘I dare you to make the call,’ says Ursula. ‘“Hello, my dad thinks he’s Genghis Khan, and he’s wearing a lampshade on his head and attacking the neighbour with a bicycle pump, and my friend’s dad’s building a pyramid.”’ Ursula stares at him. ‘Well – go on, then.’
Henry flushes.
‘Anyway,’ I say, ignoring Ursula. ‘I tried the police. My mum ended up imprisoning the policeman. She’s turning him into a slave.’
‘Do you mean it’s up to us?’ asks Henry, a note of excitement in his voice.
Ursula does a long theatrical sigh.
‘Yes, Henry, I do,’ I say, turning away so that I can’t see Ursula rolling her eyes at me. ‘So, my family’s Egyptian, yours are Mongols, Henry, and Ursula’s are Trojans.’ They nod. ‘The people last night were Stone Age/Iron Age/Bronze Age.’
‘Mr Dent’s Roman,’ says Henry.
‘Or Greek?’ says Ursula.
‘And what about Miss Primrose?’
Henry chews his lip. ‘Miss Primrose is an Aztec, she told us.’
We sit silently listening to the screaming from the fight outside. Without looking, it sounds like Henry’s dad’s winning.
‘So it’s all to do with history?’ says Henry, pulling the garage door shut, so that we can’t actually see the violence.
Ursula sighs and films a small square on the wall.
‘No, Henry, you’re right, it is all to do with history,’ I say. ‘They’ve all gone historical.’
‘It’s a government plot,’ says Ursula, ‘To stop us noticing the state of the nation, since we’re all too busy fighting each other.’
‘But we’re not all fighting,’ says Henry. ‘I reckon it’s an alien invasion. Some people have been sent mad so that the rest of us are too busy to notice the spaceship landing on the roof.’
‘Henry,’ says Ursula. ‘That is obviously, completely stupid.’
We sit listening to the screams from outside; they’re becoming more ferocious.
‘Do you think those are authentic Mongol screams?’ I ask.
‘They could be Hunnish,’ says Henry, listening. ‘Dad’s almost certainly going to win. He’s twice the size of Attila the Hun.’
‘Who was more vicious?’ I ask.
Henry shrugs.
‘A visit to the museum, then,’ says Ursula.
We both stare at her.
‘History? The past? The museum is the grand repository of the past in this concrete wasteland. And we, obviously, know nothing.’
‘You mean,’ I say, ‘that we’re going to go to the museum, on purpose?’
‘Anyone got any better ideas?’ asks Ursula.