5

Preparing for Action

‘This is new,’ I say.

‘Do you think she’s gone to get help?’ Katja looks around the empty room.

‘Maybe,’ I say, but the twisting in my gut says different.

‘Oh my God,’ Katja says, as she’s looking under the bed.

‘What? What’s down there?’ I’m expecting horror – Dale’s dead body, Hoche hiding with her claws out, a cauldron full of tomato soup.

‘Look at all her shoes!’ Katja says. ‘Six pairs of heels for three days at an activity centre. I don’t know if that’s stupid or impressive.’

The sound of the speaker system squeaking on again almost gives me a heart attack.

‘Attention, Crater Lake.’ A familiar voice echoes through the rooms. ‘This is Miss Hoche. Please listen carefully to this important information. Some people in the centre, including a handful of Montmorency pupils, are suffering the negative effects of inhaling paint fumes. These people may appear to be out of sorts. They could be displaying some discolouration to the eyes. Do not be alarmed – they are all making their way to the medical centre. It has come to my attention that there are children not suffering from these symptoms out of bed. This is unacceptable. Please return to your rooms and try to get some sleep. Everything will look different in the morning. Hoche out.’

The speakers click off.

Every ‘symptom-free’ kid steps into the main dorm corridor, as another bunch of bug-eyes (people formerly known as Khalil, Chips, Dennis, Dylan and Emily-Rose) do the whole ‘out-of-sorts’ walk towards the ‘medical centre’. The kids who haven’t seen this before are horrified. To the rest of us, it’s become like ketchup on a burger. Standard. Adrianne and Big Mak run past them on their way back to join us and barely give them a glance.

‘We heard Miss Hoche on the tannoy system,’ Adrianne says between gasps for breath. Adrianne is fit, so she must have been running either really fast or really far to be in this shape. ‘You can hear it for a long way out of the building.’

‘What do you mean out of the building?’ I say.

‘Surely the medical room is inside.’ Chets frowns.

‘The medical room is inside,’ Adrianne says. ‘I’ve seen it on the centre map. Mr Tomkins didn’t go to the medical room, and neither did the others. They went out of the building, across the lawn and started climbing up the river side of the crater. We were deciding whether to carry on after them…’

‘…But Hoche’s speech came out of the air like the voice of doom and we stopped for a second to listen,’ says Mak. ‘The bug-eyes disappeared into the trees, didn’t even flinch. We thought we’d better come back to regroup.’

‘So Hoche was lying?’ Chets says. ‘That doesn’t seem right.’

‘Of course she was lying – none of what she said makes any sense at all. Why would some people be affected by paint fumes, and not others? And more importantly, since when did paint fumes turn people into bug-eyed zombies with a compulsion to work rather than eat brains?’

‘So what’s happened to them, then?’ Katja says.

‘We know we were locked in, right? Maybe Digger pumped some kind of bio-weapon gas in through the vents to our rooms,’ Mak says.

‘Even if that were true,’ Adrianne has already recovered her composure, while Mak is still bent over trying to catch his breath, ‘why did it only affect half the class? We’re all fine, right?’ She looks around to shrugs and nods. ‘What was different about the others – the ones who bugged out?’

‘They were asleep,’ I say.

‘Damn, you’re right,’ says Mak.

‘And Miss Hoche said that thing about how we should all try to get some sleep and everything would look different in the morning.’ Katja’s eyes are wide, and turquoise like a tropical ocean. She looks afraid.

‘Everything probably does look different if you suddenly have eyes like a wasp.’ Adrianne was right, that’s what they looked like – the wasp eyes from the documentary.

‘But Miss Hoche wouldn’t want to hurt us, would she?’ Chets asks the question everyone else is thinking. Everyone except me, that is. I’ve seen that side of her – the nasty, bullying side. The side that enjoys the power she has over people.

‘She was locked in her room and magically got out. She didn’t go the way the bug-eyes went, or we would have seen her. She apparently has control of the tannoy’ (yeah, I say it like I always knew what it was called – thanks, Adrianne) ‘system and is using it to tell us what to do. If she was worried about the others like we are, she would have come and spoken to us about it face-to-face.’

‘She does love to get in our faces,’ Mak says.

‘I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I think we have to assume that she’s involved somehow.’ They all look at me and I can see how confused they all are – confused and scared. The funny thing is, I’m not. There’s a puzzle that needs solving, and people who need assurance and protection. And I’m tingly excited cos I know I’m the best person to get us all through it. To me, it feels like the start of an adventure.

‘So we’re not going back to our rooms to get some sleep, then?’ Chets says.

‘No, we’re definitely not doing that.’

‘Then what are we going to do?’ Katja says.

‘First, we’ll quickly go back to our rooms,’ I say.

‘Are you completely dense, Fangs? We have to go somewhere and hide.’ Trent has been quiet for a bit but I think he senses that people are listening to me, and he really hates it.

I turn and start running down the corridor, back to my little cubby-hole bedroom.

‘What are you doing?’ Adrianne calls.

‘We have a bit of time while they think we’re going back to bed,’ I shout back. ‘We need to get everything out of our rooms that we can use.’

‘Like what?’ Chets shouts. ‘What can we use?’

‘Food, water, anything we can carry. And, most importantly, this is not the type of situation in which we want to be wearing pyjamas,’ I say. ‘If we’re preparing for some kind of battle, we need to put some clothes on.’

‘Good idea,’ says Adrianne. ‘We’ll all get changed and meet back at Lance’s room in five minutes.’

Fourteen of us gather outside my room: me, Chets, Big Mak, Katja, Adrianne, Trent, Trent’s friends – Noah, Krish, Luca, Jayden and Rav – and three other girls from Katja’s dorm – Celine, Prit and Gracie. There aren’t as many of us as I’d hoped, but I’m thinking we’re lucky that any of us survived the lock-in. If it wasn’t for me being in that out-of-the-way, ‘special’ basement room, I would have been locked in, too. I can only think that whoever locked us in – and I’m thinking Digger, Hoche or some as-yet-unseen baddy (cos let’s face it, there always is one) – must have forgotten about my door.

We’re dressed and ready to go, with full pockets and backpacks.

‘I feel like I should be wearing heavy-duty combat gear,’ I say. ‘Maybe with a bullet-proof vest and a really large weapon.’

‘And some kind of helmet,’ says Katja.

‘In this weather, you’d dehydrate and die in hours,’ says Mak. ‘What you need is versatile, lightweight coverage, preferably something in a camouflage print.’

‘Or layers,’ says Adrianne. ‘I have my cag-in-a-bag in my backpack. You never know when you might need a waterproof.’

‘Maybe I should go back and get my hoody,’ Chets says. ‘I don’t want to get cold.’

‘Chets, buddy, there’s not going to be a sudden blizzard.’ I’m aware that time is passing quickly, we don’t know where Hoche or Digger are, and we’re losing focus. ‘We’re moving now. Whatever we’ve got, we’ve got. Anything else we need we’ll have to find as we go.’

‘Go where exactly?’ Trent says.

‘We need to gather information and stay undetected. To do that, we need to keep moving around the centre.’

‘Why do we need information? Kids have turned into wasp-faces, our teacher is trying to make us turn, too. What more do we need to know? We find a central place where we can all hang out and wait for help to arrive.’

‘You mean we should hide?’ I say.

‘I’m good with hiding,’ says Chets, tugging on my sleeve like a toddler.

‘If we all hide in one place, they’re going to find us. Quickly,’ I say.

‘So we barricade ourselves in. We could use the dining hall – move those big tables across the doors. The windows are high, so they won’t be able to climb in through those. You see, I’ve thought of everything. That’s why I’m head boy.’

‘No, no, no.’ I shake my head. ‘This is a bad plan. And not just because it’s yours.’

‘What’s the problem, Fangs? I thought you loved trapping people in places.’

‘That’s exactly it, Trent. If you barricade yourselves in, you’re trapped. Haven’t you seen this exact scenario in a million films and books and on the TV? When people barricade themselves in, it never works. The barricades don’t hold, or the bad guys find some other way in – the roof, the air vents, underground tunnels. There is always a way.’

‘You’re just scared we’re going to see you in your true form, when your fangs grow extra-long and wings sprout out of your back.’

‘You’re right. That’s exactly why I’m saying we shouldn’t go through with your stupid plan.’

I turn to the others. ‘Listen. I’ve played a lot of strategy games. The key to survival in these situations is to keep moving. We need to know what we’re dealing with. We’ll probably need to collect supplies as we go. We need to stay one step ahead of the enemy. We shut ourselves in a room and we might never get out. Or at least the real usses won’t get out.’

‘Why should we trust you? All you do is play computer games, like those YouTube losers. You can’t even kick a football. I’m head boy, so I get to decide,’ Trent says.

Actually, I can kick a football, just not very well.

‘I don’t see how the ability to kick a football is even relevant here,’ I say. ‘Plus, this is a life or death situation, so normal leadership hierarchies don’t apply. It’s every man for himself, and I’m not going to follow someone who’s going to get me bugged.’ There is no way I’m doing what Trent wants. I’m hoping that everyone else will see how suicidal his plan is.

‘I’ll Geek, Robot, Overlord you for it,’ he says.

‘Fine,’ I sigh. ‘One, two, three…’

‘Overlord!’ Trent says, doing the Overlord action, which is thumping down both fists on the arms of your throne. At the exact same time, I say ‘Robot!’ and robot smash his fists aside. I told you, he always plays Overlord.

‘Best of three,’ he says.

‘No one called best of three,’ Big Mak says. ‘Lance won and you’d better deal with it, son.’

‘Go slither around the centre, then. We don’t want you anyway. You’d be a liability.’ Trent is such a good loser.

‘Fine. You guys can do what you want. I’m going.’

‘Lance, you can’t!’ Chets looks terrified.

‘Chets, I know it seems easier to sit tight and hope someone comes to help us, but sometimes the easiest choice isn’t the right choice. I don’t want to turn into one of those whatever-they-ares, so I’m going. You should come with me.’

‘Are you sure, though?’ Chets looks at me. ‘Are you sure this is the right decision?’

‘I’m as sure as I can be given that I’ve never been in a situation like this before. I’ve never let you down, have I?’

‘No.’

‘Or allowed you to get hurt?’

‘No.’

‘Then maybe you should trust me.’

‘I’m with Lance,’ Big Mak says. ‘Holing up is only a good idea when all other options have been exhausted. And holing up with Trent sounds worse than being chased by killer activity-centre workers.’

‘I’m coming, too,’ says Katja. ‘I trust Lance. Maybe we can find a way out of here without waiting two more days for the coach to come back.’

‘OK, so Big Mak, Katja, Chets…?’

Chets nods.

‘And me are going. If anyone else wants to come, you can.’

The rest of the class stay standing behind Trent, looking afraid, as they totally should because they’re about to get attacked-slash-murdered by a bunch of psychopaths in matching polo shirts, or turned into human-wasp hybrids.

‘Your funeral,’ I say. Having the safety of my friends on my head is a massive deal, and I don’t know why I’m so sure that I’m doing the right thing. I just feel it.

We turn and start to walk away.

‘Wait!’ a voice calls out. ‘I’m coming with you.’ Adrianne runs to join us.

‘I thought you and Trent were, you know, besties,’ I say.

‘Trent is a jumped-up imbecile,’ she says. ‘I hope he barricades himself into the dining hall so effectively that he can’t get out and I never ever have to see his annoying, smug face again.’

‘Not besties, then,’ I say.

Katja giggles. She has a sweet giggle – it sounds like jingly bells.

‘Just because he’s head boy and I’m head girl, it doesn’t mean we’re anything alike, and it definitely doesn’t mean I have a thing for him.’

‘Hey, I never said anything about a thing.’ I put my hands up as if I’m dealing with a raging lion, which I kind of am because Adrianne is scary.

‘Like I said, THERE IS NO THING!’ She stomps off ahead.

‘Totally glad Ade decided to come with us,’ Big Mak says.

‘Are you sure she’s not one of them?’ Chets whispers, obviously afraid of antagonising the beast.

‘I’m not one of them, Chetan,’ she calls back. ‘I’m just sick of people making assumptions about me.’