20

In the murky light of early evening two people were lying on top of each other grunting and groaning, just twenty metres away from the Big House. Because – like most of us – they both had such matted dirty brown hair, it was impossible to tell who they were, or even if they were male or female. It was impossible to tell what way up they were, or even to tell for definite what they were doing. Inside the Big House, there was only the light from the pitiful fire, so it was also difficult to see who was missing. There’re a lot of dark corners in here at night-time and I’ve never thought about dodgy stuff going on in them, but maybe that’s because I’ve been young. Or stupid.

It’s not that we’ve never had a ‘no sex’ rule explicitly – or maybe if there has been one, nobody’s talked about it in front of us. It’s just that nobody . . . well, you know. You wouldn’t want to get pregnant. And you wouldn’t want everybody to see you having sex, would you?

‘Right,’ said Soldier John loudly, ‘I think we need to start looking at other strategies for tomorrow.’

There were murmurs of agreement from the rest of the room. The murmurs were also loud. Most people had moved so that they had their backs to the door, but even still, you could see them quickly stealing a glance now and again.

James gave a snigger next to me. Kate had covered her mouth with her hand and was looking determinedly ahead.

‘I think we should spend at least a couple of hours practising the attack moves that we saw being used on the shore.’ Loud murmurs of approval again. ‘We’ll repair the rope and make a raft out of the remaining pieces of the boat.’

‘Yes, yes . . .’ People were also talking deliberately quickly to avoid hearing the grunts.

‘And then at least we’ll be doing something useful, rather than some people I could mention,’ said Dr Jones. She made her voice go really loud on the ‘some people’ bit.

There were a lot of tuts and the vigorous nodding of heads.

‘It’s the breakdown of society, that’s what it is,’ she said. ‘Everything’s going bad.’

‘Yes. If everybody can just focus, though,’ said Soldier John. He still looked tired, and in the firelight he looked thinner, and less powerful than I remembered. Probably because he was now missing his plastic-bag coat.

‘I don’t get it,’ whispered Lana. ‘How did they decide to do it? How do you talk about that?’

‘You just ask the person you fancy, I guess,’ I whispered back.

‘No, I mean, how do you go from not being couply and kissing and stuff, to just suddenly having sex in the open? I feel like they’ve missed out some stages. Did any of you notice anybody kissing or being couply today?’

We shook our heads. It was a proper mystery. There were a few sort-of couples on board, but they didn’t go round humping each other and grunting instead of coming to the evening meetings. I’d never noticed them doing anything except being extra nice to each other.

‘Listen to what fun they’re having, Martha,’ whispered James. He gave me a grin.

‘Uggh,’ I said.

He laughed. ‘They sound like two cows mooing. And what about all that hair? Do you think they’re accidently getting each other’s hair clumps caught in their mouths?’

‘James!’

‘Mwh, mwh, mwh.’ He pretended to kiss his hand and then lolled his tongue around.

‘James!’ I said again. Kate and Lana were laughing hysterically, so much so that Kate was struggling to breathe.

‘And maybe bits of beard are getting stuck in their teeth. Dirty beard hairs, with old fish scales attached. Yum. Salty. Just imagine, Martha, their hands creeping up underneath their rags . . .’

‘Uggggh, stop!’ I said.

James was laughing now as well. ‘And his tentacle . . . in the muscle ring . . .’ He wiped a tear of laughter away.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Please, no! I feel sick.’

‘Are you sure you don’t fancy joining them? We could find a spot a few metres away. Maybe over by the Small House?’ he said. ‘Go on, Martha.’

I did a being-sick face.

‘Yeah, no, don’t worry about it,’ said James. ‘Seeing that has set me back about ten years. I’m happy to die a virgin now.’

‘Really? Are you happy to die?’ I said.

He gave a sigh. ‘No. Don’t remind me. I forgot for a minute there. Not really.’

‘Then what are we going to do?’ I said. ‘We have to try something else to get off this thing.’

Lana and Kate had stopped laughing so much now, though Kate was still hiccoughing. Reminding them about our future deaths was a bit of a mood kill, and we sat for a few minutes thinking, or at least pretending to think. In the centre of the Big House, Soldier John and some of the others had now moved on to talking loudly about combat techniques for killing kriks.

‘I think we should say something to Soldier John. There’s no point in learning to kill kriks if we’re never getting off here,’ said Kate.

‘There aren’t even any on the shore at the moment,’ said Lana.

Suddenly there was a particularly loud grunt. A few of the people in front of us flinched, and immediately we four started laughing again.

‘Uh, uh!’ said James, doing an impression and putting his arms out as though he was going to grab Lana. She slid backwards to try and get away from him, whilst the four of us laughed even harder. I had to hold on to Kate just to keep myself upright. There were tears rolling down our cheeks, it was so funny.

‘Children!’ shouted Soldier John suddenly. We all jumped. I took a quick gasp of breath. The funniness went immediately. John’s shout makes the walls feel like they’re shaking, and makes you feel your blood pulsing so hotly round your skin that it blurs the edges of your vision. The room rustled as everyone turned to stare at us.

‘We’re not children,’ said James.

‘You’re certainly behaving like children. And you are a child, my boy. You are the youngest four on board, and in the old days you’d have just been worrying about exams at your age, and playing computer games. Or doing flute practice.’ James frowned and opened his mouth to argue. I nudged him and he shut it again. ‘I’m sorry that this has happened to you. But you are here, and you’re not dead. You need to be thinking about how to save yourselves . . .’

Soldier John paused for a second. Were we supposed to reply to this, or say something? There was an expectant silence in the room that was uncomfortable, and not just for us. Other people were shuffling awkwardly too. Soldier John never spoke like this.

For a minute, I wasn’t sure that he knew how to finish what he was saying, or whether he’d maybe even forgotten that he was speaking. He was no longer really looking at us, but more at the darkness of the walls behind us.

But then he seemed to shake himself out of it. Fiercely, he glanced round the room. ‘And there’s no reason for behavin’ like idiots,’ he said. It was exactly the sort of thing he normally said, several times a day, and there was a sigh of relief from all around the room. It wasn’t clear if he was still talking to us, to the rest of the people in the room, to the people outside, or whether it was just general life advice. We all looked at each other, but seriously this time, covering up our smiles.

There was another pause in the room, because most people didn’t want to risk saying anything. Or maybe because there wasn’t much to say. That was the advantage of Dr Jones’s evening lectures. They gave you something to do when you couldn’t be trying to escape.

And it was into that silence that Old Albert came rushing.

‘You’ll all want to know this,’ he said, as he entered the doorway.

There were quite a few things we wanted to know. You could see that the entire room was shocked. We should have realized it was Old Albert who was missing, because the evening’s discussion had been strangely rational. Next to me, Lana started shaking with silent laughter, so much that there was a ring of wibbling mesoglea all around her. Which was making Kate giggle even more.

‘The dirty dog,’ whispered James with exaggerated disgust.

‘You’ll all want to know this,’ said Albert again. ‘That other boat is here. The yacht.’