Couple killed in motorbike accident buried today.

‘Hurry, will you!’

Milo ran his finger around the inside of his collar. Ginger had made him put on his best shirt, and a tie of all things. She’d found a nice coat belonging to his mother – Mrs Chrysler was quite petite – and had put it on over her street clothes.

Then they’d run. It was several blocks to the funeral home and Milo’s stomach started to hurt the nearer he got. He knew what he was going to find. His mum and Ginger’s dad had tried to make a run for it, just like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape, though without the barbed-wire fences or Nazi guards, only they hadn’t made it.

They’d run into a truck carrying toilet rolls.

According to the newspaper, death was instantaneous. Milo wasn’t fooled by the names either. They’d called themselves Mr and Mrs Jones. Mrs Chrysler’s maiden name was Jones.

It all fit.

They arrived at the funeral parlour, breathless. The main service was over and people were milling about, shaking hands, dabbing at eyes. No one took any notice of the two kids.

Ginger dragged Milo inside and up the aisle towards the two open coffins, but suddenly he froze. His legs felt like lead and he could barely breathe or move.

Ginger hissed at him, ‘Milo, we have to know!’ Her eyes were filled with tears.

Milo shook his head.

He couldn’t go one step further.

Suddenly, an old couple stopped in front of them. The woman stared at his pale face and nodded sympathetically, patting his hand. She gave him a hug and a peck on the cheek. The old man put his arms around Ginger, and went to give her a kiss. Milo shut his eyes as the old lady kissed his other cheek. She smelled of peppermint.

The old couple wandered off. Ginger took a deep breath and edged up to the nearest coffin and peered in. Suddenly she burst out laughing, then slapped a hand across her mouth as a dozen narrowing eyes swivelled to stare at her. She immediately broke down and cried.

Milo didn’t know what to do.

Ginger stumbled back to him, still crying and wheezing. She grabbed his hand and led him out of the parlour. By now he was crying, too.

Half a block away Ginger suddenly exploded into laughter.

Milo stared.

‘It wasn’t them, Milo!’ Ginger shouted. ‘It was an old couple – like in their nineties or something!’

Milo felt an enormous sense of relief. ‘But you were crying!’

‘No, I wasn’t. I was trying not to laugh.’

They went back to Milo’s house. After changing out of their funeral clothes Milo pulled aside a floor rug and lifted a trapdoor, revealing the top of a steep staircase. He turned on the light at the top of the stairs. It dispelled some of the cellar’s gloom, but shadows – and cobwebs – still hugged the corners. Milo always shivered when he went down there.

‘Well, this is it,’ he said needlessly as they reached the bottom of the staircase.

‘It’s cold,’ Ginger observed. ‘Lucky I brought some jumpers with me.’ She inhaled deeply. ‘And stuffy.’ Milo was interested to see that Ginger also shivered, though she tried to hide it.

Milo said, ‘How long do you think you’ll be staying?’

Ginger wrinkled her nose. ‘This is your plan, Einstein. You tell me.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, that makes two of us.’ Ginger put down her backpack. ‘Sorry. I’m a little on edge. I wish I knew how long it’s going to take.’

‘I guess it depends on how soon your mum reports you missing.’

Ginger brightened a little, which seemed odd. ‘She’ll report me missing as soon as she gets home and finds me gone. I made sure of that.’

Milo hoped so. He found it very stressful that things were happening so fast, but consoled himself with the thought that the sooner all this was over the sooner he would have his mum back.

‘Now,’ Ginger said, ‘I’ll need a sleeping bag and blankets. I brought a couple of books and a jigsaw puzzle my dad and I were going to finish, but . . .’ She stopped then hurried on. ‘I have food to last a few days, but no fruit. Oh, and water. I’ve been reading up on being stuck in places and they say you can survive a long time as long as you have water. I also need a knife. A big one.’

‘What do you need a knife for?’ Milo wondered.

‘Just in case something tries to attack me down here,’ Ginger said. ‘I know it’s highly unlikely but you never know. At any rate, I’ll feel a whole lot better if I have something to protect myself with.’

An hour later Ginger seemed content. She had made the place fairly comfortable and had taken out the jigsaw puzzle and spread all the pieces – one thousand of them – face up on an old table. Milo stared at it. The image on the box showed a cutaway picture of an old sailing ship. There was lots of detail but the main picture was of the captain’s cabin where the captain was reading a book to his red-haired daughter. The scene looked very cosy and safe.

Ginger said, sounding slightly embarrassed, ‘My dad used to be in the navy. He loves old ships.’

‘Is that you he’s reading the story to?’ asked Milo.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ snapped Ginger. ‘It’s just a jigsaw puzzle!’

Milo realised he must have said the wrong thing. ‘Sorry.’ He hurried up the stairs and paused on the top step. ‘There’s three pieces missing, you know.’

Ginger stared up at him, then at the jigsaw.

‘How could you possibly know that?’

Milo looked at the pieces as though he had made a mistake.

‘You counted them? Just by looking at them?’

He shrugged again. Couldn’t everybody count things just by looking at them? Unsure what to say, he said, ‘Well, goodnight.’

‘Goodnight? Toby, it’s not even dark yet! You’ll be coming back here throughout the night, won’t you? To make sure I have everything I need. You’d better!’

‘Right,’ Milo said. He was already beginning to feel like a servant in his own house. Perhaps this was why his mother had left. He had certainly made similar demands on her. Especially when he was sick. He switched off the light and shut the trapdoor without thinking.

‘Argh!’ Ginger screamed.

Milo swung the trapdoor back open. He half expected a horde of rats to come streaming up the stairs. ‘What happened?’

‘The light, Toby. Don’t turn off the light!’

‘Oh.’ Milo switched it back on then lowered the door again. He wished again he had had more time to think things through. If he had, he might have solved a few of these problems beforehand. Stuff like not switching off the light would by now be second nature. It had all seemed simpler when the idea was just inside his head.

‘Toby?’ came a muffled plea.

Milo looked at the cellar door. He opened it slowly. ‘Yes?’

‘I’m wondering if perhaps we could leave the trapdoor open while your father’s not here. I mean, it’s kind of crazy me being stuck down here all the time when he’s not even here.’

‘But what if he sneaks in the back and finds the trapdoor open?’ Milo sat on the top step. He had a feeling this might be a drawn out conversation.

Ginger’s face looked pale in the cellar light. ‘Why would your father sneak in?’

‘Well, he might have lost his key. Or he might want to surprise me.’

‘Does he do those things often?’

‘No,’ Milo admitted.

‘There you are then,’ said Ginger. ‘So let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. But I can’t see how I can spend all day and every day down here without going completely mad.’

‘We’ve got a Scrabble set. Trivial Pursuit, too.’

‘Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit?’ Ginger scoffed. ‘No one plays those games anymore.’

‘We do,’ Milo said. ‘Or used to, when Mum was around,’ he corrected himself.

‘I just bet you did,’ Ginger said. ‘Anyway, it’s a bit hard playing games by myself.’

Milo thought of I Spy and Patience but didn’t think Ginger would appreciate the suggestions. There wasn’t much to spy down there in the cellar and as for Patience, he doubted she had a whole lot of that. His was certainly running out.

‘Didn’t you bring your iPod?’

A sudden muttering seemed to indicate a ‘no’.

‘I think your dad will come home the moment he hears you’re missing,’ Milo said.

‘You’d better bring me down a radio so I can get the news,’ Ginger said. ‘I want to hear all the nice things my mum tells the media about me. She’ll probably turn on the waterworks for the cameras, too. It should be really cool.’ A moment’s pause. ‘I don’t suppose you have a portable TV, do you?’

Milo got up. ‘There’s no electricity down there,’ he said. ‘But I can get you a battery radio. You’d best keep the volume down, though.’

‘Before you go,’ Ginger said, ‘I’d better stock up on fruit. I don’t want to get scurvy. Apples, pears and bananas will do.’

Milo wondered if he had scurvy. There hadn’t been fruit in the house since his mother left. Distracted, he asked, ‘Anything else?’

Milo knew the moment those words left his mouth he would be sorry. But something else happened.

Ginger suddenly swayed to and fro, then sagged to the ground, groaning.

Milo rushed down the stairs and bent over her. ‘Ginger? Ginger, what’s wrong?’

Ginger’s eyes fluttered. She opened them and looked at Milo. ‘Ohmigod,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe I’m so stupid! I’m – I’m a diabetic.’ She looked away when she said this. ‘I’ve forgotten my insulin. Toby, I need at least one shot a day!’

‘Where is it?’ he asked.

‘It’s in the fridge at home.’ She tried to stand up but slipped and fell again. This time Milo managed to half catch her, cushioning her fall. ‘I’ve got to have my insulin, Toby.’

Milo backed up the stairs. ‘I’ll get it,’ he said. It was clear she would never be able to walk four blocks.

Ginger closed her eyes. ‘Thank you,’ she said feebly.

Milo stopped halfway up the stairs. ‘Ginger – your mum won’t give me your insulin, will she?’

Ginger’s eyes fluttered open. ‘She won’t be home yet. Take my keys.’

‘Isn’t there any other wa –?’

‘Toby, I don’t have a lot of time. If I don’t get my shot I’ll go into a coma, and then I’ll die. Mum won’t be home for another hour and a half. She goes shopping Monday afternoons.’ Ginger drove on through Milo’s indecision. ‘The insulin’s on the top shelf in the fridge. There are three vials.’

Milo nodded. The last thing he wanted was for Ginger to die down in the cellar. On his way out through the door he collected his backpack. He had seen enough movies to know he needed gloves, so he took those, too. Luckily there were some disposables in the kitchen drawer.