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The Ape turns to the Moth. ‘Your turn, Hawkings.’

‘Daz, it’s Haw-king,’ the Moth replies.

‘You in for?’

‘Doesn’t he know any other words?’ Billie says to me.

‘Brakes failed on my chair and I ploughed into that parents’ night presentation, the one in the hall – brought the whole lot down.’

‘Yowza!’ The Ape leans over and high-fives the Moth.

‘They keep doing that. Malfunctioning.’

GG puts up his hand. ‘Can I go to the bathroom please, sir?’

The Ape snorts, puts his hand up and does the worst impression of GG ever. ‘Can I go and do a big dump, sir?’ The Ape laughs loudly while staring at Lucas, willing him to laugh along
with him because then he could fantasise that they were best friends.

GG is the world’s happiest person. Happy and gay. Run the two together and you get happy gay, and gay used to mean happy, so someone said it was like he was double gay or Gay Gay, and the
name kind of stuck. Rake thin and with eyeliner to match his dyed blond quiff, GG revels in his total campness. He’s completely OK with who he is, and because of that everyone likes him.
Apart from Billie, he’s probably the only other person in detention that I actually talk to.

‘Sir,’ he says again, ‘may I have a tinkle, please? I’ll be very quick. Barely time for an unzip and drip.’ GG told us earlier that he’s here because he was
flirting ‘inappropriately’ with the new maths teacher. I’m so not surprised.

Before Allwell can respond, a match strikes and we all turn to the back of the classroom. Johnson holds the match and watches it burn before blowing it out.

That’s it. That’s all he does. One simple act that gets everyone’s attention.

He is sitting with his feet up on the desk gazing out of the window, long thin legs stretched out in front of him. His wild dark curls fall over his eyes and I’m so glad I’m half
facing away from him because there’s nothing like a bad boy to turn a girl’s head. Not that Johnson is bad like the Ape is – he just does his own thing and makes his own
rules.

‘That’s Johnson,’ whispers Billie, barely keeping the thrill out of her voice. As if I needed telling anyway. ‘Johnson,’ she repeats. No one knows if that’s
his first name or surname, or if in fact it’s his
only
name. I’ve certainly never managed to get close enough to ask.

Johnson flicks the dead match across the room and as soon as it lands on the floor the fire alarm goes off in the hall outside. It’s loud and piercing. Panicked voices join in with the
alarm and Allwell gets to his feet, worriedly raising his hands to us. ‘Stay there.’ He has to speak loudly to be heard above the alarm and the shouting. Something is happening in the
corridor outside. More people are joining in, footsteps charge up and down.

‘Sir?’ Carrie calls out, looking worried.

Allwell opens the door, and the voices and the fire alarm immediately fill the classroom. ‘Good God!’ he shouts.

I don’t know what Allwell has seen, but after the door closes behind him there’s a flash of light that seems to illuminate the whole room. Carrie jumps in her seat, letting out an
involuntary scream. It’s like someone’s put million-watt bulbs in all the light sockets, and the flash all but blinds me.

The light goes as quickly as it came and the Ape kangaroos his chair and desk towards the door. ‘Did you see that?’

‘Don’t open the door!’ yells Lucas, panicked.

The Ape ignores him and yanks it open. We wait with bated breath as he gets to his feet and leans over the desk so he can peer out.

‘Well?’ asks Billie.

The Ape turns his big head left and then right, checking the hallway. It seems to take him forever.

‘Tell us then!’ urges Carrie.

‘Nothing,’ he says, eventually.

‘It can’t be nothing!’ Lucas wails.

‘Wait. The alarm’s stopped,’ says GG. ‘And the shouting.’

We take a moment to listen and it’s true, there’s just silence now.

‘Where’s Mr Allwell?’ asks the Moth.

‘Who’s Allwell?’ says the Ape.

I get to my feet. The Ape is clearly the last person you’d send on a fact-finding mission.

‘Rev, what you doing?’ Billie looks worried.

‘I’ve got to see.’

I edge over to the Ape at the doorway and dare to peer out.

‘Well?’ the Moth asks.

All I can see is an empty hallway. The Ape is right. There is nothing out there. Nothing at all.

‘No one’s out there,’ I add.

‘There must be,’ GG argues.

‘No.’

‘Is the school on fire or what?’ snaps Carrie.

The Moth can see that she is tense and tries to calm her. ‘It doesn’t feel like it’s on fire.’

‘And you know what that feels like do you, Hawkings? You’ve been in hundreds of fires, have you?’ she snaps back at him, and I can see it hurts him a little.

‘There’d be sirens by now, people would be spilling out into the car park,’ he says in his strange little nasally voice.

I turn back to the others and find that Johnson is looking straight at me. The surprise of it makes my heart skip a beat. ‘There’s no fire,’ I tell the room.

‘Later, losers.’ The Ape shoves the desk out into the hall, then gets up and lumbers into the corridor.

‘I’m not staying either.’ Carrie brushes past me, jabbing me with her bony elbow on purpose as she leaves. ‘And you
so
know what.’

Lucas is now in a total panic. I can see his brain overloading as he tries to decide whether to stay or not. ‘What if the teacher comes back and none of us are here?’ he says.

‘I shouldn’t even be here anyway. I was wrongly accused,’ the Moth says as he whirrs his way towards the door.

‘But you can’t all just disappear.’ Lucas looks seriously worried. ‘Moth, wait.’

The Moth stops and turns to his best friend with a pretty good stab at irony. ‘C’mon, live on the edge, Luke, just like I do.’

Lucas wrestles with his conscience and then, with a low, ominous groan, he follows the Moth out into the corridor, giving himself an excuse as he does. ‘If anyone asks, I’ve got
football practice and I need to get changed.’

Before I leave, I sneak one last glance at Johnson who remains seated with his feet up on the desk, looking to be in no particular hurry to leave.

His eyes meet mine and he gives me a lazy salute, touching his index finger to his temple and then gently cocking it my way.

‘Don’t get burned out there.’

Billie drags me away before I can respond. Not that I had any idea what to say to him.

Billie and I are walking down the steep grassy hill that leads from the school to the centre of town. I have become a little anxious about my hair colour now and wonder if
I’ve gone too far. Billie, with her spectacular half-Indian, half-Irish colouring that translates into dark lush hair and blue eyes, has never needed to improve on that, and I’m still
not sure what possessed me to do something so crazy. Did I need to be noticed that much? There’s got to be something psychological going on here but I have no idea what.

‘D’you think Johnson has a special pass that allows him to wear tight jeans?’ Billie asks.

I’m not sure why Billie’s talking about Johnson. She’s rarely, if ever, mentioned him before.

‘Was he wearing jeans?’ I ask innocently.

‘Like you didn’t notice.’

‘I wasn’t really looking,’ I lie.

‘Must’ve seen the way he saluted me.’

I know for a fact that he saluted me, but I let it go.

‘Did he?’

Billie smiles to herself at the thought. ‘Oh yeah.’

We carry on to the bottom of the hill and take a short cut through the car park and over the tiny river that snakes its way through the town.

‘You really have to meet Kyle?’ Billie asks.

‘I promised.’

‘My bus isn’t for another twenty minutes.’ Billie looks at me hopefully. ‘I’ll buy you an Americano.’

Her big beseeching blue eyes are too much for me and I quickly text Kyle:
Still in detention.
We both giggle like little kids and then I feel bad. I
should really be racing round to see Kyle.

We have been so busy chatting we haven’t noticed that the town is unusually quiet. We’re halfway to Costa before Billie comments on it.

‘Look at that,’ she says.

‘What?’

‘The high street.’

I take a moment to register the emptiness.

‘Never seen it like this before,’ she adds.

There are no cars or buses driving past, no people walking around.

‘Bank holiday?’ I ask.

‘We wouldn’t have been at school.’ Billie continues to scan the usually packed high street. ‘And people would still be out and about. Wouldn’t they?’

She’s right, but there doesn’t appear to be another single human being anywhere. Billie gently pushes open the nearest shop door, a health food shop run by the unhealthiest-looking
man I have ever seen. The door creaks a little as Billie peers in.

I wait for her to look around before she pulls the door shut again.

‘Empty.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘What d’you think I mean?’

I squeeze past her and take a look for myself. The health food shop is completely deserted.

‘They shouldn’t leave it unlocked,’ I tell her before backing out. ‘Someone should tell them about that – they’ll get robbed.’

We move to the next shop, a key cutter and shoe repairer. Billie opens the door. Again it’s unlocked and again it’s empty.

‘Let’s try another shop,’ I tell her.

We head into the travel agent. There are computer terminals at small desks, a bureau de change at the far end and stacks of travel brochures lying neatly on shelves. But no people.

‘Maybe everyone booked themselves a holiday,’ Billie jokes.

We enter the phone shop next door, which is nearly always packed with people wanting an upgrade on a phone they’ve had less than a week, and the result is the same. No one home.

We emerge from the phone shop and look up and down the empty high street again. I even scan the second- and third-floor windows of the offices above the shops, but there’s no sign of
movement behind any of them.

Billie heads into the next shop along, Boots. I follow her through the automatic doors.

My heart is starting to quicken and I’m getting a tingling sensation in my arms and shoulders.

‘Gas leak?’ I ask. ‘Chemical spill?’

Billie isn’t listening because usually the first thing you see in Boots are the women on the make-up counter who have applied so much product on their faces you’re always surprised
there’s any left to sell. But the painted ladies aren’t there today. No one is.

‘Where is everyone?’ Billie asks, but it’s not a question I’m likely to have an answer for. ‘Hey!’ she calls out.

‘What are you doing?’

‘HEY!’ she shouts louder this time.

‘Shh, they’ll throw us out.’

‘Who? Who exactly is going to throw us out?’ Billie is enjoying the emptiness less and less. She breaks into a fast walk, hurrying down the aisles looking for a sign of life.

I try to keep up with her as she moves quickly from aisle to aisle.

‘Hey! Hello!’ Billie looks at me, her eyes wide. I know her heart is pumping as hard as mine is.

Billie hurries out of Boots and I chase after her as we race into more high street shops, calling out, hoping that someone is there. But each one is the same. Empty.

There is absolutely no one to be found. Everything looks the same, it feels the same and even smells the same, but without actual people it just isn’t the same.

‘Terrorists? It’s got to be terrorists.’

Billie’s eyes grow even wider. ‘God, Rev.’

‘I’m just saying.’

‘You think there’s been an evacuation? Like they’ve found a bomb or something?’

‘What else could it be?’

‘So where are the soldiers? The police?’ she says, looking more freaked out by the second.

‘Let me try my mum.’ I grab my phone and call home, but it goes straight to answering machine. I try to act cool and casual. ‘Mum, you there? Something going on that I’ve
missed? Call me . . .’ I try to say the last bit in a sort of happy-clappy, sing-song voice – as if I haven’t a care in the world – but my voice cracks halfway through and
that’s when I hear my heart pounding in my ears, like it has a sixth sense or something. That it’s beating out a warning. I look at Billie and she’s also on her phone.

‘Dad, just saying hi. Uh, where . . . Uh, well there doesn’t seem to be anyone around. Could you maybe . . . well, yeah, could you call me back? Please.’

The pounding is reaching deep into my brain and giving me a splitting headache.

We head for the town square and Billie cranes her neck to study the sky. ‘There aren’t even any birds.’ It’s as empty as the streets below it. A few clouds, but no birds
or planes.

‘Do they evacuate birds?’ she asks.

‘They do now.’ It’s a bad joke – weak. But I’m trying not to freak out completely.

‘Let’s keep looking.’

‘We’ve been looking.’

Billie looks me straight in the eye. ‘OK. Here’s what I think. There’s been a mass evacuation. There’s a war or something breaking out, and a missile is heading our way.
Only they forgot to tell us.’