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SOMEONE’S STILL MOANING!!!!!!!!

The Ape stopped at a Maida Vale petrol station and let us get out and find a street map because he had no idea where he was going. He said he needed to use the public loos but only because he
wouldn’t admit to being lost. We grabbed bottles of water and cans of Coke and then I went to the back of the petrol station and took about a dozen toothbrushes and a few tubes of toothpaste.
I wondered if it constituted looting but does wanting clean teeth count as a crime?

Carrie riding on back of Wheelchair. (lazy!)

Trotters hurting but in Mayfair now

Have found the ideal hotel. U will love it!!!!

GG thought for the day: If Carrie has a twin version I am leaving the country!

Johnson found the address for the hotel and navigated us through the capital. The evening started to close in and we are all hungry and bone tired. No one spoke much and the only real noise was
of the Ape’s stubby finger repeatedly pressing the car’s radio as he searched for a radio channel that wasn’t spurting static.

‘Nope. Nope. Nope.’

No one had the strength to yell at him.

I liked that we were driving around an empty London, moving through some of the most famous streets in the world, because it gave me time to think. As we passed Big Ben and the Houses of
Parliament, Hyde Park, the London Eye, Big Ben again, went three times around Marble Arch and criss-crossed the quietest Thames in history, I wondered what my mum was thinking. If we were really
somewhere else now, then she would be frantic, as would all of our friends and family. There’d be TV reports, missing children notices issued up and down the country, people would suspect
everything from a crazed serial killer to an alien abduction. My mum would believe it all, while telling the police not to keep phoning her, that she’d prefer they rang when they had proper
news rather than give an update that told her nothing.

We followed the Strand one way then the Ape turned the car and headed back the way we had come. We drifted up into Covent Garden and actually drove through the pedestrianised area usually
reserved for street artists. Chinatown came and went as did Piccadilly Circus, and then we were heading back again, past the major theatres where there were no actors and no audiences. London
seemed bigger somehow, the empty buildings reaching towards the empty evening sky, casting giant shadows over our non-progress.

The Ape seemed to love driving wherever he fancied, but eventually Johnson pointed out that we really should go to the hotel, that we needed to lie low so that we could work out what to do next.
Billie proved an expert map reader and we eventually pulled up outside the hotel where a doorman would usually be, someone to open the car door and wish us a pleasant stay.

Carrie sits behind the concierge’s desk spinning slowly on a swivel chair. She is the first person we see when we enter the huge reception area.

‘Do you have reservations?’ she asks, which surprises me because that’s almost like a joke and Carrie doesn’t have a sense of humour.

The hairs stand up on my arms and my shoulders tingle as I realise we have walked into a trap. This isn’t the real Carrie and I grab the smallest ornate chair I can see and hurl it at
her.

‘RUN!’ I scream.

The chair flies straight at her and even though she ducks, one of the mahogany legs glances off the side of her temple and knocks her clean out of her swivel chair. She crashes down as I grab
Billie’s good hand and start dragging her away.

‘It’s not her! It’s not Carrie!’

But Billie doesn’t budge.

‘Billie!’ I scream again.

But Johnson isn’t moving either and to my amazement even the Ape isn’t coming with me, or worse, finding more weapons.

The reason they aren’t running becomes painfully clear when the Moth wheels out into the reception area.

‘What on earth are you doing?’ he asks me, stunned.

I stop as I hear a dazed groan coming from behind the concierge’s desk. ‘You bitch.’

‘It’s us,’ says the Moth.

I take a moment to realise what I’ve done as everyone stares at me.

‘Carrie doesn’t make jokes,’ I say quietly, as Johnson and Billie go to her and try and get her to her feet. She is woozy and unsteady after the chair leg hit her but not so
much that she can’t snarl at me.

‘You utter, utter imbecile!’ she spits. ‘You’re so going to pay for that.’

Johnson tries to make things better. ‘We’re all on edge,’ he explains. ‘We’re just on edge.’

‘You want edge?’ says Carrie aiming daggers at me. ‘I’ll give you edge.’

‘Easy mistake,’ offers Billie.

‘You’re dead,’ Carrie tells me.

I feel totally stupid and totally rotten, but what does anyone expect? Nothing is what it seems any more and I’m on high alert every second. Johnson and Billie sit the dazed Carrie down
and the Moth whirrs over towards her to check her wound.

‘That’s going to bruise,’ he says gently.

‘She’s going to bruise,’ snarls Carrie looking my way.

I realise that I’m doomed to never connect on any level with Carrie. Fate is making whatever is going on between us last forever.

Johnson takes a look around the hotel. ‘Where’s GG?’ he asks.

‘Oh, he’s in his suite,’ says the Moth.

‘His suite?’

‘He took the honeymoon suite. Thirtieth floor.’

Billie flops onto a lush leather sofa in the lobby. ‘I’m starving.’

‘We found some drinks and food in the kitchen,’ says the Moth.

The Ape immediately gets excited. ‘Food!!’

My stomach is also rumbling. I can’t remember the last time we ate properly, apart from crisps and chocolate from the petrol station. Yesterday at GG’s flat probably. ‘What is
there?’

‘Pretty much everything you could ever want.’

Billie looks to the Moth. ‘How far is the kitchen?’

‘I’ll show you.’

‘Can’t you just bring me something? I can’t move,’ she moans.

But before she can react the Ape has grabbed her and dragged her to her feet. ‘I’ll carry you.’

‘No! Don’t touch me.’

The Ape swings Billie up and around onto his great broad back.

‘My arm!’ Billie’s sling comes loose but the Ape doesn’t seem to care.

‘You can cook me something.’

‘I’m not cooking for you.’

‘You’ll have to learn sooner or later.’ In that moment it seems pretty clear that the Ape is convinced that he could end up married to Billie in this not-so-brave new world.
‘That’s what girls do. Cook.’

‘You’re sexist.’ Billie is now being piggybacked against her will down the great marble hallway.

The Ape immediately thinks that sexist must also mean sexy. ‘Yeah, I know.’ He sighs proudly.

Johnson has been watching and can’t help smiling as he hands the Moth my dad’s paper.

‘You said you wanted to read this.’

The Moth accepts the batch of papers with some reservation. ‘I’ll do what I can, but I can’t make any promises.’

‘No pressure, but you’re the only one likely to understand it,’ Johnson tells him, offering a smile of encouragement.

‘It’s our ticket home,’ I add.

The Moth still doesn’t get it. ‘We
are
home.’

Johnson shakes his head quietly. ‘Just read it.’ He pats the Moth’s shoulder. ‘Right now you are the most important person in the world.’

I get worried that Johnson will also tell him that a group of vicious superhumans are probably looking for him right this minute, but Johnson decides that the Moth could probably do without
that. He has enough on his plate.

‘Me?’

‘Yep.’

The Moth’s excited eyes drift towards Carrie. ‘You hear that?’

Carrie shrugs. ‘I can’t hear anything over the pounding in my head.’ Which is really aimed at me.

‘If you can work out what is in this, then we’ll have all the answers we need.’ Johnson smiles at the Moth, staying gentle, not panicking him.

‘I’m going to get myself a drink, find a quiet spot and start reading.’ The Moth cranes his neck towards Carrie. ‘Can I bring you something back?’ he asks her.

‘Yeah. My old life would be nice.’

‘You got it,’ he jokes in response.

Carrie turns away muttering under her breath, but there’s less rancour and more amusement in her face now. Has she actually warmed to the Moth?

‘Wait up.’ Carrie has a change of heart and follows the Moth through the magnificent lobby. ‘You’d only spill it.’

Johnson heads away and calls the nearest lift. As he watches the lights above the metallic doors he looks slowly back to me. ‘Coming?’

‘Uh . . .’ I say, incoherently. He’s taken me by surprise. We’ve hardly spoken since Other-Johnson jumped from the car.

‘It’s OK, you don’t have to.’

The lift arrives and the doors open. Johnson lingers a fraction of a second and that’s all it takes for me to make up my mind. I head into the lift with him.

‘Going up,’ is all he says as he presses the button for the thirtieth floor.

Johnson and I are both on the verge of falling apart with exhaustion and, because the lift is mirrored wherever we look, we can see each other. There’s no escaping our tired faces.

‘So London’s empty too,’ says Johnson. He sounds a little defeated even though this is what he had predicted.

I nod.

‘It really is just us,’ he adds.

‘And them,’ I reply.

He nods and his eyes find mine in the endless reflections. ‘Rev.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Has he gone? The other me. From your head I mean.’

I nod and a lump forms in my throat as I think about Other-Johnson. I figure I’ve had more lumps in my throat lately than most people get in a lifetime.

‘So he doesn’t know where we are.’

‘He wouldn’t have told them,’ I say.

‘Right.’ Johnson sounds sceptical.

‘He wouldn’t have,’ I say with absolute certainty. ‘He’s
you,
remember. You wouldn’t do something like that.’ I smile at this. It’s a
tired smile and not quite the smile I want it to be, but even so Johnson reaches across and gently slips his hand into mine. Which surprises me.

‘I’ll be here for you as well, Rev,’ he says and squeezes my hand.

This is a moment that should bring us together. It’s been building, subtly I admit, but whatever bond there is between us should become unbreakable. It’s how it always works. The
quiet moment when the boy I didn’t know I liked finally reaches out to me and shows me exactly what I’ve pretended wasn’t there. But the moment isn’t going as planned. The
bond isn’t there. I can touch Johnson but I can’t feel him where it matters most. I don’t know what Other-Johnson has done to me but since he disappeared I’ve become numb
inside. Hollow.

I try not to let on and we stay with our fingers entwined until we reach the thirtieth floor and then wait for the doors to silently part before us.

I don’t know if I should keep hold of Johnson’s hand or not, but when we hear singing coming from the honeymoon suite it takes enough of our attention that I slip my hand from his
and head quickly for the door.

‘He’s singing,’ I say, stating the obvious.

‘I’m gonna wash that man right out of my hair.’ GG’s voice carries down the hallway, guiding us to his suite.

He has left the key card in the lock and Johnson slides it out and then back in, waits for the little light by the handle to turn from red to green and opens the door. We walk into the most
palatial room I have ever seen. It is luxury beyond luxury. A king-sized four-poster bed with three steps leaping up to it dominates the room. But there’s also a soft leather sofa, a fully
stocked bar, a dining table and a huge basket of fruit still wrapped in cellophane sitting on an ornate coffee table by one of the many windows. A bottle of champagne sits half empty beside it and
I accidentally kick the cork as I move around the enormous suite looking for GG.

‘I’m gonna wave that man right outa my arms and send him on his way.’ GG’s voice floats out from the bathroom and I can hear in it a champagne-fuelled disregard for the
hopeless situation we have found ourselves in.

Johnson knocks on the bathroom door, but GG is singing so loudly he can’t hear us. Johnson pushes the door open and we both peer round it.

Lying in a bath that could easily take eight people is GG. There are soapsuds spilling over the edges of the bath and tumbling down the sides as he sticks a long lean leg in the air and scrubs
himself with a bar of luxury soap. Even through the steam from the hot water we can see he is wearing a shower cap.

‘GG!’ I call out and don’t even realise I am running towards him.

‘Rev! Johnson!’ GG sits up in the bath as he takes me in. ‘Jump in. There’s room for a football team . . . With any luck, anyway,’ he winks.

Seeing GG in a giant bath of foam bubbles seems to make everything go away. At least momentarily. He’s laughing, I’m laughing, Johnson’s just standing there grinning and for a
few seconds at least we’re just three teenagers who are really glad to see each other. The glee spills over like the bubbles in the bath and before I know it Johnson has swept me up into his
arms and holds me over the bath.

‘Shall I?’ he teases and before I can answer he drops me into the giant bath. I go straight under and for a second I panic until I explode back up and blow foam away from my
lips.

GG reaches over and cuddles me. ‘We could live in this bath!’ he cries. I’m glad to see he isn’t entirely naked and is wearing brightly coloured swimming shorts, though I
haven’t got the energy to ask him where he got them from.

Johnson takes off his boots and climbs on top of the edge of the bath. He still has all his clothes on, but he removes his T-shirt and I see his taut, tight muscles flex as he whirls it above
his head before throwing it across the bathroom. He looks down at me, his curls falling forward and then he brushes them gently out of his eyes. He can’t seem to stop looking at me as I watch
him towering over us, topless and dynamic. It should be the eighth wonder of my world, but I can’t rid myself of Other-Johnson enough to fully appreciate this Johnson. My Johnson. I hate
myself for feeling this way and want to scream at the craziness of it.