Shift (36 page)

‘Couple of hours. But, Rev, listen—’

‘You said you thought they got away? That’s what you said, Johnson.’

Johnson looks extremely awkward now, shifts in his seat.

‘What happened at the hotel?’ I demand.

‘There is no hotel,’ says Johnson with a grim realism.

‘It’s rubble,’ says GG quietly. ‘Five star rubble. And it came crashing down on – on everyone.’

‘We barely got out ourselves,’ says Johnson quietly. ‘I’m sorry, Rev.’

I close my eyes again. Tight.

‘God, no.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Not Billie, please, not her.’

There are some things that are just too difficult to accept. The loss of my best friend alone is enough to break me, but coupled with the loss of Other-Johnson too, somehow it brings a numbness
that leaves me without the capacity to think or feel. It floods through me, closing everything down before I can even cry one tear. I don’t know how long it has been since we were in
detention. My biggest worry up till then was being held behind after school, but it’s like a lifetime of wonder and dread has been crammed into the short time since I slumped down in
detention. I’ve reached a breaking point, but I’ve been fighting so hard for my life that I can’t break. At least not now.
When I get home I’ll do my crying
, I tell
myself.
That’s when I’ll become the girl I used to be. I’ll collapse into my mum’s arms and weep for a year
.

The taxi rounds a bend and the Ape is actually driving sensibly for once because we don’t go up on two wheels. The journey is so remarkably gentle that eventually the motion of the car
lulls me back to sleep. But it’s not a real sleep, it’s just an escape because I’m scared and can’t face what has happened, and if I close my eyes I’ll not have to
think about any of it. I can feel the monotonous drone of car tyre on tarmac, and sense the street lights rolling by. No one is speaking but I can hear Johnson and GG breathing and I wonder if
they’re as lost as I am. It’s a stupid question, though. Of course they’re lost – it’s the first time ever in his life that GG has been silent.

‘Rev? Hey. Rev.’

I stir and open my eyes. They don’t hurt as much as they did earlier and I realise we have stopped. Johnson is half crouched over me.

‘What d’you want to eat?’

‘Eat?’

‘The Ape’s going shopping.’

The Ape’s giant head looms into the open taxi window and looks down at me. ‘Chicken?’

‘Uh, yeah. Chicken’s good.’

‘Crisps?’

‘Sounds great.’

The Ape looks down at me and I feel his eyes settle on me. But this time it’s like he’s checking I’m all right. Not ogling me.

‘Yeah, chicken, crisps and beer.’ He says it like he’s a doctor giving out a prescription. He then heads away with GG.

‘I think he cares about you,’ says Johnson. ‘You’re probably the only person he’s ever liked.’

‘Good. Because if I had to choose anyone to get us through this, it’d be the Ape every time,’ I say.

Our eyes meet at this.

‘And I’d also choose you,’ I add quietly, as I reach up a hand and touch the bruise under his eye.

I remember what Other-Johnson told me. That I loved Johnson. Was he saying it because he thought I’d have to tell Johnson how I felt? Learning we weren’t already together must have
surprised him. But that’s where they’re so different. Other-Johnson is full on, out and out, I-would-die-and-kill-for-you, but this Johnson is much more guarded.

It’s about three in the morning and he’s wide awake, looking at me but not looking at me.

‘What is it?’ I ask him.

‘Nothing. Just thinking.’ He seems awkward though, not himself.

There’s something behind his eyes, a deep sadness, but if I so much as attempt to explore it I know I’ll fold into myself and maybe never come out again. When we get back,
if
we get back, I’m not sure how it will be between us. I know how it should be but what if it ends up that all we do is remind each other of the people we lost. Chances are we would
never talk again.

The smell of chicken and cheese and onion crisps fills the cab. I sit up with some difficulty and Johnson is winding down a window as the Ape speaks with his mouth full.

‘I could become a cabbie.’

‘You wouldn’t get any fares,’ says GG who is riding up front with the Ape now, feeding him chicken as he drives.

‘But I wouldn’t need any. Because I wouldn’t need money.’

‘So why bother being a cabbie?’

‘Cos I’m a good driver and I know my way round London.’

‘You still haven’t found King’s Cross.’

‘It’s around. Somewhere.’

GG is tense and lets the Ape know it. ‘The clock is ticking, c’mon, how hard can it be to find one of the biggest train stations in the country.’

I listen to them for a moment before turning to Johnson. He pulls a trilby onto his head.

‘What d’you think?’ he asks, modelling it. ‘GG saw it in a shop window and went and got it for me.’

The trilby hat is not unlike the one Other-Johnson was wearing before his one-sided fight with the Non-Ape.

Johnson waits for my response and, as he does, all the memories of Other-Johnson come rushing back to me. They come so hard and so fast I double over and almost tip onto the floor of the
cab.

‘Rev!’ Johnson grabs me.

‘Don’t feel too good,’ I mumble, hoping Johnson will think it’s my injuries that are doing this to me. He slips an arm round me and lifts me gently back onto the
seat.

‘I got you,’ he says softly.

I glance up and he still has the trilby on his head and I want to yell at him to take it off. But all I manage is a groan, because it’s now becoming so obvious that I can’t rid
myself of Other-Johnson no matter how much I want to. Every time I tell myself he’s gone, the feeling comes back and knocks me off my feet.

Tears are streaming down my cheeks and, even though I promised myself I wouldn’t cry, I’m suddenly opening up and bawling my eyes out. And it’s not just about the
Other-Johnson, it’s Billie and the Moth, Lucas and even Carrie. They’re all wrapped up in my tears too. I can’t believe I won’t be seeing any of them again.

I only stop crying when, through some minor miracle, we finally reach King’s Cross station. I’m probably a total mess with red eyes, a runny red nose and my pink
dust-covered hair stuck to my forehead. Johnson’s still wearing the trilby and it takes a monumental effort not to grab it and throw it away.

The concourse of King’s Cross looms before us as the Ape decides to mount the pavement and drive all the way onto it. The suburban line platforms are positioned at the far end of the vast
open area and the Ape stops a few feet from the automatic ticket barriers.

‘We’ll need weapons,’ says the Ape climbing from the cab. ‘If we’re going to hold the classroom.’

‘It might not come to that,’ says Johnson.

‘It will,’ responds the Ape simply.

There’s a train at two of the platforms now and I’m presuming one was driven down by Evil-GG. We head towards it but Johnson stops us.

‘Just say one of them is waiting on that train, like in a back-up plan, in case GG fails.’

‘Evil-GG,’ GG reminds him.

‘Yeah, sorry, Evil-GG.’

We stop to take in the train standing silent and apparently empty, waiting for any sign of movement.

King’s Cross is probably one of the busiest train stations in the world but when it’s empty like this it means there are no hiding places, no disappearing into a crowd or losing
yourself on one of twenty trains. It’s a vulnerable open space.

‘Let’s stick with what we know,’ GG declares and heads for the train he brought the Moth and Carrie to London in, all two carriages that are left of it. ‘Let’s
imagine that they don’t second-guess us and aren’t actually hiding on this battered old thing.’

We’re almost running to the train now, and every step makes my body feel like acute migraines are exploding all over my body.

‘Wait, it’s facing the wrong way,’ says the Ape.

GG starts to explain to him that train engines are designed to pull or push, but gives up when he sees that the Ape isn’t even listening. ‘Just trust me, you big daft
simian.’

The fact that GG is talking again, babbling like usual, is a positive sign that he’s clawing his way back to his normal self, and I take a moment to marvel at how tough this effeminate fey
boy really is. He jumps aboard and starts the train. We’re all very aware of the noise it makes but, for now, nothing is stirring on Evil-GG’s train.

The doors ping open and before we set off I take one last look along the empty concourse. A small part of me is hoping that Other-Johnson, Billie and the Moth are going to
somehow arrive in the nick of time with Carrie miraculously reanimated. Maybe I could make friends with Another Billie and get her to come to the hotel and heal them all.
That’s an
idea
, I think.
We’ll talk to her, she’ll talk to Non-Ape and he’ll dig his way through the rubble to them
. But as Johnson offers his hand to pull me onto the train
carriage all I can see is a vast empty darkness, which leaves me feeling more hollow than ever.

‘We looked as best we could,’ he tells me, seeing me scanning the approaching dawn. ‘But the Non-Ape was lurking and . . . Well . . .’

‘But he told me, the other you that is, he told me that he had grabbed Billie and they were leaving.’

‘I guess,’ Johnson says with a regretful look, ‘I guess they didn’t make it.’

The thought hits me hard all over again and I have to take a few deep breaths.

‘What do I tell Billie’s dad?’

Johnson stops and looks like he hasn’t got an answer for the first time since this began.

‘I can’t even tell him where she is.’

‘We should go, Rev.’

‘I know we should,’ I tell him. ‘But that doesn’t mean I will. I can’t go home without them. I can’t do that. The Moth and Carrie, I don’t even know
where they live or who their parents are. Where would I start?’

Johnson laces his fingers with mine. ‘What about your mum?’ he asks quietly. ‘What would staying here do to her?’

He gets me right where I wish he couldn’t. And it hurts. I’m stuck in some no-man’s-land now. Of course I have to go back, but how can I explain any of it to anyone?

‘We’ll think of something,’ he tells me. ‘I promise. It won’t be adequate or remotely easy but we’ll get home and somehow or other make some pathetic attempt
at dealing with it and we’ll do it together.’

GG sounds the train horn.

‘We’ve got to go back, Rev.’

I know that Johnson is right but I know that not all of me will be going back. Half of me will be forever trapped here with Billie and Other-Johnson.

GG leans out of the driver’s window and calls to us. ‘All aboard!’

The sun breaks through the last of the night and starts its slow ascent. With luck and a huge amount of good fortune it’ll be the last dawn we’ll see in this world. But if things
don’t go our way, well, it’ll also be the last dawn we see in this world, but for all the wrong reasons.

I wish we were in first class again as I sit with the Ape and Johnson at a small table with nowhere near enough leg and elbow room for all of us. The Ape is beside me and his
bulk squashes me up against the window.

Johnson sits opposite me and has gently laid his foot on top of mine, a small, secret act that seems to bond us.

‘How did we get out of the hotel?’ I ask Johnson.

‘We went down to the basement.’

‘There was a basement?’

‘Underground car park.’

‘GG was right about the automatic brakes – they kicked in, but they sort of also ripped up the lift.’

‘You went first,’ says the Ape. ‘Led the way.’

I look at him in confusion.

‘By falling through the floor of the lift,’ explains Johnson.

‘There was a hole in the lift floor?’ I have no recollection of that at all.

‘Half of it fell away.’

‘I thought the Ape was protecting me?’

‘He was.’

‘But I let go,’ the Ape says without apology.

‘Yeah, you sort of fell straight down to the car park,’ says Johnson.

‘Ouch,’ I wince.

‘We had to climb down after you.’

‘But I slipped,’ says the Ape.

‘No,’ I say, because I know what’s coming.

‘Afraid so, Rev.’

‘He fell on you.’ Johnson shudders. ‘You were looking all right till then.’

As the train judders towards my home town I feel more and more bruises making themselves known to me. My teeth ache too, and I wonder if some of them have been loosened from the impact of the
Ape landing on me.

I try to replay the past few days minute by minute. Things that I hadn’t really questioned start to surface now that I have a moment’s peace to think. The heat in the lorry and
around the bus. The voice I heard that no one else seemed to hear. A voice that I swear was calling my name. If Rev Two’s dad came through from the lorry, is it feasible to think that my dad
was trying to come through on that bus? Is he lying burned to death inside and I never knew? It stands to reason that if one dad came through, then wouldn’t another one do the same thing? Or
am I just plucking irrelevant thoughts out of thin air because all that really matters is going home? There may well be answers here, but I don’t think I’ll ever find them.