‘Who are you calling a hoarder?’ the woman wanted to know. ‘Do you have a family with six kids to feed? Do you have to worry about a husband who’s paralysed on one side? My family’s supposed to starve, so that a dusty old geriatric like you can have breakfast?’

‘Come on, madam,’ said Mike. ‘Nobody’s going to starve for the sake of two packs of cornflakes.’

‘Oh, no?’ the woman demanded. ‘Did you see that Kansas farmer on the television? He says we’re all going to starve, and that the President’s stocking up with food at the White House. Well, let me tell you, friend – if the President can do it, then sure as hell so can I.’

‘Listen, madam,’ Mike said patiently, ‘nobody’s going to starve. We have plenty of supplies right here in the store, and even more in the stockroom, and still more on order from our central depot. So don’t go panicking, huh? If you panic, you’re only going to help to create an artificial shortage.’

‘You’re trying to tell me how much I can buy?’ demanded the woman.

‘I’m just asking you to cool it, that’s all. Walking around the store with these three trolleys all tied together, that’s a hazard to other shoppers. Now, I’d appreciate it if you’d pay for your groceries and leave.’

‘You make me leave,’ the woman challenged him. ‘You just lay a finger on me and see what happens.’

Mike was about to answer with another of his soothe-the-angry-customer routines, when he heard shouting and scuffling at the front doorway of the store. Tony was shouting, ‘We’re closed! Don’t you understand me? We’re closing up!’

Somebody yelled back, ‘You can’t close! We’ve got a right!’

Mike left the lady with her three trolleys and her piles of cornflake boxes, and pushed his way through the crowds of customers to the doors. Tony had managed to lock two of the doors, but the last one was being forced open by a press of angry people. There must have been two or three hundred of them outside, all jostling to get in.

What goes on here?’ Mike shouted. ‘Hey, mister – we’re closed! We’re closing up now!’

A tall young man with shoulders as broad as a surfboard and floppy sun-bleached hair was gripping Tony’s shirt and trying to push him out of the way. Behind him, a husband and wife in matching pink T-shirts that read GOODBYE J. P. SARTRE were struggling to force a shopping-cart into the store. Behind them was a wrestling turmoil of anxious and angry men and women, already panicked by the warning that America was going to starve.

‘You can’t close!’ shrieked a woman with frizzy hair. ‘Your sign says twenty-four-hour store and you have to keep that! It’s the law!’