There was a carton of milk which thumped when he shook it.

Johnny found a cup in the ghastly cavern of the dishwasher and rinsed it under the tap. At least there wasn’t much that could go wrong with black coffee.

He quite enjoyed the time by himself in the mornings. The day was too early to have started going really wrong.

The war was still on television. It was getting on his nerves. It was worrying him. You’d really think everyone would have had enough by now.

Bigmac was in school. He’d stayed the night at Yo-less’s. Mrs Yo-less had washed out his clothes, even the T-shirt with ‘Blackbury Skins’ on the back. It was a lot cleaner than it had ever been.

He could feel Wobbler and Yo-less looking at him with interest. So were one or two other people.

Later on, when they were in the middle of the rush which meant that every pupil in the school had to walk all the way across the campus to be somewhere else, Yo-less said: ‘Bigmac said you pulled him out of the wreck. Did you?’

‘What? He wasn’t even—’ Johnny paused.

It was amazing. He’d never thought so fast before. He thought of Bigmac’s room, with its Weapons of the World posters and plastic model guns and weight-training stuff he couldn’t lift. Bigmac had been thrown out of the school role-playing games club for getting too excited. Bigmac, who spent all his time trying hard to be a big thicko; Bigmac, who could work out maths problems just by looking at them. Bigmac, who played the game of being . . . well, big tough Bigmac.

Johnny looked around. Bigmac was watching him. It was amazing, given that Bigmac’s ancestors were a sort of monkey, how much his expression looked like the one he’d first seen on the face of the Captain, whose ancestors were a kind of alligator. It said: Help me.

‘Can’t really remember,’ he said.

‘Only my mum rang the hospital and they said there were only two boys and they were—’

‘It was dark,’ said Johnny.

‘Yes, but if you’d really—’

‘It’s just best if everyone shuts up about it, all right?’ said Johnny, nodding meaningfully at Bigmac.

‘She said you did everything right, anyway,’ said Yo-less. ‘And she said you aren’t being properly looked after.’

‘Yo-less.’

‘She said you ought to come round our house to eat sometimes —’

‘Thanks,’ said Johnny. ‘I’m a bit busy these days—’

‘Doing what?’ said Yo-less.

Johnny fumbled in his pocket.

‘What does this look like to you?’ he said.

Yo-less took it gravely.

‘It’s a photograph,’ he said. ‘Just looks like a TV screen with dots on.’

‘Yes,’ sighed Johnny. ‘It does, doesn’t it.’

He took it back and shoved it deep into his pocket.

‘Yo-less?’

‘What?’

‘If someone was . . . you know . . . going a bit weird in the head—’

‘Mental, he means,’ said Wobbler, behind him.

‘Just a bit over-strained,’ said Johnny. ‘I mean . . . would they know? Themselves?’