The Coke was warm, but it didn’t matter. If it’d been winter he could have left the can outside, but otherwise there was no way of keeping things cold. He took a sip. The sugar hit him instantly. He gave a satisfied smack of his lips and went “Aaaaaaah,” just like they did in the commercials.

Next he unwrapped his chocolate bar. Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. It was a little white and hard, but that was all right. He took a bite. Oh, that taste. He closed his eyes to better appreciate it. This was heaven.

ABBA sang about the gods. Not caring. Everything being ruled by chance, a throw of the dice.

There came another crash from outside. The crack of something big breaking. A window maybe?

He hadn’t gone away—the father in the cross-of-Saint-George vest. He and his little gang had stayed. And they’d been busy out there. Steadily smashing their way in. They were very nearly through. If not tonight, then tomorrow. He’d always known it, really, in the back of his mind, that sooner or later the grown-ups would come for him. He just hadn’t thought it would be this soon.

The fat father and his cronies were different. They were clever. Callum had hurled things down on them, bombed them, but he’d missed the ringleaders every time. He’d taken out a couple of the normal grown-ups. The stupid ones. That was all. And the others—they wouldn’t give up. They were working away at the defenses.

He remembered seeing a wildlife documentary about a pack of wild dogs. They trapped some animal in its lair. A badger or a lizard or something. And they dug it out. Took them ages. More than a day. They just kept on digging and digging, until they found it.

And then they ate it.

A huge bang followed by a thud. Something had fallen over.

He could hear them coming in now. They’d made it into the mall. There was only the shutter between him and them. He supposed he could run, but where would he go? It was too long since he’d been outside. That scared him worse than the grown-ups.

Another track came on. Another of his mom’s favorites when she was feeling “blue,” as she called it. “I Have a Dream.” They’d sung this one together a million times. On the karaoke version. With the words on the screen. It was only now, though, that Callum really paid attention to what the words meant. No wonder his mom liked it. It was all about believing in your fantasies to help you forget reality.