“’Course I will,” said the Kid. “It’ll be a new grand adventure of the old school. They’ll write books about us. Long books. Nothing’s gonna split us up, small fry. We’re a team. Like Batman and Robin Hood.” And he sang. “Ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-Batman!”

63

Blu-Tack Bill was sitting on his bed, playing with his lump of Blu Tack, molding it into shapes. One moment it was a horse, then it was a house, then it had become a tree, then a little man, then a bomb. He was playing a game and the Blu Tack became anything he wanted it to, any toy he could imagine. Sometimes he would pull it apart and turn it into two figures, or more. He was never alone as long as he had his Blu Tack. It spoke to him in the voices of the characters in his story. He could sit like this for hours, lost in his own little world.

It was late, and all around him the other kids were settling down for the night. Even though the ballroom they were using as a dormitory was huge, it smelled of dirty clothes and sweaty feet and bad breath. Bill tried to shut out the smells by concentrating on his game. But a short sharp bark distracted him, and he looked over to the next bed, where Alice and Ella were playing with Godzilla. The puppy was tired; Bill could tell he wanted to sleep. He was irritable, so he snapped at them, but they didn’t know when to stop. When Godzilla got bigger they’d have to be careful. He’d bite their hands off.

Bill saw Ollie go past. He was counting each kid, muttering the numbers out loud to himself. Blu-Tack watched him move along the row of beds, and when he got to Whitney, who was also counting, they had a quiet chat. Whitney nodded. They looked very serious. Blu-Tack could have saved Ollie the bother. He could have told him how many kids were in the room without counting, just by looking. He had a good head for numbers and his memory was perfect. His brain didn’t work like other kids. He’d always known that. He could tell just by glancing around the room that everyone was there—forty-eight kids in all. Everyone except Maxie, Blue, Lewis, and Achilleus.

Bill looked down at his hands—he had shaped the number forty-eight without even thinking about it. He scrunched the stringy figures into a ball before anyone noticed, and kneaded it between his fingers.

Blu-Tack never said anything, but he never missed anything either. Something was going on. A group of big kids, the most important ones, had been having lots of whispered conversations all evening. Ollie and Achilleus, Whitney and Lewis.

Something was going to happen tonight. Bill tried to stop feeling worried. Slowly the ball of Blu Tack in his hands changed shape and became a smiling face.