So it wasn’t over yet. They had to regroup and press on.

Maxie groaned, feeling the pain in her back where she’d been rammed up against the fossil.

Bloody dinosaurs …

Down on the lower level Blue’s squad were gradually driving a clump of grown-ups back along a dark corridor. Boggle and another museum kid stayed at the rear, shining their torches ahead. All Blue was aware of were white faces, gaping mouths, wide, frightened animal eyes, bony fingers held up for protection. And fingers didn’t offer any protection at all. Blue drove steadily forward. Spears held the grown-ups at bay, clubs battered them down, knives finished them off. Gradually the kids were reclaiming the corridor, stepping over fallen bodies as they went, leaving a bloody carpet behind them. One of Blue’s team stayed at the back, stabbing down with his spear at any grown-ups who still lived.

They reached a large door and Boggle cried out that that was enough.

Blue didn’t want to stop. All his anger and fear and frustration had surged up from where he kept it nailed down deep in his guts. He wanted to press on, slaughtering the grown-ups, wanted to press on until every grown-up in the world was dead. He was filled with a burning blood fever. A sick drive to keep on killing. Boggle held him back.

‘This is the door,’ Boggle said. ‘If we lock it then this corridor’s sealed off. We’re safe.’

‘Safe?’ Blue spat the word out.

‘You don’t have to kill any more,’ said Boggle. Blue looked at him; even though Boggle hadn’t been in the front rank his face was spotted with blood, and there was pus in his hair, probably from when Blue had smacked a grown-up in the face and his head had seemed to explode. There was blood and clumps of hair and bits of flesh stuck to the walls all down the way they had come. Blue fought the urge to be sick. His arms were sore. His head ached. He had only just recovered from the concussion he’d got when a wooden shack had collapsed on him a couple of days ago. He had no idea what damage he might do if he pushed himself too hard.

He let it go. Felt his shoulders sag as the fight went out of him. Boggle and his friends were locking the door, shutting the remaining grown-ups in the darkness on the other side.

‘Tomorrow we’ll come back and finish what we started,’ Blue said. ‘Clear the whole place out. You can’t live with these creeps down here.’

‘It’s too big,’ said Boggle. ‘We can’t patrol the whole museum …’