True to his word, Wiki was showing the new arrivals around. Ella, Monkey-Boy and Blu-Tack Bill were squatting down next to one of the chicken runs that had been built in a big central courtyard. The courtyard had once been used as a car park by museum staff. There were still a couple of cars parked there, and over on the far side was a big Tesco delivery lorry with flat tyres.

Godzilla was overexcited, crouching down, jumping up, bounding around in circles, barking like mad at the chickens and the children.

‘They’re all outside at the moment,’ Wiki explained, ‘because it’s feeding time. They know when I come they’ll get fed.’

‘How many are there in there?’ Ella asked, and before Wiki could reply Bill held up some stringy bits of Blu-tack he’d formed into numbers.

47.

Wiki looked at him. Confused.

‘How did you know that?’

Bill said nothing, stared at his shoes and balled the Blu-tack up.

‘He’s a fast counter,’ said Monkey-Boy.

‘I can never count them,’ said Wiki. ‘They move around too much. Maybe you could be our official chicken counter, Bill!’

Bill carried on staring at his shoes. He didn’t like the chickens. They were dirty and scruffy and disorganized. Feathers everywhere. And it hurt his brain the way they wouldn’t keep still. Plastic dinosaurs you could put in a line and they wouldn’t move. He’d had a box of them in his room at home. They were clean and smooth and every one of them was a different colour.

‘Did you know that chickens are dinosaurs?’ said Wiki.

Bill frowned. That couldn’t be right.

‘You’re joking,’ said Ella.

‘No,’ said Wiki. ‘It’s true. They reckon the dinosaurs didn’t exactly die out, they evolved into birds. So, in a way, a chicken is a dinosaur.’

Bill frantically shaped his Blu-tack into a nice neat circle. He didn’t want to think that those great prehistoric monsters had ended up as chickens. That wasn’t fair.

Another kid came over to join them. He’d been talking to some older boys who were clustered round the lorry.

‘What you doing?’ he asked.

‘Just showing them the chickens,’ said Wiki, and he introduced everyone.

‘This is Arthur,’ he explained to them, ‘but everyone just calls him Jibber-jabber. He’s kind of like the opposite to you, Bill. You haven’t said a word, but Jibber never stops gibbering.’

‘That’s not true actually,’ said Jibber-jabber. ‘I stop to eat.’

‘Not always.’