Chapters (96)

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96

‘Listen to me, little Pauly Pisswater. You have to watch and wait. Choose your time. Get the measure of them. Pick your target. One of the smaller ones. They’ll be easier to catch. Come down from the roof in the night, with your knife in your hand, and pluck one up. Pluckety-pluck, clucketty-cluck. Bring it back up here where they can’t find you. Then you can start to collect their bones.’

‘I don’t know … have I made a mistake?’

‘One of those ones would do. You know their names, don’t you?’

‘Yes. Wiki, Jibber-jabber, Zohra and Froggie. But they’ve got other kids with them I don’t recognize.’

‘The two little girls and the two little boys? Any one of them would do. Study them. Watch them. Pick your time. Soon.’

‘Yes.’

Paul closed his eyes and licked his lips. He could already taste their warm, sharp blood.

Chapter 15

Blu-Tack Bill had seen him – outside on the roof. A skinny boy all in black, with long, thin arms and legs, like a spider. He was out there talking to himself. Bill didn’t like him. Wished he would go away. Nobody else seemed to have noticed him, and Bill took little glances out of the side of his eyes. At last the spider boy went away.

Bill looked down at his hands. They’d been making chips out of Blu-tack. He really loved chips, but he hadn’t had any to eat in as long as he could remember. He’d eaten a little bit of the baked potato they’d given him. He had to. If he didn’t eat he’d starve to death. He didn’t like it, though, the potato. It was dry. And then Monkey-Boy had asked him if he was finished with it and he’d given him the rest. He’d eaten a tiny bit of cabbage too, even though it made him feel sick. They’d been promised some tinned fruit for afters. He was looking forward to that. He’d grown very thin over the last year. Not that he’d ever been fat. The bigger kids were always trying to make him eat. Whitney was like his mum – ‘You must eat. You’ll waste away. Eat something …’

If only he could eat Blu-tack. He couldn’t. He’d tried it once. It was horrible. But just shaping it into chips made him feel a little less hungry.

The others were all filling their faces. Not holding back. As if this was the nicest feast in the whole world. Not even thinking about what they were eating as they chatted away, forks clattering on their plates.