This is the official report of day one of the expedition to the Promithios warehouse and supply depot near Heathrow Airport. Written by the scribe Lettis Slingsbury. It is as true as I can make it. Maybe someone else would see it differently. But I was there, and this is what I saw.

FIRST ENTRY: We are stopped right now and this is my first chance to write anything in the journal. I don’t know how much I can write before we have to start up again, but I will try my best.

We set off in the morning when the sun was already high in the sky. There were twenty-four people. I have written the list of who they are at the end of the journal. We are bringing trolleys with us so that we can bring back all the supplies we are going to get. The trolleys are very slow. They have these very small wheels so they keep sticking in every hole and bump. The people pushing them don’t like it. The trolleys rattle noisily and judder and every time they hit something they jerk suddenly and painfully. There was a lot of complaining and swearing and grumbling as we went along our way.

Einstein had calculated that we would be able to get to Heathrow in one day. Which is where the warehouse is. The distance is roughly about fourteen and a half miles. So it should take roughly about five hours’ walking time, and a bit more for lunch and for resting. But he hadn’t calculated how much the trolleys would slow us down. He also hadn’t calculated what would happen if we met any sickos. Which is really stupid if you think about it, because there are lots of sickos out there, and London is a big place and nobody really knew what we might find. Einstein was confident and cocky because we had the new kids with us, the ones from Holloway, who are good fighters. He is not as clever as he thinks, I don’t think.

Apart from the trolleys and the complaining and the swearing, the first hour went all right I suppose. We travelled west along the Cromwell Road to Hammersmith, past big old houses and along a wide road. We also passed many offices and buildings of that nature, and went over the Hammersmith flyover. It wasn’t too hard to push the trolleys along this bit as the road was good, a four-lane highway, a bit like a motorway. It was good to be up high and look out over London.