He picked up a bucket of flushing water and went to the cubicle in the middle. He closed the door, undid his trousers and sat down. You weren’t supposed to waste batteries and he knew he should turn his torch off. But he kept it in his hands, shining it at the gap under the door.

It was very quiet in here with all the noises of the museum shut out. He realized that his knees were shaking, and he was too frightened to do what he had come in to do.

‘Come on,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Come on …’

Even before the disease, in the old days when the world had been normal, he’d been scared of going to the toilet alone. At home, if he woke up at night when everyone else was asleep and he needed a wee, he’d lie there for hours holding it in before it got too bad and he’d have to leap out of bed and run to the loo. The toilets at school were the worst, though. His school, Rowhurst, had been built a long time ago, and the toilets in his House were like something out of a museum. A museum of toilets. He giggled. Wondered if there was such a thing. Probably in America. In America they had museums of everything.

That was better. Have a laugh. Entertain himself.

It didn’t last long. He couldn’t stop thinking about those Rowhurst toilets. They’d been noisy, with big pipes everywhere, clanking and hissing. It was like being inside some enormous engine or something. He’d hated going by himself. Always made sure there was someone else in there with him. He had even gone through a stage when he was frightened that something would come up out of the bowl. A rat, or a squid’s tentacle, maybe a giant spider, or someone’s hand …

And they’d grab you and drag you under.

As he thought of it, he suddenly felt a slap of panic. He hadn’t shone the torch into the bowl when he’d come in, had he? There could be anything in there.

He half got up and awkwardly aimed the torch down past his naked backside, but in his fumbling, the torch caught in his shirt and dropped into the bowl.

It hit the water with a splash and the light went out.

He swore. Stuck his hand in the murky water – thank God he hadn’t done anything yet! – and lifted out the dripping torch. What was he going to tell Justin when he returned it like this? Or Ella? That he’d been frightened of toilet monsters? He dried it on some of the scraps of newspaper that hung from a hook and sat down again, miserable, in the darkness.

He really couldn’t go now. His bowels had seized up, turned to cement.

He swore again. This was taking too long.