‘Who is that …?’ but there was no reply. She wanted to look, but had promised Jibber-jabber not to move. She wanted to hide. All his talk had made her scared. She’d been fine before. There had been too much happening to think about bad things. She wished Sam was here. They’d kept each other going through the bad times. Looked after each other. She sent a sort of silent prayer out to him, wherever he was. To watch over her.

She froze.

There was definitely someone there.

But where could she hide?

If she moved they’d hear her. If she called out again …

Who was it?

Why were they creeping about like that?

Jibber-jabber sat there, eyes clamped shut, knees knocking together, feeling cold and dumb and terrified. He was on the verge of throwing up. The shuffling noise was coming ever closer. They’d sussed him out. They knew he was in there. If only he’d locked the cubicle door. His heart was thumping so hard he was sure they could hear it.

But there was hope, wasn’t there? Someone might still come. A bigger kid. Even one of the small kids. Anyone. It didn’t matter.

There was hope, there was …

The toilet door suddenly banged as it was pushed open and Jibber-jabber screamed.

Samira had managed to make herself not think about going to the toilet by concentrating on what she was doing. Searching for the box of sewing things …

And there it was! Neatly stored away in the new cabinet. A plastic tub labelled ‘needles and sewing stuff’. Alexander and Cass were mad keen on labelling things, organizing them. Why they couldn’t leave everything together in one place, she didn’t know. They didn’t know that much about medicine, weren’t particularly great at being doctors, and still had a lot to learn before they would even come close to her, or Maeve. Maeve was amazing.

So maybe they organized stuff as a way of showing they had some kind of control. To try and convince everyone that they knew what they were doing.

They didn’t fool her. They were administrators. Management. They’d never be as good as her.

She picked up the box and elbowed the cabinet door shut.

Turned to go.

She made a sort of hiccoughing noise as she jumped in shock.

There was someone there.

She relaxed. It was a boy. He moved out of the shadows and she saw that it was Paul Channing.

He looked sick, red-eyed, his skin dry and peeling.

‘Paul,’ she said. ‘What are you doing? I nearly wet myself. Don’t ever do that again!’ And then a thought struck her. ‘Where have you been anyway? We looked everywhere for you. We thought the sickos had got you.’