Ha! Big joke. She’d been winding Macca up in the car, playing him for a fool, lining him up for a great big smack in the mouth. And it had never come, because the stupid bloody fool had got himself bitten. Five days they’d been here now and Brooke had hardly left his side.

Before they’d known just how bad the wound was Ed had promised Macca that they wouldn’t leave him behind. Ed was going crazy now, desperate to be moving on, but a promise was a promise.

And, whatever happened, Brooke knew she couldn’t leave Macca. If she wasn’t there when he woke up he’d scream and rave and thrash about, accuse other people of trying to poison him. Brooke wasn’t even sure if he really knew who she was any more, whether she was his girlfriend or his sister or his mum, or some angel with fluffy wings come fluttering down from heaven. There was just some part of him that seemed to need her.

She’d only come along on this stupid journey so that she could spend time with Ed, get closer to him, and she’d hardly done that at all. He was downstairs helping the crumblies, keeping his mind off the delay, the endless bloody waiting. Amelia had given him work to do in the garden. And they’d all been talking to the crocks about the disease, learning stuff, all except Brooke who was stuck here with Sickboy.

She’d lost count of the times she’d thought about leaving him to it. She hardly knew him after all. He’d been nothing to her. Just some smelly, mouthy kid who’d come shuffling through the door behind Ed when they tipped up at the museum. She didn’t owe him nothing.

Brooke put her hand to his forehead. It was damp and burning up. Like touching a hot oven. She got a wet flannel from the bowl of water on the chair next to the wall, dabbed at his face like Norman had shown her. Macca didn’t react, didn’t move at all, not even to flinch or try to push her away, like he used to do in the first couple of days. His breathing was heavy and raspy and broken, with no proper rhythm to it. Occasionally he’d have these fits of sucking in air in great gulps, his whole body shuddering.