Ella heard something and looked round to see that Scarface had arrived without anyone noticing. He must have heard everything they said. She hated these kids being mean about him. Especially as he might be the only person who could keep them alive when the army arrived.

He was standing there, silent, not moving. The other kids were peeking at him out of the corners of their eyes, not wanting to stare. Pretending they hadn’t been laughing at him.

‘We should check out these buildings,’ said Isaac, looking round the yard, changing the subject.

‘Yeah,’ said Daniel. ‘The farmhouse looks pretty solid.’

‘It’s not safe,’ said Ella, almost before he’d stopped talking. ‘It was burned.’

‘We should still check it out, though.’

‘He won’t even let me see inside,’ said Ella.

‘We gotta do what he says?’ said Sonya, her voice all sneery.

‘He’ll kill you if you try and go in there.’ Ella couldn’t think of what else to say. She needed to change the subject. Besides, it wasn’t necessarily a lie. It wasn’t working, though; the kids were still looking over towards the farmhouse. What if they searched everywhere and found the food, the chickens?

‘There’s a look-out,’ she blurted.

‘What sort of look-out?’ Isaac asked.

‘In the trees,’ Ella went on quickly, pointing up to where one of the platforms was just visible. ‘We can see where the grown-ups are maybe? They might not even be coming this way. We should check.’

Ella led them over to a shed.

‘Who’s coming up?’ she asked. Sonya and Isaac stepped forward. There was a ladder you put against the shed, then you climbed on to the roof, and from there you could lean over and reach the first wooden board that was nailed to a big tree.

‘We’ve heard about The Predator,’ said Sonya as they began to climb. ‘Everyone talks about the creepy skulls and weird crap he has hanging up everywhere. But nobody really knew what he looked like. We keep away from him.’

‘He’s not a monster,’ said Ella.

‘Can he understand us?’ Sonya asked. ‘Can he talk, or what? What is he?’

‘He can’t talk,’ said Ella. ‘But he can understand.’

‘I don’t trust him,’ said Sonya. ‘I wouldn’t live here with him. I’d be scared he might fatten me up and eat me one night.’

‘I’m not scared of him,’ said Ella.

‘You should be,’ said Sonya. ‘We need him for now, but if you like, when this is over, we can try and get rid of him for you.’

‘Oh no,’ said Ella, panicked. ‘No, you mustn’t.’

Sonya laughed. ‘I was only joking,’ she said.

But was she? Ella couldn’t be sure.