Ed had known Justin at school. A few of the boys from Rowhurst had ended up at the museum. Chris Marker and Kwanele, Wiki and Jibber-jabber. And it was Justin who had got them all safely there. He’d been pretty unmemorable before, a nerdy wimp, not the type of boy Ed used to hang out with. Ed had been into sport mostly. But it turned out there was a lot more to Justin than Ed had ever imagined. He’d learnt a hell of a lot since the disease had hit. Like how you needed all sorts of skills to survive. Brains being a very important one.

Justin was still fussy and nerdy, but he had authority. The kids respected him and he seemed to be able to control them. Something that Ed was utterly failing to do. Even the more streetwise kids from Holloway had sat there obediently through Justin’s bit. He’d gone through some tedious stuff about tasks for the next day and food rotas and menus and cleaning duties, and there’d been hardly a squeak out of them.

Even a scarred troublemaker called Achilleus had stayed fairly quiet, only occasionally whispering something to the two boys who sat giggling on either side of him. One younger kid and one of the Twisted Kids, as they called themselves. Ed had thought that Wormwood, the intelligent adult he’d brought here with him, was strange, but the Twisted Kids were off the scale. This one’s name was Skinner, which was appropriate, as he had folds of loose skin all over his body.

As soon as Ed had opened his mouth, though, everything had fallen apart. Achilleus kept making sarky comments and he was now lounging in his seat yawning theatrically. The other kids had just started talking to each other, not loudly, but they were making enough noise to set up a steady, distracting buzz, so that Ed had lost all confidence in his speech – if you could call it a speech, which, unfortunately Justin had done when he’d introduced him.

Ed hadn’t been ready for this and had stumbled along, talking about how Sam was searching for his sister, Ella. How Ella had left that morning and Sam had missed her by only a few hours and how Ed needed to go after her. He’d rambled on for about five minutes before he’d run out of things to say. What was there to say? He needed their help on a dangerous and probably pointless expedition. He hardly believed in it himself, so how could he make anyone else buy into it? If he’d been in the audience, he’d have ignored his stupid speech as well.

It was time to finish up. He’d done his best.