The Roar (14 page)

‘Thirty . . .

‘. . . eight

‘. . . and nineteen.’

Mika and Audrey stepped forward, then another team they didn’t know, and last of all, Ruben and Yee. Immediately Mika turned to look at Kobi and Tom, realizing he hadn’t even thought about his friends for the whole game. Tom, who had risked his own safety to drag him on to the train. Kobi, who had been his first and only friend since Ellie had disappeared. He hadn’t thought about them once and he felt an uncomfortable tightness under his heart. They walked away with the losing teams and the door closed behind them.

‘Oh no!’ Audrey whispered. ‘How could Ruben win, but not Kobi and Tom! Tom’s going to be devastated! This is terrible. I hope they wait for us outside.’

‘So do I,’ Mika said, ‘because I’ve just thought of something really bad.’

‘What?’ Audrey asked. ‘Tell me.’

‘Remember how good number five was?’ he said. ‘How smart they were and how hard they were to catch?’

‘You don’t mean . . .’ Audrey whispered, ‘. . . we shot down Tom and Kobi? That they were number five?’

‘I hope not,’ Mika said. ‘But they were so good, I can’t help thinking it was them. Tom will never forgive us.’

A woman walked towards them with a white box in each hand.

‘Well done,’ she said. ‘These boxes contain capsules we want you to add to your Fit Mix. Take one a day. Just pull them apart and stir them in.’

Audrey and Mika stuffed the boxes into their bags without even looking at them, their eyes on the door and their hearts outside with their friends.

* * *

Outside the arcade, the rain was falling like grey rods that melted on to the pavement, then coursed like silvery ropes down the drains. Mika and Audrey ran into the street and searched frantically for Tom and Kobi. There was still a long queue waiting to go in and the road was littered with hunched-shouldered shoppers. Eventually, they saw their friends standing in the doorway of the cinema opposite, with film trailers playing behind them on a row of wet screens. Kobi’s black hair hung in rat-tails over his face, and Tom licked the rain from his lips and hugged himself as they crossed the road.

‘Hey,’ Tom said, trying to look pleased to see them, but Mika knew the truth the moment he saw his eyes.

‘We were your hunter,’ he said. ‘Weren’t we?’

‘Yes,’ Tom replied, looking away.

‘Oh no!’ Audrey cried. ‘We didn’t realize!’

‘It’s OK,’ Tom said. ‘We know it’s not your fault.’ He began to walk away.

‘We didn’t know!’ Audrey called after him.

Tom walked on, heading in the opposite direction to the train station.

‘Where are you going?’ Audrey yelled.

‘Leave him,’ Kobi said. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll talk to him. He does-n’t blame you, he’s just worried about his mum.’

They watched Kobi lope off down the street, a bundle of wet rags with his feet exploding like bombs in the puddles, and Audrey began to cry.

‘What’s going to happen to Tom’s mum?’ she said desperately. ‘Now he can’t help her!’

‘We didn’t know,’ Mika said. ‘It’s not our fault.’

They walked to the station in silence and Audrey’s eyes had the faraway look of someone too exhausted to think. They sat on the platform while they waited for a train and Audrey took Kobi’s cat out of her pocket and let it play on her hand. Mika was glad she was quiet. He had a war raging inside him between three overwhelming emotions: relief, dread and guilt. But when he got home and told his parents he’d won them their first ever holiday, his father’s eyes lit up with amazement and Asha skipped around the sofa with glee, and he felt a little bit better and wished he could tell them what he was
really
competing for.

17

ANIMALS WERE BEAUTIFUL

O
n Sunday mornings, Mika and Audrey usually went to the arcade to practise, but that Sunday Audrey called to say she had to go to her auntie’s for lunch, so Mika stayed home. He didn’t mind; after a day of competing in the Reading arcade, the last thing he felt like doing was playing Pod Fighter and he was also curious about the prizes he had won and wanted to be at home when they arrived. To pass the time, he tried to mend his coat, but when he tried it on, he realized he’d sewn the sleeve together by mistake and couldn’t get his arm into it.

‘You’d have looked like Frankenstein’s monster in it anyway,’ Asha said, as she unpicked his ugly black stitches. ‘I’m really annoyed with the boy who did this to you, now you don’t have a good coat.’

Mika had lied about the rip in his coat, because he knew she’d freak out if she knew the truth and he watched, guiltily, as she
neatly mended the hole.

Just as she finished, the plague siren started as it did every Sunday morning, to test it was working. Barford North’s was on the top of the tank meat factory and for three awful minutes the sound of it paralysed their minds and froze the blood in their veins. Afterwards Asha was always irritable.

‘And you don’t just need a new coat and jeans and sneakers,’ she said, banging around in the kitchen. ‘We need to get you a new plague suit, too. Yours will be useless the amount you’ve grown recently.’

‘Don’t bother,’ Mika said. ‘I’m never going to need it.’

‘You might,’ she said.

‘Why?’ he said. ‘It’s forty-four years since the Animal Plague. Everything is dust on the other side of The Wall, and besides, the suits are so thin I can’t see the point of them. If an animal bit you, its teeth would go straight through it.’

‘They’re designed to protect you against
saliva
,’ Asha said, impatiently. ‘Not bites.’

‘So I’ll be all right if an animal
licks
me,’ Mika said. ‘That’s OK then.’

‘Don’t make jokes about it,’ Asha said, impatiently. ‘It’s not funny. You have to have a plague suit that fits, it’s the law.’

Mika threw himself on the bed and looked wistfully at Ellie’s animal pictures.

‘And I wish you’d get rid of those,’ Asha said, following him into his room. ‘They’re creepy. I don’t understand why you want to look at them. They’re only centimetres from your face when you’re going to sleep. I’m surprised they don’t give you nightmares.’

‘It’s not animals that give me nightmares.’ Mika said. ‘It’s people. I like the pictures, they remind me of Ellie. Animals were beautiful.’

‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d been around during the plague,’ Asha said.

‘You weren’t,’ Mika pointed out. ‘You were just a baby and
you got evacuated before it was anywhere near you.’

‘Well yes, but we saw it all,’ Asha said. ‘They were broadcasting it twenty-four hours a day on television. You grew up watching cartoons.
I
grew up watching dogs biting babies in their prams and ripping windows from their frames. If you’d grown up seeing
that
you wouldn’t want pictures of animals centimetres from your face.’

‘Well, I’m not getting rid of them,’ Mika said, scowling. ‘They make me feel happy.’

Asha huffed and stomped out of the bedroom and Mika began to wish he’d gone to the arcade after all. Staying in and arguing with his mum wasn’t half so much fun.

Luckily, a few minutes later, his prizes arrived so they had something else to think about. He heard the door buzz and a clown roly-polyed into the apartment and crashed into the back of the sofa. Asha gasped and put her hand to her mouth.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked, not feeling as polite as she sounded. She was in the middle of her Sunday morning cleaning spree and the last thing she wanted was a clown sprawled all over the floor. It was a creepy-looking clown too; its face was painted with a big red smile but the mouth beneath the makeup looked sour. They watched it scrabble around on the floor looking for its nose, which had rolled under the sofa.

‘Here,’ David said, finding it and giving it back.

‘Thanks,’ replied the clown, squidging it into place. Then it stood up and cleared its throat. ‘Congratulations, winner!’ it cried. ‘You have successfully completed the first two rounds of the competition!’

The clown waddled to the door, nearly tripping over its blue feet, which were as long as flippers, then, huffing and puffing, it dragged a large box with a red ribbon tied around it into the apartment. ‘Your prizes,’ it said, panting. ‘And information about your holiday. Have fun!’

Seconds later, it was gone and Mika and his parents were left staring at the box.

‘It’s very big, Mika,’ Asha said. ‘What did you say you’ve won?’

‘A phone companion,’ Mika replied, still dazed by the clown experience. ‘And a holiday.’ He pulled the ribbon, there was a sudden explosion and the three of them fell back, blasted in the face by a storm of silver confetti. Asha choked in shock and spat bits out of her mouth. Mika picked a piece off his jeans and looked at it. The confetti was shaped like the Youth Development Foundation logo, YDF, and the force of the explosion had plastered the silvery pieces to everything, even the curtains and walls.

‘Look at all this!’ David said, peering into the box. ‘There’s
real
food in here and party stuff!’ He began emptying it on to the floor: there were YDF banners, balloons, napkins and party hats. There was a large cake with YDF iced on the top of it and several cartons of food, including tank meat steak and
real
strawberries, and at the bottom, Mika’s phone companion.

‘Well, I’ll be blowed!’ David exclaimed, his eyes shining with wonder.

‘Man’s Best Friend’ was written on the front of the box. ‘Model two one five phone companion with Lilian character sim.’

‘Jeez,’ David said. ‘Not even my boss has one like this. They cost a bomb!’

Mika was surprised – he knew the prize would be a phone companion, but not one like this. Even rich kids didn’t have companions like Lilian, while most of the kids at his school had old companions handed down from their parents, with stupid cartoon characters. Mika had sat on his over a year ago and it had a big crack across the screen.

He opened the box and slotted the sim card into the side and it booted up. The screen buzzed and Lilian appeared. She was very pretty and her eyes shone as she leaned forward to have a look at him. She was an impossible, enviable age, in her late teens, maybe.

‘Hello!’ she said. ‘Pleased to meet you. I’m Lilian, your new companion. Are you ready to initiate?’

‘What do I have to do?’ Mika asked.

‘You have to initiate her so she knows you,’ David replied enthusiastically, itching to get his hands on her. He loved gadgets although they couldn’t afford any. ‘The new generation companions only work for their owner. They’re the nearest thing you can get to a human servant. Anything you want to know, she’ll find out for you. She can make appointments, make sure you get to school on time, don’t miss birthdays, all kinds of things.’

‘Would she do my homework?’ Mika asked, mischievously.

‘If you asked her to,’ David said, looking alarmed. ‘But you’re not to do that, OK?’

‘OK,’ Mika replied, smiling.

‘When you initiate her, she’ll ask you lots of questions and learn to recognize your voice,’ David said. ‘Here. Give her to me.’ He took the companion from Mika’s hands and fiddled with it.

‘David,’ Asha said gently. ‘You just said Mika has to do it.’

‘Oh yeah,’ David said, looking sheepish and giving it back.

Lilian yawned.

‘She’s tired,’ Asha said. ‘I expect she needs charging. That’s an impressive prize for a kids’ competition. What else can you win?’

‘A hover car, and a home in the Golden Turrets,’ Mika said.

‘Seriously?’ David said, his eyebrows raised. ‘You can win a
hover car
and a
home in the Golden Turrets
playing Pod Fighter?’

‘Yeah,’ Mika replied.

‘Chrise,’ David said. ‘Wish I was a kid. How are we going to find out about the holiday you’ve won?’

‘I can tell you that,’ Lilian said. ‘I’ve already got a message for you; hang on a sec . . .’

A moment later, Lilian’s pretty face was replaced by a man in a straw hat.

‘Hello, Mika Smith!’ the Hat Man cried. ‘You are one of only a hundred competitors to reach the third round of the competition!’

‘One of only
a hundred
,’ David interjected. ‘That’s impressive.’

‘The prize you have won is a week’s holiday in an exclusive
offshore
resort! The date of your departure is two weeks from today! So prepare for the time of your life! What fun you will have, Mika Smith! While your parents are sunbathing and drinking cocktails, you will be competing in the third round of the competition!’

The man spun his hat, trumpets tooted and then he disappeared.

‘It’s a shame you have to compete while you’re on holiday,’ David said.

‘I don’t mind,’ Mika said. ‘While you’re enjoying yourselves, I might win a hover car.’

‘Well, if you’re sure,’ David said, smiling happily.

‘I am,’ Mika said. ‘Just imagine if I won . . .’

His parents’ eyes turned misty and they gazed at the floor as if it was scattered with diamonds instead of the Youth Development Foundation confetti. Asha’s companion beeped. The Youth Development Foundation had sent her more information about the holiday.

‘Oh, wow,’ she said. ‘The holiday is on a Caribbean-style resort! That’s where all the rich people who live in the Golden Turrets go! And wait, there’s more, they’re giving us money to buy holiday clothes, and there’ll be palm trees and beaches and everything!’

Then her smile was replaced by a frown. ‘They say I’ve got to remind you to take the capsules. What capsules?’

‘Oh, those,’ Mika said, looking for his bag. He found the white box he’d been given the day before and put one of the capsules on the palm of his hand so his mother could look at it. It was bullet-shaped, transparent and full of white powder.

‘What’s in it?’ Asha asked, taking it from his hand.

‘Nutrients,’ Mika said, vaguely.

‘More nutrients?’ Asha replied, looking concerned. ‘I hope they don’t make you grow any more . . .’

‘I’m sure they won’t,’ Mika said, taking it back quickly, keen to
stop her asking any more questions. ‘Look, you’ve got confetti in your tea.’

‘Oh yeah,’ Asha replied, looking in her cup and seeing several YDF logos bobbing around in it. ‘I suppose I ought to ask the vacuumbot to clean the ceiling and curtains again.’

The vacuumbot refused to come out of its cupboard.

‘You stupid thing,’ said Asha. ‘Why won’t you do what you’re told? Can you win a vacuumbot in this competition, Mika? I think this one has given up the will to live.’

‘No,’ Mika replied. ‘Only hover cars and apartments. But remember, you can sell the hover car if I win it. You could buy several hundred vacuumbots with the money from a hover car.’

‘We could, couldn’t we?’ Asha said, her eyes lighting up as she began to imagine what it felt like to have money. ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be great, Mika. Just imagine what we could do.’

She found a dustpan and brush and started brushing the curtains. They were so old and ragged, big lumps started falling off them, but Asha didn’t seem to notice, she continued brushing with a rapturous smile on her face. Mika quickly found a cup, filled it with water and stirred in a sachet of Fit Mix and the contents of the capsule.

‘Here’s to you Ellie,’ he whispered, as he raised the cup to his mouth.

Afterwards, he plugged Lilian into her charger and lay on the bed feeling wracked by guilt. Because of what
he
wanted, people who cared about him were being hurt; Helen was gone, Tom couldn’t help his mum and now he had started lying to his parents so they didn’t get suspicious. And although he knew he had no choice, the guilt was a heavy burden to carry along with his fear and his love for Ellie, and he wondered whether he was really strong enough to do it.