the community room to play games and have fun. There’s only one rule: everyone has to join in.’
‘What about Terry?’
‘He’s a devil. As far as we’re concerned he’s not here. So what do you want to play?’
James looked around the gym and spotted Lauren bouncing several metres into the air on a giant trampoline. A group of barefoot girls playing volleyball caught his eye. There were a few mingers, but most of them were fit.
Ruth worked out what he was looking at. ‘Volleyball, that’s a really good idea, James.’
They walked over to the girls.
‘This is James, everyone,’ Ruth shouted excitably. ‘This is his first visit to our community.’
All but one of the girls on the court were Survivors and they stopped playing and smiled while they queued up to shake his hand.
‘Have you played volleyball before?’ a pretty redhead called Eve asked.
‘A couple of times,’ James said. ‘Not seriously though.’
‘That’s good,’ Eve said. ‘We’re not serious and you’re only allowed to say positive things on the court.’
‘Eh?’
‘Just follow our lead,’ Eve said, handing James the ball to serve.
James rested the ball in his palm before batting it away. It skimmed limply over the net, making an easy return for the other team.
‘Nice try,’ Eve said, as she backed up and pounded the ball back over the net.
‘Crap,’ James said as his clumsy swipe missed the ball entirely.
Before he knew it there were three girls in front of him,
with Survivors’ smiles on their faces.
‘James,’ Eve said sweetly, wagging a finger under his nose. ‘You’re doing great, but remember you’re only allowed to say positive things.’
Ruth had joined the other team to even up the numbers and was grinning through the net. ‘She’s right James. Negative thoughts are for devils.’
James couldn’t help smiling back at them. ‘You girls are weird,’ he grinned. ‘Wonderfully, positively, weird.’
Eve laughed and gave him a friendly rub on the back. ‘That’s the spirit, James. Do you want to serve again?’
*
James hung out in the community hall for two hours, following the girls between volleyball, soccer and the trampoline. When it got to nine o’clock, a couple of adult Survivors came in and switched off most of the lights. Everyone in the hall formed two circles, tired little kids in the inner circle and older kids and teenagers outside. Lauren’s counsellor Mary stepped into the centre of the circle holding a guitar.
James’ instincts told him that sitting in a big circle with a bunch of guitar-playing religious nuts was lame, but the Survivor girls who’d all been smiling, chatting, rubbing his back and hugging him for the past two hours dragged him into the circle and James couldn’t help laughing and smiling back. He felt really good as he sat cross-legged on the floor. Eve grinned, held his hand and sat so close that her toes were touching his knee.
Mary strummed the guitar. James was expecting her to start singing some dreary hymn, but she played a few bars and then chanted.
‘Boogie, woogie, woogie, woo!’
Everyone chanted back noisily. ‘Boogie, woogie, woogie, woo!’
The next line was, ‘La de, la de, la de, la!’
And everyone chanted back. This chanting went on for ten minutes and James couldn’t help getting into the stupidity of it all, with the two girls sitting on either side of him grinning and putting their arms around him. He looked over at Lauren and noticed she seemed to be having a ball too.
At the end of it, Mary played a longer and much more dramatic version of the chanting song, getting faster and faster until all the lights got switched back on. She screamed out, ‘Are you angels?’
And the kids, especially the little ones in the inner circle, jumped up and answered, ‘Yes we’re angels.’
Mary shouted back, ‘Little angels go to bed.’
All the little kids began running happily out of the room. A few of them split off and joined parents who’d filed into the gym while the lights had been dimmed, but most were commune members and they headed up a disused escalator to the living quarters.
James couldn’t help laughing as Mary called him and Lauren across to the centre.
‘Did you enjoy yourselves?’ she asked. ‘Are you glad you came?’
It was half nine and James was sweaty and tired after all the exercise, but he felt jubilant.
‘Yeah,’ James nodded. ‘It was a good laugh.’
Lauren was smiling too. Abigail wandered out from the group of adults at the back of the hall.
‘Hi kids,’ she said.
‘Hey, Mum,’ James said. ‘Where have you been?’
‘I ended up staying here