be dry, and the smooth plastic walls of cubicles and display stands coated in a fine layer of dust.
‘Shit,’ whispered Nathan.
‘What?’
‘I remember now.’
‘What?’ Jacob repeated impatiently.
Nathan smiled. ‘Computer and Video Game Expo! I remember it was on in London the week of the crash. I wanted me dad to take me along.’ His quiet whisper bounced and hissed across the enormity of the central hall. ‘They was launching the new Wii controller thing an’ the new games an’ stuff. And the new PlayStation. It was going to be well-props ! ’ He flicked his wrist and clacked his fingers.
Jacob grinned in the dark. He loved it when Nathan did that finger-flick thing - all hip-hop street and cool. Back on the rigs Martha told him off every time she saw him do that; said his wrist would snap one day and his hand fly off into the sea.
‘It was goin’ to be well solid,’ Nathan continued, muttering to himself. ‘The crash could of waited another fucking week.’
Jacob’s torch suddenly played across large plastic-moulded faces grinning down at them. Side by side, gurning cheerfully, Super Mario and Luigi, both ten feet tall, emerged from the gloom, standing guard either side of a Nintendo display stand.
‘Shit, man! Jay, you recognise?’ Nathan asked.
‘Yeah! Oh crap,’ he replied. ‘Mar-i-i-i-o-o-o!’ he chirruped in a squeaky singsong voice.
‘Lui-i-i-g-i-i-i!’ Nathan’s voice squeaked back.
‘Come on, you morons,’ said Leona, ‘we’re not here to geek out.’
Jacob cast a sidelong glance at his sister, struck by the fact that she seemed to be coming back to them, rejoining them from the dark place she’d been for the past few weeks. The last two days he’d noticed her change. She seemed to be less withdrawn, bossy again just like she used to be. Not that he’d ever tell her this, but the sound of her haughtily issuing orders was a reassuring sound.
‘Right, let’s be quick about this,’ she announced. ‘We’ll also need to find somewhere to camp tonight before it gets too dark.’
He grinned proudly at her; so proud of her strength, her confidence. But glad, too, that it was dark enough that she couldn’t see him and ask why the hell he was smiling like a twit.
She wound her torch again as the bulb began to fade. ‘The time Mum and Dad took me here I remember there were cafés and restaurants off along the sides of the main hall. Let’s try down the left side first, okay?’ Her hushed voice echoed through the cavernous darkness.
Both boys nodded.
Leona led the way, her torch beam picking out the still bright colours of exhibition placards, fantastic-looking characters, spacemen, monsters, aliens, demons. Although some rain and damp had found a way inside and soiled the cord carpet in dark patches, everything else looked almost pristine.
‘I bet you’re loving this, aren’t you, Jake?’ said Leona softly.
He nodded. ‘It would have been good.’
She panned her torch around. ‘I can’t believe how untouched it all looks. As if this was all set up just, like, yesterday.’
‘I remember some of the games,’ he replied. ‘I remember the ads on the TV.’ He looked at her. ‘Did you watch much TV at college?’
‘University.’ She shrugged. ‘A little. I remember it being mostly rubbish.’
Jacob stroked the tuft of bristles on his chin thoughtfully. ‘Yeah, mostly rubbish.’
Their torches picked out different things simultaneously. Jacob’s eyes were drawn to an elaborate and enormous dungeon diorama; ten-foot-high walls of fibreglass stone blocks, dripping with paint-blood, dangling chains and stocks.
‘Nate, look!’
‘Oh, man, cool!’
It reminded Jacob of a picture-book story he’d flipped through. One of the books they kept in the classroom’s modest library back on the rigs; an ogre, a princess and a talk-too-much donkey. He loved that story.
Leona’s torch was pointed the other way, lighting up a coffee and bagel bar.
‘Ahh, maybe there’s some bottled water over there?’
Jacob tapped her arm. ‘Can I go look at that?’ he asked, jabbing a finger at the dungeon diorama across ten yards of carpeted walkway.
She sighed. ‘Fine, don’t wander off, though.’
‘Me, too?’ asked Nathan.
She sighed. ‘Oh for fuck’s sake . . . go on.’
They jogged across, stepping inside through a ‘stone’ archway and into an enclosed area. They panned their torches around. The walls inside were more dripping stone, more blood, more chains. Across the vaulted roof were large plastic wooden beams that stretched from one side to the other from which goofy-looking plastic skeletons dangled with cartoon grins.
Jacob shook his head at the illogicality of it.
Duh. As if skellys can actually smile.
There was a