M F ALFREY

Birmingham, Great Britain. 2069. No one has figured out how or why The Merge happened. But that’s not the point. The point is, dinosaurs are back and they don’t seem to be going away.

No one really figured out how or why the Merge happened. Most people have just plain given up even caring. Of course, scientists said this and that – and still do – but they have no clue either, not really. There are just ideas. Everyone, from professors to the guys on the docks where my dad works have ideas. Most of them are wild and uninformed. What does it matter anyway? Things are the way they are and there’s no changing them. Dinosaurs are back and they seem to be sticking around.

Someone, I can’t remember who, said other universes got mixed up in ours somehow. Tangled like cables in a draw. Universes a little different to ours by a second, or maybe ones where you made a different choice, like, you wore a white shirt instead of a blue one kind of different. Still, like Dad says – just theories. Anyway, it caused a lot of trouble – a lot of people died back then. Now, thirty years after, it’s just a pain in the ass – fact.

And if my mom heard me say ass … yeah, she’d kick mine. That’s also a fact. It isn’t a bad word really. I mean, Dad is okay with me saying it. Mom says if she lets standards slip now, while I’m so young, then who knows what kind of man I will turn into? Dad says she’s being melodramatic and just not to say it in front of her. What she doesn’t know and all that.

Obviously, I wasn’t born until after the Merge. The world had already got hot and climate change was another fact not even the politicians could deny. That’s what dad says anyway. I don’t really get politics, and he says neither do most normal adults, they just either get better at pretending they do, or speaking loud enough about it that others simply don’t argue with them. Dad’s never been quiet about how much he hates politicians cos they closed down a huge part of the docks and a lot of his friends lost their jobs, and a lot of them turned to the bottle.

They teach us in school about how the UK hadn’t always been tropical like it is now. Mrs Ferwinckle told us in history class last week that by 2045, all the ice had melted and that’s why London became the new Venice. How before, when the Irish Isles were known as ‘Ireland’ back then, nobody would have dreamed of going there island-hopping to soak up the sun and have barbecues on the beach.

She told us that Cymru used to be connected to England by land. Not like now. Now, it is its own country like the Cornish Isles. She also told us how there used to be more of England. Places with funny names like Peterborough, Norwich, and Boston. Now they’re all underwater scuba diving destinations.

Mrs Ferwinckle is pretty old too. She says her great gran and grandad used to go to the South West for beach holidays and that the traffic was murder. That we’re very lucky to be so close to the coast now and enjoying the sea. It seems strange. I can’t imagine Birmingham being in the middle. She showed us a map once too. It used to be called the Midlands. Imagine that. Like it’s all just a made-up story. But it’s not – fact.

It takes twenty-six minutes to get to Bromsgrove pier from Birmingham New Street. Fact. I love summer holidays. The hot sticky air, the crazy monsoon rain. Fat rain I like to catch on my tongue sometimes. It tastes of earth. Me and my sister, Jessie, spend ages in our hammocks staring up at the huge black clouds. She thinks they look like herds of big fat Pelerosaurs rolling across the sky. Long stratus necks leading plump cumulus bodies. I learnt about clouds last week at school.

Nobody at school believes Mrs Ferwinckle – that the weather used to be atrocious in the UK. I mean, worse than the monsoon floods. Bitter and changeable. Especially Jayce Johnson. I asked Dad and he said that it was a fact and that listening to what people like Jayce Johnson say will only make me dumb, because he’s a numbskull and so is his father.

My dad doesn’t like ‘orange juice’ – that’s what he calls Ozzy Johnson when he’s mad at him, but only around me. He calls him other things when he thinks I’m not about. Words way worse than ass. Orange juice … it’s funny because he does look like an orange with his terrible fake tan and skin pitted like orange peel. They work together at the Birmingham boat yards. Dad hates his job almost as much as he hates Ozzy Johnson.

I hate Jayce Johnson.

Me and some of the other kids call him Joyce, but only when he’s not in earshot. Otherwise, he’ll kick the hell out of us. He’s fourteen and basically a not-so-miniature copy of his dad and brutish too – like an armoured Polacanthus. Thick body and a square head. Mom calls them brutes and says the Johnsons have tiny brains as well, just like a Polacanthus.

‘Issac!’ My mom’s voice is far away.

I was daydreaming again. Something Mrs Ferwinckle says is good for the imagination, but not so good when she’s trying teaching us. Daydreaming … except it’s the morning. Can you daydream in the morning? Or is it just a dream with bad timekeeping like me? Maybe my other self in another reality was dreaming and the dream just got lost. I dunno. I love science – it has so many facts – but the alternate universe thing is hard to get your head around. I’m okay at science, but I’m super good at getting into trouble.

I’m not a bad kid, it’s just that I always seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or do things at the wrong time. Like last year when Jayce had spent all summer holiday following me and my bestie, Elliot, around. Just to rough us up or intimidate us. Then, a week into the new term, he stole my brand-new pencil case at breaktime – the one with the solar system on it – and hocked a greenie in it.

Anger just took a hold of me and I lashed out. I didn’t hurt him. No one can hurt Jayce Johnson, he’s a hard nut. But Mr Crenshaw saw, and Jayce played up and pretended to cry, and me, I get put on counselling for anger management.  So now, I don’t get breaks with the rest of the kids until the school councillor is happy I’ve worked through my issues. My issues – what a load of crap (another banned word I’m trying out at the moment).

‘Issac!’

‘Yesss mommm. I’m coming.’

She is upstairs in our narrow mid-terraced town house. One of the few on this street that survived the Merge. Three doors down is still just crumbling bricks and piles of junk. The huge tree that suddenly appeared in a flash wears the house an old leather boot with the toes poking out the end. We play in there sometimes – me and Jessie – even though mom tells us not to. We play dino hunter, a game we invented.

You have to hide really, really quietly. She’s always the human and I am the Neovenator. There are rules, of course. The Neo can’t get into small spaces. They are about four meters tall and ten long, so they would never get into the house tree. But as soon as they are out in the open … boy can I run fast. Not as fast as a Neo though, that would be awesome.

Sometimes, if I really want to scare her, I pretend to be an Eotryannus. They’re about as tall as my dad and clever like him too. I love sneaking into the thin gaps between the smooth body of tree and the rough old walls. Hiding, waiting, and then catching her. I pretend to eat her with arms like chomping jaws, and fingers like teeth. It always frightens the crap out of Jessie, but sending her into the giggles at the same time. Especially if I tickle her. She shrieks and bobbles away, looking over her shoulders to see if I’m following.

‘Issac!’ Mom again. Now time she is standing right behind me holding my school uniform in her outstretched hands. ‘Issac Oliver Hunter.’ Full name. I can always tell when I am in actual trouble. ‘School uniform, now.’

Her fine eyebrows arch high into her wrinkled forehead. She shakes my white summer shirt and grey shorts impatiently like a tric-fighter – it used to be bulls I think, in Spain, but now it’s young Triceratops.

‘But mommm.’

‘Now Isaac. Don’t make me repeat myself, mister.’

Mister. She really means business. I know resistance is pointless, and I have no chance of getting out of wearing the scratchy horrible things. But something in her eyes catches mine. It isn’t anger, it never really is with her. I always get the idea she is faking it, but kind of has to, because that’s what parents have to do sometimes. At least, that’s how Dad had put it to me.

He had taken me aside once to give me a talking to. I was winding Mom up again and made her cry. I felt awful but was being stubborn so didn’t show it. I still wish I had. It wasn’t like she meant to be annoying, she just … well, I always got on better with Dad. Best mates. He’s awesome, I love it when he comes to visit, or when we’re allowed to go and stay with him, which isn’t as often as I’d like.

Dad’s a big guy with the kind of beard I hope I can grow when I’m as old as him. But he says I’ll be taller than him because I’m only twelve and already catching him up. I don’t reckon I’ll be as strong as him, and there’s no way my hands will get as big as his. Or as rough, like splintered wood. He can lift me up with one hand, easy. It was always awesome when he played dino hunter with me and Jessie. He is always a Giganotosaur. Technically, against the rules because there are no Gigantosaurs in England. Another fact. But he’s our dad and he can get away with it because he’s cool.

‘Five … four … three …’

Mom is giving me the count down. I read her clear blue eyes, and know for sure she is sticking to her threat, so I huff as heavily as possible, and slide as dramatically as I can from the high stool at the breakfast bar, leaving my bowl of Choco Rex Flakes spinning like a pound coin. I snatch my uniform from her hands, pull the best sulky face I can and clomp away back to the breakfast bar.

Mom gives me that final scowl which almost always creases into a smirk. ‘Well? Put them on then. Or else…’

I shriek as she comes for me with tickling fingers, and we run around the breakfast bar. It’s childish came for a twelve-year-old like me, I know, but it’s still fun and no one else – people like Jayce – can see. She is too fast for me, and her great stride, and long arms are too much. A far-off noise, deep and trumpeting, freezes us in our tracks right there in the kitchen between the crowded breakfast bar and the stainless-steel sink. We both turn to the window.

‘You hear that mom?’ I push my thick-rimmed glasses back up and squint out through the washcloth-smeared glass.

‘Yeah … I heard it.’ She flicks a portion of her bobbed hair behind her right ear and listens.

She is doing that thing – trying to figure out if she should grab Jessie and drag us both down into the cellar without frightening us. But I am too old to fall for it now. The old den-adventure trick. Her shoulders drop. She loosens up and turns to look at me. Then I know I can relax too.

‘You know what it is?’ she asks.

‘A Pelo?’ I’m not too sure. The longnecks pretty much sound the same to me.

Mom puts her hands on her hips. ‘Full name Isaac. Don’t forget you have a test today.’

I struggle into my scratchy short-sleeved shirt thinking of the name as I hitch up my shorts. ‘Pelo – Pelereo – erm …’

‘Almost …’ Mom says as she passes me my school bag.

I click my fingers. ‘Got it! Pelorosaur.’

‘—us.’

‘Right. Pelorosaurus.’

‘Are they dangerous?’ she asks. Her sunny smile slowly returning.

‘Nah. Only if you spook the herd. Leaf-eaters Mom. Leaf eating longnecks.’

They were the least exciting dinosaurs around, but that was okay. Mom told me once, that before the Merge, all kids loved dinosaurs. Especially meat-eaters because they were exciting. At school, Mrs Ferwinckle teaches us to respect the veggie dinos and fear the carnoes. Meat-eaters like Neos and Eos. Outside the city, waaaay past the barrier, and well beyond the swamps, that is where the carnoes live. They rarely attack the city, unable to get through the barrier. Not that they need to come here. There are plenty of big things walking around out there, outside the wall.

The wall is a big old hodgepodge of tumbledown buildings, purpose-built brick walls, electric, and razor fences. All the bits linked by Dinosaur and City Security stations. I want to work for the DCS when I grow up. Mom says no, but Dad thinks it’s a good idea. A respectable job he says, and one the government won’t cut any time soon. I want to protect Jessie and Mom. I know I’m not tough and bulky like Jayce. But he’s a dumb bully and I’m clever. Dad says I’ve got the smarts to outwit Jayce any day.

I snatch up my school bag and shoulder it after prodding and squeezing for my pad inside. Mom frowns at me, so I slip it back onto the floor and look properly. She gets mad if I don’t. Not proper mad, but I know I shouldn’t be so lazy. But hey – twelve, nearly thirteen. Dad says that I am practising at being a teenager because I am being more of a pain in the ass than usual. I can’t wait to be sixteen, that’s when you can train for the DCS cadets.

‘Look, it’s here.’ I pull my pad up just enough for her to see. ‘Happy?’

‘Isaac, you know very well what could happen if you don’t have it. Mrs Ferwinckle …’ She smiles as she says her name, it always makes her smile. ‘She’ll be mad if you forget it. Besides, I know I can get a hold of you anytime.’ She turns to leave the kitchen. ‘I’m going to get Jessie ready, but I’m still listening.’

‘Awe mommm.’

‘All of them, now. The important ones. You’re the one who wants to join the DCS aren’t you?’

My ears perk up to the sound of those letters. ‘Yeah.’ I feel a sudden flush of hope. Had she changed her mind? She flashes a smile that gives nothing away, and disappears into the living room where my sister is probably running around butt naked still. She doesn’t like clothes. Most toddlers don’t, you know? Mom says I hated them when I was four.

I begin my dino drill in the hope that it will improve my chances of Mom allowing me to train. ‘Neo, Neovenator. Eo, Eotryannus …’

‘And what do you do when you hear one of those nasty things?’ comes her voice from the other room, slightly out of breath. Jessie giving her the run-around again no doubt.

‘Run and hide. Keep down wind,’ I shout as I turn to polish off my breakfast.

‘Go on …’

I continue between gulps of cereal, ‘Sceldi, Scelidosaurus. Dacen, Dacentrurus. Poli, Polacanthus …’

‘And for those armoured brutes?’

‘Slow in the head, don’t spook ‘em stupid,’ I chant, just like we do in class.

‘And why don’t we go to the river?’

‘Because of Bary, Mom, sheez. Everybody knows that.’

She pokes her head round the door, her body jostling as she wrestles Jessie into her clothes. ‘Yeah, and don’t forget it, little man.’ She narrows her eyes to slits.

I drop my shoulders in shame. I bunked off school once and snuck down to the river on the wrong side of the wall. I was okay, nothing happened. But Jayce Johnson had followed me and grassed me up to Ozzy Johnson, so it got back to my dad who had a go at my mom about rightful custody and stuff and Mom grounded me for two weeks and I wasn’t allowed Choco-Rex flakes for the entire summer holidays and, instead, had to eat muesli. I hate muesli. I couldn’t go out and play, eat ice cream, or do anything Mom thought might be fun – which was pretty much everything I could think of.

Mom was right, though. The river is a dangerous place to mess around in. Baryonyx hunt up and down it, and they are fast. They mostly eat fish, but if you get caught out by a hungry one … well, it isn’t pretty. They are like crocodiles on two legs and have a really bad attitude. Kind of like Jayce – except Baryonyx are better looking and probably actually have feelings.

Mom ducks back into the living room. Jessie has got free again. ‘Come here you little rascal.’ Jessie squeals at the thrill of being chased, just like she does when we play dino hunter. ‘Gotchya,’ Mom yells triumphantly. She appears round the door again, this time with a wriggling four-year-old.

‘Time.’

I look at my watch. ‘Wow! Gotta go, Mom,’ I say, rushing to the kitchen door.

‘Isaac,’ she shouts after me, ‘hat!’

‘Awww, but Mommm …’

‘Don’t test me, little man.’

I skid to a stop, make a wide sweeping run to hop to the counter, snatch the stupid summer hat Mom always makes me wear. I stuff the big dumb flowery thing into my shorts pocket and dart out.

‘Bye, Mom. Love you!’

‘Take care,’ she calls after me, ‘wear your hat, and watch out for Raptors!’

I knew she’s smiling, but I can’t resist the temptation. ‘No Raptors in England. Fact,’ I call. She always teases me. Knows I like facts to be in their correct place, so she always mixes them up. Maybe to test me, or maybe to make me feel good. Perhaps both.

I dash out of the house and down the street, narrowly avoiding a young mottled-brown Sceldi pulling a veg cart. The owner barks something at me as the armoured animal rears up in shock, and gives a long dumb groan, its thick tail swaying.

‘DCS rules, mister! He should have blinkers on!’ I shout back.

He waves his fist at me. ‘Cheeky little … you should watch what you’re doing young man.’

I don’t care. I know I’m right and so does he. Sceldies are proper twitchy, even when they’ve been trained. They pull heavy loads, and for most on the Birmingham market, they use the brutes as work horses since there aren’t many horses anymore. The carnoes ate most of them on arrival apparently.

You just had to be careful not to catch a Scheldi by surprise. That’s why it’s DCS law to have all walnut brains – that’s what most people call the armoured veggies – to have blinkers to cover their eyes and focus on the path ahead, like a horse. Fact. I’d read it on the DCS website.

Other kids join me on the street as we run through the market, weaving, and bobbing in and out of fruit-and-veg stalls. Vendors call out over the hoots and groans of the market Sceldies. The place hums of over-ripe fruit and vegetables from our time and some weird stuff from the Cretaceous period. And, of course, Scheldi dung. Huge steaming piles of the stuff.

Why the Cretaceous period had merged with 2067 is one of the major topics we study at school. But generally, adults rarely talk about it. There are some crazy ideas flying around. We learn about them all. Some say it was an act of God, but others don’t think so. There are lots of arguments over it and even some fights. Adults … sheez.

Mom told me that we’re part of space and time and that our planet is just a tiny blue marble in an unimaginably vast universe, and that the whole universe seeks balance. She said she believes the Equilibrists’ theory – that Earth getting so hot was the trigger somehow. Mrs Ferwinckle told us in school that people used to think it was climate change and meteors that made the dinosaurs disappear, but quite a lot of people think it was the Merge now.

School is in the old museum and art gallery in Victoria square. It’s a grand looking place of huge sandy blocks, square and smooth. So many windows too, set in thick walls and the whole place had massive columns holding it all up. It all looks like a picture I saw once in a history lesson on Ancient Rome.

They used to have all sorts in the museum, even dinosaurs. They chucked the fossils into storage when the real-live things arrived. No one wanted to look at rocks anymore. Most kind of hated the sight of them. Dad said that when it happened, no one was ready. Huge trees, swamps, and forests appearing just like that in the middle of a house, in the road, in the motorway. Huge animals suddenly everywhere – lots of people died in the early days. Dad says he remembers hearing about Neo attacks all the time. But it was too difficult to get in now – to get past the wall.

Sometimes the Eotryannus do. They are from the T-Rex family, but waaay smaller. They’re clever though, and often hunt in pairs. Eos freak me out. They are slim, rapid things. Long legs that blur when they sprint, and grasping fingers with nasty razor claws. They have three fingers, not two like the Rex had. And their eyes … it’s almost as if you can see them thinking.

I stop suddenly as a timid group of Hypsies dart out of the bushes in the old fountains leading up to school, chirping and screeching like parrots. Big sculptures – sphynx guardians – stand either side of steps which spread upwards towards school. In the middle, amidst the shaggy bushes sprouting palms, are two naked bronze girls kneeling opposite each other.

Above them on the next level is the Floozy in the Jacuzzi. That’s what Dad called the reclining naked woman. Mrs Ferwinckle called the sculptures River and Youth. I don’t know why. The big woman was part of the old fountain, her broad bronze hands cupping a small bowl or something where water would have jetted out once. But not now. Clean water is one of those things you don’t waste anymore. Another problem the Merge brought along with it.

The waist-high Hypsies scamper across the steps and into the bushes on the other side. Completely ignored by the morning commuters. They are harmless really, and seem to love munching on the leaves in the old fountain. They are constantly being chased out by the DCS. Because they are quite small, they always manage to sneak into the city. The smell of the fruit-and-veg market draws them here, and they give the storeowners hell.

Me and Elliot, my best mate, love hanging around the market watching the chaos they cause. The little green things are so funny. Not so little really, either. They look how I imagine a giant parrot would look if you plucked off all its feathers and painted it stripy green. Big lolloping heads on skinny necks, and a weird beak that looks like old polished wood.

When I reach the top of the steps, I look down at the market and the memorial beyond. The memorial is a huge bronze sculpture of a bull fighting a Neovenator. Mrs Ferwinckle told us that the bull was really old and was why the market was called the Bullring. They used to kill bulls there a long time ago, after tying a rope through a hoop in their nose to a ring in the ground, which sounds really cruel to me. The Neo was put in after the Merge.

It is very much like the bull in style. Whoever made it had matched it very well. It is smooth and flowy bronze, solid like the bull. The bull is winning of course, using its horns to flip the snarling creature. The Neo’s long tail is whipping round in attack, and its gaping jaws flashing gleaming teeth polished to a shine by curious fingers. Its V-shaped crest is clearly visible on its thick beak-like snout.

In real life, the crest is much less obvious and the Neo is covered in a fine layer of stuff kind of like feathers. Its elbows have the longest feathers. Experts say they are for display. They could never fly though, that would be ridiculous. But if there is anything that terrifies me more than an Eo, it is a Neovenator.

They are much bigger. More than two times taller than my dad. Fast too. Thick muscly legs made them fly along. They are the angriest things I’ve ever seen. The man on TV, the one who used to go out and film dinosaurs for the BBC, said they are the most fearsome of the carnoes. He was right too – he got eaten by one.

‘Hey fat head!’

I cringe on hearing that voice. It has a power I can’t fight and I always shrink at the sound of it – at the thought of what usually follows.

‘Hey fat head,’ Jayce calls again. This time it is abrupt and meant to hurt. ‘I’m talkin’ to you!’

I dare not look, for fear of turning straight into a punch. Or maybe he’ll kick a football at me again. Whatever he has in mind for me, I just do what I always did. I hunch my shoulders, brace for impact, and continue to walk, all the time hoping nothing will happen. It had worked in the past.

It hits me hard ­– the rugby ball. Right in the side of my head, crushing my ear lobe into the arm of my stupid glasses. I see stars, and a wooziness takes me for a few seconds. I crumple to the ground holding my ear. It feels warm and sticky, and already tears are to creeping into my eyes. I curse my body for letting them out, knowing Jayce will see it as a sign of weakness. I curse it for giving him the pleasure.

I hear footsteps.

‘Woah Jayce! You got him clean in the head. That was rapid mate!’

I recognise the voice. Zac Spencer. A chubby boy whose clothes never fit properly. Probably couldn’t keep up with all the eating he did. He is bigger than Jayce but not as fit. Jayce plays rugby, Zac doesn’t. He’s slow and has one of those squeaky voices that sounds like a cheap plastic dog toy. Some of us call him Chewy – though you’d never tell him to his face. He thinks people call him that because he is chewing most of the time. He’s not the sharpest tool in the box.

I can feel someone standing over me and I am sure it is Jayce. He has that kind of presence about him, a buzzing black cloud of badness, like flies.

‘Ha, yeah.’ Jayce sounds distant. He always sounds distant. That is what scares me the most. ‘What’s wrong Oddy, Oddy, got nobody?’ he sings.

What does that even mean Joyce? I want to say it out loud. Then punch him in his big round nose. But the tears finally come – from the stinging, not anything else. My eyes flood and I can’t see.

‘What? Are you crying?’ Jayce crouches next to me and yanks my hand away.

Through watery eyes, I watch as he draws a fist and smacks me hard in the face again. I hear a crack, and feel a sharp pain, warm and spreading like fire in my nose. I hardly make a noise, so he hits me again and again and again until I do.

‘Woah, Jayce! Jayce.’ Zac’s voice is squeakier than usual. ‘Mate, stop!’

‘I’ll make you cry, Oddy!’ Jayce blasts out as he lays in a final blow.

My mind wobbles in and out for a few seconds until I finally give up trying to stay awake.

‘Isaac? Isaaaaac?’ The voice is dreamy at first, almost as if I am wearing it rather than hearing it. I can feel the soft concern vibrating through my body.

‘Isaac.’ Clicking fingers. ‘Hey, Isaac. Wake up. Are you okay?’

I open my right eye, blinking in the light as my vision clears. But not my left – it refuses to open. I raise a shaky hand to feel it and wish I hadn’t. My whole cheek and eye socket are way bigger than normal. All puffy and tight. I focus on the blur standing over me.

It is Elliot. I can tell by his long neck, like a Pelorosaur. He is a goofy kid too, and has the same dumb smile like those things too. Instead of floppy ginger hair like me, he has tight afro twists. Elliot is skinny and long-limbed – we both are – and Dad says we will eventually grow into our bodies one day, maybe. Everyone at school calls us lank-o-saurs.

I shuffle as he tries to sit me up.

‘Are-are they gone?’ My voice doesn’t sound like my own.

Elliot glances over his shoulder. ‘Joyce and Chewy?’ It’s hard to miss the hate in his voice. He falls victim to them as much as I do. ‘Yeah, they’re gone. Jeez, Odd-bod, he really messed you up this time. We have to go to the school nurse.’

‘No!’ I almost manage to shout. The dread the suggestion flushes up. I feel like I might spew.

‘What!’ Elliot says, his voice cracking. ‘Seriously Isaac, you look terrible. Your eye’s all boaty and—’

‘Bloaty.’

He smiles. ‘Yeah that. Guess you look worse than you are, grammar boy.’

‘Actually,’ I say, sitting myself up properly now, the dizziness trickling away, ‘it was just the wrong word. I don’t look like a boat.’

Elliot bursts into laughter, falling back onto the steps. ‘No, but your face looks like a wreck!’ He slaps me on the shoulder.

I wince at the pain there, imagining a big purple bruise. Behind us, the faint drilling of the school bell rings out. I stare at the ground and scuff the floor with my heels, digging them in to leave black rubbery marks on the slab. That flush of darkness is seeping back.

‘I’m not going in today Elzi. I can’t …’ I pick myself up. He rises with me.

‘No, probably best not to I suppose. I mean if the teachers see you like this …’

I pick up my school pack and nod as I dust it off. ‘Yeah. Questions … and then they’ll know and then he’ll—’

‘Kick the crap out you again, and me for just sitting next to you.’ He scowls, clenching his fists, and kicks at the floor leaving a scuff mark of his own. ‘He’s gone too far this time Odd-bod. Too far.’

He shrinks then, as if the temporary bravery anger had brought has suddenly left him. He looks around sheepishly, probably to make sure Jayce hadn’t heard from some hiding place.

I rummage through my bag and my shoulders fall. ‘He broke my pad. Mom’s gonna kill me. We can’t afford to get another one again. This was second hand as it is.’ Tears again, this time actual sadness.

Mom and dad don’t earn much. One of the reasons Jayce has such a problem with me. He’d said so. My off-the-market clothes, my cheap no-brand trainers, the dumb flowery sunhat my mom makes me wear to protect my fair skin from the sun. He says I look like a street kid that has been clothed with the charity shop clothes no one wants.

‘Screw it!’ Elliot says, trying the swearword on for size. His cheeks and nose always flush a deep red when he swears – anticipating a telling off probably. He steps in closer. ‘Let’s bunk off.’

A thrilling shiver works its way through my body, fluttering in my stomach. I hurts to smile but I do it anyway. ‘Sure.’ I look the market around and nod to hide behind one of the great pillars just outside the entrance of the old museum. Just in case any teachers are hanging around. ‘Where we gonna go?’ He grins. That smile means trouble, but right now, I don’t care.

‘Star City.’

If I wasn’t already pale from the fright of having the hell thumped out of me, I must have gone that way. ‘You’re kidding.’

He shrugs. ‘Why not?’

Star City is a ruin. After the Merge, it was one of the local places most hard hit. The jungle had eaten it all up now. The rivers Rea and the Tame had burst their banks long ago and flooded most of it, turning the rest into steaming mangrove.

‘It’s dangerous,’ I say, finally.

Trouble is, we are already walking in that direction, through the market. Elliot searches around in his pockets and pulls out a slim black leather wallet, a little tatty around the edges. I cover my mouth with a hand.

‘Woah, Elzi. Is that?’

He nods. ‘Yeah, lifted it whilst he was passed out on the couch.’

It is then I notice the poison in his voice and the speckled red raspberry marks twisting around his neck. His dad must have been drunk again. And Elliot’s neck – so long and grabbable. His dad was one of the many who had lost their jobs when they shut down the lower dockyard. My dad knows him – sort of. Says he is no good and should treat Elliot better cos he’s a smart kid. Stealing his dad’s wallet is Elliot’s stupid idea of revenge. No wonder he wants to skive off school. I was beginning to feel this was how the day would’ve gone even if Jayce hadn’t levelled me on the steps.

‘First,’ he squints at my swollen eye, ‘we’ll get something for that mess … then some food, sausage rolls and beef slices or something. What d’ya say?’

‘What the hell! What’s the worst that can happen?’ My attempt at being cool. It doesn’t convince me, or Elliot.

Elliot grins, then looks at me seriously. ‘We could get eaten.’

I swallow hard. ‘Well, best not think about it, hey?’

With buzzing excitement, we set off into the market to grab some pastries and chocolate, plus some sweets – the jelly kind. I like the sour ones best, Elliot doesn’t but because of what happened to my face, he says we can get some anyway.

Elliot did a good job of cleaning up my face and putting an eye pad over the puffy thing. He should be a nurse when he grows up. I tell him that and he says he wants to be in the DSC with me and I tell him they need nurses too cos of dinosaur attacks and stuff. He had tied eye pad with a roll of bandage he’d bought and said I looked like some kind of badass pirate. So, we went with that theme – all the way to the train tunnel passing through the Lawley Middleway wall section. It was the only place you could sneak through to the other side.

It was a forgotten sort of place. Strewn with junk and cardboard slowly disappearing into pools of oily water shimmering rainbows up at the blue sky. It stunk too. Diesel from the trains and the nasty eggy smell of rotting stuff like a million farts trapped in a school changing room.

Getting through was easy-peasy. All the kids in the city knew the way, even if they hadn’t been here themselves. A drainage pipe with a rusty metal grill. It had been well documented. The route, sketched in the back of a school book, scratched into the back of the boys’ toilet door next to the science room. Whispered across the old fold-up dining tables in the lunch hall during break times or in the playground where the break monitors were less likely to hear.

The two of us lift the latch –the lock had gone, no one knew where. We ease it open on its stiff old hinges just enough for us to squeeze through and then wedge it back in place. Hypsies might get through otherwise, or worse, a young Eo, or worse still, a young male Neo.

‘Argh, gross! It stinks in here, Odd-bod.’ Elliot has his shirt hooked over his nose.

‘Yup,’ I say, my good eye watering from the stench.

A sploshing noise up ahead rattles us. We pause. Elliot stiffens. It is hard to tell if he is breathing at all. If he is even alive, until he finally speaks.

‘W-w-what was that?’

‘Eutries?’ I suggest. Crossing my fingers and hoping it isn’t.

‘Those massive rat things?’ Elliot whispers.

‘Yeah. They eat—’

‘Meat. Y-y-yeah, I know.’

We continue along the pipe, half crouching, waddling through reeking brown water, but we don’t care. We are busy listening for the scratching and squeaking from the Eutriconodonta. Very much like rats, except way bigger. Sometimes, they are even cat-sized, and braver too.

It is hard to hear such subtle sounds when a train comes clattering overhead. Even through the thick concrete piping. They fill the place with their living metal every now and then as they rattle by, shaking the place, sending drips of cold water down the back of our shirt collars.

‘Like, they probably ate all the rats.’ Elliot is nattering now, louder, almost confidently. He does that when he’s nervous. ‘Come to think of it, I can’t remember the last time I saw a rat, I mean a normal rat. You?’

I pause, cocking my nose to the warm musty air in the pipe. ‘No. Just the Eutries,’ I say, not really paying attention to him. I think I hear scratching behind us. Elliot seems not to notice, so I don’t mention it. He is a scaredy-cat and spooks worse than a Scheldi. Another train thunders over us. I cover my ears and brace for a shower of stinking pipe water. As it rumbles away in the distance, I wait for my hearing to pick up the subtle sounds again.

Right now, Elliot has no idea about the strange noises behind us, and is far up ahead, his silhouette blurring and shimmering in the light flooding in from the other end so he looks almost like a shadow ghost or something.

‘Nearly there, Odd-bod.’ He sounds out of breath.

Another noise from behind. A drip of water? A splash maybe. In a matter of seconds, dozens of images of Eutries flash through my head. Their long slick bodies and tapered heads with two nasty yellow teeth. Nipping and scratching. Filling the pipe behind us.

‘Hey Elzi, get out of the way.’ I try to hide my fear as I nudge past him, very nearly knocking him into the deep pool of brown sludge which had gathered around the open mouth of the pipe.

‘Hey watch it!’

‘Soz.’ I shrug and stick out my tongue.

The images of giant Cretaceous rats melt away in the sun and Elliot’s frown breaks. He straightens into a stretch and yawns out, ‘Well, this beats school, huh Isaac?’

‘Yeah.’ I’m not really paying attention.

Just dreaming again, taking in the new view. I’d got used to the dark of the pipe and now we are out in the bright sticky day. My eyes adjust until the brightness fades into a clear blue afternoon. It is a strange place, the outside. Wild and green. Wet too. Frogs and more ancient things croak and ribbit from their hiding places in tufts of marsh grass and rotting tree stumps. I slap my neck at the sudden pinch there.

‘Gross,’ I say, examining the squished remains on my hand – all legs and wings. The thing that had bitten me wasn’t as big as it could have been, but it was big enough. ‘I hate the flies round here.’

‘Yeah.’ Elliot trudges off to the left, following the East wall. ‘They suck.’ He laughs.

I chuckle in reply and scoot along after him, leaving the unnerving gloom of the tunnel behind. But not the weighty feeling of fear that had settled in my gut. That followed, unseen in the long creeping shadows of the day.

It isn’t easy plodding through the sludge with our school bags bouncing on our backs. Our feet are totally soaked and bits of stuff keep getting in my trainers and poking my ankles no matter how many times I hop around to empty them. Where we can, we find the old curb stone and trace along it like tightrope walkers, arms outstretched in a game of balance. From time to time, we have to clamber over the rusted shells of old vehicles, the metal like fine flakes of orange biscuit. Speckled green mosses and wandering creepers had set up home in them, smothering and strangling.

A screeching shriek.

Elliot and I both stick to the spot and crouch behind a furry moss-covered car like startled chickens. ‘You see it?’ Elliot asks, his right knee trembling against mine.

I steady myself against the car with my hands. It feels warm but damp, the moss soft and woolly and smelling of rich earth and coming rain.

‘No,’ I say as I strain my neck to look above us for pterosaurs.

They sometimes hassled the city, but rarely cos they get shot at. They’re not that stupid. They ate most of the birds too when they arrived and rats and foxes. Not pigeons though. Dad says pigeons will outlive us all. Nothing can kill pigeons off. Out here though, there are no pigeons cos this city is the easy life and they stay there. No, here pterosaurs would circle above, waiting. Pushing my glasses back up my nose, I peer up and through the glassless windscreen of the moss car in the direction we are going.

Nothing but the shimmering swamp which had long ago swallowed the street, its buildings long abandoned. A crumbling reminder of what was once before. Me and Elliot had explored most of the buildings out this way a few summers back.

Hollow roofless shells, most of them. Everything still in place though. Deserted when the Merge came. Tables set ready for breakfast. Cups, plates, and toasters. The actual food long picked away. Clothes laid on a bed, ready for the owner once they’d finished their morning shower, now nipped, and gnawed by rodents. Threadbare rags of washing pegged to rusted clothes horses.

I blink away the memory of past adventures and scan the uneven line that separates peaty earth from perfect blue skies. ‘Looks clear Elzi.’

We wait though. You had to be careful, everyone at school knew that. All the other kids that came out here, the naughty ones, they knew. Those that didn’t, the ones that let the scary stories get to them, knew only what the naughty kids told them. And sometimes they were lies. Not the story about Sara Gardener. Everyone knew that one. That one was in the news and was fact.

About ten years ago, Sara Gardener, a Year 9 girl, went missing. Last seen wearing a white summer dress with an orange flower pattern, over blue jeans, and her favourite sunflower satchel. Of course, there were all kinds of stories going around. Some people reckoned her parents were to blame, hadn’t raised her properly. She used to go off on her own with boys from school. Some said she ran away to Coventry cos her dad did things … so she ran away and got eaten by an Eo. No one really knows. Her body was never found. The DCS searched everywhere a thirteen-year-old girl might go in and around the area, even Star City.

At school, the theory of what happened to Sara Gardener is a lot simpler. Rumour has it she was just the victim of the Star City dare. Kids often dared each other to leave the city and venture into the mangrove. You have to bring something back though, proof you did it. A branch from a mangrove tree or a piece of the old world before the Merge. Thing is, the more people did it, the further you had to go to get good proof and not be branded a liar or a fake. That’s when kids started daring each other to go to Star City.

Me and Elliot tried Star City only once, and even then, we were too frightened to actually go beyond the suburbs. Star City is the only man-made thing that stills stands on the uneven green line of the horizon past the walls of central Birmingham. Getting to Star City was as a big deal back in Sara Gardener’s Day as it is today. A couple of hours clomping around the swampy streets, ducking in and out of the trees.

No one believed me and Elliot got as far as the ‘burbs. They said we were too goofy and scared. So, we needed something to prove it. We were going to go last summer, but I got grounded. And now here we are, eyeing the trees crowding along a swampy street.

You have to use the trees once you leave the safety of the wall. The wall has nooks and cracks and holes you can hide in. As soon as you turn to Star City, it got more dangerous to be out in the open, but go too deep into the low crouching trees …

‘Well?’ Elliot sounds bored of waiting.

‘Okay, let’s go.’ I stand, only then does Elliot follow.

We scamper in and out of the low tangle of trees that cling to the edge of the old street, now almost like a river with little islands of grass clumps and moss mounds.

If you ever get to Star City, the rule is you had to prove it when you got back. Something with the Star City logo stamped on it is good. A drinks cup maybe, or a plastic toy from the old gift shop. I know exactly what I am going to get.

‘What’re you so happy about?’ Elliot is staring at me from behind a stumpy tree.

‘Nothing.’ I smile. ‘Just thinking.’

He screws up his face. ‘Bout what? What are you up to, Odd-bod?’

A sound, from where we’d come, startles us deeper into the trees where the light is choked out. It’s cooler all of a sudden, and we become very aware we were soaked to the knees.

‘What the crap was that?’ Elliot’s face flushes a dark red.

‘Dunno. A Eutri maybe?’

‘What? Out here? Thought they only liked tunnels and things.’

I squat, straining my eye to see what is out there. It’s then I notice my glasses are a little wonky and the right lens is scuffed. Maybe the left too, but the patch and my swollen eye means I’m not able to tell.

Nothing moves out in the swamp except the tall swamp grass nodding in a gentle breeze. Bubbling clouds of flies cling to the damp shaded fringes of the trees, and out there in the bright sunlight is only the sound of crickets and the animals that hunt them. The croaks grow louder, like someone winding open a metal window shutter. Then it stops again.

‘Something’s out there Isaac. Crap, something’s—’

‘Shhh!’ I roll my eyes, frown, and stab at my ear with my finger. Elliot gets the message. Keeping his mouth shut, he listens the same as me.

Splish-splosh.

Silence.

Splish-splosh, splish-splosh, splish-splosh.

Silence again.

‘A dino?’ Elliot’s whisper isn’t as quiet as I like whispers to be and now, he is almost sitting on my back, breathing heavily down my neck.

‘Get off, muppet!’ I shove him a little, but he doesn’t budge. His paling face and sunken eyes, wide with terror, stare out into the day.

I instantly feel guilt rising up for calling him names and try to make him feel better. ‘Look, it’s nothing, maybe a bird or something. If it was a dino, we’d know about it.’ I smile, immediately regretting it. Pain shoots through my face, tight with swelling. I suck back the discomfort as much as I can and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Elzi, don’t worry. Okay?’

He nods frantically, putting on a brave face but he and I both know he isn’t fooling anyone.

‘Look, we’ll get there. We’ll go inside and …’ I want to keep my plan secret, don’t want him to steal the cool idea I’ve had.

‘What?’

I tap my nose, trying to act all cool. The pain is terrible, like fire. Elliot smirks.

‘Forgot about that, did you?’

‘Yeah.’ I feel it carefully, trying to figure out if I’d caused more damage. It feels crooked and ugly. Broken alright. I suddenly feel like nothing matters. Like I have nothing left to lose.

‘Screw it.’ I stand upright with purpose and stomp out of the trees and off toward Star City calling for Elliot to follow.

He slinks out of the trees like a shy Hypsi, and trots along after me, begging me to slow down and return to the tree line, but I’m on a mission.

The thing about Star City is when you actually see it with your own eyes, rather than with imagined pictures built upon magical descriptions during whispered school dinners. The reality isn’t so fantastic. But it is amazing in its own weird sort of way.

Elliot and I find ourselves under the shelter of an ancient twisted tree that has taken root in the rotting frame of a motorbike. It kind of looks like a knotted old wise man hunched on the fossilised bike. His lichen beard blowing in the wind as he races along.

Crumbling skeletons of cars are all around us like a herd of dead metal cows, nestling up to the bottoms of their doors in murky water. Plants sprouting from wherever they can, like tufts of hair. We are in the old car park, from back when people still used the roads that lie beneath the swamp. Ahead, Star City springs up out of the wild ground. Metal piping and structures jutting upwards like the bones of a fallen giant. Not a dinosaur, but some giant kind of space robot. Like it had crashed to Earth from outer space and died right there, in the stinking swamp.

Past the disintegrating arch with letters on that once spelled Star City, dangling from it, or gone entirely, is the fun park itself. Still, the bright gaudy buildings and rides shine in the light, despite the rust and growth of spongey mosses, flaky lichen, and spreading creepers. There are no fun parks anymore. Neither of us had ever been to one. Our parents described them to us, which is probably why some of us felt drawn to this creepy old place.

‘I d-d-don’t like this, Isaac.’ Elliot has lost all his bravery it seems.

‘Don’t be a wuss. Come on.’ I trot off to the nearest car tripping on something beneath the slush. Elliot bursts into fits of laughter as I haul myself up out of the mud. It stinks like a crappy toilet. A flash of worry, of strange diseases and illness, bubbles in my head. A burning rage wells up inside. My face and body hurt making it worse. The energy forces its way along my arms into clenched fists.

‘Shut up!’ I roar.

Elliot’s face drops and he stops laughing. ‘Come on, Odd-bod,’ he smiles. It’s a wonky, uncertain expression. Probably hoping I’ll let it go. ‘Just messin’ with ya. That was funny, right?’

I take a deep breath, count to ten in my head and shake the anger out of my hands, like Dad taught me to. I look down at myself, thick peaty mud clinging to me like tar, my clothes ruined. I breathe deeply. The rage dissolves and I allow a chuckle to simmer up, then a chuckle. Elliot’s face cracks and he begins to giggle. We exchange breaks of laughter until we both fall into full-blown belly laughs. Something clicks inside my head and I dip down and scoop some filthy mud and fling it.

The glob smacks Elliot heavily in the chest with a thud and it is all out war. We duck and dive, lobbing mud and splashing water. Laughing so loudly, until we just fall on our backsides into a clump of thick grass. It feels dry like paper, the smell is oddly pleasant though. Like lemons, almost. We sit there, breathless for a minute or two until I slap Elliot on the back and turn to him.

‘Sorry, Elzi, I … that was fun.’

He smiles. He doesn’t say anything, but then he doesn’t have to. We aren’t that different really. I got my flack at school. He got his at home. When it got to us, it usually wasn’t at the same time. We would cheer each other up. If it happened that we both had a bad day, then we’d do something crazy like this.

Together we can always forget the bad stuff, if only just for a few fun hours.

‘Come on then,’ I say, pulling myself up. ‘You started this Elzi. Let’s get our asses into Star City.’

He looks at me through narrow eyes. ‘What you planning, Odd-bod?’

I wink. It feels weird, I usually use the other eye. ‘It’s a secret. Come on.’

We go leaping off over clumps of rusty red grass and wading through reeking bogs that sucks us down to our hands and knees. The sun, lapping down in waves, dries out our shirts and shorts so quickly so that when they aren’t plunged beneath the soupy waters, rings of brown stain them like the inside of a coffee mug.

When our shorts are completely out of the water, clods of mud flake off us as if we were snakes shedding our skin, one scale at a time. We run and skip around the rotting buildings, the spiralling twists of trees and shaggy greenery sprouting out of old rusty cars like giant plant pots chasing crickets and frogs from their hiding places. You have to be careful though.

It is really tough to know what is hiding below the knee-deep waters and thick mud. A grass clump could actually be concealing a jagged piece of metal, a rock or curb stone. I’ve heard of tetanus before. Mom had warned me about it and says that if I ever get a rusty cut then my jaw will seize up and both her and Dad would finally get some peace and quiet.

So, at every scratch and pinch of my skin, deep down, I worry. But the sun pulls me back each time. The fun of it all. Out here with my best mate. I pause for a moment at the twisted remains of a metal structure which had collapsed into what used to be pavement, or maybe part of the carpark. It is hard to tell. The whole place reminds me of a mouldy fruit bowl. Familiar shapes of things that were once bright and full of life but are now fuzzy green mounds falling apart, disappearing in on themselves.

The thing I am looking at was a sign, once. The aging plastic letters, probably bright orange, now a sun-bleached peach. It is from the old cinema that was once here. I look to the left, following the metal tree trunk with my eyes along to its base. A cylindrical entrance to what used to be the cinema lobby. It is difficult to see inside. The roof had long ago caved in and the entrance is now bulging with reeds and trees. Lush green leaves exploding from the top of in lush green flames.

‘Tig! You’re it!’

I jump at the sudden shout and tap on the shoulder. Elliot dashes off chuckling, hopping from clump to clump. It is a challenge and I am happy to play along with.

‘Better run Elzi … I’m gonna get ya!’

I leapt after him, following his path, more or less, along the front of the dead building and deeper into the disintegrating complex. As I come round the corner of the old building, I run smack into Elliot coming back the other way. His face twisting into a silent scream.

‘Run! Isaac, leg it!’ he manages to gasp out.

I turn with him, not questioning why, nor do I dare to see what could have filled him with so much terror. The look on his face is enough – it said, dinosaur.

The next few moments are a lung-burning blur as we plough through the swamp as fast as it allows us until Elliot dives into the entrance of a building, yanking me in after him.

‘What the—?’

‘Shhh!’ he says, a finger to his lips and a grimy hand pressing over my mouth. It smells of earth and rotten cabbage.

I yank his hand away. ‘Elliot! What the hell?’

He glares at me, the same eyes I gave him earlier when we had hidden in the trees. Elliot hisses through gritted teeth, ‘Shut it!’ He then mouths the word every kid dreads. ‘N-E-O.’

I feel my blood drain to my toes. The sudden desire to not be here, or simply not exist.

We listen. Nothing but frogs and crickets.

We wait. A distant splish-splosh.

After what seems like a lifetime of swallowing dry gulps and hearing things that aren’t really there, I finally drag up the courage to peek around the entrance. A bright marshy day. Frogs chirping and other things I don’t know the names of. No Neo. I duck back in.

‘Well?’ Elliot asks, still visibly shaking.

I shrug. ‘Can’t see or hear anything, Elzi. You sure you saw a Neo?’

His shoulders drop and he gives me a look as if to say you’re kidding, right? He raises an eyebrow to press his point home.

I hold up my hands in defeat. ‘Okay, okay. So, you saw a Neo. But it must be gone now, otherwise …’

‘Take a look then badass,’ Elliot whispers. ‘You go and see it. I swear, it’s there, round the corner. Waiting.’

Waiting? I scrunch my nose at the idea. Neos don’t wait. Ever.

I stand up.

‘Wait! Woah. Wh-wh-where are you g-g-going?’

I put my left hand on my hip and point out the doorway with the other. ‘Out to take a peek.’

‘Are you c-c-crazy?’ He is shouting in whispers now. ‘Isaac, you’ll get eaten. Your mom and dad will k-k-kill me!’

I smile. ‘You’re a wuss. Come on.’

He shakes his head. It is clear he isn’t coming, so I leave. I don’t push it with him. He is stammering, and he only does that after his dad beats him. So, I don’t press. But before he can moan any more, I am gone and scampering along like a muddy dog that has escaped its owner. I pause, and press myself against the crumbling brick wall of a building that had once been full of people enjoying themselves. Now, it is like an empty eggshell, all cracked with the yellow stuff all leaked out.

As I slip and slide along, closer to the corner of the building, I search around the moss carpeted ground. I find a clump of reeds, the fluffy white bits still on them, and pluck one up soundlessly. I shake it and the tiny little seeds float off the way I had come.

Back in school, Mrs Ferwinckle had taught us the basics of dino survival. The rules are simple: make no noise, no smells, and stay down wind. Every kid knows this, it is the one lesson we all really pay attention to.

Happy I am down wind, and unlikely to fart in the next few minutes, I quietly peep around the jagged edge of the wall. It is hard to make it out at first – the animal there. There are strange trees I’d never seen before in the way, and more familiar ones behind them. An odd rocky structure like a tiny mountain and—

I freeze, ducking back behind the wall, gulping in a deep breath of the stinking air. I hold it.

As slowly and as silently as I can, I peek around again. I narrow my good eye, the swelling in the bad one tight and sore. Then totally relax. The tight feeling in my chest melts away, I swallow the lump in my throat and grin.

‘Elliot, you great twit.’

I want to scare him for being so dumb. The temptation is so strong it takes a lot to fight the urge. To creep up on him, and leap into the doorway roaring and snarling my best Neo impression. Elliot is shaken up enough. He only ever stutters when he is really down or scared. It would have been a good way to get him back though – for laughing at me when I fell over.

Never mind. Dad says we have to let the little things go so we have room for the big ones. He also says, your own advice is often the hardest to take. Instead of scaring the crap out of Elliot, I’m as noisy and obviously-not-a-dinosaur as possible on my return to. He will not come out at first, but after reasoning with him that I was still alive and there was obviously no Neo as I’d most likely have been eaten, he finally steps back out into the light of the muggy day.

‘A bloody what!’ He is red in the faced again and the stutter has evaporated.

‘A model,’ I snicker lightly. ‘A model T-Rex. Elzi, are you even awake in dino class?’

He blushes even more, twitching awkwardly and fiddling with the collar of his mud-stained shirt. It is like one of the splatter paintings we’d seen in art class except in lots of different browns rather than shining reds, blues, and yellows.

‘Anyway … haven’t you heard the guys at school talking?’

‘About a plastic Rex? No.’ It looks at me like I’m missing the obvious. ‘Issac, no one talks to me, except to take the piss.’

I sigh and nod. ‘That’s not true, Elzi, I talk to you. Anyway, that’s my super-secret plan … a tooth from the Rex.’

He stands considering it and eventually his eyes sparkle with that cheeky glint I know so well. ‘Rapid.’ He thinks about it a bit longer. ‘What can I get? Something awesome too, maybe? I don’t wanna blend off you – so another tooth is a no go, right?’

‘You know what, Elzi?’ I say, suddenly feeling charitable. ‘We can both get one, why not?’

‘Genuine?’

I smile.

‘Odd-bod,’ he says lunging into a hug, ‘you’re the best.’ He steps back suddenly letting go of me as if he had done something terribly wrong. ‘S-sorry.’

‘It’s okay, Elzi.’ And that’s all I can think to say but I know there’s more down in there somewhere. ‘Hungry?’ I say, to fill the silence. He says yes and we tuck into a sausage roll each and share a can of pop. It’s all we could get after Elzi spent the rest on the bandage and eyepatch, and some antiseptic cream for me.

After we breathed in our food trek off to the Rex. As we round the corner, dreaming of our triumphant return to school with strange and curious items no one has ever thought to nick before, a sound, deep and trumpeting reminds us we were not alone out here – so far away from the safety of Birmingham.

‘Woah, would you look at that?’ Elliot says, pointing to the way we’d come.

A group of Valdosaurs came crashing out of the trees into the swamp. Their mottled moss green feathers usually made them almost invisible. But out in the open, they are easy to spot. Especially as they bound around, leaping on two strong legs that look so muscly. Like they could run for days without even getting tired. We watch as the funny beaked creatures gather together, as far from the tree line as they dare.

‘Probably looking for food,’ I suggest.

‘Out in the open? You think?’

We both know veggies liked the cover of trees if they can get it. Especially the smaller dinos like the Valdoes. They were Iguanodonts, and had thumb spikes like their relative the Iguanodon, and even their trumpeting call was said to be similar. But they were a lot smaller, but still bigger than me and Elliot.

I consider Elliot’s words and unconvinced tone as flies hassle us looking for somewhere to land and suck up the saltiness on our foreheads. They tickle when they land, but neither of us care right at that moment. We are hypnotised by the presence of the Valdoes.

‘Mmm, let’s get moving Elzi.’ I look up at the sky and then down at my watch. The face is thick with dried mud, so I have to chip it off. ‘Yeah, it’s getting late. School finishes in a couple hours. We’d better be back by then or we’ll both get our asses kicked.’

Elliot agrees and we take a good look at where we are. The odd trees, I can see now, are as plastic as the T-Rex standing amongst them and real palms. It is all wrong, the Rex, for a dinosaur. Standing upright, head held high. Eotyrannus never stood like that, Neos neither. They spread forward, long, and low, their tails stiff behind them. And feathers, well, kind of how feathers were before birds. The Neo’s arms have a bunch, like silly wings, and the Eo looks even more bird-like. Its tail fans out with feathers and a stripe of feathers runs the top of its head down its neck.

They sound like overgrown birds, but both are pretty scary.

Not like this Rex. It makes us laugh.

‘Woah, look! More,’ says Elliot, pointing into the knotted tangle of green.

I squint, trying to make it out. ‘What is that? Is that a—’

I smile and think of Mom. She would have laughed. It was a Raptor. A terrible, plastic Velociraptor. The size is all wrong. It is far too tall and completely featherless. I think about telling Mom but then remember she can never know about this, ever. And she was worried about me going to the river – this place is far worse.

‘What was all this for?’ Elliot’s jaw flapped loose as he spoke, flies threatening to venture in, hovering so close. That would be so funny. I smile at the thought of Elliot dancing around, desperately trying to comb flies off his tongue.

Something in the corner of my eye catches my attention – something deep in a shaggy bush. I walked up to it as carefully and quietly as I can and brush the thick grass aside and read, ‘Adventure Island mini golf.’

‘Mini golf?’ Elliot screws up his face.

I consider the words. A memory pops up – something Dad told me. ‘I think it was a game. Something they used to play back before the Merge.’

‘But why dinosaurs? Why would anyone want to have pretend dinosaurs knocking around?’

‘Cos they weren’t real back then stupid. Just fossils.’

‘Don’t call me s-s-stupid.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that. Soz.’

Elliot’s father calls him that, right before he gives him a smack. I tap him on the shoulder and point to the Rex standing over us. It isn’t full sized, just two or three adults high, maybe.

‘Give me a leg up, yeah?’

Elliot huffs and says, ‘What? Aw, come on. Why do I—’

‘Just give me a bunk, will ya?’ I say shaking my head.

Elliot sidles up to me, beneath the roaring head of the Rex, and spreads his feet at shoulder width apart, linking his fingers together giving me a platform to stand on. I put my hands on his shoulders. He wobbles.

‘Hold still, will you?’

‘Geez, Odd-bod. I’m trying. You weigh a tonne.’

‘Do not.’

‘Do too.’ He glances at my shoulders. ‘Why don’t you take off your bag?’

‘It’ll get wet. Come on, and help me up, will you?’

‘Give me a second.’ He spreads his feet a little more, and allows himself to sink into the slush. ‘Okay, go!’

I hop up and manage to grab the Rex’s tiny left arm to haul myself up, feet resting carefully on its arm so as not to break it. It feels like a really weak tree branch under my feet. I pause, hoping it won’t snap. I stretch out, holding on to the surprisingly smooth fibreglass with one hand whilst reaching into the snarling jaws of the Rex with the other. I grab wildly for a few moments until I finally snag a yellowed plastic tooth. It is smooth too, with hair line cracks spreading down it like lightning forks but still looks impressive – almost like the real thing.

It all happens in a flash. The snapping of the tiny Rex arm as I struggle to work the tooth loose, the stomach-pulling drop, and the sploshing arm as it sprays Elliot with nasty water. I am just hanging there, dangling from the jaws of a plastic T-Rex, legs kicking.

‘Woah, holy crap!’ Elliot shouts as he jumps up, arms spread to catch me.

The tooth begins to twist outwards.

‘It’s gonna – I think I’m going to—’

I come crashing down, landing directly on Elliot. We both let out a yelp.

For a while, we lie there soaking up swamp water like sponges, staring wide eyed at each other. I raise my left hand from the bog, there, the yellowed Rex tooth still firmly in my white-knuckle grip. I grin.

Elliot barks out a gut-laugh and slaps me on the back.

‘You’re bloody crazy you are! Wait till the others see what we’ve got.’ He holds up the two-fingered Rex arm, swearing at me. I laugh.

‘Same to you!’

We both giggle for a moment, lost in the adventure. I’d almost forgotten about Jayce and I guessed Elliot’s rough morning was fading in his memory too. I love these moments. The times we hang out together, just us. Nothing else in the world matters when it’s just you and your best mate. I make a wish then, that these days will last for ever and we never have to grow up. But then I feel a stab of sadness, cos that means I’ll never get into the DCS.

I take the arm from Elliot’s reluctant grip. ‘I’ll give it back, promise.’ I study it. It is like a plastic toy dino arm but way bigger, making my tooth look totally lame by comparison.

‘You’re so jammy Elzi, you know that?’ I smirk as I throw it back at him.

‘Yeah, right?’ He catches the arm and eyes it as if it is some lost treasure. He looks up at me, eyes bursting with excitement and hope. ‘We’re gonna be so cool. We’ll show that muppet Jayce and Chewy.’ A stupid grin spreading across his face.

‘Oh yeah? That right is it, Eh-Eh-Elliot?’

The voice jolts us both and I swear I almost crap my pants. Jayce is there, right there with us. Lurking behind him is Zac. A tremor of fear shivers through me and a flush of anger at the same time. It really does my head in when people mock Elliot’s stammer.

I look around, the buildings are too far off to the right, and to our left is open swamp. Behind us, I know, is a thick mess of trees, roots, and looping vines. There’s no way we can get up and run in time. We are so vulnerable, sitting in the mud and slush. Nowhere to go.

Elliot’s smile is instantly gone and it’s like it never existed at all. He knows he’s going to get a kicking now.

‘It was you,’ I say, my voice a little squeaky. ‘In the tunnel, out in the swamp? You were following us all that time.’

Jayce smirks. It’s that evil grin he always has when he thinks he has something embarrassing on you. The toothy grin of a Neo.

‘Yeah, that was us. We saw you two, hiding in the trees like little girls.’ There is resentment in Jayce’s voice, always hate – forever bitter.

A laugh from behind. ‘Yeah, saw you face plant into the mud too, dumbass.’ Zac sucks his flabby stomach up into his chest trying to look mean like Jayce. But he doesn’t have that solid figure, and spite like Jayce does.

Jayce smirks even more and nods to Elliot. ‘Yeah, and when you came running back to Oddy here.’ He hunches up pretending to be pathetic and weak. ‘Oh! I-I-Isaac, h-h-help! Ooh! Help me. I’m sc-sc-scared! Hold me, Isaac, ooh! Mwah, mwah, mwah, I love you, Issac.’

Zac can’t contain himself. He drops his stomach, and is now bent over double, wheezing out laughter. I can see Elliot gritting his teeth, and will him not to do anything, but the teasing has wormed its way in already and done its work. He leaps up, taking a wild swing at Jayce – full of tears and rage.

Jayce dodges the fist effortlessly and simultaneously brings his elbow down and his knee up as Elliot falls forward with the momentum of his own poorly thrown punch. He shrieks with pain as the wind was knocked mercilessly out of him.

Immediately, Jayce kicks Elliot in the ribs as he splashes around in the mud failing to pick himself back up. Jayce’s eyes are empty pits of darkness. Cold reptile eyes. It is like he has been taken over by something so unbelievably dark.

I struggle to my feet, intending to get in the way but Zac jumps me, knocking me back into the boggy slush. ‘Stay down, or you’ll get another kickin’ too,’ he says, pointing at me like I am his dog. He turns to look at Jayce who was still thrashing Elliot.

He isn’t moving anymore.

I watch as Zac’s face drops. His eyes suddenly wide with concern. ‘Hey! Hey! Stop! Stop it! Jay, pack it in. He’s – he’s had enough.’

Jayce pauses mid swing, his fist hanging in the air. He scowls at Zac. ‘You don’t tell me what to do, you hear? Nobody tells me what to do.’

‘Y-y-yeah, but Jay,’ Zac shifts uncomfortably, taking a step back, ‘he doesn’t look too good mate. I mean, look.’

He is right. Elliot is face down in the water, motionless. I heave myself up again, flinging Zac’s hand off my shoulder in disgust. He makes no effort to stop me this time. I dash over to Elliot, ignoring Jayce completely. He simply stands up and looks down on us both with those empty eyes of his.

I flip Elliot over.

He looked pales, his brown skin almost ashy. A shudder of fear ripples through me and I gave Jayce the kind of look that said back off.

To my surprise, he does.

Both of them watch on uselessly as I drag Elliot onto a drier tuft of grass, half out of the soupy water. I duck my ear to his mouth.

‘Is he okay?’ Zac is trying to sound calm, but there is a crack in his voice that says otherwise. Things have gotten serious and I know he is bricking it. Right now, he is wondering how much trouble they will get in for killing someone.

Jayce doesn’t seem too worried, if anything, he just seems interested.

‘He isn’t breathing asshole!’ I don’t care anymore. Don’t care that I’m shouting down two of the most feared bullies at school. They could beat the hell out of me again if they liked. Something inside me clicks and the fear is gone. I look down at Elliot’s limp body. I panic and slap him, shake him too.

He remains so very still.

I think of the DSC and what they would do, the training videos on the web. I pinch Elliot’s nose, press my lips against his and breathe into his mouth. I can hear Jayce sniggering as I do so. I push the anger down, and focus on Elliot. His chest rises with my breath slightly, but nothing else happens. I try again and again and again, never sure if I am doing it right.

The two brutes just stand there uselessly. Zac watching with dumb eyes like a Valdo, and Jayce wearing a smirk. Probably scheming about how he could tell the whole school how I kissed Elliot, and how many months of teasing he could get out of it.

Elliot lurches – a painful jerk – coughing up black swamp water. I haul him up into a sitting position, patting him on the back as he coughs some more. His eyes are open now, wide and startled.

I fall back onto my haunches in relief and glare at the other two. Zac’s shoulders have dropped in the same relief as mine but Jayce – he is just as stiff and uncaring as ever. He glares at me as if I’ve simply ruined his fun.

‘You,’ he points at the both of us, ‘You little puffs! I’m gonna—’

He lurches forward to lay into us again but I stand up sharply, placing myself between Jayce and Elliot. That word sparks something inside of me, a complex confusion of emotions. I get all up in Jayce’s, so close I can smell his sour breath. He backs up a little and raises his eyebrows.

‘Oh, you want it first, do ya captain one eye? Like before?’

‘Jaaay,’ Zac pleads. ‘Can we just go now? It’s getting late.’

Jayce snaps his gaze to Zac, then turns fully. Ignoring me, he stomps towards his chubby mate and plants a fist right on his nose. Zac drops like a sack of spuds into the swamp water, screaming clasping at a suddenly bloody nose.

‘Nobody,’ Jayce screams, ‘nobody tells me what to do!’ His voice is so loud it bounces off the buildings, echoing around the place like the roar of a Neo, startling birds into the sky.

Jayce stands over Zac for a few long-drawn seconds, his dark beady eyes burning into Zac’s. Why is he so angry all the time? Why so much hate? I tried to understand, but Dad told me that sometimes we will never figure it out – never know. Looking at Jayce now, here, out in the wild, it is like some monster is wearing a kid suit, disguised so no one will notice. Zac can see it, through watery eyes, he can see.

His tears infuriate Jayce even more. He starts goading him. Barking abuse like a mad dog.

‘Jayce,’ I whisper urgently.

He isn’t listening.

There’s no getting through to him when he’s like this. So, he hadn’t heard that the frogs had ceased their singing. That even the crickets had fallen silent. I press myself back through the water, nudging Elliot to follow me. We slide back, towards the plastic Rex and into the cover of the reedy growing up and around it.

‘Jayce, be quiet!’ I hiss from our cover, daring not to be too loud – or move too suddenly.

The words are like a flame to a firework. He turns from Zac and screws up his face, ready to hurl some abuse and maybe even a fist. He must see it in my eyes – the fear both kids and adults know at a glance. That and the sound of flies, an intense buzzing accompanying the reek of rotting meat.

He probably notices the looming shadow too, stretching over him and along the swampy tufts like a grey ghost in the late afternoon sun. Zac has frozen to the spot, trying hopelessly to shrink into the mud like a frog that hoped it hadn’t been spotted by the kid with the bucket.

The Neovenator is as swift as it is terrifying. Jayce doesn’t even have time to turn before it lunges downward, sinking its dagger teeth into his shoulder. He screams as he’s yanked up and shaken wildly. It reminds me of a dog I once saw in the market ragging a piece of knotted old rope.

Without really thinking, I grab Elliot by the shoulders and drag him deeper into the bushes, disappearing into the comforting thickness. My mind jolts to Zac, but when I glance around, he is nowhere to be seen. The only thing out there is the Neo, its long, bloodied snout glistening in the sun. Such a bright vivid red I’ve never seen before.

Eyes wide, I stare, frozen.

The Neo is a fully-grown adult, at least three meters tall, maybe bigger. It must have been what spooked the Valdoes out into the open earlier. Had been lurking in the trees, hard to spot with its dappled leaf-green skin, arm feathers like palm leaves, and snout crest like gnarled tree bark. It is lean too. Athletically muscular with its tail stretching out behind it like a rod. Flies buzz madly around its head which is cocked in curiosity of what it’s got pinned under taloned.

Jayce was a horrible person, but he didn’t deserve this. I feel a pity welling up. If I hadn’t come out here with Elliot, Jayce wouldn’t have followed. I feel suddenly queasy a and clench my teeth against it, wiping the tears as they push their way out.

We have to be strong now, clever too.

The Neo is busy and has either forgotten about us or hopefully, not even noticed our still bodies halfway in the thick waters of the swamp shrouded by a wall of grass. Mrs Ferwinckle says that a Neo’s eyesight isn’t as good as their hearing, but mostly, they rely on their sense of smell.

I scan the area for somewhere to run. Then I see him, Zac, cowering in the remains of a rusted-out car. How he got there I don’t know, but I’m surprised to feel a sense of gladness he did. Yellowish-green grass, like curtains, conceal him from the Neo. His sunburnt nose just visible, and a truly horrified look in his eyes that makes me doubt that any of us will make it back alive. His eyes suddenly meet mine and widen.

I can sense his relief, that he knows he isn’t alone. I give him a very slow, soundless thumbs up. No brushing the straw-like grass or fluttering the broad leaves. Any slight sound or movement and we are dogmeat.

The Neo lurches up.

It stretches its head high to sniff at air, a ragged arm drooping from its bloodied muzzle. It flings back its head, opening its jaws wide, the tongue curling back to draw the arm in. I have to close my eyes for a second or two and cover my ears until the crunching is over. Puffing my cheeks, I try so hard not to puke and to steady my trembling body.

Half crouched, pressed up the trunk of a plastic tree, Elliot throws up his hands as if to say, What is it?

I shake my head to say, Jayce is gone. I then make the shape of two crests on my nose and turn my hands to become grasping claws. Neo.

Elliot’s face sinks. He slumps a little and I wince at the potential splash of water and crack of branches, but luckily, he makes no sound. I look out again, into the bright light of the day. The air is so clear, everything seems so calm. Never has a day been so real, so high-definition.

The Neo is eating, sniffing, eating. Flies buzzing around its head, crawling all over unblinking eyes. Then more sniffing.

Oh, crap! I turn to Elliot, waving my hand to mime the wind and then waft at my nose to tell him, We’re upwind of it.

He looks left and right and waves his hands in hopeless to communicate, What now?

I place a calm hand over his panicking mouth and now it is me telling him to be quiet. Except this time, there really is a dinosaur.

I give him the thumbs up to say, It’s gonna be okay, and mime, just don’t fart.

He forms a flat un amused line with his mouth and widens his eyes as if to say, That’s not funny.

In class, everyone had laughed at the no smells rule. But now, the serious truth of it is an actual reality. I take another peek.

‘Oh shit, it’s gone,’ I whisper so quietly that I wonder if Elliot even heard me. When I turn to look at him, it’s clear he has.

Out there, the Neo is nowhere to be seen. Just what is left of Jayce half in the mud. I tear my gaze away, hand to my mouth, but it is too late. I wretch into my hands, puking through my fingers into the earthy water. Elliot cowers at the sound, looking around madly. The stink is awful strong.

A loud crack.

The snapping of branches.

As the greenery shielding us from the day parts, Elliot grabs me even as I am still heaving up vomit, yanking me away from the Neo’s jaws as it comes crashing into our hiding place. There is no nose, no roaring, just the sound of grass parting and the sudden stench of carrion rot. We hurl ourselves beneath the legs of the plastic Rex and kick ourselves upright into a stumbling run, our school bags slapping against our backs. The Neo neither notices the plastic dinosaur, nor cares, blasting through it, smashing the already weak fibreglass sending pieces of it crashing into the trees.

We sprint out, darting towards the buildings, running so hard with no care for what is under the murky water, no longer worried about tetanus. We skip twisted metal and duck through great holes in walls until we found ourselves within the indoor section of the mini golf course. It is full of lush green growth wrestling for the light pouring through huge holes in what was left of the caved in ceiling.

We witness, frozen with panic, as the Neo comes bounding out of the trees, a plume of brick dust tracing its rod-stiff tail. The furious animal topples a plastic Triceratops and swipes a dumb looking Stegosaurus away with its head as if it is nothing. The Neo fixes its gaze on us, belts out a furious roar and charges.

Elliot and I scramble through the undergrowth, no idea where we were going, not a clue if we are running to safety or into even more danger. Palm leaves, like broad mocking hands slap wetly in ours face, saw-blade spines of grass slice at our exposed legs, grasping branches claw and tear. My backpack is wrenched from my shoulders. I keep running, following the trail Elliot is furiously blazing. It is then I notice his pack is gone too. Has he even realised he’s lost it? We keep pushing through the thickness of undergrowth until we both run smack bang into a wall painted like jungle.

It hurts, I mean, really hurts. My face feels so tender. In the fear of the chase the pain had been forgotten, but now, it comes crashing into me just like the solid wall. Elliot begins to sob, pressing himself against the wall as if he is trying to climb into the cracked and flaking mural. He gives up then, back sliding down the wall, settling to his haunches. I huddle close to him and he grabs at my hand to wraps his fingers in mine. There in the thick citrus-smelling grass we hold our breaths. I squeeze his hand tightly in return as we listen to the rustling vegetation. I want to close my eyes but for some reason they won’t obey. Instead, breathe deep, like Dad always says too. The thick aroma of lemons fills my nostrils and I allow that scent to take me away.

We both brace when the Neo appears, stalking through the thick undergrowth, drawing in deep breaths through flared nostrils. Its snout darkened with dried blood. Elliot seems to be struggling not to shake, but a calm has come over me. A sort of acceptance, like before, when I had stood up to Zac and Jayce. This is it, I tell myself, it can’t get any worse.

The Neo sniffs, probing for the stink of our fear. Something is wrong though, as if it doesn’t seem to know where we are. The grass. The thought comes to me as strong and as clear as that lemon scent. I want to tell Elliot. To nudge him, get his attention and open his eyes, but dare not move, nor make a sound.

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

The noise is loud, metallic, and heavy.

We watch as the Neo pauses to then lurch up, cocking its head to listen.

Thunk-thunk. Thunk-thunk.

There is a commotion, a cracking of branches, and shriek of metal as it turns taking part of the roof along with it as it leaves. Then, the whole place is quiet.

We finally release our breath.

My heart begins to calm down and the day comes flooding back into my head. I manage to get to my feet, despite wobbly knees, and make certain the thing has gone. The plant-stuffed building seems calm enough, so I bend down and haul Elliot to his feet. He pukes. Coughing and spluttering his apologies as we trace the wall around the inside until we come to another set of doors.

The glass that had probably once filled the paint-flaked metal frame is long gone. We hop through it, pushing aside the broad-leafed plants sprouting there and discover we have entered a huge circular lobby. The plants are fewer in here. It is gloomy but not quite dark enough to prevent any growth at all. Creepers snake up the walls pulling at the plaster, and weeds have shattered the floor, giving it the appearance of sun-baked earth.

Wads of that lemon scented grass have established themselves in the steps of an old escalator. The rusted old thing climbing up to the first floor like the spine of some great robot. Thick vines hang down in vast curtains over the windows and doors. Tiny white flowers blossom there like delicate snowflakes falling in a green sky.

‘Woah!’ Elliot says, his voice echoing in the emptiness. He slaps a hand over his mouth. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbles through fingers.

I shake my head and whisper as lightly as possible, ‘Just keep quiet and follow me.’ I wave my arm.

‘What was this place, Odd-bod?’ Elliot’s voice is a faint murmur.

I study our new surroundings for a moment, trying to figure out where we had ended up. What had once been a café to the left of us was gradually disintegrating into the floor. To our right were the frames of old stores, the fabric slowly rotting away, and across the cracked floor were plastic souvenirs strewn everywhere. Figures, perhaps from an old movie, and some drinks cups. The fabled trophies of Star City, everywhere. Elliot falls to his knees scooping them up as if they are gold nuggets.

‘What are you doing?’

‘We gotta go back with something! I dropped the Rex arm back there.’ His face suddenly creases into dismay. ‘My bag! Where—’

‘I lost mine too,’ I say. Elliot ceases groping uselessly at his shoulders for straps that aren’t there and stares at me.

‘We have to take something back. Otherwise, no one will believe us.’

It seems ridiculous. A boy has died and here we are – here I am – seriously considering my best friend’s words. I feel around in my pockets, pull the tooth out and glare at it. It seems so small, so stupid now. The cause of all our troubles.

I toss the tooth to the ground.

‘What! Hey, what are you doing?’ Elliot stands, spilling plastic cups everywhere as he scrambles to retrieve it. They bounce loudly as they scatter all over the place. ‘I’ll take it if you don’t want it. Geez.’

‘Jayce is dead, Elzi. Dead. Do you get that?’

He flushes. I instantly feel bad for snapping at him. Of course he knows, he was there too.

‘Yeah, Isaac.’ He allows himself to fall back onto his backside, knees by his ears like a folded-up spider, face grim. He looks down at his mud-caked feet, like he does when he’s being told off by his dad. ‘Yeah. So, I’m not going back without something.’ He shrugs and meets my gaze, tears behind his eyes.

We stare at each other for a good long while. To me, throwing the tooth is throwing away Jayce. The grief he’d brought me, the hate he’d used beat me. I was throwing away the fear. The tooth had somehow been dirtied by him – something to detest.

For Elliot, well I guess he sees a token. Some kind of reminder, something suffered for. Either way, I say nothing, just consider the whole mess we are in and so does he. We speak without words. The way best mates do.

A clang, ringing loud.

We both startle. Ready to dash away, eyes searching for the danger when Zac comes bumbling into the lobby, bloodied and muddied. He reminds me of our gerbil, Georgie, when he escaped his cage and appeared three weeks later. Searching, big eyed and wary. Full of the lessons the world beyond its little cage had taught it, evidenced by the new nick in his left ear.

‘Geez! Zac. You’re alive.’ I half shout the whisper. He trembles an uneasy smile back and seems less intimidating now. As if the disguise has been lifted and beneath is just another frightened kid looking to belong somewhere – with somebody.

‘Nice one with the noise,’ Elliot says, breaking the short silence that followed. ‘That was you, right?’

Zac bobs his head so subtly, as though he’s afraid of moving too much. His legs go from under him all of a sudden and he drops to his knees. He plumps his bottom lip, it trembles, and twists into a silent scream as tears stream freely down his cheeks leaving tracks of pink behind. Me and Elliot exchange a worried glance, having never seen him cry before. Together, we decide to walk over to Zac, squat and give him a hug. He flinches at first but after few gulping sobs breaks down completely, nuzzling into us like a beaten dog searching for a desperate for some kind of tenderness.

‘Thanks Zac. What you did … it saved our lives,’ I say, trying make him feel better and wiggle my eyebrows for Elliot to do the same, hoping it will get Zac to stop crying.

‘Er, yeah,’ Elliot begins, that was super brave. I don’t think I could’ve done that.’ He looks at me. ‘Like, really, I don’t think I could’ve done that, Odd-bod.’

‘You did okay, Elzi,’ I say, patting him on the shoulder. ‘Super good.’

 But it seems like Zac can’t hear us. He simply stares blankly ahead, those eyes of his wide and brimming with terror. He’s all scraped up with cuts and grazes, a few purple bruises too. His nose, yellow and swollen. He looks up at me, with the same eyes Jessie sometimes makes me when the wet season storms get too loud and the lightning is too enthusiastic. Those eyes plead for a quick fix, some magic to whisk us out of this forgotten crumbling place. A happy ending where it was all just a dream. Some bad messed-up dream.

But the uncaring sun streams in through gaps in the rotting ceiling illuminating the real world. Long reaching fingers of light to point fun at us, reminding us of the world outside and the safety of Birmingham. A safety we are so very far away from.

‘Don’t worry. We’ll get back. I promise.’ Maybe it is foolish to make a promise like that. But sometimes that’s what you have to do. Dad says adult have to make foolish promises all the time, to themselves, just to keep going sometimes. I found it hard to understand at the time he said that, but now, I get it. Elliot always got it, I think. Each time his dad hits him, Elliot would tell himself that next time wouldn’t be so bad.

‘Look, we have to be really quiet,’ I say to Zac. His sobs are making me nervous and twitchy. I can see Elliot feels the same way too. His eyes dart from side to side at every little creak and groan of this old cinema breathing in the summer sun.

I search the place, wiping my mud-spattered lenses, and find what I am looking for. A patch of green where the light is pushing through. An exit. I stoop to lift Zac.

‘Help me with him, will you Elzi?’

Elliot hesitates for a moment. Zac’s face probably bringing back all those bad memories, the idea of leaving him behind, maybe. I watch him visibly shake away a thought and then crouch to lift Zac under his left arm. We heave him up. His legs are like wet spaghetti. It takes him a minute and then he seems to snap out of it.

‘I’m-I’m, sorry.’

‘Forget it,’ I say, concerned only with the noise he is making. I see something then, deep in his gaze, and the same when I look up to share a moment with Elliot. It’s our childhood evaporating. All three of us know it, but nothing is said. We simply acknowledge that nothing is going to be like it was before. Today is the day everything changes.

A gurgling sound, like a blocked sink suddenly gulping water, snaps our attention up. We all draw in a sharp breath together, hold it, and freeze. The world pulls back on itself and everything seems to pause. The breeze dares not blow. Dust hangs tentatively in the air. It’s almost like hear I can hear the creepers slowly growing, choking the building. Each and every sound the Neo makes is clear and cutting.

A shadow sweeps across our bodies from the direction Zac had come. We halt at the touch of it like little kids playing blind man’s bluff. Watching the long stalking darkness lurch along and pause. The unmistakable sniffing sound and deep crocodile rumbling. It is hunting us, and it is so close. I wonder if it knows we are here. If it had heard our poorly whispered words or maybe smells Zac’s fear, tracing the scent of it, and is simply struggling to find a way in.

‘Wh-wh-what are we gonna do I-I-Isaac?’ Elliot whispers.

I look to the exit across the lobby – we can make it. But so can the Neo. As soon as it figures out it can come right through the thin curtain of green keeping us out of sight, it will be on us in seconds. I stare intensely at the escalators. Elliot follows my gaze and his eyes widen.

‘No way. Seriously? Up there?’

I nod, my face grim. ‘It’s our only chance, it won’t follow us up there. We can run along the balcony—’

‘Then what?’

I shrug. ‘I dunno, hide?’

We are silent, considering our escape, when Zac breaks that quiet. ‘Isaac’s right, Elliot. We have to go up. We won’t make—’

The Neo decides for us.

In a terrifying flash, it bursts through the vine curtain forcing us to bolt off screaming towards the escalator, hopping, stumbling, and lunging up the uneven toothy steps.

It takes the Neo a few seconds to figure out where we were. It lets out a screech so loud that it steals away any hope of getting out of this awful place. My legs burn with the effort of climbing, and my chest feels crushed. The Neo paces back and forth at the foot of the broken-down escalator, seemingly as uncertain as we were.

I am the first to the top, my lungs feel like they hate me. Next is Zac, wheezing through swollen lips, and a broken nose. Elliot is directly behind, clawing the rest of the way up, a twisted look of desperation on his face.

‘It’s okay,’ I say half bent over, sucking in breaths. ‘It won’t come up here.’

Down below, the Neo looks no smaller, in fact it appears even bigger in the confined space of the lobby. It watches us with a cold beady-eyed glare and flies buzzing about its head, and I’m sure it wants nothing but to eat us. There would be no reasoning with it, no remorse. It reminds me of Jayce. That same piercing look, set back in black pits of eyes. For a split second of terror, I imagine that in eating Jayce, it has become him somehow, absorbed his hatred and fury, that it knows who I am and wants revenge.

‘Come on,’ I yell, starting off to find a hiding place. A door to another room or something. I’m not really sure. I figure if it can’t see us it will give up and go away. Zac scoots along after me with Elliot screaming behind.

‘It’s c-c-coming up, Isaac. It’s coming up. You said it w-w-wouldn’t. You said!’

My stomach plunges to my feet and the world threatens to fade away for a few sick dizzy seconds. It is that same sinking feeling just before something really truly bad happens. I want to look back, to see that Elliot is wrong, like before, but I can hear the twisting and moaning of the metal steps. The grinding of concrete supports straining beneath the bulk of something too heavy.

Ahead, rotten double doors hanging off their hinges promise the welcoming dark. I rush for them. It is black inside and smells of damp plaster and mould. Skidding to a stop I back out carefully. The house tree had floors like this, up on the first floor. Even Jessie knew not to go up there. All those rainy seasons had made it so dangerous.

Both Zac and Elliot are screaming along the upper level now, and just struggling awkwardly to the top of the escalator is the Neo. It roars. Like it knows it almost has us. As if it were saying I’m coming to get you.

For a brief moment I don’t know what to do, until my desperate eyes see a door opposite with a mop and bucket sign. I rush to try the lock. It swings inward and rather than damp it’s a dry musty smell, almost spicey. It’s dark in there and goes back where the light doesn’t reach. Past a wall of hanging mops and wheelie buckets.

Elliot and Zac come piling into me and I push them in, promising I have a plan. I grab Zac by the shoulders and heave him just inside the door shouting not to move a muscle. I heave Elliot into the closet with him. The level shakes.

‘W-what are you doing?’

Dirt, plaster, soil, and plants snow down around us with every world-shaking step. I take the door handle and, before I step backwards, I say, ‘Trust me, Elzi.’ I close the door before he can tell me to stop.

I am alone. I imagine the Neo coming with its big smart nose.

This isn’t going to work, it’s Jayce voice. I’m coming to get you. It’s your fault. You deserve this.

I feel the presence of the Neo suddenly in the hallway and my reaction is unconscious and surprises even me. My right-hand dives into my pocket, pulling free the dumb summer hat, scrubbing my armpits with it. The Neo roars and comes bounding down the hall. I let it see me duck into the damp room, but duck to the left as I skim my hat across the floor in the darkness. I hold my breath and close my eyes.

The Neo stomps in straight after it, straight past me, a shrieking crack announces its passage deeper into the room after my stinking hat, a deafening noise like a rockslide and the place shakes. The Neo yelps like a kicked dog.

Silence.

I open my eyes and take three breaths before I dare to look. To creep to the edge of where the rotten floor had been and peer through the settling dust. There, far below, I can just make out the squirming Neo one floor down. The half-light creeping in through the widened doorway glimmering back blood-smeared rubble. It whimpers pathetically, struggling there, half buried beneath blocks of cement and rusted supports.

I don’t hang around to find out how badly injured it is. It isn’t worth the risk. Besides, the noise it made, that will attract others, and that is something we don’t want to have to deal with.

I dash to the closet and open the door slowly and whisper in, ‘Elzi? Chewy?’

Nothing.

My stomach knots again and I swallow hard before stepping into the dark.

‘Guys? Where are you?’

More silence and then, ‘It’s Odd-bod, it’s okay, it’s Odd-bod.’ Elliot steps into the light coming through the door and he’s holding Zac’s hand, leading him along. ‘Is it gone?’ Elliot asks.

I nod my head and smile. ‘It’s gone, Elzi.’ I frown as a thought enters my head that Neo’s don’t talk, so why would Elliot say something like that? ‘Of course it’s me, Elzi. Who else would it be.’

‘We thought you were her,’ Elliot says, pointing back into the darkness of the closet, ‘calling out our names.’

I wrinkle my nose, but look over my shoulder listening out for the Neo. All is quiet, so I turn back to Elliot. ‘Elzi, you’re not making any sense, who?’

‘She’s here,’ Elliot says, bringing Zac forward. Zac who says nothing and looks as pale as a ghost. ‘We found her, Odd-bod.’

A shiver of spiders crawl over my body and my breath is caught in my mouth. No, it can’t be. He has to be wrong, like with the raptor. I step into the darkness of the closet. Racks of cleaning equipment dressed in webs and cloaked in dust either side and there, just visible in the faint light, there is a human form hunched up. She was probably hugging her knees long ago when she came to hide. I recognise the bag at her feet from the stories. The one with the sunflower stitched into it. Her white dress is no longer white but a dirty reddish-brown, the orange flowers now wilted and brown too.

Sara Gardener.

Had we almost shared her fate? Had she come to Star City just like us and been chased here by a younger Neo, perhaps the same one? I like to think it was the same one, and now we got it. ‘We got it for you,’ I whisper to her, as I approach as if I could frighten her bones. I stoop, gently and respectfully and snag her sunflower back and I’m grateful that the hand on the strap releases it.

‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘I’m not steeling it, I promise. Your mom and dad will want this. They’ll want to know.’

I stand and nod my goodbye to Sara gardener, and when I come to the corridor Elliot and Zac are still holding onto each other. I close the door to the closet and turn.

‘I am so sorry. I didn’t know she was in—’

‘It’s okay, Odd-bod,’ Elliot says with a grim expression set on his face. ‘I don’t think I’m ever going to sleep again, but it’s okay.’ His eyes drift to the bag in my hand. ‘Beats a plastic Rex tooth.’

I bob my head and we leave the closet to carefully pick our way down the twisted escalator which barely survived the Neo’s ascent. We find the exit we had originally come through and the rest is a desolate blur. The car park, bounding from one clump of grass to the next, to the treeline, and along until we finally catch sight of the wall, and suddenly that tunnel and the prospect of giant Cretaceous rats doesn’t seem too bad.

A year has passed now since the time in Star City. And like I predicted – everything has changed. There’s a secure lock and video cameras on the grill of the drainage tunnel. No one goes there now without the DCS knowing it. But to tell the truth, the stories that came back with me, Elliot, and Zac that day, and the rumours they had grown into, are far more effective. Mom and Dad actually both agreed on something – not to grounded me. They didn’t have to. They could see it in my eyes, I think.

The new school counsellor, Miss Gladspoke, is kind. She listens to me and helped make the nightmares less and less until they only come every now and then. I’m no longer afraid to sleep. I wish I can say the same for Elliot. When his dad found out, he had given him a pretty bad beating. But something back at Star City had changed in Elliot. Perhaps his dad could never be as scary as that Neo.

Elliot had gone straight to the police this time and the NSPCC got involved. Now Elliot’s dad isn’t allowed within twenty meters of Elliot and his mom. Elliot’s not so much of a motor mouth as he used to be either, but his stutter has gone.

Zac hangs out with us almost all the time now. But usually, he’s away in some far-off place in his own head. He doesn’t join in the games, never speaks – hasn’t spoken since that day. He watches us play, mostly. Ocassionally, he even joins in.

Mr and Miss Gardener cried when me and Mom visited them to give them back Sara’s bag. Mom had washed it carefully and replaced the hair comb with a few strands of Sara’s hair in it. I thought it was creepy but Mom said Mrs Gardener would likely appreciate it. There was a notebook too, the words long blurred out, but the ghosts of Sara’s handwriting remained. Mom said that would mean a lot too.

We made the news, of course. Elliot, Zac, and me. Heroes that finally solved the case of the missing girl and, in school, bad-asses that had a fight with a Neo and won. I’m still gonna join the DCS when I’m old enough. That way I can make sure other kids don’t make the same dumb mistake we did. I’ve finally joined the Junior Dino Club at school and don’t care what the other kids say now. It’s not goofy or lame. Not that anyone would say anything now. Elliot with his plastic Rex-tooth necklace and me with my dumb flowery hat. Mom bought me another one, and it’s even worse than the last, but I never leave home without it.