He jabbed his elbow in the ribs of Spencer who had the misfortune to have been placed next to him.
“Zo, vot do you zink, Herr Spenzer?” Marcus asked. “Zat ist der Colditzcaster, ja?”
Spencer ignored him and sipped at the ale as he chewed a mouthful of pie crust.
“All that lard is just going to feed those zits, dude,” Marcus commented with disgust.
Jody didn’t like the look of the model. To her the castle appeared grim and forbidding, a feudal fortress from which privileged nobles ruled the downtrodden lower classes. She gave her attention to the food instead and was relieved to see bowls of fruit on the table. That minchet muck was there among the grapes, pears, pomegranates and apples, but she could easily wipe its acrid residue from them. There were small dishes of almonds and hazelnuts too. She tucked in hungrily.
Christina and the other small children were mesmerised by the castle. Part of them longed to play with it, but they also knew it was a bad thing. It had taken the love of their families away from them. It was fascinating and fearsome at the same time, in the same way that fire had been when they were much smaller.
Christina glanced over to where Jody was sitting and her face clouded with hurt and resentment. Then she picked up a skewer and banged her pewter plate with it. When she was sure she had Jody’s attention, the seven-year-old plunged the skewer deep into the snout of a suckling pig.
Jody started. Christina dug her nails into one of the pig’s glazed ears and tore it free. Jody looked away, wishing she hadn’t been so nasty earlier. She had tried to spare Christina from getting hurt, but perhaps she’d damaged her even more.
There was a remote expression on Jim Parker’s face. With that detailed model in front of him, he could imagine it was a real building and he was flying above it. Jim was a lover of comic books and, since the takeover of Dancing Jax, had immersed himself in them completely. DC, Marvel, he loved them all, but his favourite was the X-Men. If he was a mutant with the power of flight, or maybe even just Superman, he could look down on every building like this. He smiled secretively and pressed the tip of his knife into his thumb when he was sure no one was watching. A blob of blood popped out.
“Not yet then,” he murmured to himself with disappointment. “How much longer?”
Spencer felt another dig in the ribs.
“Wouldn’t it be awesome if a topless dancer jumped out of that castle right now, like it was a big cake?” Marcus laughed. “I would so love that!”
Spencer didn’t hear him. Something had been gnawing away at the back of his mind the whole afternoon. From the time they had been shown their cabins it had been there – a vague sense of wrongness. Of course there was the unease and dread that they all felt, knowing they were here to get brainwashed. But this was something else, something more tangible and immediate. Suddenly it struck him and he sat upright. He stared around at the other children and fizzed with the satisfaction of having worked it out.
He had to tell someone, but he didn’t want to speak to Marcus so he turned to the boy on his right.
“Thirty-one!” he blurted excitedly. “There’s supposed to be thirty-one of us! The Lockpick guy said so, didn’t he?”
Tommy Williams dropped his fork and cowered away from him. Cringing, he waited for the inevitable punch.
“I didn’t do nothing wrong!” he cried, covering his face.
Spencer was shocked at how scared he was. He couldn’t begin to imagine what cruelty the boy had endured since the publication of the book. Perhaps it went back even further than that? Only Tommy knew. Spencer simply understood that he had to make him feel better as soon and as best as he could. He was too hesitant, insecure and self-conscious to put his arm round the boy and cuddle him as Sam had done earlier, so he did the only thing he could think of. He tickled him. For the first time in months, Tommy Williams laughed and laughed.
“Stop! Stop!” he begged hysterically. “I’ll wee!”
It was Spencer’s turn to shrink away and he turned back to his food hastily. Tommy slid down in his chair, out of breath and giggling.
“What was you on about, Herr Spenzer?” Marcus demanded. “Thirty what?”
Spencer adjusted his spectacles and twitched his shoulders.
“The Lockpick said there’s eighteen girls and thirteen boys,” he began. “But there aren’t. Count them – there’s only seventeen girls.”
“So? The old git can’t add up.”
“Or one girl still hasn’t arrived yet.”
Marcus immediately became intensely interested. “Herr Spenzer!” he exclaimed, punching him on the arm. “If you’re right and if she’s a babe, I’ll buy you some spot cream!”
Lee Charles ate in silence. He watched everyone: the little groups who were tentatively getting along, the young kids slowly opening up to their neighbours, testing those strangers with small questions and giving timid answers. He saw the Indian boy, Rupesh, staring unhappily at the food before him. He didn’t touch any of the meat and pushed the watered-down ale away. Lee wondered what his home life was like now. All religions in the UK had been affected by Dancing Jax. Worshippers still attended the churches, mosques, temples and synagogues, but it was only through habit and the perceived need to continue acting out what they believed were their pretend lives here. How long would that continue, he wondered?
Lee’s own grandmother had been a devout Christian her whole life. Her immaculate front room, which he had been forbidden to enter unaccompanied until the age of ten, was filled with her treasures such as the old radiogram as big as a sideboard, glass swans, photographs of the family and a framed print of a painting called Christ at Heart’s Door. Every Palm Sunday she would bring home the small cross she had been given at the service and tuck it behind the print where it would remain for twelve months. This year she hadn’t and the once beloved picture had been replaced with one of the many views of Mooncaster that were now in the shops. The last time Lee visited his grandmother he had discovered the print hidden down the side of the china cabinet.
He looked over to where the Ismus was sitting with the Jacks and Jills. Nothing about Lee’s face betrayed the anger and hatred he felt towards the Holy Enchanter. Under the table his fist closed slowly and he imagined the weight of a gun in his hand. In his mind’s eye he saw himself holding it sideways, like in the movies and music vids, and busting caps into that scrawny poser. That would be so sweet. He turned his head before the grin became too large and watched the wenches passing in and out of the kitchen. From the glimpses afforded through the swinging door, he saw that no alterations had been made in there. It was electric lights, brushed steel surfaces and magnolia paintwork.
He placed a piece of pie on his trencher, smashed it flat with the heel of his hand then slapped it on to a slice of bread, folded it over and ate it. His mind ticked steadily.
Along the next table, Charm was making cooing noises as she drank in the castle model.
“I’m gonna hang pink curtains in one of them windows when it’s my turn,” she promised, with a big smile to the cameras she had gathered about her. “Whoever I turn out to be, I just know I’ll be painting everyfink pink. I loves it I do.”
She posed and performed for the lenses then carved a slice of pheasant for herself, declaring it to be “a ropy-looking chicken” but everything else was “carb city”.
“Bread, pies, beer and pasties!” she exclaimed, raising her hands in mock horror. “All the bad stuff! Go straight to my bum that would. Good job there’s no spuds or I’d make a pig of myself. I love spuds. There ain’t any in Mooncaster though, is there? Not invented yet or summink my ma says. God knows what I’ll do