Doctor Who_ Winner Takes All - Jacqueline Rayner [28]
She began to get panicky. The aliens would have heard the phone. They’d tracked it down, pounced on her mum. They’d think she was an alien because she had alien technology; they’d think she was a threat; they’d kill her.
Or maybe they’d heard the phone, and they were still tracking it down, and her mum was too scared to answer it but they hadn’t found her yet, and if she left the phone ringing for just one more ring the aliens would find Jackie and kill her…
Or maybe if she left it for just one ring, Jackie would answer.
She left the phone ringing, knowing it was pointless, not being able to bring herself to put it down, to surrender that one chance of contact.
And then the phone said, ‘The person you are calling has not responded. Please try again,’ and there was a click and then the dial tone.
Slowly, reluctantly, Rose clicked off the handset.
* * *
NINE
All Rose could think of doing was, somehow, finding out where her mum had gone. Maybe she could win a holiday too, and follow her. She still had forty‐two untouched scratchcards, after all. Perhaps one of them was a ‘lucky’ one.
Rose scrabbled in her pocket, dragged out the wodge of cards, began frantically scratching off the silvery covering. No. No. No. No. She began to despair of the Quevvils. Surely they wanted people to win? Surely they wanted an endless supply of players for their deadly games? So why couldn’t they have stuck in a few more winning scratchcards?
Sixteen cards in, and she got a result: not a holiday but another games console. Which was no good, not what she wanted, but something. Twenty‐one cards more, nearly at the end of the pile, and she got another one. Try to look on the bright side: at least that was two winning cards not in the hands of people who might use them, claim their consoles, kill some friends.
Not a single holiday in the whole lot. And Rose still didn’t have a plan.
Maybe Jackie hadn’t left the planet yet, maybe Rose could find out where the ‘winners’ were taken and go there. She’d think of a plan, she knew she would. For now, she decided, she had to get into town, as quickly as possible, and hope that by the time she got there she’d know what to do.
Rose left the flat, locking the door behind her, and hurried down to the road. She stuck out her arm as a bus approached, and it pulled into the kerb. She jumped on it, and waved her pass as she moved in the direction of a seat.
‘Oi,’ called the driver. ‘Oi, you.’
After a second, Rose realised he was addressing her. She backtracked, and looked at him expectantly. ‘Yes?’
‘Let’s see your pass again.’
Her heart sinking, she held it up, smiling, as if she knew that there wasn’t really a problem.
‘That’s over a year out of date!’
She looked at it, so surprised. ‘I’m really sorry. I must have picked up the wrong one by mistake. I won’t do it again.’
But he wasn’t to be swayed by a charming smile and an apologetic manner. ‘That’s £1.20, then.’
‘I don’t have any cash on me,’ she said. Didn’t say, I’ve got out of the habit; I haven’t needed money for months.
‘Can’t let you on the bus then,’ he said. By now the other passengers were starting to grumble. Holding everyone up. Young people these days. Thoughtless kids. Selfish cow.
‘But it’s really important,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to get to town. Please?’
‘Not my problem,’ said the driver, and she could tell that he was enjoying this, that it was the highlight of his day. ‘I’m not moving this bus until you’ve got off it.’
‘It’s a matter of life or death!’ she tried.
But the bus driver was implacable, and the noise from the other passengers was beginning to get ugly, and precious seconds were ticking away, so in the end she had to get off. What did they care that her mum could be on her way to an alien planet right now, could be on her way to her death? Even if she told them that, even if they believed her, they wouldn’t care. The difference between life and death: one pound and twenty pee.
Hating them, hating humanity, Rose started half walking, half jogging her way into town.
* * *
After a