Doctor Who_ Winner Takes All - Jacqueline Rayner [42]
And they had picked her –
– and that was real.
Robert didn’t believe what the people said. He didn’t believe that was what was happening.
‘You won’t hurt him! I won’t let you take him!’
Robert didn’t think the porcupines could really tell the humans apart, either; they weren’t picking or leaving behind anyone in particular; it was just chance. Some people obviously thought they picked whoever was nearest to hand, and they tried hiding behind everyone else. Robert despised people like that, the cowards. But then other people pushed him to the back, tried to protect him because he was the youngest there, and although he told them not to he didn’t push them out of the way, didn’t yell, ‘No, take me instead!’ Not like his mum had.
He was desperate to be brave, desperate to be a hero, but it was his mum who’d been the real hero.
And heroes always came back. They always beat the odds against them.
At the moment, there was Robert, and there was the blonde girl and her mum. The girl’s name was Sarah, not that she spoke to him, because girls didn’t even in life‐or‐death situations, but he’d heard her mum call her that. Sarah’s face swapped between the most perfect sneer and the most gorgeous pout Robert had ever seen. She’d cried a bit, at first, but now just looked bored. There were four couples at various degrees of agedness: the Nkomos (old: probably in their thirties), the Catesbys (very old: probably forties), the Snows (ancient: fifty or so) and the Atallas (in their sixties: practically dead). They were all new arrivals. Everyone kept out of the way of the Snows, who didn’t seem to realise what was happening and kept trying to insist that they must talk to someone in charge.
There was a man called Daniel Goldberg, whose wife had been taken away, and who now just sat in a corner crying, and another man, probably aged twenty or so, who was wearing a suit and tie and had been virtually in hysterics since he arrived. He’d said his name was George, as far as he could be understood through all the whimpering and screaming, and Robert thought he was pathetic. He hoped he’d be taken next. Then there was an old granny called Mrs Pobjoy, who said it was just like the war and kept trying to organise sing‐songs. At the moment, she was giving everyone a rousing chorus of ‘Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag’, but Robert really couldn’t see that they had anything to smile, smile, smile about, although they might do if she stopped.
Suddenly a loud grating, rasping noise began echoing around the room. It sounded like some great engine grinding into life, and everyone started in terror. ‘It’s the mincing machine!’ shouted George. ‘They’re going to eat us all!’ He tried to grab Mrs Nkomo to pull her in front of him. Mr Nkomo pushed him back and looked as if he was about to punch George. Robert didn’t blame him.
But then the thing appeared, and grabbed everyone’s attention. If it was a mincing machine, it was stranger – although less scary – than any Robert could imagine. The thing arrived out of nowhere: a blue box, taller than a man, with a flashing light on top and little windows high up on the sides – sort of like a small blue shed, only it had the words ‘Police Public Call Box’ written on it.
Everyone stood staring at it for what seemed like a very long time, but was really only seconds. Mrs Atalla said to her husband, ‘It’s a police box. Like they used to have,’ and her husband said, ‘I remember.’ They stared at it, standing hand in hand, which was pretty disgusting for people of their age.
Then the doors of the police box opened, and a man stepped out.
He was a tall man who looked a bit like some of the trendier teachers at school – he had really short hair, and was wearing a really cool battered leather jacket that Robert coveted immediately. If Robert’s dad ever did turn up, he’d like him to be a man who looked like that. And, actually, he’d quite like him to be a man who appeared out of nowhere in a blue box as well.
And then the second person came out of the box, and Robert forgot all about the man, and