Breakdown by Sarah Mussi Page B

racetrack below comes laughter. A dog barks. More laughter. They don’t know we’re out.
    Yet.
    Lenny’s small frame convulses. The air grows tight around us. The seating above shakes a little.
    â€˜Shush.’
    â€˜Careem ain’t thinking,’ mutters Tarquin. ‘I’m his best scout. I got the shoes. I got him loads of stuff.’ He shakes his head and looks at me, perplexed, betrayed. And I know I’m one of those things he got Careem.
    I look back.
    His eyes are saying sorry.
    â€˜Please let’s go with Missa?’ Lenny’s voice is all broken.
    â€˜Where is this place?’ says Tarquin, holding up the key.
    I point to the letters at the bottom of the key ring. He frowns. Maybe he can’t read. ‘Scotland,’ I whisper. ‘It’s in Scotland.’
    â€˜But Scotland’s dirty,’ says Tarquin. ‘Everyone knows they nuked the place. It ain’t safe. Nobody goes there.’
    â€˜It was polluted once,’ I say, ‘but it isn’t any more.’
    It’ll be fine.
I remember Nan saying once, ‘If you leave nature alone, she’ll heal herself. Time. That’s all it takes. Time. And everything will grow back.’
    Lenny raises his head from Tarquin’s chest, sucks in his bottom lip. ‘Please, Quinny? Missa says  … ’ His voice comes in gulps. ‘It’s got rabbits – and them rabbits can’t live in no dirty places.’
    I stay quiet. Lenny will say it better than me.
    And anyway this debate on whether it’s polluted or not is nonsense.
    Because we’re not going to go there.
    Because even though I’ve started to believe in it myself, that cottage in Scotland doesn’t exist.

18

    Seconds seem like hours, minutes like years. We hear people come and go. A sudden burst of shouting. Yells. Barks. I crouch, terrified our escape’s been discovered. Then silence. Laughter. Hooting. Hollering.
    And in the calm that follows I remember something.
    Tunnels.
    And Nan saying, ‘When I was nine years old, and they’d finished building the Olympic Stadium and were ready to play the games, they created a spectacle. A grand opening. They called it “Isles of Wonder”. All the world watched. They sat at home and watched on their tellies.’
    I’ve seen plenty of tellies. Never one working though.
    Nan said it was magical. And it wasn’t just jumping around and singing and banging pan lids, either.
    There were towers that rose out of the ground, and people that came out of nowhere in cars and on bikes and in taxis, then disappeared like smoke. Thousands of people and whole hospitals and power stations and giants. And I believed her.
    I still do.
    â€˜Tunnels,’ I whisper.
    Tarquin turns his face towards me. ‘What?’ he mouths.
    â€˜There were tunnels under this stadium. Some of them must lead out.’
    He crouches low. ‘Why d’you think that?’
    â€˜My nan told me about them.’
    â€˜There are,’ whispers Lenny.
    â€˜You been in one?’ Tarquin twists to look at him.
    â€˜They sent me down one, once.’
    â€˜Who sent you? Where?’ Tarquin presses his face closer.
    â€˜Them bigger boys. One of ’em said he reckoned dogs could get in. It were big and he sent me down there.’
    â€˜Where exactly?’
    â€˜They blocked it up wiv rubbish,’ says Lenny. ‘It’s under them trash hills.’ He stops. His face drops.
    Tarquin’s shoulders sink too. ‘That trash is baggy. Ain’t nobody going to shift that pile a garbage without getting noticed.’
    â€˜But there must be other tunnels,’ I whisper. ‘There must be. Nan says they brought in beds and loads of them and doctors and nurses were all jumping on them. There’s got to be tunnels big enough to bring in thousands of beds, all at the same time.’
    â€˜Lenny means the old entrance to the arena. It