The End by Charlie Higson

give orders, but he’d only picked them up from watching war films and playing computer games. He didn’t really know what most of the commands meant and he kept forgetting how he’d used them before, and ended up giving the same command to mean something completely different. He just hoped the troop didn’tnotice.
    He got them marching, shouting things at them like ‘assume the position’, ‘blue on blue’, ‘present arms’, ‘extraction point’, ‘watch your six’ and ‘fubar’.
    ‘Can’t we just do some fighting?’ Sam asked when they stopped for a rest. ‘Drilling’s boring and a waste of time. What difference does it make if we can march in step with each other? Or put our spears on ourshoulders at the same time? That won’t help us in a battle.’
    ‘It’s all about discipline, soldier,’ said Paddy. ‘It’s about making you obey orders quickly without having to think.’
    ‘But if a grown-up’s attacking me I can’t wait for anorder to defend myself. I’ll just do it, surely? And anyway the orders don’t make any sense. Eyes right and slope arms and fire in the hole.What we need to learn is how to use our weapons properly.’
    ‘All right, all right. We’ll do that. We’ll do some more drilling tomorrow.’
    ‘Tomorrow?’ said Wiki. ‘You mean we’ve got to do this every day?’
    ‘Of course we’ve got to do this every day. How else are you going to learn to be soldiers otherwise?’
    ‘Actually I don’t really want to be a soldier,’ said Wiki.
    ‘Meneither,’ said Jibber-jabber. ‘It’s boring.’
    ‘But we’re going to fight now.’
    ‘Fighting’s boring too.’
    ‘I like fighting,’ said The Kid. ‘The old one two, in out in, snickersnee, snickers bar, have at thee, varlet, I regret that I have but one life to give, they don’t like it up ’em, Ken clean-air system, whammo!’ The Kid illustrated this outburst by throwing some fightingmoves and fake punches that scared no one.
    ‘Yeah,’ said Paddy. ‘What he said. Probably. Let’s do it then. Fall in!’
    Nobody moved.
    ‘I’m really confused now,’ said Sam. ‘I can’t remember what we’re supposed to do when you shout “fall in”, and the more you shout it, the less sense it makes.’
    They were outside the museum, over to the west side, in front of the new extension.Sam could see the huge white concrete pod thing behind its high glass wall, and right up there at the top was where Einstein and his team of scientists were trying to find a cure for the disease.
    Sam had been really freaked out when the Green Manhad said that he was the one who would save them, that he had something in his blood that could fight the disease. The Green Man saidhe could smell it. Had known it from the start. Sam had never wanted to be special, never wanted to be different. All he wanted was to find Ella and for the two of them to be safe together. Other kids looked at him funnily now, and he knew the older ones, the fighters, were trying to protect him. Einstein had taken some of his blood. He hadn’t liked that at all. He didn’t like needles.He didn’t like blood, even though he’d seen buckets of it this past year. And worse. Somehow it was different when it was your own. Einstein had made very sure everything was clean and sterilized and used a load of antiseptic and a brand-new needle. Sam had no idea what they were going to do with his blood, but they were up there now, working away.
    Making a cure.
    Was that evenpossible? And, if it was, how were they ever going to use it? How were they going to get close enough to the grown-ups to inject them? It made no sense. How much blood would Sam need to give? There were so many of them. He’d be drained dry.
    ‘Eyes right!’
    Paddy had spent ages setting up a fighting arena in a sunken terraced area surrounded by steps you could sit on. He had somestuffed dummies and a sort of assault course thing. Ben and Bernie, the emo engineers, had helped him, but Paddy had