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dressed and lit the candle. They had been wrong to put off starting the days, sleeping late and hoping it would soon be over. They needed to get back to a regular routine, the diurnal rhythm of waking and sleeping. Her body clock said it was morning, and her stomach said it was breakfast time. She allowed just enough milk powder to flavour the water and opened the last packet of cereal. Then she set the kettle on the camping stove to boil and made her announcement. 
    'It's time to get up!' 
    'I'm up already,' Catherine replied. 
    'What's the time?' Veronica muttered. 
    'Time to get up,' Sarah repeated firmly. She shook William awake. He was tired and irritable, refusing to wash his face when she told him to, refusing to eat Shredded Wheat. Shredded Wheat was horrible, he said, and he wanted cornflakes. And when Veronica discovered it was only half past eight she was irritable too. Sarah tried to explain. They needed to discipline themselves to avoid going crazy, and anyway she had heard shooting.
    'And I did,' said Catherine. 'It was up on the hill at Harrowgate Farm. A person with a gun.'
    'Farmer Arkright's got a gun,' William said darkly. 'He showed it to me and Robert Spencer. He said he used it for shooting rabbits and little boys who trespass on his land. I didn't like him. He was horrible.'
    But it might not have been trespassers Farmer Arkright was shooting. It might have been something else. There were eggs, and chickens, and milk cows on Harrowgate Farm. If Farmer Arkright had shot a cow he might give them meat, said Sarah. It would be contaminated but they could still eat it and let Catherine have the tins.
    'You're suggesting I should go there?' Veronica asked.
    'We can't live on potatoes,' said Sarah.
    'I'll take the car,' Veronica said.
    'You could drive to the village and get me a Mars bar,' said William.
    'I'd like my own little torch,' Catherine said wistfully.
    'The ironmonger's mightn't be looted,' said Sarah. 'We could do with more candles and another bottle of camping gas. And if we had some clear polythene we could cover the kitchen window and expand our living quarters.' 
    'Make a list,' Veronica said.
    They tore the fly leaf from the Bible, which was the only book Veronica had not thrown out. They listed everything they thought might be available . . . from the chemist, and the ironmonger, the village supermarket and Harrowgate Farm. It was best to go now, Sarah reasoned, whilst the dust was still falling and people remained in their houses. If they waited until the end of the fortnight there would be nothing left. There might be nothing left anyway, but it gave William something to dream about.
    'Don't forget my tins of Coke and Mars bars!' William shouted as Sarah closed the door and resealed it with sticky tape. 'And don't forget my beefburgers and fish fingers, neither!'
    Sarah listened to the rustle of Veronica's garbage bag steps across the kitchen floor, the rattle of the safety chain and Buster's soft miserable whine. Veronica talked to him sadly, words muffled by walls, and a few minutes later they heard her drive away.
    'I hope she remembers my beefburgers,' William said anxiously.
    Sarah blew out the candle.
    'There won't be any,' Catherine stated. 'You can't have beefburgers without electric'
    'In the village there might be electric,' said William.
    'No, there won't. There's no electric anywhere.'
    'How do you know?'
    'Because I'm in the Junior School and you're only in the Infants,' Catherine said loftily.
    'We could play at schools,' Sarah suggested. 'I could be the teacher and you could be in my class. What's four plus three, William?"
    'You said we wouldn't have to go to school ever again!' William said furiously. 'And I don't want to play schools! I want to play cards like we did last night.'
    But last night's party was over and they could not recapture a time that was gone. They could only sit in the blind black dark waiting for Veronica to come home. And Sarah would not risk