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“Eh?” Steiner realized he was being addressed. He looked at Preacher John, his face still half smiling from what he’d just witnessed.

“Don’t you dare grin at me. They’d do the same to you, given half a chance. Or to me. They’re getting too dam’ big. But I’ve got no time to make any changes, so just watch ’em. And you’ – Preacher John turned to his eldest son – ‘see that you take a lesson from this.”

There was no explanation as to what this lesson might be. Instead Preacher John raised his right arm towards Isaac, then brought it sharply down, snapping his great fingers together as he did so. The sound echoed around the corridor like a pistol shot. Like a whipcrack...

Perhaps that was the lesson. They were all dogs – boys, capos and salvage crew alike. And Preacher John held the whip.

“Now get these kids working,” he said. His tone towards Isaac was cold, utterly in command. “I want this job finished by Saturday night. If you can manage that.”

A final glance along the line of boys and Preacher John moved away, continuing his progress towards the dark end of the corridor, footsteps as silent as the shadows that eventually closed behind him.

Isaac watched him go, his eyes narrowed and resentful. Then he turned abruptly and walked in the opposite direction. The divers picked up their gear and followed him. As they passed through the main entrance doors, someone muttered something, and there was a low chuckle. Baz got the impression that it wasn’t Isaac who was laughing.

“Get him up then.” Steiner seemed subdued for once.

The boys began helping Amit to his feet.

He didn’t seem to be too badly hurt – able to stand at any rate – but his face was streaked with tears, and Baz felt sick with the shame of what they’d just done.

“God, Amit...”

“Man, are you OK?”

They spoke as though Amit had just had an accident or something. Everyone gathered round their dishevelled companion, apparently to dust him down, check him for injuries, but what they were really doing was finding an excuse to touch him, looking for a way of saying sorry without actually using the word.

Baz was the first to attempt any kind of apology, or to admit any blame.

“Amit... I’m really sorry. Sorry, mate. We didn’t... we couldn’t...”

“Yeah, sorry, Amit.”

“Sorry.”

Everyone was joining in, then, saying sorry and shaking their heads as though they couldn’t understand what had come over them. And it was impossible to explain. Whatever had just happened had been beyond their control, and apologies seemed pointless. It almost came as a relief when Steiner cut them off short.

“Oi! We’ve got work to do. He’ll live, so quit your blethering. Grab those ropes and pickaxes, and follow me. Come on – stop sodding about!”

So they let Amit be. Baz picked up one of the ropes, and the crew trooped out of the main entrance in silence.

They didn’t have far to go. Instead of leading the way towards the jetty, Steiner walked just a short distance along the tarmac path and then came to a halt next to the school sign – the tall slab of stone that rose from the overgrown grass verge. He waded through the grass and took out his tape measure.

“Right,” he said. “We’re digging this up.”

Steiner paid out the metal rule until he was able to hook the end of it onto the top edge of the stone monolith.

Baz stared up at the neatly carved words. 
TAB HILL HIGH SCHOOL.
 Digging it up? Why?

“Two and a half meters tall,” said Steiner. “Metre wide – just over. Probably another meter underground. That’d be about right. OK. You... and you’ – he pointed at Dyson and Baz – ‘you use the picks. The other two get digging with the shovels. Come on.”

Baz had never held a pickaxe before. It was heavy and awkward, and it quickly became apparent that it was the wrong tool for digging through thick grass. The point of the pickaxe head simply disappeared into the vegetation, and either got stuck or failed to even reach the earth beneath.

“All right,” said Steiner. “Pull up the grass first then.”

Progress was slow and painful. Come midday there was a roughly circular trench surrounding the stone, dug down to a depth of about thirty centimeters. This was a job that was obviously going to take some time, and there had been no explanation as to why they were doing it. When someone had ventured to ask Steiner about it, he simply said, “Orders.”

And then things got worse. They discovered that the huge sign had been mounted in concrete. For the moment it was impossible to see just how much concrete there was – how far it extended or how deep it went. There could be a ton of it down there for all anyone could tell. But there was no going through it. The only option was to dig around it.

“Great,” said Amit. “Welcome to Treasure Island.” These were the first words he’d spoken since the morning’s incident.

“Shut up and keep digging,” growled Steiner.

Later, in the slob room, as they sat on their mattresses, Baz tried to explain to Ray what had happened.

“It was like we’d all gone mad,” he said. “And it was like... like it wasn’t really Amit at all. Once he was on the ground, he was just this... thing.” He looked down towards the other end of the room, where Amit sat with some of the others. The group were talking quietly among themselves – probably about the same subject. Baz tried to recall the moment when he had been hauled off by one of the divers; the sense of... disappointment?

“Yeah,” he said. “It was like we were kicking at something else. This place, maybe. Yeah, this. All of this.” He shrugged it off. “Hey, I think I’ve got a fart coming on. Better go and add to the store.”

“I wouldn’t have done it,” said Ray. “Not if it had been you. I couldn’t have.”

Baz had no reply to that. He wanted to say, 
Well, you weren’t there
, but then he wondered if he would have acted in the same way if it had been Ray who was down on the floor. He tried to picture that. Would it have been any different if it had been Ray?

He changed the subject. “So how’s it been in the sort room?” he said.

Ray stared down at the palms of his hands. “Scary,” he said. “Hutchinson told me that Steiner’s gonna smash the drain cover in.”

Baz forgot all about his rumbling gut, the build-up of gas that he’d been carefully harbouring. “What?”

“Yeah. With a sledgehammer. Isaac said he could. Steiner told him it’s got jammed somehow, and the handle has to be turned. So the thing is, Baz, the drain’ll soon be open again. Probably by next Sunday...” Ray’s voice faltered. “And that scared me, but I didn’t say anything. And then you know what Hutchinson said? He said, “I hope for your sake we don’t find that that cover’s been stuck down somehow. “Cos if someone’s been damaging Preacher John’s property, then they’re really for it.” Looks like they figured it out. So now I reckon it’s gonna be even worse than before – what they do to me...”

Ray brushed the back of his hand across his eyes, and Baz felt his heart lurch within him. He reached out, not caring how his actions might be interpreted by anyone watching, and grasped Ray’s hand, feeling the smear of dampness on his own palm.

“It’s not gonna happen,” he said. “So don’t even think about it. We’re gonna win. We’re gonna do what we said we’re gonna do, and get rid of the lot of ’em. We’ve just got to hang on, yeah? Hang on till we get it figured out. Just a bit longer, yeah?”

Ray nodded. His head was down.

They sat like that for a while with their hands clasped in each other’s. And though the light flickered above them, and other boys came and went, passing by on their way to the jakes, and though there may have been whispers and a few quizzical looks, neither of them made any attempt to pull away.

It was Gene who eventually broke them up. He walked past waving a green balloon. 
PARTY TIME!

“Hey,” he said. “Fart Club. Come on, you guys – no backsliding.”

Baz laughed. “OK.” He looked at Ray. “Are you in?”

Ray shook his head. “Maybe in the morning. That’s the way it works with me.”

“OK.” Baz let go of Ray’s hand and stood up.

“You all right?”

“Yeah, I’m all right.”

*  *  *

By Friday Isaac was becoming impatient. He came out to see what progress had been made on digging up the school sign.

“What’s keeping you?” he said to Steiner.

“It’s this chuffin’ great lump of concrete,” said Steiner. “We’ve dug all around it, but we can’t get the chuffin’ thing to budge. We—”

“Oi. Watch your language.” Isaac looked down into the broad pit that now surrounded the stone sign. The boys worked on, conscious that they were being watched. Three days it had taken to reach this point. The huge lump of concrete that the tablet had been set into was now exposed – like the root ball at the base of a tree – but the stone itself stood as firm as ever.

“Have you tried the ropes?” Isaac said.

“Nah. These kids couldn’t pull a twig out of the ground. They’d never shift this.”

Isaac grunted. “Right. We’ve wasted enough time on this dam’ nonsense already. Wait there.”

He went back into the building.

Ten minutes later he returned, and this time he had the salvage crew in tow. The boys clambered out of the pit, and Isaac set about looping ropes around the top of the stone slab.

“We’ll take her out edgeways. It’ll be easier to get at the concrete then. Amos, Luke, get on that rope. I’ll take this one with Moko.”

The men spat on their hands and grabbed the nylon ropes.

“After three, then.” Isaac leaned back and got a foothold on the trampled-down earth. “One, two, 
three.”

The men threw themselves into action, straining against the ropes, and the top of the stone began to shift sideways – just a few centimeters at first, but it was enough to encourage an even mightier effort. Jaws set, eyes bulging, the salvage crew kept up the pressure, leaning almost horizontally, repositioning their stances as the stone continued to move.

“OK. Stop for a moment and take another grip. She’s coming – though God knows why we’re killing ourselves like this.” It was clear that Isaac’s heart was not in the job. “Poxy thing. Right, let’s go again, then. After three.”

Baz watched the men, and once again felt a sense of his own feebleness. This display of brute power was another reminder of just what they were up against.

The stone lay sideways at an angle of about forty-five degrees. It would go no further, the edge of it now against the rim of the pit it stood in. But the lump of concrete had lifted to the point where most of it could at least be seen. A fringe of blue material was visible, protruding from where the slab had been set into the concrete mix. Isaac jumped down into the pit for a closer inspection.

“Polythene,” he said. “Should be able to knock this stuff off all right, then. Steiner, bring the pickaxes back to the storeroom and get these kids some hammers instead. Sledgehammers, lump hammers, whatever we’ve got. Break up this concrete. And keep the ropes tied on – you’ll need them later.”

“OK, Skip. Do you want me to break up that drain cover too while we’ve got the sledgehammers out? Might as well.”

“Nope. Leave it alone until I tell you. Get this done first.”

Baz felt his heart rate rise, and then subside again.

They found that the concrete had been made to a fairly loose mix, not as rock hard as it had first appeared. The fact that the base of the slab had been sheathed in polythene meant that the concrete broke away in satisfying chunks beneath blows of the sledgehammers.

But the job itself was difficult and dangerous. The boys stood two to each side of the pit and took it in turns to attack the slab, bits of stone flying in all directions. Baz was dizzy with fatigue, muscles aching, head swimming. He raised his sledge hammer for the hundredth time and prepared to swing... but then the spot that he was aiming at seemed to move. Baz blinked the sweat out of his eyes, and realized that the slab was tilting, coming towards him. Everyone was suddenly yelling his name. “
Baz! Baz!”
He dropped the sledgehammer, stumbled sideways to avoid the on-coming slab, and tripped. As he rolled over onto his back, he saw that the stone sign was closing down upon him like the lid of some huge box. Too late to think straight, too late to do anything but follow instinct – Baz pushed backwards on his elbows, frantically wriggling towards the edge of the dug-out pit. The stone heeled over in a kind of awful slow motion, blocking out the sky, the chiselled words bringing their message of doom: 
TAB HILL HIGH SCHOOL
...

There was just time for Baz to get the palms of his hands flat against the huge monolith as it came, pressing him to the earth, the big red letter S looming straight at his face. Gasping, screaming at the terror of being crushed alive, Baz turned his head sideways and pushed at the stone. He felt his elbows and shoulder blades digging into the soil beneath him, the air in his lungs being squeezed out of him, and heard the sound of his last hopeless cry, amplified in the confined and shrinking space.

Then, as he shoved with all his might against the weight crushing down on his body, the pressure eased, and the slab began to rise upwards. For a moment Baz thought that he’d found some superhuman power, that he really was lifting a ton of stone from his chest with his own bare hands. His terror had given him the strength of ten men – twenty men – strength far beyond that of Isaac and his crew...

But the stone carried on rising until it floated out of the reach of his fingertips, and Baz realized that it had simply tipped up like a seesaw, pivoting on the edge of the pit to lie flat on the ground above. The shorter end of it had been raised, and was now suspended over his head. Baz rolled sideways, preparing to scrabble out of the way, and in that moment the last big lump of concrete fell from the underside of the slab. It landed with a dull and heavy thud, right beside him.

As Baz emerged from beneath the great tablet, heart thumping, he saw a ring of pale faces staring down at him, all of them wearing the same horrified expression. All but one.

“Ha. I always said he looked like something that just crawled out from under a stone.” Steiner’s slack-jawed face split into a grin.