Fifty Fifty (16 page)

Gil wandered back into the school playground at the tail end of the lunch break, still submerged in his spying adventure, and Louis latched on to him at once.

‘Nice lunch?’ Louis said, spikily.

‘Yeah, not bad.’

‘What did you have, then?’

Slowly Gil started to rise out of the deep place that his daydream had taken him to. Lunch? He hadn’t even thought about lunch. He was absolutely starving.

‘Um – a kebab,’ he said. ‘Actually it wasn’t that nice. I feel a bit crap now.’

‘Right. A kebab. Perfect food for a vegetarian.’

‘I don’t mean a
meat
kebab, you moron.’

‘What other kind of kebabs are there?’

‘Well, it had – uh – peppers, I think, and some kind of cheese . . .’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Gil, just shut up, will you?’ Louis interrupted. ‘I’m getting sick of this.’

‘Sick of what?’

‘Sick of you lying to me the whole time. I’m not stupid. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m getting to the point where I don’t believe anything you say to
me any more.’

‘I’m not lying!’

‘Yeah, sure, Pinocchio. I can see your nose growing from here.’

‘God, some bloody friend
you
are,’ Gil said. He turned away and tried to step back into his daydream, but Louis wasn’t about to stop.

‘You want to know what sort of friend I am? I’m your
only
friend. Because nobody else will put up with you, will they? And I can’t say I blame them. Half the time you
just use me, like when you wanted help handing out those stupid leaflets, and the rest of the time you treat me like a piece of dog poo. I mean, when was the last time we actually
did
anything together?’

‘I’ve been grounded for the last two weeks, remember?’

‘And when are you going to be ungrounded?’ Louis demanded.

‘This weekend. Probably.’

‘So you’ll be coming skating on Saturday, then?’

‘Uh – I don’t think I can, actually,’ said Gil.

‘Oh. What a surprise.’

‘My dad wants me to go into work with him on Saturday.’

‘Liar.’

‘It’s true!’

‘That’s the kind of excuse
girls
come up with,’ said Louis, spluttering with anger. ‘It’s like, “Sorry, I can’t see you tonight, I’m
washing my hair.” You’re
pathetic
. Why haven’t you got the guts to tell me you don’t want to go skating any more? At least then I could ask someone else.’

‘Fine. Ask someone else. Do you really think I care?’

Gil stared Louis down. Louis’ face was so furious it was almost funny. On one of his hands the fingers were twitching as if he might even be thinking of throwing a punch. Just try
it
,
thought Gil. Louis was such a wimp he’d be able to hold him off just by blowing on him.

‘God, you’re unbelievable,’ said Louis finally. ‘When it all goes wrong, don’t expect me to help you get out of it, that’s all.’

‘When what goes wrong?’

‘Whatever it is you’ve got sucked into. It’s bloody obvious there’s something going on. Are you dealing drugs or something?’

‘Why, do you want me to get you some?’ said Gil. ‘What do you want? Weed? Crack, maybe?’

There was a long silence. Gil just waited.

‘Oh, forget it,’ said Louis. He shrugged and walked quickly away.

Result
,
thought Gil. Maybe he’d even shaken Louis off for good. He needed Louis less than ever. Jude was his friend now. And Jude thought he was a hero.

‘Nearly there,’ said Dad. The car purred along the road past the Natural History Museum. ‘In fact we could stop here and walk, if it weren’t for that
little lot.’ He nodded his head forwards.

A short way down the road Gil could see a group of people on the pavement. ‘Who are they?’

‘Animal rights protesters, of course. They’ve got a more or less permanent presence opposite our building. They’re not allowed to demonstrate right outside the entrance any
more because there were several scuffles with our staff and the police moved them on. But they didn’t go far, as you can see, and there’s not much we can do about it. In fact,
it’s one of the main reasons I drive to work.’

Gil looked up at Dad’s building as they drew closer. He had imagined it as a blank prison, but the reality was confusingly different. The walls were made of yellow stone, soft and
expensive-looking, and there were two sets of curving steps leading up to a huge smoked glass entrance. It looked more like a hotel.

‘What would the protesters do if they saw us walk in there?’

‘They’d shout at us, or throw things, perhaps. Eggs and tomatoes are popular missiles. It’s more of a nuisance than anything, to be honest, although the shouting can get
—’

There was a terrific crack, as if something had suddenly snapped inside the car, and Gil jumped in terror. The seatbelt pulled sharply across his shoulder and he felt the hidden camera dig into
his chest.

‘Well, well,’ said Dad calmly. He didn’t either slow down or speed up. ‘That was predictable.’

Yellow slime slid down Gil’s side of the windscreen. One of the demonstrators had thrown an egg. Gil listened to the shock echoing through his body and was finally forced to admit to
himself that he was terrified.

All morning he’d made himself concentrate on the preparations. He’d retrieved the school shirt from the drawer under the bed where he’d stuffed it on Friday so they
didn’t all end up in the wash. He’d removed the button as Jude suggested and cut a small hole to let the camera lens through. He’d dressed and undressed several times, trying on
different T-shirts to see which one hid the wires best, and different trousers to see which ones had the biggest pockets. He’d taped the wires to his skin with thick black carpet tape stolen
from the shed. He’d even made an extra hole through the back of the trouser pocket so the lead from the camera was completely invisible. Then he’d posed like a girl in front of the
mirror, sticking his chest out to see if there was a bulge that gave the camera away, and patting his body to check that none of the wires sprang out. He’d had his desk wedged against the
bedroom door the whole time just in case Mum or Dad tried to come in, though neither of them did.

As he’d followed Dad from the house to the car, Gil had congratulated himself for being so cool, calm and professional. And now suddenly he was rigid with fear. Belly-gripping,
heart-hammering fear. What the hell was he doing? How exactly did he think he was going to get away with this?

Dad glanced at Gil. ‘That frightened you, didn’t it?’ he said sympathetically. ‘There was a time when it frightened me too, but I’m afraid I’m used to it by
now. You can see why I didn’t want you getting involved with those people.’

The car turned a corner and drove slowly down a narrow road between high buildings. There was an electronic barrier across the road. Dad slipped a card into a slot, the barrier rose silently,
and they crept through into a car park.

‘Here we are, then,’ said Dad, getting out of the car and stretching.

Gil’s hand shook as he opened the car door. Dad seemed so relaxed. It really didn’t sound as if he suspected anything, so maybe that meant Gil could pull this off after all. But as
Gil followed Dad away from the car he spotted a security guard walking around the edge of the car park with a big Alsatian pulling at the lead, and immediately he felt his stomach gurgling
unhappily. Then he realised he still had his hoodie on. Crap. If he pressed the record button now, all he would do was film the inside of his clothes.

‘Sorry, Dad,’ said Gil. ‘I need to take this off. I’m a bit hot.’

‘Leave it in the car if you like,’ said Dad. He opened the passenger door again, and then began to mop the egg off the windscreen with a tissue.

Gil pulled the hoodie over his head with hands that didn’t seem to work properly. When he finally wriggled out of it, he saw Dad looking at him in astonishment.

Oh my God, thought Gil. I’ve ripped the wires out. He can see the camera. He can see everything. But before the panic had time to take hold of him Dad gave a wide smile.

‘Good grief, Gil,’ he said. ‘You look a bit smart for a Saturday.’

‘Oh, well, I thought I’d better make an effort . . .’ Gil mumbled. He fiddled with the fake button on his school shirt. He couldn’t get rid of the impression that it was
buzzing, bleeping, flashing out a message loud and clear.
Hey! I’m fake! I’m a camera lens pretending to be a button! Look at me!
Then he slipped a hand into his pocket and
pressed ‘record’ before he could think any more about what he was doing.

‘It’s a shame we’re not going in at the front,’ said Dad. ‘It’s such an impressive building. But this entrance is much safer, and it means we can avoid some
of the more extreme security measures.’

He didn’t say what they were. Gil wondered if Jude had been right about the body scanner. It didn’t help his nerves much.

The back door was just an ordinary-looking metal door, like the back of a fire exit. It took two keys to unlock it. The door opened outwards, Gil stepped in behind Dad, and the door swung shut
again with a clunk.

They were in.

Where were the animals? Gil strained his ears, half-expecting to pick up their cries of distress through the thick walls. But the building was huge. They could be anywhere, even underground.

Dad paused and glanced at the wall beside him. Gil glanced after him, and saw a panel with a keypad and several small lights. Dad checked it briefly, then turned and double-locked the back door
behind them.

A little way up the corridor was a door which Dad opened with a third key. Once they’d both gone through he locked it behind him again. There was yet another door beyond that, and here Dad
pulled something out of his pocket and hung it round his neck. Gil recognised it as the pendant that he’d found in the drawer in Dad’s study. Dad leant forwards and put the silver disc
against a pad that was next to the door. The door whirred open automatically.

‘You’ve got a lot of doors,’ Gil said.

‘We need them,’ said Dad. ‘To keep out the egg-throwers.’

At the end of the short corridor was a flight of stairs leading upwards. Dad took the steps two at a time, humming under his breath. The stairs went round and round for ages. Gil panted after
Dad, worrying again. What if the camera wasn’t working, or there was something blocking the lens?

‘Haven’t you got any lifts in this building?’ puffed Gil as he got to the top.

‘Good Lord, I never use the lift,’ said Dad cheerfully. ‘They’re terribly bad for you. Using the stairs keeps you fit.’

‘Is there a toilet somewhere?’

Dad nodded towards a door, which for once wasn’t secured in some way.

Was it likely they’d have CCTV in the toilets?

Gil went into a cubicle and fiddled with his clothes for a while. Then he went out and looked in a mirror. Nothing seemed out of place. He would just have to hope.

Forget the camera, forget the camera,
Gil told himself over and over again as he stared in the mirror.
Be natural. Be yourself. Relax.

Relax-relax-relax-relax-relax,
thundered his heart.

As Gil came out of the toilet he found Dad leaning against a wall, still singing softly to himself. He was already sick with anxiety, and this glimpse of Dad unnerved him completely. Here was
Dad looking utterly at home, as if home was really a prison and this was the place where he felt set free.
Who are you?
thought Gil. He barely recognised this Dad. He was like someone Gil
had met only in passing.

‘So first of all I thought I’d show you a bit of the new work I’m doing,’ said Dad, setting off down the corridor so fast that Gil had to trot to keep up.

There were two more doors that Dad opened with the pendant, and then they entered a room that seemed entirely white and silver. It gleamed like the inside of a spaceship. There were no windows,
but the lights were white-hot. There was no one else there, and Gil couldn’t see any animals either.

‘This is where I make mice,’ Dad announced.

‘You
make
them?’ Gil was so surprised he briefly forgot his worries about the camera.

Dad laughed. ‘It’s not as science fiction as it sounds,’ he said. ‘We use IVF techniques, that’s all. You know about IVF, don’t you?’

‘Um – you mean making babies artificially in test tubes?’

‘Yes, that’s right. We harvest eggs from female mice and sperm from male mice, and then we make mice embryos here under the microscope.’ He pointed at a big white cabinet with
a glass front.

‘But Dad, why do you have to
make
mice? Why don’t you just let the mice have babies normally?’ Gil was aware he was beginning to sound like the voice-over in a nature
documentary, but Dad didn’t seem to notice.

‘Well, we do, usually. But sometimes we want to try something new, and with IVF we can control so many things. We can engineer mice with specific features to help us in our research. Look.
I’ll show you.’

Dad bounded across the room and slipped on a white doctor’s coat that was folded over the back of a chair. Then he washed his hands quickly at a sink in the corner, and pulled a thick pair
of gloves out of a drawer. He went to a big silver door that ran from the floor almost up to the ceiling and pressed down a lever-shaped handle. A curl of something that looked like steam sneaked
out of the opening and dropped to the floor.