I did, though. I had to yell at him at least twice a" once when he thought he'd heard a noise (and nearly lost the plot), and another time when his legs suddenly buckled, for no apparent reason, so that he slid to his knees with a squeak of dismay.

*I can't breathe!' he croaked. *I can't a" I can'ta"'

*You're fine,' I said crossly.

*I feel sick!'

*It's just a panic attack,' I hazarded. *It's nothing.'

*It is! I can't see!'

*Of course you can't see. It's pitch black in this tunnel.' He didn't move, though, and I lost my temper. *Get up! Right now! Or I'll leave you here!'

*No! Don't leave me!'

*I will if you don't move!' Needless to say, this was an empty threat. Without Sergio's help, I had no way of climbing out of the pool. But he was too distraught to remember this all-important fact a" and I certainly wasn't about to remind him of it. *You don't hear me complain, and my head is splitting!' I concluded. *So why don't you just suck it up and gimme a break?'

When at last we arrived at the hatch, I was fully prepared to punch Sergio in the nose if he gave me any more trouble. I realise now that I was being unfair. The poor guy was half-crazy, thanks to what he'd been through; it wasn't his fault that he kept sniffing and whining and being a total nuisance. Luckily the fresh air did wonders for him. As soon as I pushed the hatch open, his mood changed. He became a different person, enthusiastically spouting helpful suggestions while we manoeuvred our drum through the narrow opening.

*We forgot the sheets!' he lamented. *Should I go back for them?'

*No.' I couldn't believe he was even offering. *We can use the chain instead. It might be long enough.'

*I wish we had a torch,' he whispered, scanning the rim of the pool. Above us, the moon was still glowing in an inky sky. *I wish we had shoes.'

*Yeah. Well a" I wish we had a lot of things.'

*Do you know where we are?'

*Nup.'

*It doesn't smell like a town, does it?'

I flashed him a look, thinking: So you really are like me . For the first time, I felt as if we were on exactly the same wavelength. *You can smell that, huh?' I inquired.

*Yeah. Can't you?'

*Oh, sure.'

*What about trying a corner? That corner over there might work, don't you think?'

I agreed. The corner of the pool was a good place to start. By wedging myself into the angle where two walls met, I would have more support while Sergio was balancing on my shoulders. That was Sergio's theory, anyway a" and it made a lot of sense. So we positioned our steel drum in one corner; then I gave Sergio my chain and climbed onto the drum, before Sergio tried to climb onto me.

Boy, he was heavy. I hadn't been expecting such a dead weight. When I squatted down so that he could sit on my shoulders, I wasn't able to rise again. Even with my forearms pressed against the enfolding walls, I didn't have what it took to launch him skywards. My knees weren't strong enough.

*Okay, wait,' he said. *I'll get off so you can stand up. Then I'll start again.'

*How do you mean?' I wasn't reassured. *What are you going to do?'

*I'm going to pretend you're a ladder,' he rejoined. And that's exactly what he did. While I stood with my shoulders hunched, my chin tucked into my chest and my face pushed into the corner, Sergio hoisted himself onto my back. Using my hipbones as footholds, he wriggled up until his knees were clamped on either side of my neck.

I was surprised at how nimble he was, until I remembered how nimble I was. Perhaps he had quick-growing hair as well.

*This is great!' he breathed. *I can almost touch the edge!'

*Ow! Ouch!' It felt as if my collarbones were about to snap. *Be careful . . .'

*I'm gunna stand up now. Okay?'

*Hang ona"'

*I won't tread on your ears, I promise,' he assured me.

The next bit was dire. I couldn't help squealing. He placed one foot on my left shoulder and shoved down hard, before lurching upright with a mighty grunt. I nearly toppled.

*Look out!' I squawked.

*Got it! I got it!'

* Yeowch! '

*Gimme a push, quick!'

I did my best. Bracing myself against the wall, I reached up to grip his ankles. Then I gave a huge shove, nearly dislocating half a dozen joints in the process.

* Gnnn! ' Flailing around desperately, he caught me a glancing blow on the head with his foot. * Aah-aaha"'

*Yeowch!'

Suddenly the weight was off my shoulders. I could breathe again. My arms and neck were aching.

I peered up and saw the black silhouette of a leg against a paler, star-studded canopy.

*Sergio?'

*Ooof!' The leg vanished.

*Are you okay?'

*Ow!' A pause. *Bloody hell!' he continued, his voice sounding faint and muffled. *There's razor wire!'

*Oh. Yeah.' I'd forgotten to warn him.

*It's okay. It's not high. I'm stepping over it.'

I heard a scuffling noise, followed by a few more grunts. I waited. And waited.

*Sergio?' When he didn't speak, I began to feel scared. * Sergio? '

*Aw, jeez . . .' he said at last. His tone wasn't encouraging. *Aw, jeez.'

*What?'

*This is bad. It looks bad.'

* What? '

*I think it's the desert. It looks like the desert. I can't really . . . it's so dark.'

*Aren't there any houses?'

*No. Yes. There's one, I think.'

*Where? Is it close?'

But Sergio didn't seem to hear. Once again, he was losing his cool.

*This fence is bad,' he quavered. *It's got barbed wire on top. We'll never get over that .'

I frowned. *Didn't you say you could step over it?' I asked, kneading my sore muscles.

*That's the razor wire. That's different. Oh!' He caught his breath. *Oh, man!'

*What?'

*Oh, wow!'

*For God's sake!' I was ready to throttle him. *Will you tell me what's going on?'

*I think it's . . . hang on . . . just let me . . .'

I tried to be patient. As he squeaked and cursed and scurried about overhead, I clenched my fists and closed my eyes. You can do this , I told myself. You're halfway there. You're gunna make it.

Then a metallic clank reached my ears a" and my eyelids snapped open.

*Hey! Hey, Toby!' Sergio spluttered. I glanced up to see his fuzzy hair glinting in the moonlight. *Guess what I found?'

He was so excited that I jumped to conclusions.

*A phone!' I exclaimed.

*No.'

*A bus stop?'

*It's a ladder!' he shrilled. *And there's a gate in the fence! With a padlock!'

*Oh . . .'

*All you have to do is pick the lock!' He was practically hyperventilating. *Just one lock and we'll be out! Free! We can make a run for it!' At this point he broke off with a gasp, left momentarily speechless as something dreadful occurred to him. *You still have that shim, don't you?' he finally found the strength to ask. *Toby? Did you keep it? Did you keep the shim? '

W ell, of course I'd kept the shim. It was in my pocket. I told Sergio this before instructing him, fiercely, to pass me the damn ladder.

*Just push it down here, will you?' I urged. *I wanna get the hell out!'

*It's heavy.'

*So what?'

*Be careful. I might drop it.'

But he didn't. With a lot of scraping and swearing, he lowered it into the pool until I was able to grab the bottom rung a" which seemed to be made of aluminium. The whole ladder clanged and rattled as I guided it into position; aluminium's much noisier than wood when it bounces off a tiled wall.

*Shh!' Sergio hissed, getting more and more anxious. *Keep it down, or they'll hear!'

*I'm trying. Okay? I'm not doing it on purpose.'

*They could be in that house. They might not be asleep . . .'

Though the ladder was certainly long enough, it didn't feel very stable. Even with Sergio holding the shafts up top, the whole thing creaked and shook with every rung that I climbed. At last, however, I reached the edge of the pool, where Sergio was squatting on a narrow strip of concrete between a razor-sharp tripwire and a four-metre drop back into the pool.

*Jesus.' That tripwire was the first thing I saw from the topmost rung. Moonlight glinted off jagged shards of steel shaped like deadly bow-ties. The wire itself was about twenty centimetres off the ground; it had been threaded through a kind of picket fence made from widely spaced, raggedly cut lengths of metal pipe. *What the hell is that for?' I wheezed.

*It's for keeping us in,' Sergio softly rejoined.

*But we can step over it!'

*Only when we're like this.' He grabbed my wrist, pulling me up. *If it was a full moon and we managed to jump out, we'd probably run straight into that wire.'

I felt a sudden chill, though the night was pretty warm. And I was grateful when Sergio changed the subject. Gesturing into the darkness, he said, *The padlock's over there.' At which point I realised that we were penned in by a high fence made of steel mesh and barbed wire.

It was so close, I could reach out and touch it.

*Jesus,' I said again, appalled at the size of the thing. *They're really serious, eh?'

*That's what the people stand behind.'

*Huh?'

*The people who come to watch.' Sergio's low-pitched voice became unsteady. *I was down in the pool and I saw them, once. Before sunset. While I could still . . .'

He choked up, thank God, because I didn't want to hear. No way.

*This is gunna be tricky,' I announced, as I carefully stepped over the tripwire. It was hard to see. Everything was hard to see. Beyond the mesh fence lay a dim, uneven, grey-washed landscape that seemed to roll on forever. It was covered in mysterious black tufts. The only bright spot was a distant square of golden light a" possibly a lamp in a window a" which was embedded in a dense, shadowy, squared-off shape and surmounted by a sheet of something that had a faint gleam to it.

*There's the house,' I murmured, unnecessarily. I was surprised at how far away it was. Why build your pool so far from your back door? *I thought it would be closer than that.'

*It's still too close for comfort,' was Sergio's jittery response. *We gotta get out. Sooner the better.'