Bright Young Things by Scarlett Thomas Page A

she feels.
    Four of them are taking out their mobile phones and trying to dial out, with no luck. Anne’s brain hurts. When she tries to make it go backwards she gets that feeling like she’s coming down with flu. She vaguely remembers an argument with her mother, a train to Edinburgh, a cheap hotel and then waiting for a job interview that she didn’t even want to attend. That was what the argument had been about. She can’t remember beyond the waiting – some non-airconditioned room in some sticky building in the suburbs. The interviewer giving her coffee. She looks at the others. They were all there too. Weird.
    The island is quiet and still. It has one house, one shed which is next to the house, an orchard, an empty washing line and a load of rough grass with pale flowers. It has the feel of a wintry place, although it is quite hot, just like it was in Edinburgh. Almost completely round, and about half a mile in diameter, it’s the most unlikely place Anne’s ever seen. It seems like the kind of thing you’d imagine or draw, not somewhere you’d actually be. Apart from the house and shed, the only structure on the island is something that looks like a child’s toy windmill stuck on the top of a big wooden pole. It’s taller than the house. There’s a mist out to sea, and it’s impossible to see any mainland. Anne turns and stares at the house. It looks like a holiday home. She’s not sure why. It seems empty, too, although she hasn’t been inside.
    It was just outside the front door of the house that they all came to, about fifteen minutes ago. They were all lying next to each other, like a row of dead bodies, with their belongings (two bags, a couple of rucksacks and a folder) beside them. The sign on the door is still there. It says: PLEASE MAKE YOURSELVES AT HOME.
    Anne sits down on the grass and picks a daisy, focusing on it so she doesn’t have to focus on this situation. Penetrating the stalk with her thumbnail, she makes a perfect hole, then picks another daisy and threads it through the first one’s stalk. Everything feels very slow. The coffee is the last thing she can remember before waking up here. It must have been drugged. She picks another daisy. She’s never taken drugs before.
    When the daisy chain is complete, she binds it around her wrist. The dark-haired guy watches her do this and smiles. He’s been almost as quiet as Anne so far, just watching the others. There is a skinny bloke with dreadlocks, swearing a lot and talking nonsense to a tall, fair-haired guy who just looks dazed. The other two girls are talking. Well, the dark one is sniffling a lot and the blonde one is talking. Anne is intrigued by the blonde one. She’s like a girl from a pop group manufactured specifically to seem cool and unmanufactured. She’s wearing silver sunglasses which prevent Anne from looking at her eyes. She bets they’re brown and her hair is dyed. Her hair is up in two kids’-TV-presenter bunches, tied with seventies-style bobble bands. Anne has some of those herself, although she prefers the ones with little animals on.
    The girl with short dark hair looks serious. She vomited as soon as she woke up, and now she’s crying, her blue-green eyes all red around the edges. She’s the most sensibly dressed of everyone wearing a long skirt, plain vest top, suit jacket and a small silver necklace. Anne didn’t bother dressing up for the interview. Well, you don’t nowadays, do you, especially if you don’t want the job. She’s wearing a short combat skirt, a Pokémon T-shirt, a snowboarding-style fleece jacket (yes, it’s summer, but it’s a cool jacket) and a child’s plastic necklace with matching bracelets, all in candy colours. Her straight brown hair is down, and she’s wearing no make-up except for pink cherry-flavour lip-gloss and black mascara.
    She takes off her trainers and starts making a daisy chain for her ankle.
    It’s too hot out here. The quiet is freaking Anne out. Where are