I don’t mention that that’s probably also his problem. There’s a little bit of Lockie for everyone. Which is why he can never really be all mine.
I glance up at the sky. It’s not looking so good again.
Lockie catches me staring.
‘I’m sure help will arrive before anything kicks off again,’ he reassures me.
‘I hope so,’ I reply. ‘Because this feels like the calm before the storm… again.’
‘Oi oi,’ Ozzy calls out.
He barrels across the sand like a golden retriever who just found a big stick.
‘I’ve saved the day,’ he declares proudly.
Lockie raises an eyebrow.
‘Have you?’ he replies.
‘Yep, I found a boat,’ he announces.
That gets everyone’s attention. Camilla sprints over.
‘A boat? You beautiful, beautiful man!’ she says. ‘What kind?’
‘It’s a motorboat,’ Ozzy says. ‘It was in one of the old outbuildings. And it works. The fuel tank is more than half full. Should get us pretty far – far enough to find civilisation.’
‘Oh my God, no way,’ Honey says.
‘We have you to thank,’ he tells her.
‘Me?’ she replies.
‘Yeah, it had another one of those number keypad thingies, for security, and I remembered what you said, about trying 0000, so I did, and it worked,’ he says, cackling victoriously.
We all look at Honey.
‘Just a trick of the IT trade,’ she says. ‘One of my degrees is in computer science, and 0000 is often used by default – it’s the first one we try. That and “password” for alphabetic passwords.’
Wow, so she really does have two degrees.
I look over at Lockie – I wonder if he remembers, back in London, when we were planning the show, telling me that if we ever needed an IT expert on the show, he would eat his hand. I won’t mention it, just in case he doesn’t remember, because I’m not sure we can rule out eating limbs for survival just yet. What Ozzy is saying does sound positive, but you know me, always the pessimist.
‘So not only do we have a boat,’ Ozzy starts, basking in our awe, ‘I know how to steer one. So we’re almost golden.’
Camilla squeals, clinging to his arm. ‘Okay, let’s go. Right now. Goodbye island, hello civilisation and electricity and baths, and?—’
‘Wait,’ I interrupt. ‘You said almost golden.’
‘There is some bad news,’ Ozzy replies.
Of course there is.
‘The boat can only fit four people safely,’ he informs us.
The silence is heavy.
‘So four of us go and two stay?’ Camilla says. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea. Like, it’s first come, first saved? Like on theTitanic? That’s not fair. It’s all of us, or none of us.’
