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Nell lay, arms curled around her knees, imagining herself as round as a snail. In this very room hiding behind this very sofa, she had heard her mother and Mrs Rossiter talk about atkon bombs. Everyone, everyone, everyone in the whole world would die. And all the animals. And no one would ever be born again. Or if they were they’d be peculiar shapes and be so ill they’d just die almost at once. The only thing alive would be grasshoppers. She’d seen a grasshopper in Cornwall. Perhaps the whole world would be like a beach, dead sand and big green things that leapt, and had hard bodies, and horrid tickly legs. She couldn’t believe it. If it was true then why weren’t Mummy and Mrs R crying? She sometimes thought about old people and wondered why they weren’t all crying all the time because they much know they were going to die quite soon. But if everyone … The thought was too laborious to complete.
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