Crawlers

10:22pm

'Here,' said Samantha suddenly as the music continued. 'Can you smell something?' 

While Ben, Robert, Josh and Hugo sniffed the air, Lisa stopped rocking herself. 

'No,' said Josh. 

'What?' said Ben. He noticed that Lauren had started smiling. 

'There's a weird smell in here,' said Samantha. 'Seriously. I think it's getting stronger.' 

'What kind of smell?' said Hugo. 

'I don't know,' said Samantha, 'but I think it smells a bit like... wee.' 

Lauren made a snorking sound in her nose, then burst out laughing. 

Samantha sniffed once, then grimaced. 'Yeah,' she said, nodding, 'there's a definite whiff of wee in here. Can't you smell it?' 

The boys looked at each other uncertainly. 

'It's almost,' said Samantha, 'as if someone's wet themselves.' 

She turned, casting a suspicious glance at everyone in the room - before finally, exaggeratedly, settling on Lisa. 

Under her fringe of hair Lisa jerked her face to one side as if she'd been slapped. 

Lauren laughed like a hyena. 

Ben frowned. He really couldn't smell anything. But then, of course, he realised...

'Has anyone wet themselves?' asked Samantha. 'No?' she added with heavy emphasis when nobody answered. 'Oh. Then it must be you, Lisa.' 

Lisa said nothing, just sat frozen on her chair. 

Samantha started to smile - the kind of smile a cat might make while torturing a mouse. 

'Lisa has these accidents sometimes,' she said. 'She doesn't mean to, but she just can't help it. It's a bit embarrassing, so don't be mean to her about it, but I thought you boys should know. If something starts to smell a bit pissy in here, don't worry. It's only Lisa.' 

Ben and the other boys said nothing. What could they say? Ben felt his face going red and he didn't know where to look. The worst thing was, he knew that the lack of reaction would make poor Lisa think that everyone was taking Samantha's words at face value. 

The song from Samantha's phone came to an end. There was a short and terrible silence then Lisa stood up, clasping her school bag in front of her. She walked to the door of the monitor room. 

There was no smell. Ben noticed nothing as Lisa went past. But- 

'Funny,' said Samantha as the music started up again. 'The smell's not so strong now.' 

Lauren laughed until her eyes were wet with tears.