Free Monkey Wrench by Liza Cody

‘Harsh, what am I supposed to address?’
    The doors closed and the train carried Harsh away underground.
    â€˜Shit!’ I said. ‘Fuck and daggers. I know they’re “in a position of great weakness”. I
know
that. That’s why I fucking asked.’
    Harsh had said something brilliant and I hadn’t heard. Now his secret had gone down the tunnel. Typical.
    That’s the story of my life – the important bits go down the tube. I hate the tube. It’s like a human sewer. Everyone is squashed in together and flushed off underground. There you are, cramped, sweating, with tons of bricks and earth and worms on top of you. And you can’t get out. I mean – what if there was a fire or a flood? What if the tunnel collapsed? Sewers collapse all the time round here, so why should tunnels be any different?
    I’m prepared for a lot of things. Do you know that I carry a survival kit? I’ve got stuff for purifying water, making a fire, sawing through wood or metal. I’ve got stock-cubes for makingsoup, candles for light. I’ve got a blade and a bola for hunting or defence. All these things are in a small biscuit tin. It used to be a tobacco tin, but I had to expand. I carry the tin in my kit bag.
    I got the idea from the SAS survival manual. Which is a book you should get if you want to be prepared. At the back there is a bit about disasters like tornados, volcanos and nuclear explosions, so it’s a very useful book. But even the SAS can’t tell you what to do if you’re in a tube and the tunnel collapses. That is a disaster they’ve left out of their survival manual. And it is a disaster I mean to avoid by never travelling on underground trains. Because even if you’re as well prepared as I am, there’s not a lot you can do with a ton of bricks on your bonce.
    I felt better back in the open air, but as I was walking along I met Flying Phil coming the other way. I would’ve walked past, but he said, ‘Hey, Eva, stop a minute, will you? I’ve had an idea.’
    So I stopped.
    He said, ‘Look Eva, never mind self-defence for those girls. It won’t work. What you want to get into is portable phones. Geddit? Each girl has a portable phone, right? So if she gets in trouble she can call for help, see?’
    â€˜Oh right,’ I said. ‘First, remember the number, then dial it, and while she’s doing that there’s a maniac mashing up her skull.’
    â€˜And she could use the phone for making appointments with guys as well. One phone, two functions. Clever, huh? You should tell the girls about it. Get rich and save your life all in one go.’
    â€˜Why don’t you get rich and get stuffed all in one go?’
    â€˜I’ve got this mate, see,’ Phil said. ‘Got a load of phones. Special price, Eva, seeing it’s you.’
    â€˜Ain’t you listening?’ I said.
    â€™Course he wasn’t. A bloke who wants to sell you something don’t listen to nothing. I walked off.
    â€˜Think about it,’ Phil shouted. ‘You’ll thank me.’
    Thank him! I’d thank him to keep his hooter out of my business. I’d thank him to clean his lug-holes out with a plunger, except it’d probably suck out his one and only brain cell too.
    Why can’t people leave me alone?
    I don’t like people. They always want something. They always let you down. I forget about people when I can, but it’s hard. They’re always around, buzzing like flies on turds. Sometimes I’d like to get a ginormous fly-swatter and smash the lot – just to clear a bit of space round my head so I can think.
    I like dogs better than I like people. Dogs don’t talk. They don’t say things you can’t understand. They don’t try to sell you portable phones. They don’t chip-chip-chip away at your confidence. You teach a dog what to do and he gets on and does it. He