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Adam sees “numbers” – when he looks in peoples’ eyes he can see their death-dates, just like his mum Jem used to. Adam has trouble dealing with his awful gift, and when he realises that everyone around him has the same series of numbers, he becomes deeply afraid of what might happen in 2025.

Desperate to find out what could be about to go wrong, Adam spends hours researching possibilities - war, nuclear accidents, killer viruses. He knows something big is coming, but what? And is there anything he can possibly do about it?

The utterly thrilling sequel to last year's Waterstones Children's Book Prize nominee Numbers.

PRAISE FOR NUMBERS:

'Even the idea of this book gave me chills! How would you like to know someone's fate just by looking in their eyes? Creepy and original!'  R.L. STINE, AUTHOR OF GOOSEBUMPS

'Intelligent and life-affirming.' PHIL ARDAGH, GUARDIAN

'Numbers is a true pulse-racing narrative, leaving you breathless after only the first chapter.'  JOHN LLOYD, WATERSTONES, BATH

'A gritty, fast-paced powerful thriller which takes the idea of an individual's 'number being up' to a shocking and dramatic level.' THE SCHOOL LIBRARIAN

'Utterly compelling.' THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

The knock on the door comes early in the morning, just as it’s getting light.

‘Open up! Open up! We’ve got an Evacuation Order for these flats. Moving out in five minutes. Five minutes everybody!’

You can hear them going down the corridor, knocking on doors, repeating the same instructions over and over. I haven’t been asleep, but Nan nodded off in her chair, and now she jerks awake and curses.

‘Bloody hell, Adam. What time is it?’ Her face looks crumpled and old, too old to go with her purple hair.

‘Half-six, Nan. They’ve come.’

She looks at me, tired and wary.

‘This is it, then,’ she says. ‘Better find your things.’

I look back at her and I think, I’m not going anywhere. Not with you.

We’ve been expecting this. We’ve been camped out in the flat for four days, watching the flood water rising in the street below. They’d warned everyone that the sea wall was likely to go.  It was built years ago before the sea level rose, and it wasn’t going to stand another storm with a spring tide to add to the swell.

We thought the water would come and then go, but it came and it stayed.

‘S’pose this is what Venice looked like before it was washed away,’ Nan said, gloomily. She flicked her cigarette butt out of the window and down into the water below. It bobbed slowly along the street towards where the prom had been. And she lit another fag.

The electricity was cut off that first night, then the water in the taps turned brown. People waded along the street outside, shouting through loud hailers, warning us not to drink the water, saying they’d bring us food and water. They didn’t. Instead we made do with what we’d got, but with no toaster and no microwave, and the milk going off in the fridge, we were starting to get hungry after twelve hours. I knew things were bad when Nan took the cellophane off her last packet of fags.

‘Once these are gone, we’re going to have to get out of here, son,’ she said.

‘I’m not going,’ I told her. This was my home. It was all I had left of Mum.

‘We can’t stay here, not like this.’

‘I’m not going.’ Statement of fact. ‘You can bugger off back to London if you like. You know you want to anyway.’ It was true. She’d never felt comfortable here. She’d come when Mum got ill, and stayed to look after me, but she was like a fish out of water. The sea air made her cough. The big bright sky made her screw up her eyes and she’d scuttle back inside like a cockroach as fast as she could.

‘Less of your language,’ she said, ‘and pack a bag.’

‘You can’t tell me what to do. You’re not my mum. I’m not packing,’ I said, and I didn’t.

Now we have five minutes to get ready. Nan stirs herself and starts putting more things into her bin bag. She disappears into her room and comes out with an armful of clothes and a polished wooden box tucked under her arm. She moves around the flat surprisingly fast. I feel a tide of panic rising inside me. I can’t leave here. I’m not ready. It’s not fair.

I get one of the chairs from the kitchen and lean it up against the door handle. But it’s not the right height to wedge the handle shut, so I just start grabbing whatever I can find and building a barricade. I push the sofa over, pile the kitchen chair on top, then the coffee table. I’m breathing hard, sweating between my shoulder blades.

‘Adam, what the hell are you doing?’

Nan’s tearing at my arm, trying to stop me. Her long yellow fingernails are digging in. I shrug her off.

‘Get off, Nan. I’m not going!’

‘Don’t be stupid. Get some of your things. You’ll want your things with you.’

I take no notice.

‘Adam, don’t be so fucking stupid!’ She’s clawing at me again, and then someone’s knocking on the door.

‘Open up!’

I freeze, and look at Nan. Her eyes show me her number: 2022054. She’s got another thirty years, near enough, but you’d never guess it. She looks like she could go any day.

‘Open up!’

‘Adam, please…’

‘No, Nan.’

‘Stand away from the door! Stand back!’

‘Adam—’

A sledge-hammer smashes the lock. Then the door itself is shredded. In the corridor there’s two soldiers, one with the sledgehammer, the other one a gun. It’s pointing straight into the flat. It’s pointing at us. The soldiers quickly scan the rest of the flat behind us.

 ‘All right, ma’am,’ says the gunman. ‘I’ll have to ask you to move that obstruction and leave the building.’

Nan nods.

‘Adam,’ she says, ‘move the sofa.’

I’m staring at the end of the rifle. I can’t take my eyes off it. In the next second, maybe less than that, it could all be over. This could be it. All I have to do is make a move towards him. If it’s my time, my day to go, that’ll be it. What is my number? Is it today?