Living on Borrowed Time Trivia Quiz

Answer: Beb

'Beb', as Richard explains, is a 'snotty contraction' of 'babe', and he and Karen call each other 'Beb' throughout the book. He also calls her 'Starbaby'. Richard is the narrator for most of the book, except the introduction and a large part of Part Three, both of which are narrated by the ghost of Jared, a football player and former friend of the group who died of cancer. Karen and Richard are due to go to a party, and they have sex in the woods and go for a ride on a ski lift, where Karen tells him about a premonition she had about the future.

Answer: "Roll up the window and shut the door. G-d may be watching."

Karen and Richard go to a house party with their friends Wendy, Pam, Linus and Hamilton, and Karen takes a couple of Valium tablets which she stole from her mother. When Richard rejoins his friends, he discovers that Karen is unconscious and the police have been called.

After Karen is taken to hospital, Richard reads the letter she gave him, which states that Karen had dreams about the future, and evidently saw something she wasn't supposed to have seen, because she felt like she was going to be taken hostage. Karen's parents initially blame her friends, thinking she must have drunk too much, although tests show no alcohol in her blood and Wendy says Karen was barely drinking anyway.

Some months later, Karen is revealed to be pregnant with Richard's child; their daughter is delivered by Caesarean section.

Answer: Richard marries another woman and raises his daughter with her.

Richard is the only one of the group who is not in a relationship with any of the others while Karen is in a coma. Pam and Hamilton are in relationships with other people but end up together, and Wendy marries Linus. Initially, Richard and Karen's daughter Megan lives with Lois, Karen's mother, though she also spends time with Richard. Pam becomes a model, Ham trains as a demolitions expert, Linus becomes an electrical engineer and Wendy gets a medical degree and becomes a doctor. Richard has a stint as a property developer, and he, Hamilton and Linus all get jobs as location scouts for a local TV company. Along with Pam, who is working as a make-up artist, they work for Fox on a show which is implied to be 'The X-Files' (and which was actually filmed in Vancouver). Linus and Hamilton then get jobs at a local special effects studio, specialising in dead bodies and explosions; Pam later joins them.

She and Hamilton are also addicted to heroin, which Richard discovers after he finds syringes at their house.

When Megan is in her teens, she behaves badly at school to the point where Lois can't cope, so she moves in with Richard.

Answer: Cinnamon

The group go to a Halloween party and Richard is a spaceman, Linus is a Borg from 'Star Trek', Pam is a cinnamon heart candy and Hamilton is a decomposing corpse or, as he calls it, a 'leaker' (Wendy is at work). Hamilton explains the story behind their outfits: he saw emergency services outside a block of flats and found out that an elderly resident had died during a heatwave and the people living below her had complained about the smell, and black fluid leaking through their ceiling.

The stench was so bad that both the dead woman's apartment and the room below had to be gutted, and the police brought in some local smell experts who said that the opposite smell of a decomposing corpse was cinnamon (hence Pam's outfit).

The building was filled with the scent of cinnamon candy to counter the rotten smell.

Answer: 17 years

Karen's muscles have degenerated and her hair has grown brittle, but she receives daily massages and is kept fed through tubes. Lois did consider having the plug pulled but decided against it. Richard goes outside during the Halloween party and realises that Karen is waking up.

At the same time, Wendy is called in to see Karen, who has woken up after being in a coma for seventeen years and is shocked to discover how weak her body has become. Karen meets Megan, and Richard later joins them. The day after the party, Hamilton and Pam are taken to hospital after overdosing on heroin, with Linus accompanying them.

Despite Lois' protests, Wendy insists on keeping Karen, Hamilton and Pam on the same ward, as she believes it will give them incentives to get better.

Answer: A meteorite falling in Siberia

While Hamilton and Pam are in recovery, their movements and heartbeats synchronise. They later both reveal that they saw the same images in their dreams. As well as the bodies floating down the Ganges, the children singing and the clock and temperature in Florida, they also both dreamed about an empty freeway in Texas, a monsoon in Tokyo, and fields burning in Africa.

These turn out to be visions of the future.

Answer: They fall asleep and never wake up.

Karen is invited to appear on local TV and Gloria, the presenter, asks her about her experiences as a coma patient, hoping to get a dramatic interview. However, she is annoyed when Karen continually blurts out that the world is going to end. She tells a crew member that she had visions of the world 'going dark', that everyone will fall asleep and that there is no escaping from what will happen. Sure enough, people start to fall asleep and never wake up all over the world, including Lois - who falls asleep in a supermarket freezer - several passengers on Richard's plane, Megan's boyfriend Skitter and their friends, and the group's parents. Karen has visions of people dying around the world, including the Queen of England.

The last person to die is an old woman in Florida.

Answer: Make Linus speak in tongues

Jared appears in Karen's house, where the group are all living, a year on from the end of the world. Money is worthless and the group waste their days watching videos, looting shops and playing with jewels and useless currency. He individually visits the group and makes Wendy pregnant by walking through her - much to Linus' anger - heals Karen's legs and Jane's eyes, and tells Megan that Jane will be wise and Megan will be her servant.

He also makes Pam and Hamilton clean, and shows Linus a glimpse of Heaven, which causes Linus to go blind for a week.

Answer: The Cleveland Dam

Jared gets the group together and tells them that they have been wasting their lives, and Richard thinks that they have been given some kind of test and failed it. Jared tells them that they should have tried to understand why the world became the way it did, and that they have the chance to live their lives over again and bring the world back to normal - a Plan B - but they are going to have to change the way they live. If they had actually tried to understand why the world ended, the world would have gone back to normal and they would have become wiser, but they wasted a year sitting around doing nothing.

He tells them to meet him at the Cleveland Dam in a week's time. The group drive down to the dam and Karen orders everyone to kneel, and Jared appears for a final time.

Answer: Go back into her coma

Jared tells the group that in order to restore the world, Hamilton, Pam, Linus, Wendy, Megan and Richard must change the way they live. Wendy must stop burying herself in work, Hamilton must grow up, and all of them must use their skills, constantly question the state of the world and encourage others to question it, even if it drives them insane. If they don't do that, the world will end again, for good. Karen must also go back into her coma, and Jared must wander the world for several years. Richard protests, but Megan sides with Karen. Jared also tells them that they will keep their memories and experiences, and Jane will not be born blind or mentally disabled. Everyone must go back to where they were when Karen woke up - Richard to the canyon and everyone else to the hospital - while Karen takes Jane up a mountain. Karen says her goodbyes to all of the group before they part, and Richard hears her voice for one last time when she reaches the summit.

The world goes back to normal, with Richard aware that he and the others have a great task ahead of them.