The Enemy

‘Well, good luck, and take care.’ Freak hugged her.

‘You too,’ she said.

‘I wish Arran was here,’ Freak said quietly into her ear.

‘Yeah,’ said Maxie. ‘Now, I’d better go, or I’ll be left behind.’

Freak watched her jog over to the others and catch up with the tail as they went down into St James’s Park.

He prayed they’d all come back.

*

Jester slapped Blue on the back. ‘You see?’ he said. ‘This is where you belong, mate, at the head of an army. Not back in the palace doing all the boring crap. Watching vegetables grow. You’re a born general.’

‘Maybe.’

There was a lake ru

‘Perfect for irrigating crops,’ Jester explained. ‘Did you know? During the Second World War most of the parkland in London was turned over to allotments. There’s loads of space to grow stuff, easily enough to support the kids that are left. But you have to be secure or it won’t happen. Without security you’re reduced to scavenging, like you used to do, and like these squatters here have been doing.’

‘Who are they exactly?’ asked Achilleus.

‘They turned up a couple of months ago,’ said Jester. ‘Far as we know, they’d been wandering round London, taking stuff as they went. First thing they did when they got here was dig up all the crops we’d planted and eat them. If we try to go near and replant they attack us. They don’t want anything to do with us. I mean, they’ve tried to grow new crops, but they don’t know what they’re doing.’

‘They got someone in charge?’ Blue asked.

‘He’s called John.’

‘John what?’

‘Just John.’

‘Just John?’

‘Yes. Just John.’

‘Well, this guy, Just John, what’s he like?’

‘He’s hard to reason with,’ said Jester. ‘Harder even than you, Blue, if you can imagine.’

‘He’ll reason with this,’ said Achilleus, slapping his sledgehammer handle into the palm of his hand.

‘No fighting if we can avoid it,’ said Blue.

‘Yeah, right.’

The first drops of rain started to fall.

‘God’s policeman,’ said Jester.

‘You what?’

‘The police always used to pray for rain before any big demonstration, because people wouldn’t turn up. Nobody wants to run riot in the streets if it’s pouring with rain. Who’s going to want to fight in this?’

‘Let’s hope,’ said Blue.

Out on the right flank, Maxie put her sweat-top hood up. It would keep some of the rain off, and her new leather jacket was reasonably waterproof. She glanced over at the main body of kids. Ollie had left his position at the back and was making his way to the front. She wondered if everything was all right. She watched as Ollie approached Achilleus and said something. The two of them then broke away to the side to talk to each other in private.

Maxie liked Ollie, but she never quite knew what he was thinking, what was going on in that scheming, clever mind of his. Coming to the palace they’d had an aim, something to look forward to. It had kept them going. Kept them bound together. But since they’d arrived she wasn’t sure of anything any more.

The park opened out to their left into a larger patch of grassland. There was evidence of cultivation, mostly trashed, but someone had obviously tried to grow some new stuff. A few scrawny plants were drooping under the downpour. Other plants lay flat and dying in the mud.

It was a sorry sight.

‘Months of work wasted,’ said Jester. ‘This lot don’t know anything.’

Blue looked around and spotted a bedraggled knot of kids sheltering under the awning of the old café. A modern structure of wood and glass. They appeared to be armed, and a couple of them broke away and sprinted off in the other direction.

‘I guess they’ve seen us,’ said Blue.

‘Let’s keep on,’ said Jester. ‘Get this over with.’

‘Yeah.’ Achilleus spat into the rain.

They soon arrived at the outlying tents of the squatters. A mixed bag, large and small, expensive and cheap, flimsy and watertight. They clustered around the end of the park with no sense of order. A few sections of ramshackle barricade had been erected and two boys were keeping watch from under a piece of plastic sheeting.

The party from the palace walked into the camp. There was litter and rubbish everywhere, strewn all over the muddy ground, hanging in the trees, piled up in corners. There was an old pram filled with scrap wood. Apart from the few sentries they had seen there was nobody else around. They were all either asleep or sheltering in their tents.

Across the road at the end of the park was Horse Guards Parade, a large drill square enclosed on three sides by buildings. Behind the buildings the great circle of the London Eye was visible, rising up into the rain-heavy sky.

The squatters had built more permanent structures here: shacks and sheds and lean-tos, knocked together from scavenged materials. More plastic sheeting covered many of the buildings, but much of it was sagging under the force of the storm and simply pouring water on to the already sodden gravel of the square. It looked like a refugee camp.

The palace party trudged through puddles into the centre of the square where a welcoming party was coming out to meet them. They were a ragged bunch, ta

At their head was a teenager armed with a thick staff that had three knives taped to the end of it. He was wearing a pair of long baggy shorts and nothing else. His bare chest was crudely tattooed and his short hair had been shaved into patterns a little like Achilleus. He had several teeth missing and a hard, bony face.

‘Just John, I presume,’ said Blue. ‘He don’t look much.’

‘Don’t trust him,’ said Jester.

‘Man,’ said Blue. ‘I don’t trust no one no more.’

With Just John was another older kid who looked a little like a pirate, with a banda

Behind them stood four big lads carrying baseball bats.

‘That you, Jester?’ Just John called out, squinting into the rain that was coming down fast and heavy now, battering the ground and sending up a misty spray.

‘Yeah,’ said Jester. ‘We’ve come to talk.’

‘Picked a nice day for it,’ said the pirate.

‘When are you going to learn?’ said Just John. ‘We don’t want to talk to you.’

‘And we’re never go

‘We don’t want you to leave,’ said Jester. ‘We want you to work with us.’

‘Or what?’ said Just John.

‘Or we trash all this. We make you leave.’

‘You’ve tried before.’

‘Things are different now. We’ve got help.’

Just John looked over the ranks of newcomers with a look of pity and contempt.

‘Ooh. Am I supposed to be scared?’ he said.

‘Listen,’ said Jester. ‘This is stupid. Us kids have to stick together. You and us, we can make this whole area safe. You can live properly, eat proper food.’

‘We’re happy as we are,’ said John. ‘We get by.’

Maxie looked around at their camp. It was hard to tell in the rain but it looked a miserable, semi-permanent affair. Could anyone really choose to live like this?

‘What exactly is your argument with David?’ she called out.

‘Whassat?’ said John sneerily. ‘Did the bitch say something?’

Maxie tried not to get angry. She knew it wouldn’t help.

‘I asked you what exactly your argument with David is.’

‘What’s it to you? Who are you, anyway?’

‘We’ve come to help David.’

‘He getting girls to do his fighting for him now? He must be desperate.’

‘Answer my question,’ said Maxie.

‘Make me.’

Maxie didn’t know what to say. There was no reasoning with someone like this. She understood why David wanted a show of force.