The Enemy

It was late and all around him the other kids were settling down for the night. Even though the ballroom they were using as a dormitory was huge, it smelt of dirty clothes and sweaty feet and bad breath. Bill tried to shut out the smells by concentrating on his game. But a short sharp bark distracted him and he looked over to the next bed where Alice and Ella were playing with Godzilla. The puppy was tired, Bill could tell he wanted to sleep. He was irritable so he snapped at them, but they didn’t know when to stop. When Godzilla got bigger they’d have to be careful. He’d bite their hands off.

Bill saw Ollie go past. He was counting each kid, muttering the numbers out loud to himself. Blu-Tack watched him move along the row of beds and when he got to Whitney, who was also counting, they had a quiet chat. Whitney nodded. They looked very serious. Blu-Tack could have saved Ollie the bother. He could have told him how many kids were in the room without counting, just by looking. He had a good head for numbers and his memory was perfect. His brain didn’t work like other kids. He’d always known that. He could tell just by glancing around the room that everyone was there – forty-eight kids in all. Everyone except Maxie, Blue, Lewis and Achilleus.

Bill looked down at his hands – he had shaped the number forty-eight without even thinking about it. He scrunched the stringy figures into a ball before anyone noticed and kneaded it between his fingers.

Blu-Tack never said anything but he never missed anything either. Something was going on. A group of big kids, the most important ones, had been having lots of whispered conversations all evening. Ollie and Achilleus, Whitney and Lewis.

Something was going to happen tonight. Bill tried to stop feeling worried. Slowly the ball of Blu-tack in his hands changed shape and became a smiling face.

Bill looked at the face.

‘Don’t be scared,’ it said.

There were shouts from outside, the sound of ru

Bill tensed, his hand squashed the face into a flattened mess. That was the only visible sign that he was concerned. His expression gave nothing away. He had lived so long now on edge, waiting for something awful to happen, reacting to it when it did, that he was like a small wild animal. Constantly alert. All his senses tingling.

The footsteps passed by. Ollie and Whitney exchanged glances. It all went quiet again.

The face had reappeared in the Blu-tack.

‘It’s OK,’ it said. ‘You’re safe now.’

65

The royals sat in their bedroom in the dark, staring into space. It smelt in here. They had long since forgotten how to use the lavatory. Every now and then they were herded downstairs to sit on their thrones, but otherwise nothing happened in their world.

A cockroach crawled across the leg of a young man who was sitting on the floor. The young man’s face was so bloated with swellings that his eyes were two tiny holes, and his nose had disappeared. He picked the bug up and put it in his mouth.

They were always hungry.

There was a noise in the corridor outside. Something scraped the door. All the heads in the room turned as one and looked in the direction of the noise.

There was a bang, the crunch of splintering wood. A second bang…

The door opened.

The corridor was empty.

Still chewing the cockroach, the young man got up and shambled to the door.

The others followed.

66

David’s two guards had been sitting outside the sick-bay for five hours straight. They were bored stiff. David had promised them that somebody would come to relieve them after three hours. No one had come.

This wasn’t fair. It wasn’t as if anything was going to happen, anyway. The heavy wooden door was locked. There were only three kids in there. Two girls, one of whom was injured, and a boy with concussion. What were they supposed to do? Batter the door down and overwhelm the two of them?

Fat chance. They had guns after all.

‘They’ve forgotten about us,’ said the taller of the two. He had short brown curly hair and a bad case of acne.

‘They always do,’ said the other one, a fair-haired boy with a big nose. ‘Everyone thinks that just because we’re in David’s guard our lives must be great. But this sucks.’

‘We do get a bit more food than the others,’ said Spotty.

‘Oh whoop-di-doo,’ said Big Nose. ‘If I could, I’d jack this in and do farming or something. This is just tedious.’

‘We’re the elite.’

‘So what?’

‘When we take over London,’ said Spotty, ‘we’ll be in a really strong position. It’ll be like in the Middle Ages. When the king invaded another country he’d divide up all the lands and all the wealth to his favourite dukes and barons, the ones who’d helped him.’

‘When we take over London?’ said Big Nose, mockingly. ‘You mean if we take over London, don’t you? All we ever do is sit around the palace with these bloody guns trying to look important. We weren’t even allowed to go on the raid to the squatter camp.’

There was a clatter on the stairs and they tried to look alert as Pod appeared, red-faced and flustered.

‘Everything OK here?’ he asked.

‘Yeah.’ The boys shrugged.

‘You haven’t seen anything? Heard anything?’

‘Like what?’ said Spotty.

‘The royals have escaped,’ said Pod, sounding hacked off and harassed.

‘You what?’

‘They got out somehow, yeah? David’s gone absolutely ballistic. It’s silly down there, everyone’s, like, ru

‘We should come and help,’ said Spotty, standing up.

‘No, you need to stay up here and guard the prisoners.’

‘They’re not going anywhere.’

‘Even so. If the prisoners got out as well, David would go off the scale.’

‘One of us could stay here, the other could come with you,’ said Spotty.

Pod thought about this for a moment.

‘All right.’ He looked at Spotty. ‘You come with me.’

‘What about me?’ said Big Nose.

‘Stay put until further orders,’ said Pod.

Big Nose watched sadly as the two of them hurried off down the narrow staircase.

Now, with no one to talk to, it would be even more tedious sitting here. Big Nose spat. Feeling a guilty pleasure as the gob of saliva sat there on the patterned carpet.

He swore loudly and colourfully, and for a moment it lifted the boredom.

67

Godzilla was asleep in Ella’s lap. She was gently stroking his head and talking to him about Sam.

‘I wish he was here, Godzilla. I really miss him. I don’t like to think that I might never see him again, but every day I forget a little bit more about him. What he looked like. How he spoke. It’s like he’s slowly disappearing. What I remember most is that he was small. I’d do anything to make him come back.’

Godzilla yelped and wriggled out of her arms. He jumped off the bed and Ella chased him over to where Whitney was standing at the open ballroom door, looking off down the East Gallery.

Whitney saw Godzilla and grabbed him. She looked angry.

‘Who’s supposed to be looking after this dog?’ she asked.

Ella looked like she was about to cry. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.