The Enemy (25 page)

O
lie won his bet sooner than he expected. As the main body of kids was crossing Berkeley Square, Achileus and Big Mick, who had been scouting ahead, came running back, out of breath.

“There’s grown-ups. Up ahead,” Achil eus panted.

“Can we go around them?” Maxie asked.

“They’re attacking some kids,” said Mick. “It don’t look good.”

“How many are there?” said Blue.

“About fifteen or twenty.”

“Can we take them?”

“Yeah,” said Achil eus. “We can take them.”

“Okay,” said Maxie. “I’l stay here with my squad. We’l guard the little kids and the non-fighters. Blue, you take everyone else down. Once it’s safe, send someone back for us.”

“You got it.”

In less than a minute Maxie had the little kids safely in the center of the square, and Blue was hurrying off with Jester and the fighters. They turned a corner into a short straight street that ran down toward Green Park.

“They’re just up ahead!” Achil eus yel ed, and Blue slowed down.

“Lewis, take the left flank,” he shouted. “Ol ie and Sophie, keep your group on the right. Fire as soon as you can. The rest of us, wait for the missiles, then we go in hard and fast.”

The street opened out on to the top of Piccadil y. Ahead was a wide four-lane highway, with the trees of Green Park on the far side. To the left was the Green Park tube station and the Ritz Hotel.

A bloody battle was taking place in the middle of the road between five kids and a much larger group of grown-ups. This was a mean-looking bunch, very different from the ones in Selfridges. They were half naked, lean and battle-hardened. Twelve fathers with no shirts, and five mothers in vests. They al looked like they’d been regulars at the gym before the disaster, and they’d somehow kept fit since. Fit but not healthy. They were studded with boils and sores and festering, weeping wounds. They were massacring the kids—three of whom were already down. The two kids left standing were a boy and a girl. The girl’s face was covered in blood, but she was supporting the boy, who was on his last legs and clutching a sword. A ring of grown-ups was circling them, ready to finish them off.

So far they hadn’t noticed the Hol oway kids’ arrival.

“Leave the ones in the circle,” said Ol ie, fitting a shot to his sling. “We might hit the kids. Take the others out first.”

As he spoke, the grown-ups realized that they had company, and they turned almost as one, fresh bloodlust lighting up their faces, and charged across the road.

If they thought they were going to have an easy time of it, they were sadly mistaken. The battle was over almost before it began.

Ol ie’s team let loose a deadly vol ey. Six grown-ups went down straight away. Now Blue and Achil eus led the central group forward as Ol ie’s team fel back. The surviving grown-ups carried on, too stupid to pul out of their assault. They were met by the fighters, who punched into them, weapons held high. Most grown-ups fel to the asphalt, but three escaped and ran off to the sides. Lewis’s team took down two. Ol ie and Sophie got the other one. An arrow thudded into his back at the exact same moment a round from a slingshot got him in the head.

Achil eus and Mick finished off the wounded.

In a few seconds every one of the grown-ups lay dead on the ground.

Jester whistled. “That was wel done,” he said. “Very wel done.”

Ol ie turned to Sophie. “You owe me some carrots,” he said, but there was no joy in it. The sight of the dead kids was too upsetting.

Blue cal ed Lewis’s team over. “Go back for Maeve,” he said. “Looks like we’l need her. Tel them it’s al clear, but hold the others back out of the way until we’ve gotten rid of the bodies. I don’t want the smal ones to see this.”

While Achil eus and Mick organized the removal of the dead grown-ups, dragging them across the road and dumping them down the steps to the tube, Blue checked the kids.

The three lying down were wel dead.

“Better get these out of the way as wel ,” said Blue. “No time for any fancy funerals.”

The bloodied girl was sitting on the ground now, cradling the boy in her lap. She was staring into the distance, her eyes empty. Blue spoke to her, but she didn’t respond. Her face was slashed, a flap of skin hanging down from her forehead.

“You’l be al right,” said Blue. “You’re safe now.”

Again she didn’t respond.

Jester’s shadow fel across Blue.

Blue squinted up at him. “I thought you said there were no grown-ups around here.”

Jester shrugged. “This isn’t normal,” he said.

“If you’ve been lying to us . . .” said Blue.

“This isn’t normal,” Jester repeated, and bent to pick up the sword that the boy had dropped.

Maeve arrived, her medical kit already out. She knelt down and checked the girl over.

“I’l need to disinfect that and put a bandage on it,” she said, unscrewing a glass bottle. “What about the boy?”

Blue looked at the boy. He was lying very stil . He tried to find his pulse. Shook his head. Gently he pried the girl’s fingers apart where they were gripping her friend’s jacket, and moved the body away.

Ol ie and Sophie had broken into a nearby shop and quickly built a makeshift stretcher out of some clothes racks and a curtain. They came over and settled the wounded girl onto it. When the rest of the group final y emerged on the main road, there was little sign that any fight had ever taken place here.

It was quiet and peaceful, apart from the flies that were already gathering by the tube station steps.

Maxie led the smal kids across the road and into Green Park. The sunlight was dancing in the trees, birds were singing, but everyone was remembering the attack in Regent’s Park and looking nervously around. So it was a shock when they realized they’d come to the edge of the park, and they glanced up to see Canada Gate, and there, beyond it, the great ugly bulk of Buckingham Palace.

T
hey approached the building slowly, hardly able to believe that they’d arrived, let alone that they might spend their lives here. It was one of the most famous buildings in the world, and yet they were seeing it properly for the first time. Taking it in as a place to live rather than just another of London’s many tourist attractions. In front of it was a massive expanse of pink-colored circular drive, on an island in the center of which sat the white marble block of the Victoria Memorial, with Queen Victoria herself sitting on her throne, looking off down the Mal . The stil -gleaming gold statue of winged Victory stood over her.

Separating the palace from the public were tal black iron railings topped with gold spikes, and behind the railings was the parade ground where the famous Changing of the Guard used to take place. And then there was the building itself. This was no fairy-tale palace. It was a solid gray lump. Even though it was a good five stories high, its immense width made it look quite low and unimposing. The front was made up of three huge rectangular blocks linked by long sweeps of flat-fronted wal . Rows of neatly ordered windows ran from side to side with dul mathematical precision. The central block had an entrance at the base through an archway, above which sat the famous balcony where the Royal Family used to appear to cheering crowds on special occasions. Four pil ars ran up from the balcony to the top of the building, supporting a wide triangle that could have come from a Greek temple.

In the dead center of the roof was a flagpole, from which a ragged Union Jack hung limply against the windless sky.

As the kids got nearer they saw that there were sentries in the sentry boxes. They hadn’t been expecting this. They had presumed there would be kids keeping watch, but not in the sentry boxes where the soldiers in their bearskin hats had once stood. These sentries were only kids, but they were stil in uniform. Red school blazers with black trousers and black basebal caps. They had rifles and had even been standing stiffly at attention. As they saw the war party approaching, however, they came alive. A couple ran back through the archway, the rest walked toward the railings, guns at the ready.

Somebody on the balcony shouted something, and the next moment there were faces at the windows. Soon more kids began to trickle out through the arch onto the parade ground. They came over to the railings and peered out, just as tourists in the past had peered in from the other side.

They watched in silence. Hands up on the railings. Curious but watchful. There must have been about twenty of them, kids of al ages, clean and wel dressed.

Jester waved and cal ed out, “Hey. It’s me. The Magic Man has returned. And look who I’ve brought with me!”

Some of the kids’faces lit up, and they smiled. They peeled away from the railings and fol owed the group as they walked along to one of the ornate gateways.

“Open up!” Jester cal ed out, and a smal boy ran from the archway, carrying a big set of keys. He rattled them in the lock and eventual y the gates were opened. The war party trooped in, flanked by two lines of silent palace kids.

Lewis looked around at the staring faces. It reminded him of visiting another school for a soccer match. Everyone was checking everyone else out.

Suspicious. Who were these strange new kids? Who were the ones to look out for? Who could be safely ignored? Who might be a friend? Who was a potential enemy?

More important: were there any nice-looking girls around?

There was a shout from the balcony, and everyone looked up. A boy who looked to be about seventeen was standing there, with six more of the kids in uniform on either side of him. He was tal and very pale-skinned, with a spray of freckles over his face and neat curly black hair. He was wearing a suit and tie, and he was beaming down at them, his arms spread wide.

“Magic Man!” he yel ed. “Wel done, Jester. We didn’t think we were ever going to see you again.”

“You didn’t doubt me, did you, David?”

“Never! But where are the others?”

“They didn’t make it,” said Jester, and there were gasps and groans from the assembled palace kids. “But these guys,” Jester went on, trying to lighten the mood. “You should see them in action. They’re skil ed fighters, David. They’re going to real y make a difference.”

David smiled. “Wel , come on in!”

They passed through the archway into a large inner quadrangle. The newly arrived kids looked around, awed—they had never realized quite how big the palace was. It seemed to go on forever. Jester led them to a doorway on the far side of the quadrangle.

Inside they passed through a grand stateroom into a wide, glass-roofed corridor lined with old paintings. From there they entered another large room that overlooked the gardens. There were more kids outside, tending crops. It was just how it had looked in Jester’s photographs, except the scale of it was more obvious. This wasn’t a garden so much as a smal park.

Maeve had a word with Jester, and he rounded up two boys. They took the stretcher with the wounded girl on it away. Maeve fol owed.

In a few minutes David appeared with his escort. He beamed at the newcomers and went around shaking hands and being introduced. He had a confident, friendly, but slightly aloof air about him, and had obviously been to a good private school. When he’d said hel o to everyone, he took them al outside and showed them around the gardens. They were growing potatoes and carrots, cabbages, beans, onions, squash. You name it, they had planted it. The crops were laid out in neat rows and were wel tended. There were also two enclosures, one for pigs and one for chickens.

They came across a serious-looking girl with glasses who was on her knees, weeding a patch of spinach.

“This is Franny,” said David. “Our head gardener. Any questions about al this, she’s the person to ask.”

Franny got up. She rubbed her hands clean on her apron and said hel o. A little shy. A little awkward around David.

As Franny chatted with the others, Maxie wandered away from the group and laughed, turning ful circle on the lawn, trying to take it al in. The little kids were already running around and playing, al their cares forgotten.

Godzil a was gamboling on the grass while his little group of caretakers ran with him. Shouting happily.

Maxie closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. When she opened them again she saw David strol ing back toward the house, talking to a group of kids.

“The kitchens here were designed for feeding lots of people,” he was explaining. “We’ve rigged up some of the stoves to work with wood. We can cook hot food. We even bake our own bread. We’l prepare a welcoming feast. We’ve plenty of food stored up.”

Maxie marveled at how organized everything was, and how relaxed everybody appeared to be. It was such a different feeling from being cooped up in Waitrose, surrounded by grown-ups. To think that al this time these kids had been living this easy life when she’d had to spend every other day fighting to stay in one piece.

Arran would have been impressed with this.

Arran ...

Maxie was overcome with a bittersweet feeling. Like when a smal cloud drifts over the sun on a summer’s day. She knew that elsewhere in London terrible scenes were being acted out. Kids were lost in a world of pain and misery. She wasn’t sure she deserved this level of peace and contentment.