by Fiona Shaw
–We’ll be there in a few minutes, so here’s what we do. We do a recce first, to find the shops we’re going to need. We start with the ones furthest away, and do the ones this end last, so we’re always moving towards our escape. What works best is if one of us distracts the shop assistant. Asks them to look something up, for help finding something. Then the other one can do the stealing. Stay close: that’s really important. So you can always see me, or hear me. And don’t rush. You have to think you’ve got a perfect right to be looking around the shop for things you need. And you have to think that you’re going to pay, so have your mobile out, make as if you’re credit texting. Right up until the point where you don’t. All right?
Jake nodded.
–So smile, Jake. Makes us look more innocent, in case anybody’s looking at us.
Jake nodded again and widened his mouth in what he hoped was a smile.
–You’ve got to believe in your own story while you’re out there, Martha said. –Like being an actor in a play. Else you won’t be convincing. Remember, we’re nicely brought up children, brother and sister, and we’re out doing errands for our granny.
Jake shook his head. –No. That doesn’t work. If I’ve just bunked off school to do these errands, they’ll have hubbed me, tracked me down. They did stuff like that in my old school.
Martha nodded. –Fair point. She paused. –OK. Here’s the story. Our granny’s been in hospital, and she’s still too ill to look after herself. But she’s hit the efficiency threshold for her treatment till next month, and we’re not a wealthy family. So they’ve sent her home …
–Yeah, Jake said. –That works. He could picture it now. Could imagine his own mum and dad doing this. –So the hospital has sent her home, and we’re looking after her, best we can. Our dad’s spending nights with her, and our parents are paying school absence fines for us to look after her daytimes and do her shopping. That’s why the school hasn’t hubbed us. So it’s really important that we get these things, quick as possible, and get back to her.
–Good, Martha said. –Let’s go.
The first shop was a doddle. The shop assistant wasn’t much older than Martha, and Jake saw how his face lit up when he saw her; saw him look her up and down and up again.
He’s gonna be thinking through his trousers, Jake thought. That’s what his friend Josh used to say. First time, Jake didn’t know what he meant and Josh took the piss when he asked. Josh had a big brother so he knew about these things. Anyway, Martha must’ve reckoned the same because she gave Jake the signal straight off. Jake could have stolen the whole shop and the boy wouldn’t have noticed. He was asking Martha where she’d been all his life? And did she fancy a drink later? And was she really into DIY?
Jake could hear her start on about her sick granny. He grabbed a basket and collected what he needed – wire, string, wire cutters, sharp knife, matches, even needles and thread – then nipped behind a pile of paint cans and stuck the lot in his rucksack. Job done and he was out of there, and a minute later, so was she.
–Just walk, she said. –Ahead of me. But soon as they were round the corner and out of sight, she cracked up laughing. –He was about to ask me out. I could see him trying to get up the courage.
–Worth you taking all that trouble over your hair then, he said. –Like a secret stealing weapon.
They were on a roll after that. Superdrug on Fishponds Road: medicine, plasters, vitamin pills, tampons (Martha found those). Then past KFC to the Co-Op: cooking oil, raisins, pastilles, salt, all got.
–Up here, Martha said, and she led Jake round the corner and up a quiet street.
Jake was buzzing. –I can’t believe we just walked out with all this stuff and nobody saw.
–Kids don’t nick cooking oil or salt. Not usually. That’s why they don’t notice.
–It’s like being a magician. It’s like I’ve got eyes in the back of my head. I can see what people are going to do before they do it. I can tell when they’re going to turn around and see me, when they’re going to look away. I’m invisible, slipping things into my rucksack, then out of there like a ghost … Martha? he said; because she was looking around, as if somebody was there watching them, and there was the furrow in her brow again. –You all right?
–It’s time to get out, Martha said. –I’ve got a feeling. It’s a small place and we don’t want to push our luck. We’ll get noticed soon.
Jake got what she meant. A couple of strange kids wandering about when they should be at school would get reported to the hubbers pretty quick, no matter what story they had about a granny. The hubbers would run a scan, look at the CCTV and bingo: ghost kids. There on the CCTV, but invisible on the scan hub.
–Just Cass’s wellies to get, Jake said.
Martha shook her head. –We need to go now.
Jake saw Cass at the kitchen table with the felt tip pen. It had taken her ages to write those words. That was her speaking, as close as she got.
–But she needs them, he said.
–No. We quit while we’re ahead. Also, you’re high on it, and that’s exactly when you make mistakes.
There was Cass, writing out the words: ‘Cass wellies. 12.’
–It took her ages to write them down, he said, but Martha had already turned away and she didn’t answer.
They passed another scan hub, people gathered round the news screens. Atlantic Alliance strikes deal on fisheries, Jake read on the first screen, and Chelsea storm to 2-1 victory! on the second. On a third there was a picture of a rubber boat with pieces of clothing in it. Jake could see a child’s shoe, and a life jacket. Three drown off Kent coast. What had happened to the child? Jake wondered. He peered closer to read the ticker tape: Coastguards rescue thirty drifting off Kent coast. Three die resisting arrest. All travelling without visas or exit documents. Hub police promise crackdown on illicit sale of rubber dinghies.
But it was the third one that had the biggest crowd, and he dodged between people to see the headline.
Breakthrough in Virus Vaccine: Spectacular Trial Results
He pushed further forward. This was what his parents had been doing. This was their work.
Vaccination timetable brought forward, he read. Inoculations ready for Christmas.
–Jake! Come on! Martha’s voice was quiet but urgent.
He read on down the screen, skimming the words as fast as he could. Coalition Chief Scientific Adviser … extremely effective … 100% safe antidote to lethal virus … Pandemic averted … Free … compulsory programme … children and elderly first … inoculations ready before Christmas …
He didn’t understand. His dad had said—
–Jake! Martha’s hand was on his jacket, tugging, so he turned away and followed her out. –What the hell was that about? she said.
–My mum and dad, Jake said. –They were working on the vaccine.
–So what?
–My dad said the Coalition was more dangerous than the virus.
–Dangerous man to know then, your dad, Martha said.
–But the screen said—
–We need to go.
Thirteen
Cass’s wellies were waiting for him, in a big society shop just after Blockbusters. Right bang in the window, between a pile of kids’ DVDs and a tray with a teapot and four King William Jubilee mugs.
–Martha, he whispered. –Look!
He wasn’t completely sure about the size, but they looked near enough. Besides which, why not? He could grab them and be out in five seconds, stash them in the flowery bag before the door had closed. He’d walk away fast and they’d have done the whole list and Cass would have her wellies. Blue with white dots, size about 12. It was perfect.
–No, Martha said; but he was already going in. The shop assistant was on the far side, and she was talking to someone, not watching. The wellies were just there. Jake took out his mobile, made as if to text something and walked round the back of a rack full of old pairs of trousers till he was as close as poss
ible to the window display. Martha was already walking away along the pavement. Last look at the shop assistant, and he slipped a hand between the DVDs and the teapot, lifted the wellies and slipped them in his bag. Then he was out of the shop and running to catch Martha up.
–Hey! Flower boy! The shout came from behind him and across the street and Jake glanced round. It was the boy from the DIY shop. –Tell your sister … the boy called, running after him.
–Oh no. Jake ran, holding the flowery bag close to his chest, the pretend mobile in his other hand.
–Wait up, flower boy! You’re in a hurry.
The boy was calling out, making people turn. Ahead of him, Martha had seen the boy and started running too, dodging round the shoppers. She was fast and it was all Jake could do to keep her in his line of sight. Behind him, the DIY boy’s shouts changed.
–Hey! Stop him! Thief! Hub him!
People were staring now, and Jake ran faster, his breath burning in his throat, his eyes swimming. He ducked between people, brushing against them. A woman called out, angry, as he ran by her, clipping her shopping bags with his hand, and he’d dropped the mobile, but he couldn’t stop. Other voices were shouting after him, and he ducked and dived to escape.
Finally, just as he thought his legs would give out, the shouting stopped. He paused and gave a quick glance back: the DIY boy had stopped a way back. He was doubled over, out of breath, pointing towards Jake, and several people were standing with him, but they weren’t running any more. As he watched, the DIY boy stood up and with three other men beside him, he started marching towards him. It was like being in a Western, except they didn’t have guns. But the men had the hubbers to call on, and despite the stitch eating at his ribs, Jake turned to run again.
–Martha? he called, because in the time it had taken him to stop and look back, she had disappeared.
He had run beyond the shops now, into a street with houses and front gardens.
–Martha? he called, as he passed each house, but there was no reply. His panic rose. He wished he had looked at the map properly the night before, learned a few of the road names. He had no idea where he was.
Ahead were more houses, and then a church building rising up like a cliff. He ran towards it. Coalition Family Centre, the sign read, All Welcome. But there were spiked railings and the gates were locked. Not very welcoming.
Jake stopped, panicked. He needed to hide. He needed to find Martha. Where was she? He could hear footsteps behind him. The DIY boy.
–Martha? he called again, his voice coming out all quavery.
–Jake! Quick. Martha’s voice was a hiss and it came from inside the railings. She’d got through a gap and was crouched in the bushes in the front of the Family Centre. Pushing the flowery bag ahead of him, Jake shoved his way in after her and threw himself flat down on the ground, his face pressed on to the dry earth.
Seconds later the DIY boy came running past, breathing heavily, then he was gone.
They just lay there. The ground below the bushes was shadowy, cut with dark green lines. It smelled of fox and old leaves. Jet would have liked it under there. Except for the distant sound of cars, it was quiet. Rain began to fall, a steady pattering sound. Jake’s heart slowed to normal and the DIY boy didn’t return. He tapped Martha’s leg.
–He’s gone, he whispered. Martha?
She didn’t reply.
–Martha? he said again.
–Outwalker rule four, she said finally, her voice very quiet. –What is it?
–Obedience to the gang, he said slowly.
–And what happens if you break the rule?
–But they were right there, in the window … he said.
Martha squeezed through the gap in the railings onto the pavement and started walking back the way they’d come.
Jake followed behind her. –And Cass is little and she doesn’t speak and— He stopped, feeling helpless. –Please, Martha.
She turned back to him, every quiet word like a blow. –Do you think I don’t know all that?
–But, Martha …
–Shut up, she said. –We need to get out of here. She turned and walked on.
The rain was falling more heavily now and Martha had pulled on her raincoat. From behind, with the hood up, she looked like his mother, and it gave Jake an odd feeling in his chest to see it. They were going back a different way, up quiet roads of semis with scraps of grass at the front and wheelie bins and clapped-out cars in the driveways. Sheppard Road, Delabere Avenue, Symington Road. Martha seemed to know exactly where to go, and Jake remembered her hunched over the map the night before.
–Walk beside me, she said. –Looks suspicious if you’re behind.
He caught up with her, walked alongside. The road was empty, just a few sodden pigeons pecking around some bins. They were the only ones on the street here.
–I’m sorry, he said. –I meant to do the right thing. I didn’t think …
–No, you didn’t. Her eyes were fixed on the road, and she sounded so angry Jake didn’t dare say anything else.
The road ended and they were in a park. They passed a battered playground. No kids playing in the rain.
Jake felt ill. –Are you going to tell Swift and Poacher? he said.
–You put the whole gang at risk back there, she said. –Not just you, not just me, the whole gang. Including Cass. So yes, I am going to tell them.
Bile rose in his throat and he swallowed hard to keep it down. –Martha, please, he said.
She turned towards him. –Look at me, she said, and she swung him round by his shoulder. –I spent nearly ten years in a Home Academy. They put me in when I was seven. My brother was five. My mum and dad? They rendered them. That’s all they’ve ever told me. I don’t know why, and I don’t know where they are, not even if they’re alive.
Jake looked at her face. Her eyes were dark and unblinking.
–What happened to your brother? Jake said.
He saw her make this little movement with her shoulder, a flinch, as if he’d poked his finger into an open wound. She didn’t answer him at first, and then she spoke in a distant voice, as though what she was saying wasn’t really about her.
–We could write letters, but we only got to see each other once a year. Once a year for nearly ten years. They’d take a group of us girls from our Home Academy in a van to a Children’s Centre, and bring our brothers from their Home Academy, and we’d have a day together. So … it was our visiting day. Our ninth. I was sixteen, Peter fourteen, and taller than me now. He looked just like our dad. Same eyes, same thing he did with his hands when he got excited. I’d got an escape plan, and it had to be that day because next year I might be in the picking fields, and the year after he’d be in the fracking fields and then it would be too late.
–I should have guessed something from his letters, but I didn’t want to, I think. And I was a child, so how could I? What did I know?
She paused, and again Jake waited.
–He wasn’t well, she said. –In the head. In the mind. He’d written some odd things in his letters, but I thought he was just having a laugh, because there was always normal stuff too. And if he was having a laugh, then he was surviving. That’s what I thought.
–Anyway, he wasn’t well that day. He was saying strange things. But it was our only chance to escape, so … I took him with me. I told him he had to be quiet. Told him it was really important. I held his hand and took him with me. Out the back of the Centre. Only I escaped, and he didn’t. I was hiding in a dumpster, and I could see them. He was shouting. Calling out. That’s how they found him. He couldn’t be quiet. It took five men to hold him down …
She took a breath.
–And then they Tasered him. Just for fun. I saw it all. He was still afterwards. They brought in paramedics and they tried to bring him back. But he still lay there, no shouting, no waving his hand, no movement at all, and I could only watch.
Jake watched her. He felt dumb with horror. She went on, c
almly, it seemed.
–Eventually they put a sheet over his head. I never even got to kiss him goodbye.
She put her bag of stolen stuff on the ground, and stood for a while, just looking at it.
–So I’m not going back there because of you, she said at last. –If you’re thrown out, it’s your own fault and you deserve it. My brother’s gone and you’re here, and you’re not ill, and you’re not like my brother, or Davie, and you’ve done something very stupid. If we’re caught, we won’t be able to escape again – they’ll make sure of it. They’ve got Home Academies, special ones, for kids like us. Ask Poacher. Ask him what they’re like.
–Martha, please … he said again.
–How long do you think Davie would survive in one of those places? Or Cass? She’s ill too.
–I know she’s ill. That’s why I wanted to get her the wellies, Jake said.
–It’s not wellies she needs, Martha said. She kicked at the bag on the ground. –It’s not anything we can steal for her. She’s got an illness of the blood. That’s why they’re in the gang, her and Swift. And every day that passes, she gets weaker.
–But I’ve seen Swift giving her medicine, Jake said.
–Yes. Swift brought it with her from the Home Academy. Broke into their pharmacy, took as much as she could lay her hands on. It helps a bit. Slows the illness down. But there isn’t much left, and once it’s gone …
Martha paused, wiped a hand across her face. She looked older than before. Then she went on.
–There is a medicine that can cure it. Not always, but sometimes. But it’s above Cass’s threshold. The Coalition won’t pay for it, not for a child in a Home Academy. Standard treatment only, doesn’t matter how ill you are, doesn’t matter that you’re a child. And of course they’ve got no family to pay the difference and get them first-class treatment. But if they can get to Scotland, then it doesn’t matter if she’s rich or poor. Doesn’t matter that she’s got no parents. Cass will get the best medicine. She’ll have a chance.