by Fiona Shaw
–Uh-oh, he said, because the emergency exit door was wide open and he counted three, four, five seccas muscling on to the street. Big men in black gear, and all of them holding Tasers and batons. He saw people staring at the guards, then looking away. He saw the guards looking over to the gardens.
–I’ve gotta sit down, Ollie said. –I can’t walk any more.
Pulling him by the arm, Jake half dragged him to the far side of the gardens. He glanced back again. The men were crossing the road, waving their Tasers at the cars to force a stop. Where could they hide? If he’d been alone, he’d have climbed a tree, or run out of the gardens and down another street, but there was no way Ollie could do that.
Jake sniffed. There was a smell, a foul smell coming from somewhere. He looked around. Nothing to see except some grass and a path and railings. Beyond the railings what looked like a small rectangle of space. They walked towards it and the foul smell got stronger.
–It stinks, Ollie said. He was right; it did. Now they were closer, Jake saw that the rectangle of space had a set of filthy stairs leading down to a door with a big padlock on it. His heart leaped. In front of the door was a heap of rubbish: dirty cardboard, takeaway bags, twigs, leaves, food wrappers. The smell must be coming out of that pile. Something dead, he reckoned, but he didn’t want to think about it too carefully, because that pile of rubbish was their only chance. There was nowhere else to go.
–Hold the railing, Jake told Ollie. –Put your foot in my hand. And before Ollie could say anything, he punted him up, so that Ollie pretty much fell into the stairwell, tumbling on to the pile of rubbish. Without pausing, Jake jumped down after him, and before Ollie could say anything, he put a hand across his mouth.
–Don’t say anything. Just lie down, he said, and he gave Ollie a little push, to show him he was serious. Dead serious.
The smell was so thick he could’ve cut it with his penknife, and the perfume smells on them made it even worse. Jake gagged, clenched a fist to keep his nausea down. Pulling at the cardboard, he tugged it over Ollie. It was damp and clammy in his hands. He threw a couple of takeaway bags over the top, and you couldn’t see that there was a boy underneath.
–Porca vacca, it’s disgusting, Ollie whispered. –I can’t breathe.
–Shut up! Jake whispered back. –Move an inch and you’ll never see your dad again.
Then he lay down beside Ollie and, fast as he could, pulled the rubbish over himself. One bag gave way, and his fingers sank into something soft and cold and he wanted to scream, and if he hadn’t heard the guards’ voices calling out, he’d have been out of there, with its foul smells and dead things.
The boys lay like stones. Jake breathed through his mouth, small shallow breaths, so as not to gag, but he could taste the dead smell even so. Moments after he’d got himself hidden, there was the sound of heavy boots and then a man’s voice, angry-sounding, just above them, talking into his mobile.
–You find ’em, you bring ’em to me. He was my partner four years. It’s me got to tell his wife and kiddies.
Jake gulped. The dead secca had a wife and kids. Course he did. And they were blaming him and Ollie for the secca’s death. Didn’t matter that it wasn’t their fault. If they got caught now, they probably wouldn’t make it back alive to a Home Academy anyway.
–Yeah, static crew’s checking the CCTV, just had a text, the voice said. –They’re gonna get some mugshots out on the public screens. Yeah, OK.
Jake willed him not to look down. The seconds seemed like hours till he heard him shout across again.
–Nothing here. Just rubbish, takeaway skank. Stinks. We’ll head for Harley Street or Dean’s Mews. We’ll catch ’em pretty soon if they’ve gone that way. The scan hubs’ll pick them up.
The seccas must’ve gone and it was quiet after that, but the boys still waited another half-hour before climbing out, first Jake, then Ollie. Only as Jake leaned down to give Ollie a pull-up over the railings, and Ollie’s foot pushed aside one stretch of cardboard, did Jake see where the stink had come from. A dead dog with black fur stared from a dustbin sack. Its head rolled sideways: its eyes were gone and its lolling tongue was covered in flies. For a split second, a chasm opened and the world went dark.
–Jet!
Ollie looked down. –It’s not Jet. It’s a different dog. Pull me up!
Because, of course, it wasn’t Jet. The dog had been dead too long to be Jet. Jet was somewhere in London with the gang, and he was safe with them. Wasn’t he? Jake took a deep breath to slow his heart and took hold of Ollie’s arms to drag him out.
It was still early morning and the gardens were quiet. The seccas were gone and other people were busy going to work. Jake looked out at the buildings beyond. His mum had promised to take him to London one day. They’d visit the museums, and ride on the Tube, and climb to the top of the Shard. Now he was here, and all he wanted to do was get out. It was his fault: he’d found the lorry with the Outwalker sign. The lorry heading in the wrong direction. They never should have taken it, cos this city was evil. It didn’t care about anyone, and it hated them. It hated Outwalkers. That’s what he felt.
The buildings around the square were huge, white and brown and grey, a hundred, a thousand panes of glass staring coldly back at him. Although the air was warm, he shivered. There was still rain in the air, but it wasn’t that. These buildings didn’t care about a couple of lost boys, they only cared about themselves.
–I don’t like London, he said. –Sooner we’re out of it, the better.
–Sooner we’re out of this square too, Ollie said. –I heard them. They think we’re murderers. They’ll keep hunting.
They walked quickly to the gate at the top end of the gardens, the end furthest from the department store. Just inside it, Jake spotted a water fountain. He washed his face and hands as best he could, then he refilled his bottle. Finally he had a drink. The cold water was delicious and despite his hunger, despite his fear, he felt revived.
–Get some of this, Ollie, he said. –Best water I ever tasted.
He turned round. Ollie had slumped down on to a bench just inside the gate. He looked bad. His skin was still grey, and his hands were shaking.
–I can’t go any further, he said. –It was that guard falling, and then being sick. I’ve got nothing left in me. I’m sorry. It’s my blood sugar …
–You’ll get us picked up straight off, looking like that, Jake said. He could feel the panic in his body. If he didn’t do something fast, it would overwhelm him, and then where would they be?
Ollie needed somewhere to rest, somewhere out of sight and away from dead dogs. Jake could see that. Somewhere under cover. But where? He looked around at the empty gardens and the tall buildings. What were they going to do? Pushing Ollie down on to a bench, he crouched down to him.
–Stay here. Just for a minute.
Leaving the gardens, Jake crossed the road. He had an idea. There was scaffolding up one of the buildings, and stretched across the lowest scaffolding was a sheet of blue plastic twelve feet high, as if they’d started to wrap the building up. He couldn’t see any builders. Maybe they were on another job; his dad said that’s what they did all the time: two jobs at the same time.
A bottom corner of the plastic was flapping, and when Jake knelt down, he saw that if you lifted it up you could slip behind it, if you were nimble. Space enough for a couple of boys, anyway. So Ollie could rest there while Jake went foraging for some food.
Course it was a risk: the builders might turn up, and need to climb behind the plastic for some reason. But it was less of a risk than Ollie staying in the gardens. The guards would be back; or someone would get nosy about the boy sitting on a bench during school time and phone in to the hubbers, or ask too many questions. Then they’d match Ollie’s fingerprints to the fingerprints on the dead secca, and they’d match his DNA.
Jake didn’t think Ollie would survive getting locked away. Ollie made out to be very grown-up and cool about things.
But he wasn’t. He was a kid who desperately needed to find his dad.
Jake imagined this happening. It would be like the scene in the olden-times movie his mum made him watch once because it was her favourite when she was a girl. The children wore olden-times clothes and ran after old steam trains, and at the end the biggest sister walked along a station platform, and her missing dad appeared through all the steam and she ran to him and he hugged her so hard he lifted her off the ground. That’s how Jake imagined Ollie finding his dad again.
Ollie was off the bench when Jake got back, and standing beside a map board just inside the gate. His eyes were shining.
–I found a place— Jake began, but Ollie interrupted him.
–Look! he said, and he pointed to the map board. –Look!
The map showed a criss-cross of streets, with names and numbers, and yellow blocks of buildings, and small patches of green. YOU ARE HERE was written on the green patch in the middle of the board.
–Cavendish Square Gardens, Jake read.
–That’s where we are now, yes. But look hard, just above. What do you see?
Jake looked. All he could see were streets, and more streets. –Come on, Ollie, we need to be out of here. Now.
But Ollie wouldn’t be hurried. –Look at the Tube stations, he said.
There, above the red Bond Street Tube sign, Jake saw it: another circle, scratched on to the plastic surface, and in the middle of it, a small dot.
His heart leaped. –Nice one, he said. Now they knew where Poacher and Swift and the rest of the gang would be. They could head over there as soon as Ollie was strong enough to move again.
They made a den for Ollie behind the scaffolding and plastic. He lay on the ground with his rucksack for a pillow.
–One of us needs to stay near the gardens, case the gang comes back here, Jake said. –I’ll be quick as I can. I checked out the bins in the gardens: no food. But you need to eat, and soon. So I’m going to find a food bank.
Maybe it was lying down that did it, but Ollie had gone scared again. –What if the hubbers get us before we find the gang?
Jake took off his jacket. –Here, put this over you. Makes you look more like a heap of old clothes, less like a boy.
–That other secca, he got a good look at us. They’ll find us on the CCTV. I saw the cameras in the square. Ollie put a hand on his rucksack pillow. –And my dad’s scarf, the seccas took that, remember? So they’ll give that to the sniffer dogs and the dogs’ll sniff me out, even in here.
But Jake wasn’t listening. –I know I can’t get in without a chip, he said, –but there’ll be people coming out with bags full of food and I reckon one of them’ll give me something.
–And what if the gang don’t wait for us? Ollie said. –What if they aren’t at Bond Street Tube? What if they leave London before we find them again, what then?
Jake didn’t have an answer. That was the scariest thought of all and it frightened him too. But if he really thought the gang had gone, then he’d just sit down with Ollie and not get up again.
–I won’t be long, he said. –And I’ll bring back food. Sort out your sugary blood thing. I promise. Then we can get to Bond Street and down into the tunnels and we’ll find them.
He knew how scared Ollie was, being left there on his own, and too weak even to make a run for it, but they didn’t have a choice.
–Gimme your hand, Ollie said. They bumped knuckles, and Jake left.
Twenty
Jake had never been into a food bank, but he knew how they worked. If you were poor, the food bank scan hub would know it, and it would let you in. You went there each week and you got given bags of food. His mum had explained it to him, and he’d seen the food bank buildings in the town, with their huge red and blue FB above the entrance, and the queue of people waiting outside with their red and blue bags. Because if you didn’t have the right bags, they wouldn’t give you the food, his mum said.
–The Coalition looks after you cradle to grave, Miss McCarthy taught them, and she showed them pictures of olden-times starving children. –Nobody in England need go hungry now.
Some of the kids at school brought food bank vouchers for school dinners too. They got different dinners from everyone else. Grey stew with white bits floating, and mashed turnip and grey mashed potato, and pink blancmange. And they had to eat it all up, or else. Sometimes voucher kids missed playtime because they hadn’t eaten their dinner. Once a girl in his class sat in front of hers until going-home time, and the teacher put it in a plastic box for her to take home. The ordinary school dinners looked really nice, but his mum wouldn’t let Jake have them.
–Can’t change the system, but as long as there are voucher kids, you’re having a pack-up for lunch, she told him.
He scanned the streets. Food banks were usually in busy places where everyone would see them. And they always had tall red and blue flags flying that you could see from way back. But the buildings in London were so tall he’d never see any flags, and these streets were too quiet. The longer he left Ollie, the more likely Ollie would get caught. He needed to be fast. But he didn’t want to catch anybody’s eye, and he didn’t dare run. So he walked, as fast as he could, reciting the street names back to himself under his breath to make sure he could find his way back.
He noted a flagpole, a red crane, a clock hanging out into the street, a flower shop, an oval blue sign on a wall. He paused to read it.
Leopold Anthony Stokowski, Musician, it said.
Must be an old sign, Jake thought, because nobody would get a sign on the wall now for being a musician. Then a boy’s voice called out.
–Hey! Lamer!
Before he could stop himself, Jake turned. He’d never heard that word before, but he could guess what it meant. A group of boys in school uniform were standing outside a school on the other side of the road and staring at him. They were about his age, and they didn’t look friendly.
–Ain’t you got any pals? On your own? The voice was hard.
Jake carried on walking. He wished he had Jet with him. Or Ollie. Or the gang. This lot wouldn’t make a peep if Swift and Poacher were here.
What if they haven’t waited? The thought came in at him like a poisoned arrow, its barb piercing his skin, its poison spilling into his bloodstream, sapping his strength. He looked over his shoulder. Two of the boys were walking towards him.
One of them shouted again. –Where you from, weirdo? You from Europe? You some lame Euro Peean?
He’d have to run for it. But his legs felt weak. He didn’t know if he could.
Brrrrring!
The bell made him jump. Then a woman’s voice, not loud, but penetrating. He knew she was a teacher: –Carlos Edgars and John Lee. In. Now!
Jake glanced back. The boys had stopped dead. They were turning. He took a deep breath and he was away safe.
–You! Boy! The teacher’s voice again, but this time she was talking to him. –Shouldn’t you be in school?
Exhaustion washed over him. The teacher was standing on the kerb with her hands on her hips. She was angry. But when he looked at her, he saw her face change.
–Come here, she said more quietly. –You look like you need some help.
Now she looked kind. Like she’d put an arm round his shoulder and get him some hot food, a cup of sweet tea. She’d ask him how he got those cuts and scrapes, and why he was so exhausted. And then she’d phone someone and it would all be taken out of his hands.
He wanted so much to cross the road and let her fetch him in. Tell him he could be a bona fide again. Tell him what to do and where to go. Look after him.
He didn’t think about Ollie lying on the ground, waiting for him. He didn’t think about anything. He just wanted an arm round his shoulders.
He walked towards her.
You and Jet, always. It was his mum’s voice, inside his head. Him and Jet. He’d promised her.
He took another step. The teacher was waiting.
You and Jet, alw
ays. There it was again, his mum’s voice. If he crossed the road now, he’d never see Jet again. Somewhere in this city, Jet was waiting for him, and they had to get to Scotland, because he’d promised his mum.
He shook his head and turned away from the teacher, and walked on up the street. A minute later he was at the top of a massive road, traffic roaring, and there on the corner red and blue flags flying, a food bank. We’re looking out for you, the sign said below the smiling face.
–Yes! Jake whispered, and he punched the air with relief.
At the entrance, he could see the scan hub and a woman checking a pad screen as each person went in. The hub light lit green as each of them walked past. There was a line of people queuing, like always, their red and blue bags flapping around in the traffic wind. And they looked just the same as they used to back home: poor and patient. A few had their eyes down, looking at their mobiles, but most were staring up at the news screen.
A photograph filled the screen. A man holding two small children by the hand. He was smiling out at the camera. Something about the man’s face was familiar, but Jake couldn’t place it. Then the LED ticker tape spattered across the bottom:
Heroic security guard … father of two Gregory Miller … murdered in John Lewis, Oxford Street … Ruthless duo occupied store overnight … still at large … Police warn: pair armed and dangerous … Do not approach … Any information leading to their arrest, text INFO to: 07721 …
Jake wanted to run away fast. What if one of those people looked at him and guessed? What then?
Don’t run, a voice in his head told him. They haven’t even said it was children. Nobody’s looking at you, and you need food. He reached back to pull up his jacket hood, make himself invisible that way. But the voice cut in again: No, don’t do that either. You pull your hood up, people will wonder why you’re hiding. But you’re just a boy outside a food bank. That’s all.
So with his hood down, and walking, not running, Jake went round to the exit.