The Enemy (21 page)

Maxie didn’t know what to say, and was worried about bursting into tears in front of the boys, so she turned her back on the three of them and stalked off to a quiet corner. Ol ie exchanged a look with Blue and Jester and walked over to join her.

“Maxie . . .”

“Go away. I want to be alone.”

“I know you do, but I want you to listen to me.”

“There’s nothing you can say.”

“Isn’t there?”

Maxie spun around. “Go away.”

“How do you think this looks?” said Ol ie calmly.

“I don’t care how it looks.”

“Wel , you should care. You’re in charge now, Maxie. Now that Arran’s gone. You’ve got to be strong. You’ve got to take charge. Our kids are looking to you for leadership. They want you to tel them what to do. They need you.”

“What do I tel them, Ol ie? What’s the right thing to do?”

Ol ie sat down. “They al think the same as you,” he said. “They think the right thing to do, the good thing, would be to go back and check. See if we can find any of the others.”

“Then why did you—”

Ol ie cut her off. “That’s what they think would be the right thing to do,” he said. “But deep down, secretly, they would al much rather get out of here and put the park behind them. They’d rather not take any more risks. And as the leader you can make that harsh decision for them. You can order them not to go back. Then they won’t feel so bad about it al .”

“You mean I need to show them I’m tough?”

“Of course. Yeah. There are two types of leader in this world, Maxie. Wartime leaders and peacetime leaders. And they’re total y different. They need different skil s. A wartime leader needs to show no weakness. A wartime leader’s got to show that one or two individuals don’t real y matter. What matters is the survival of the group. What matters is winning by whatever means, yeah? It doesn’t matter how we do this, how we get to the palace, how we win this, just so long as we do. That’s al that matters.”

“What if I don’t want to be in charge?”

“Who’d be better at it than you?”

“You, maybe, Ol ie. You’re smart enough. The kids listen to you. Arran listened to you.”

“Yeah,” said Ol ie. “They listen to me, but they don’t look up to me. I ain’t a star. They look up to you.”

“Do they? What do they think of me? Real y?” said Maxie.

“Make them think what you want them to think,” said Ol ie. “You got what it takes. You’re the best person for the job.”

“But I don’t know if I am.”

“Listen,” said Ol ie, leaning closer and lowering his voice, “Blue and Jester are getting a bit too close for my liking. They could cut you out. And if they cut you out, they cut al us Waitrose kids out. We’l be second-class citizens. We need to stick up for ourselves. And I know you can do it, Maxie. Arran had faith in you. So I have faith in you.”

“Al right.”

L
isten up, everyone,” Maxie shouted. “We had a bad time of it last night, but it’s not going to happen again. Right? We’re going to push on. We’re going to get to the palace this morning. From here on in it’l be safe. Okay?”

“But we’re not al here.”

“Yes we are. Some kids didn’t make it last night. They’re dead. There’s no point in going back to look for them.”

“But Katey was my friend.”

“And Arran was my friend. He’s dead. We burned him. I’m in charge now. And I’m tel ing you. Not asking. We move on. Anyone thinks different, they’re welcome to go back and search for bodies. But you’l be doing it alone. There are fifty-three of us left, and we’re going to the palace. Now let’s move out!”

They left the semicircle and marched down Portland Place. Maxie at the front with Blue and Jester.

A few minutes later they arrived at Oxford Circus, the heart of the West End; once the busiest part of al London, now deserted and derelict. How quickly everything had fal en apart. How quiet it was now.

They stopped here, in the middle of the junction where Oxford Street met Regent Street, and looked down the long, empty roads.

“I used to come shopping here on Saturdays,” said Blue.

“Me too,” said Jester.

“Topshop,” said Maxie.

“The Apple Store,” said Jester. “HMV.”

“Niketown,” said Blue.

Many of the storefronts had been smashed, but some stil had their windows intact, and in one or two there were stil a few items.

“It’s not al gone,” said Whitney, grinning. “Think of it, yeah, if we scavenge around here, the things we’l find. And look—there’s no grown-ups.”

“I told you,” said Jester. “It’s peaceful here. There are stil some Strangers lurking about the place, but it’s nothing like it is out your way.”

Whitney began to laugh. “We should go shopping,” she said.

Now Maxie laughed.

“I’m serious, yeah,” said Whitney. “Look at these rags we’re wearing.”

Maxie looked at Whitney. She looked immaculate as ever in her gleaming white tracksuit. Somehow she always managed to keep it clean.

“We’re like a bunch of bums,” Whitney went on. “Before everything kicked off I used to care about how I looked. We’re arriving at Buckingham Palace, we deserve to turn up in clean

clothes and new sneakers and stuff.”

“We’re not going to see the Queen,” said Maxie.

“We’re starting a new life,” said Whitney. “I want to make a good impression.”

“I can’t argue with that,” said Jester. “You guys are a mess.”

“So we couldn’t go back to look for lost friends,” said Maxie, “but we have time to go shopping?”

“It wasn’t safe back there in the park,” said Blue. “This is different.”

“How do you know? Just because we can’t see any grown-ups doesn’t mean there aren’t any around.”

“These streets are general y quiet,” said Jester.

“And how often have you come up here, exactly?” asked Maxie.

“Once or twice.”

“Once or twice?”

“Listen,” said Blue. “It’s no big deal. We’l just go a little way along Oxford Street. It’s not out of our way none. We can come down to the palace from the north just as easy as coming in from the east. We can change our route.”

“Arran worked out the best route,” said Maxie.

“Arran’s dead.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“If you’re in charge,” said Blue, “then you can change the route if you want. You don’t need to stick to Arran’s plan.”

“It’l be okay,” said Jester. “Going this way won’t make any real difference. We can cut down via Bond Street or Grosvenor Square. If we see anything in the shops and there are no grown-ups around, we can grab some of it. Oxford Street’s nice and wide, and I’ve learned from you lot that wide streets are good.”

“Come on,” said Blue, smiling at Maxie. “What harm can it do? It might lift everyone’s spirits. And you know you’d like some clean clothes. Brand new.

Fresh out of the box.”

“Al right,” said Maxie. “But any sign of trouble and we get out.”

“Cool,” said Blue, and they walked on down Oxford Street, heading west toward Marble Arch.

Maxie felt okay. She had given in to Blue and Jester, but at least they had listened to her and discussed it sensibly. She felt sure that if she’d flatly refused they’d have respected her decision. Ol ie had been right. She had to stand up for herself, and for the Waitrose crew.

And also ...

She dearly wanted a change of clothes.

After a couple of minutes, Freak joined her on the flank.

“I don’t like this,” he said.

“We don’t want to turn up at the palace like a bunch of dirt bal s.”

“We should keep going,” said Freak. “This reminds me too much of the other day. When we went to the pool. We got greedy.”

“Face it, Freak,” said Maxie. “We could just as easily get attacked going the other way. The truth is we just don’t know where the next danger’s coming from. Besides,” she added, sniffing the air and wrinkling her nose, “you stink.”

“So do you,” said Freak, and he smiled at her.

Some shops had been looted, some burned, some were just empty, as if the stock had been taken away to a safe place before the col apse. They found a shoe shop that had racks and racks of shoes on display, but they were al singles—the other halves of the pairs were in a dark back room somewhere, and nobody wanted to go and look.

They found a discount store with a few T-shirts and tracksuits hanging on racks, and they fought over who should get what. Blue picked up a New Era cap from a tourist shop, but on the whole the pickings were slim.

After a while they came to Selfridges, once London’s biggest department store. Miraculously it was stil standing and looked almost untouched. The front doors had been busted open, however, and the window displays were empty.

“What do you think?” asked Blue, with a certain amount of awe. “You can get anything in Selfridges. We should look inside.”

“Wait,” said Maxie. “First we send in a scouting party. If it’s safe and if it’s worth it, then we can al go in. But we check it out first.”

“I’l go,” said Lewis, and he was soon joined by Achil eus, Sophie, and Big Mick, the Morrisons fighter who looked like he was about eighteen.

“Be back here in ten minutes,” said Maxie. “Don’t mess around—even if you see something you want, leave it for now. Just make sure it’s safe in there, that’s al that’s important.”

“See you in ten minutes,” said Achil eus with a smirk, and the four of them went into the gloom.

Everyone else stood in the road, gawking at the massive building.

Maxie went over to Ol ie.

“Go with them,” she said. “I need someone levelheaded in there.”

“Sure.” Ol ie fol owed the others inside as Maxie clapped her hands and started shouting, moving among the kids.

“Okay. Let’s not get soft. We should be in battle formation. Smal kids in the middle, larger ones form a ring. Blue, you take the west side. I’l take the east. Come on, move it!”

Ol ie smiled. This was good. Maxie was doing wel . He only hoped that it wasn’t a mistake sending the scouting party into the store. They were some of the best fighters. They couldn’t afford to lose any of them.

Them? Surely he meant us. Ol ie was in on this. It’s funny, he thought as he slipped into the darkness. You always thought it was someone else who was going to die, not you.

It was dark in the store. There were no windows to the outside world. The flashlights of the scouting party scoured the murk of what used to be the perfume and makeup department. There were broken glass cabinets and display stands everywhere, draped with cobwebs. Some of the signs and logos were stil in one piece, but there was a forlorn, deserted feel about the place, and smashed bottles lay al over the floor.

The lingering smel of perfume hung in the air, sickly and cloying. There was no evidence of any recent human activity, though. It was very stil and quiet.

“If we can’t find any clothes, we can always just swipe some perfume,” said Achil eus. “It’l hide the stink at least.”

“Yeah,” said Lewis, sleepily scratching his head. “You can arrive at the palace smel ing like a queen.”

“That’s right.” Achil eus laughed.

Big Mick had been searching the debris on the floor with his flashlight. “Look,” he said, picking something up. “This one ain’t broken.”

“Show me that,” said Lewis, and Mick passed it to him.

“Moisturizer,” he said mockingly. “I know a few grown-ups could use some of this. They’ve real y let themselves go since the disaster. Their skin care is appal ing, bro.”

“We should keep moving,” said Sophie. “We’ve only got ten minutes. The clothing departments are upstairs, I think.”

“Sure.”

Sophie had to be very careful of what she said. She was wel aware that at least half the kids hated her for kil ing Arran, even though it was an accident. She had to do al she could to get on their side.

They crossed the floor, glass crunching underfoot, and found the escalators. Lewis spotted a store map and ran his flashlight down it.

“Men’s first floor, women’s second floor.”

“Let’s quickly go up to the very top,” said Achil eus. “Then work our way down.”

They climbed the first escalator and found themselves on the men’s fashion floor. There was a moment’s panic as their flashlights settled on what looked like a pack of grown-ups, pale and naked and gray. But the kids laughed when they realized it was only a group of mannequins. It stil made them jump, though, every time they came across other ones.

A quick scan of the area showed them that there were stil some clothes here.

“Looking good,” said Lewis as they walked around to the bottom of the next escalator.

As they went up, Ol ie walked with Sophie.

“Listen, Sophie,” he said, “I know you didn’t mean to kil Arran. It could have happened anytime. To tel you the truth, he was badly wounded anyway.

He got bitten. He was losing it a bit, sick. He’d gone crazy. Even without your arrow he might never have made it to the palace. Maybe you just saved him a lot of pain.”

“Thank you,” said Sophie. “But I feel awful about it.”

“Don’t.”

The next floor was the same. In fact there were probably more clothes here than on the floor below. After a quick look around they continued on up to the top floor. Once again Ol ie walked with Sophie.