The Enemy (35 page)

T
hey arrived at sunset. Carl, the pirate, had brought ten of the meanest, toughest-looking squatters with him, plus a couple of smaler kids. Wiry little bruisers with even more attitude than their larger friends. They were escorted to the Throne Room and came in intending to be unimpressed, to play it cool, to show the stone face, but now they were al standing there with eyes wide, mouths hanging open.

“Oh, my days,” said Carl. “This is unreal.”

Everything about the scene was unreal. The decrepit Royal Family were slumped in their thrones, drooling. Just John was standing to one side, his hands tied behind his back, his feet loosely roped together so that he could walk but not run. There was a wad of cotton wool taped across his nose, and his eyes were ringed with purple bruising. He looked uglier than ever.

David and Jester stood on the other side, arms folded. David’s suit was clean and pressed, his tie immaculate. The palace guards were at attention in front of the thrones, wearing their red-and-black uniforms, their rifles at the ready, trying their hardest to look like professionals.

Pod and his team of fighters were along one wal . Maxie and the chief Hol oway kids were along the other wal . Maxie thought it was like some ridiculous school play, like Shakespeare or something, with kids pretending to be kings and queens and soldiers. But she was interested to see how the scene would play out. She could see a faint smile curling David’s lip. For the moment he had the upper hand. The squatters were thrown, their guard was down.

He raised his hand for silence and started to speak.

“This morning my ambassador spoke to you.”

Maxie bit her lip. Since when was she David’s ambassador?

Just John obviously didn’t like the idea of an ambassador any more than Maxie did.

“Ambassador?” he said, his voice sounding choked and nasal. “What you talking about, moron?”

“The girl, Maxie, was speaking on my behalf. Now I wil speak for myself.”

“Listen, mate,” said Carl. “We didn’t come here to talk, we came to get John.”

“That wasn’t the deal, though, was it?” said David. “The deal was—if you wanted John back you’d have to talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” said Carl. “As I see it we won the fight.”

“But we’ve got John,” said David.

“This doesn’t need to get heavy,” said Jester. “We don’t have to be enemies.”

“Who says?”

“We have food here,” said Jester. “We have security. We also have many more kids than you do. We have weapons as wel , good weapons, and a wel -organized army. Al we’re saying is—why not join us? Together we can be strong. We can take on any other gang of kids. We can rule London.”

Again Maxie winced. She had no desire to rule London. She just wanted a roof over her head, food on her plate, and to be able to sleep at night without waking every half hour in a sweat of fear and anxiety. But maybe this was the only language the squatters would understand.

“We don’t want you to change,” said David.

“That’s big of you,” said Just John.

“You can keep your camp,” said David, ignoring the interruption. “You can stil be in charge, John. But we make peace. We grow food together. We share everything. If there is an outside threat, we stand shoulder to shoulder against it.”

A couple of the squatters sniggered at David’s fancy language. But Carl was looking at Just John quizzical y.

“You say you won this morning,” Pod chipped in. “But we could have destroyed your whole camp if we wanted.”

“You didn’t fight fair,” said John. “You cheated.”

Now it was the turn of some of the palace kids to snigger. The idea of someone like Just John complaining about fair play was more than faintly ridiculous.

“I could have beaten you with a blindfold on, man,” said Achil eus. “You are sad.”

“Oh, tough guy, aren’t you?” said John, and Achil eus shrugged. “I was trying to talk to you and you whacked me.

If I’d’ve been ready for you, you wouldn’t be standing there now.”

“If you was any good you’d have been ready,” said Achil eus. “But you ain’t nothing.”

“Al right, al right,” said David, raising his hands again. “That’s enough of that. We don’t need to start an argument. This isn’t about fighting each other; it’s about becoming al ies.”

“This is boring,” Achil eus muttered. “It’s too much like politics.”

“Al I’m asking for is a truce,” said David.

“There’s unfinished business,” said John darkly.

“What unfinished business?” said Jester.

“Me and him.” John pointed at Achil eus.

“You want another fight, I’m ready,” said Achil eus.

John spat on the carpet and shuffled over to Carl. The two of them had a quick quiet chat, which ended with Carl slapping John on the shoulder.

“We’re ready to make a deal,” he said.

“As long as you understand that we might not accept it,” said David. “As I see it, we have the upper hand. We have John prisoner, and—”

“You gonna listen to our deal or are you gonna blab, fancy boy?” said John.

“I’l listen,” said David. “But it better be good.”

“It’s good,” said John. “It’s the best you’l ever get.”

“Go on then.”

“It’s like this. We’l do everything you say. We’l help you grow food; we’l join up with you if anyone attacks. Al that you said. We’l make a truce. On one condition.”

“Which is?”

“Him there.” John was pointing at Achil eus. “If he can beat me in a fair fight.”

“It’s a deal,” said Achil eus without any hesitation.

“Wait,” said Maxie. “That’s just stupid.”

“Wait,” said Maxie. “That’s just stupid.”

“Yeah?” said Carl. “Wel , it’s our deal. Take it or leave it.”

“What do you say, David?” asked John, his chin raised cockily.

“What if we lose?”

“If you lose you can forget any kind of truce, and if you want to start a war, that’s fine with us. We’l be ready for you.”

“Wait a moment.”

David and Jester went over to Achil eus. It was their turn for a quiet chat.

“Can you beat him?” David asked.

Achil eus smiled. “No problem. I took him before. I can take him again. He’s al talk.”

“Are you sure? A lot rests on this.”

“You don’t think I can do it?”

“He can do it,” said Jester.

“Al right.” David broke away from the huddle. “You’ve got a deal.”

“Wait a moment,” said Maxie, pushing between David and Jester. “We need to think about this.”

“I
have
thought about it,” said David. “It’s agreed.”

“Wait . . .” said Maxie, and Achil eus put his hand on her arm.

“Don’t you want revenge?” he said. “For what he did to Freak? Don’t you want to see him dead?”

“If I’d wanted that, I could have kil ed him myself this morning.”

“Revenge, Maxie.”

“I don’t want revenge. And I don’t want any more fighting.”

“It’s not your decision,” said David, and he walked over toward John.

“The two of you wil fight for it,” he said. “Our champion against yours.”

“Al right.” John smiled, showing his smal , jagged, yel ow teeth, and shook hands with David. He didn’t let go. Instead he leaned closer until their faces were only about an inch apart. “The winner decides what happens between us. The loser gets buried with a nice ceremony and some flowers.”

David laughed, trying to pul his hand free. “I don’t think we have to go quite that far,” he said. “We’re not talking about a fight to the death.”

“Oh yes we are,” said John, and he grinned wider. “It’s the only way to decide it. A fight to the death. We’ve shook on it.”

A great hubbub broke out in the room. There were cries of protest, and angry accusations. John stood there, smiling his smile, clutching David’s hand in an iron grip. David looked unsure of himself. Once again he turned to Achil eus for reassurance.

Achil eus was unfazed.

“What’s the problem?” he said once the noise had died down. “That’s my kind of fight.”

He walked over to Carl and the other squatters. “Better get your shovels ready, chaps. You’re gonna have some digging to do.”

“No!” Maxie shouted. “This is horrible. We’re not animals.”

“Speak for yourself, bitch,” said John, and the room erupted into a chaotic frenzy of shouting and shoving.

John stood there in the middle of it al with his broken-toothed grin, his hard bony head nodding slowly on his long neck.

S
am and the Kid were sitting at the bottom of the Gherkin.

The weird skyscraper that looked like a huge vegetable. They were finishing off the last of the provisions from the Kid’s leather backpack. Some murky water in an old plastic bottle and a can of peas.

They’d been wandering, lost, through the empty canyons of the City of London for the last hour. The street plan made no sense. There were no straight lines; roads twisted and turned and came to sudden stops. The boys were trying to reach the river so that they could get their bearings, but it was proving impossible. Every direction they tried seemed wrong, or took them back to where they’d started. So time and again they made their way back to the Gherkin as the chief landmark in the area.

And now it was growing dark.

Paper fluttered in the air. Sam looked up to see that it was spil ing from a broken window high up in the Gherkin.

He didn’t like it here. The glass wal s of the towers that loomed on either side reflected each other back at themselves.

It was like a city designed by a madman. The scale was al wrong and none of the buildings matched. There would be an old church right next to an office block made of metal that looked like a giant engine. Everywhere there were abandoned building sites, some little more than deep holes in the ground, others home to the steel skeletons of office blocks that would now never be finished. Cranes stood over them, and the boys had seen three that had fal en, smashing into the buildings next to them.

“Shal we try again?” said the Kid.

“Okay.”

They got up stiffly and set off, trying a new route.

“We need to keep our eyes peeled like spuds, Frodo,” said the Kid.

“It’s Sam,” said Sam testily.

“Oh yeah, sorry, I knew it was one of them hobbits.”

“And besides,” said Sam. “You don’t have to tel me to look out. I can look after myself. I’ve survived on the streets al by myself.”

“Not these streets,” said the Kid.

“They’re al the same,” said Sam.

“Not so,” said the Kid. “You never know what you’re going to find around here. This part of London is way weird. Things happened differently here to how they did everywhere elsewhere, I reckon. That’s why your bul y-butcher friends down below didn’t become sickos. This is an old place. There’s some kind of special magic here. Some old power, from the dark days, the storybook time, maybe even before Caesar and his Romans came, eh?”

“I don’t believe in magic,” said Sam.

“I believe in everything, titch,” said the Kid.

“Don’t cal me ‘titch.’ You’re not much bigger than me.”

“I know I ain’t, but you’re stil smal , buster boy. You’re a right tiddler.”

“I’m a giant kil er.”

“I can believe it. As I say, I believe everything, shrimp.”

“Don’t cal me that,” said Sam. “Or I’l cal you rat boy.”

“Midget.”

“Tree frog.”

“Crumb.”

“Scab.”

“Plankton.”

“Poop head.”

“Poop head?”

“Yeah,” said Sam, giggling. “That’s what you are. You stink.”

“Not as bad as you, pip-squeak.”

“No, you smel worse, you smel y sock.”

“Don’t you cal me a smel y sock, you hairy yel ow vetch.”

“Rat boy, rat boy!”

“Squirt.”

“Ass.”

“Hold up.” The Kid tensed and went into a crouch. He was looking intently down the street, like a hunting dog. Sam looked in the same direction.

It was another group of grown-ups. The third they’d seen since they’d been up here.

“We need to be somewhere else, microbe,” said the Kid.

“You’re a microbe, you punk,” Sam muttered wearily as they turned and ran.