The three dopes in question – an older boy and girl, and another boy who looked about thirteen – were lagging further and further behind, dragging their feet and complaining to each other.

‘What are their names?’ asked Shadowman.

‘The couple are Tom and Kate, the little guy’s Alfie,’ said Jester. ‘He’s good company, but I’ve never seen him in a fight.’

‘Why did they volunteer if they didn’t want to come in the first place?’

‘David offered them extra food, special privileges. I doubt he’ll keep his promise, but … I don’t know. They probably mainly came because they were getting bored to death in the palace with nothing to do all day except work in the vegetable gardens. I don’t suppose any of them seriously thought through how dangerous this might be. Stuck in the palace behind those high walls you can easily forget what it’s like in the real world. The first sign of a fight they’ll probably run all the way home.’

‘Yeah, well, hopefully we won’t get into any fights,’ said Shadowman. ‘That isn’t the plan, is it?’

‘I guess not. The plan is simply to look for kids to recruit.’

‘Yes. Don’t worry, Jest. I’ll keep you out of trouble and maybe we’ll pick up enough kids along the way to return as a proper fighting unit. In the meantime, any sign of any strangers and we scarper.’

‘I don’t need to tell them that.’

‘You listen to me, OK?’ said Shadowman. ‘Do as I say. I’m used to this. I can spot the danger signs.’

‘Thanks. If you hadn’t agreed to come along, I think I’d have ditched the whole thing and told David he could go off recruiting himself. I can just see him in a royal bloody carriage swanning about, waving one hand out the window at his grateful subjects.’

The two of them laughed.

‘But seriously, Shadowman,’ Jester went on, ‘what are our chances of getting into trouble?’

‘I won’t lie, Magic-Man, it’s dangerous. The streets round here are generally pretty quiet during the day – there’s very few strangers about – but I don’t know what it’s going to be like the further we get from the palace … You scared?’

‘A little. You? D’you still get scared?’

‘All the time,’ said Shadowman. ‘And you know what? I sometimes think it’d be better if you didn’t parade about in that nasty coat of yours. It just reminds me of all the mates we’ve lost.’

Shadowman was referring to the patchwork coat that Jester always wore. He had cut a patch of material from the clothing of all the friends of his who had died since the disaster and sewed them on to it. There were forty patches, and while lately he was sewing on fewer and fewer patches, kids still died. If strangers didn’t get them, there was always illness and accidents.

‘It’s not supposed to remind you of their deaths,’ said Jester. ‘It’s supposed to remind you of their lives.’

There were patches representing Big-Man, Cool-Man and The Fox, as well as other kids who had holed up in the big house in Notting Hill with Jester and Shadowman after the disaster. When they’d been forced to leave, most had made it safely to Buckingham Palace, but some were only remembered by the patches on Jester’s coat.

‘Whatever,’ said Shadowman. ‘Living or dead, it still gives me the creeps, and I don’t want to end up as just another decoration for you.’

‘You?’ said Jester. ‘No chance. You’re a survivor. I reckon you’ll well outlive me.’ He turned round and looked at Kate and Tom and Alfie, who were plodding along about ten metres behind them, their weapons drooping in their hands. ‘Can’t say the same for those three, mind you.’

37

She waited for the children to go past. Squatting down by the window in the empty shop. Feeling the tension among the others. They were hungry and hurting. They wanted to rush out now. Fall on the children and tear them to pieces. But there had been hunters around earlier, and she couldn’t be sure where they were now. And if the hunters were close they would come with their spears and their knives and their clubs.

How she hated the hunters.

It hadn’t always been like this. At first it had been easy – children wandered the streets lost and confused. Lots of them. Weak and weaponless. Back then the ones like her had the upper hand. They feasted day and night. They got strong. But the children got strong too. The ones they couldn’t kill. They banded together. Moved into safe places. Learnt how to fight back. She had been forced to join up with others and work together as a pack or die. Every day there were fewer of them, though. Some were taken by the sickness, some starved to death, some were killed by the hunters.

She knew that soon she would have to move away from this area and find somewhere easier. Somewhere where plump little children didn’t have sharp blades and heavy clubs.

She adjusted her sunglasses. The sun was bright today, making it hard to think. And as she waited, trying to pull her thoughts into some sort of shape, the children moved further and further away. Before, they would have attacked without a thought, torn into them with teeth and claws. Not now. They were learning to wait. They had found a new lair, in a tube station, hidden from the hunters. But if they showed themselves, if they timed it wrong, they would be found out and attacked. More of them would die. She had to wait, find the right way to do it. There would be others. Other children. Other things to eat. Earlier this morning they had found a nice fat cat and that had helped. Their bellies were sore, though. They needed to eat again soon. Eat properly. Before too long their hunger would force them into the open; they would have no choice but to attack whoever came close.

Children, though. It had to be children.

The only thing that made the pain go away was the flesh of children.

One of the others stood, lurched towards the children, dribbling and shaking. She grunted and raised her knife. Showing her authority.

He backed away.

Not now. Not yet.

It was too dangerous to charge out into the open like the old days.

Wait until the time was right.

38

DogNut and Courtney were sitting with Brooke in what the kids at the museum called the Hall of Gods. It was the entranceway to the Earth Galleries, a section of the museum devoted to the planet, with exhibits about volcanoes and rocks and earthquakes.

Brooke had explained that the rest of the Earth Galleries were sealed off, but that the kids used this area as a meeting place. It was suitably grand. At the back a long escalator led up through a giant scrap-metal globe to the upper galleries. It hadn’t run since the power had all gone off soon after the disaster, but it still looked like a stairway to heaven. Lining the approach to the escalator were two rows of statues standing on plinths shaped like half globes. They depicted the advance of human knowledge, from superstition to science, starting with a figure of God the Creator. Opposite him was a statue of Atlas holding the world on his shoulders, then there was a Cyclops, a Medusa, and finally an astronaut standing across from a scientist at work with a microscope.

The walls that towered up several storeys on either side were black with silvery-white celestial maps painted on to them. Lit by flickering candlelight the whole place looked spooky and dramatic.

Chairs had been laid out facing the statues and that was where the three children sat.

‘So why does the King of the Geeks use this place for council meetings then?’ Courtney asked Brooke.

‘Dunno,’ said Brooke. ‘Maybe he just thinks it’s cool. Or maybe it’s to remind us of where we stand in the world. He wants to build two more statues, apparently, showing the future, one of a kid and one of a sicko.’

‘So what’s stopping him?’

‘We got a ton of nerds here, but we ain’t got any artists.’