Jet Skis, Swamps & Smugglers

by Robert Muchamore

  Diogo looked at Luke. ‘I need you to clamp your hands around Robin’s chest so he doesn’t move. Don’t push down or you might crack his ribs.’

  ‘Open wide, cream puff,’ Marion said as she gave Robin a piece of his torn T-shirt to bite down on.

  She pulled out her phone to record as he gripped the edges of the plastic table.

  ‘Hey, you can’t film,’ Robin protested, but with the T-shirt stuffed in his mouth, all anyone heard was, Mff mff marp mmm.

  ‘This’ll teach you to break my good sunglasses,’ Diogo joked. ‘One, two, three.’

  There was a crunching sound.

  ‘OWWWWWWW.’

  PART V

  NEWS UPDATE

  ‘Good morning, this is News 24 broadcasting from Capital City, with Hanlon Cardinal.

  ‘Our top story is that Eastern Delta police are investigating after the discovery of sixteen men tied up at a disused chemical production facility in the early hours of the morning.

  ‘Footage has been released showing activists, including Robin Hood, removing workers from the plant, which appears to have been a secret factory making counterfeit sports shoes.

  ‘The controversial Delta Rescue group claims it liberated two hundred young women being held in slave-like conditions, and the organisation’s chairperson, Emma Scarlock, claims to have proof that Customs and Immigration officers were involved in smuggling the women who worked there.

  ‘In a statement, the CIS Commissioner for the delta region has described the claims made by Scarlock as absurd. He told News 24 that the women are illegal immigrants and that the raid was probably staged in order to steal the shoes, which have a retail value of more than five million pounds.

  ‘We’ll be bringing you updates on this rapidly developing story throughout the morning, but just in the last few minutes it has been announced that this channel will be replacing tonight’s seven o’ clock news hour with a special documentary.

  ‘Hosted by our Central Region correspondent Lynn Hoapili, it will feature an exclusive face-to-face interview with Robin Hood, along with incredible insider footage from last night’s alleged rescue operation.

  ‘That special programme – Robin Hood: What I Did on My Summer Holidays – will be broadcast at seven this evening, right here on News 24.’

  44. YOU CAN ONLY KILL ME ONCE

  Weeks of heavy rain had changed the landscape around Sherwood Designer Outlets. As the sun rose, Robin and Marion were able to approach the abandoned mall in a little motor launch, piloted by Lyla Masri, with her sister Azeem keeping a machine gun handy in case they came under attack.

  Over a hundred mall residents lined the rooftop, banging pots and cheering as Robin and Marion jumped off the boat. There were even a couple of fireworks as they waded through the shallow water that now engulfed most of the mall’s enormous car parks.

  Marion’s mum Indio and her partner Karma stood waiting at the mall’s main entrance. Marion’s pain-in-the-butt brothers Matt, Otto and Finn were there too, but before Marion could say hello, Karma handed her a five-week-old bundle.

  ‘Zack Robin,’ Karma said proudly. ‘Meet your big sister, Marion.’

  ‘Hello, Zack,’ Marion said, raising her newborn brother up to her face and falling instantly in love with his red face and the incredibly fine hairs dusting his tiny head. ‘You can never have enough little brothers with four-letter names.’

  ‘Did you bring us presents?’ three-year-old Finn asked, as he hugged Marion’s wet leg.

  ‘That is for me to know and you to find out,’ she teased.

  Will Scarlock tried to hug Robin, but he backed away. ‘Shoulder feels better since Diogo popped it, but no squeezing!’

  So Robin shook hands with Will, Sam, Mr Khan and a few others before Marion gave him a turn with Zack.

  ‘I’m flattered you gave him Robin as a middle name,’ he told Karma.

  ‘You’re part of our family too,’ Karma said.

  As Robin moved closer to the entrance, people offered him a free haircut, a massage and meals in their rooftop eateries before a girl he’d not seen before took a selfie as she gave him a kiss.

  ‘I’ve got you on my tummy,’ Finn said, proudly showing off a kid-sized Robin Hood Lives shirt.

  It had a cartoon Robin on a motorbike, chasing a fat policeman with arrows sticking out of his butt.

  ‘I might get one of those myself,’ Robin told Finn.

  Marion tutted. ‘If you get another stupid shirt with your name on, I’ll burn it.’

  ‘We can all have breakfast together if you like,’ Indio suggested, as they headed inside. ‘Or if you’re tired, you can rest.’

  ‘Sleep first,’ Marion said. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but I am so wiped.’

  Robin nodded in agreement, as he breathed the mall’s familiar muggy tang. ‘I slept for an hour in a truck, that’s all.’

  When they got to the sports outlet store, with the Maid family’s living quarters downstairs, and Robin’s den on a mezzanine level at the top of a dead escalator, Marion stayed back chatting with her brothers while Robin went upstairs.

  Indio had got things ready for Robin’s return, with clean bedding, iced water and a fan running to clear the musty air. He glugged a big glass of water, then sat on a little sofa beside his backpack.

  He wanted to put the stack of money, the last explosive arrow and the M112 demolition blocks somewhere safe, before one of Marion’s little brothers got hold of them.

  As he rummaged through the overstuffed bag, churning everything from water-damaged targets and his drone-killing device to the set of false teeth he’d found at Boston church hall, he noticed Robin Hood Form 7E written in the lining.

  It made him feel nostalgic, remembering the days when he carried the backpack around Locksley High School and the only deadly things inside were his unwashed gym socks.

  But Robin realised the real reason he felt sad was because Marion was downstairs with her family. And as great as Indio, Karma, Will, Emma and everyone else at Designer Outlets had been to him over the past few months, Robin’s real family was a dad in prison and a half-brother he couldn’t be with.

  He took his phone out of his pocket, checked he still had battery and opened an app that routed him via a virtual network and made his calls untraceable.

  ‘Speak,’ Little John said, after a couple of rings.

  ‘It’s me,’ Robin said. ‘Safe to talk?’

  ‘Hang on,’ the sixteen-year-old said quietly. ‘The maid is around. I’ll lock myself in my bathroom.’

  ‘How’s life?’ Robin asked his brother, as he heard a bolt snap.

  ‘Could be worse,’ John said. ‘It’s school holidays, so there’s not much going on. You?’

  ‘Same,’ Robin said. ‘Very quiet.’

  John laughed noisily. ‘Yeah, right. My mum was complaining about you over breakfast this morning. She was supposed to be flying to Capital City this afternoon for some big interview on News 24. They’ve cancelled it for the one-hour Robin Hood special.’

  ‘There’s a special?’ Robin said.

  ‘How can you not know?’

  ‘I knew I was being filmed,’ Robin explained. ‘Lynn Hoapili said it was a news report, not a whole programme.’

  ‘Mum was already furious with you. Sherwood Castle has been losing heaps of money. Rich customers don’t feel safe since you lot broke in and shot her most prestigious clients up with paintballs. She’s worried she’ll get fired from the board of King Corporation if she can’t turn it around.’

  ‘Does it matter?’ Robin asked, only half joking. ‘Won’t you be moving to the presidential palace in a couple of years?’

  ‘My mum announced that she won’t stand for a fifth term as Sheriff of Nottingham. But she’ll need King Corporation money to pay for a presidential campaign, and if things don’t turn around, they’re more likely to fire her than fund her.’

  Robin laughed. ‘So instead of President Marjorie, she could end up with nothing?’


  ‘And all because of you and your forest pals,’ John said. ‘Which is why she chokes on her bacon if your name comes up at the breakfast table.’

  ‘Nothing is what that evil cow deserves,’ Robin said sourly. ‘She tried to have me killed.’

  ‘True,’ John said. ‘But I was here to tip you off.’

  ‘Have you heard from Dad?’

  ‘I nagged until Mum agreed to let me visit him once a month,’ John said more cheerfully. ‘You obviously can’t visit him without getting busted, but I was thinking – if you record a video message, I’ll play it next time I see him. And I can get Dad to record one back to you.’

  ‘Awesome idea,’ Robin said, cracking a big smile.

  ‘I’m seeing him next week.’

  ‘And Dad seems OK?’ Robin asked.

  ‘As well as any guy in prison can be,’ John said. ‘He’s teaching IT classes, just like he did on the outside. Your mate Cut-Throat told the bikers to protect him, so he doesn’t get bullied.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Robin said.

  ‘Are you OK?’ John asked. ‘You don’t sound like your usual cocky self.’

  ‘Busted my shoulder and dead tired,’ Robin said, but then tried to explain the real reason. ‘You know what’s weird, John?’

  John laughed. ‘Your face?’

  ‘Seriously,’ Robin said, irritated. ‘Like, to the world I’m either this big hero, or Sherwood’s Most Wanted. There’s graffiti with my name, now a TV documentary, and so many T-shirts. Right now I’m sitting in this room on my own, and I feel like the same person I always was. But no matter what I do, I can’t ever go back to being ordinary.’

  ‘You’re brainier than me,’ John admitted. ‘If you can’t figure it out, I’ve got no chance.’

  Robin laughed as he ran a hand through his hair.

  ‘So stressed and tired after last night,’ he said, as he broke into a big yawn. ‘I’d better go. I’ll call for a longer chat when I’m less knackered, and I’ll send you that video message for Dad.’

  ‘Don’t overthink,’ John suggested. ‘Take things one day at a time.’

  ‘Love you, bro, but I gotta go,’ Robin said, yawning again.

  ‘Try not to get killed,’ Little John said.

  Robin Hood threw down his phone, lay across the little couch and was asleep almost before his head hit the cushions. He dreamed that he was blasting across the delta aboard Water Rat. Marion wore a captain’s hat, and his brother and his dad sat in the back. The sun was warm, the water was calm.

  Maybe it would happen some day . . .

  1. YOU STEPPED IN SOMETHING

  Record-breaking summer rain had flooded vast tracts of Sherwood Forest, and for the first time in decades the Macondo River ran deep enough to take a boat the three hundred kilometres from Lake Victoria to the Eastern Delta.

  The rains had continued into October and Robin Hood was sick of it, from emptying drip buckets in the night to stop his den flooding, to the mushroom stench of mould and clinging humidity that made him sweat through clean clothes in the time it took to tie his boots.

  Robin sat in an open-hulled boat, trying to read a book with damp crinkled pages, while rain pelted a thick tarp that covered him up to the neck. Lanky trees blocked most of the daylight as an outboard motor moved the boat at a crawl.

  Lyla Masri had been charged with keeping Robin and his best friend, Marion Maid, out of mischief. She sat on a plank at the boat’s rear, steering. She had a Russian assault rifle propped between muddy legs and kept a careful eye on the deck compass. It was easy to lose the river’s path on the flooded plains and this was one of many spots where satnav signals didn’t reach the forest floor.

  Robin’s head felt fuzzy. His brain refused entry to the words on the page and he’d read the same line four times when Marion’s boot nudged his ankle. She sat across from Robin, sharing the big tarp, her head protected with a wide-brimmed rain hat whose goofy neon strap looped around her chin.

  ‘That your chemistry homework?’ Marion asked.

  Robin thought about holding the book up so Marion could see the cover, but moving risked draining puddled water from the tarp into his lap.

  ‘I downloaded crib notes,’ Marion continued. ‘You can copy my answers if you like.’

  Robin sounded grumpy. ‘It’s not homework. It’s a book about the Magic Cheese.’

  Marion looked baffled. ‘Magic what?’

  ‘Magic Cheese were legendary computer hackers back in olden times. They did wild stuff. Developed the first computer virus, built the first scorpions to track mobile phone signals. They almost wound up in jail, but the CIA recruited them to hack the Chinese.’

  Marion wasn’t a big reader and looked unimpressed. ‘I don’t know how you get through . . . what is that? Five hundred pages?’

  Robin slapped the book shut. Marion wasn’t the reason he’d read the same paragraph six times, but he blamed her anyway.

  ‘How can I read if you keep interrupting?’

  ‘My first words in half an hour,’ Marion growled back.

  As Robin rolled his eyes, Marion pulled a pack of chocolate-covered peanuts from her backpack. She tipped a dozen into her palm and put on a show, dropping them into her mouth one at a time as Robin pretended he wasn’t interested.

  ‘Want some, grumpy guts?’ she asked, as she rattled the bag.

  As Robin leaned forward, Lyla steered the open-hulled boat between an embankment and a huge lightning-charred trunk.

  ‘Ta,’ Robin said.

  But as he tried to take the chocolates Marion flicked her boot up, spraying him with rainwater pooled on the tarp.

  ‘What was that for?’ Robin gasped, as it went in his eyes and trickled inside his hoodie.

  As Marion cracked up laughing, Robin flicked wet hair out of his eyes. He realised Marion had put serious thought into the prank because she had her phone filming it.

  ‘Turn it off!’ Robin said, as he made a grab.

  ‘Got you in glorious slow motion,’ Marion said. ‘Your expression was gold!’

  As Robin tried to get Marion’s phone she burrowed under the tarp and started crawling down the wooden hull towards the rear. But Robin managed to dig fingers down her trailing boot and yank her back.

  The boat was too large for the wrestling to make it unstable and Lyla smirked as she watched them tussle under the tarp.

  ‘Delete or I’ll dunk your head!’ Robin yelled.

  But Marion got free by pulling her foot out of the boot.

  ‘It’s going online,’ Marion yelled, as she crawled down the boat. ‘I’ll call it “Buttface Gets a Soaking”.’

  ‘What did you step in?’ Robin said, making a gagging sound. ‘This boot reeks!’

  Lyla watched Robin reach out of the tarp and try to dangle Marion’s boot over the water. But Marion straddled his chest and snatched it back.

  ‘Get your bum off my face!’ Robin demanded.

  ‘Fart’s a-coming!’ Marion said. ‘Inhale my breakfast, loser.’

  As Robin escaped and clattered into a stack of empty cargo boxes Lyla decided they were getting too crazy.

  ‘Enough!’ she roared as she grabbed the tangled tarp and stripped it away.

  The two thirteen-year-olds were sprawled over empty boxes. Breathless, soggy and smirking.

  ‘We’re still a couple of hours from Locksley,’ Lyla continued. ‘I’d better not hear either of you moan that you’re cold or thirsty, or . . .’

  Lyla stopped abruptly because she was only twenty and realised she sounded like her mother.

  The teenagers straightened their clothes and stacked the boxes they’d knocked over. Robin reached for a plastic tub and used it to bail rainwater over the side, while Marion realised she really had stepped in something nasty and leaned over the side, washing the sole of her boot in the spray coming off the bow.

  ‘I need a snack and my shirt is itchy,’ Robin said, putting on a baby voice to wind Lyla up.

  At th
e bow, Marion shot upright. Her dripping boot twirled by its laces and she looked alarmed.

  ‘Did you hear?’ she blurted.

  ‘What?’ Robin asked, as he shook drips off his Magic Cheese book.

  ‘Gunshot,’ Marion said.

  Lyla looked doubtful, but she couldn’t hear much of anything sat near the outboard motor.

  ‘Sherwood’s full of weird noises,’ Robin said dismissively.

  They couldn’t risk ploughing into bandits, so Lyla cut the motor. The forest soundscape of birds, bugs and lapping water went uninterrupted long enough for Marion to feel stupid, but as Lyla reached around to restart the engine there was a squeal from a tiny human.

  ‘Mummy, she’s hurting me.’

  Something muffled the little voice and Robin felt queasy at the thought of anyone harming a little kid. The echo in the canopy made the sound hard to pinpoint, but it wasn’t far away.

  Robert Muchamore’s books have sold

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  Robert Muchamore’s ROBIN HOOD series:

  Hacking, Heists & Flaming Arrows

  Piracy, Paintballs & Zebras

  Jet Skis, Swamps & Smugglers

  Look out for

  Drones, Dams & Destruction

  Other series by Robert Muchamore:

  CHERUB

  HENDERSON’S BOYS

  ROCK WAR