In a Split Second

by Sophie McKenzie

  The weekend came and I did all the usual stuff: a meager food shop with Jas, then several hours helping Dad at the garage. Two of our regular clients announced they were no longer able to pay their bills. It was a blow but, as Dad pointed out, at least we didn’t need the Future Party’s free food bags just yet. Posters featuring Roman Riley had sprung up all over north London, advertising where the next handouts were going to take place. Since the Canal Street market bomb, the Future Party no longer used any covered or indoor venues, but they were still organizing free food in the poorest areas of almost every town in the country. As a result, they had won the last two special elections—which meant more seats in Parliament. There were ten Future Party MPs now, including, of course, the leader, Roman Riley.

  On Sunday, I met Callum and the others in the park for a game of soccer. Mum was in when I got back that afternoon. She was watching the news on TV, a cup of coffee growing cold in her hands. There had been a riot in south London in response to the Government’s latest austerity measure: the closing of two local hospitals.

  Mum didn’t take her eyes from the screen as I came in and sat down at the table.

  “Imagine if they closed Lucas’s hospital,” she breathed, worry etched across her face.

  The screen switched to an interview with the mayor of London. He was surrounded by a bunch of reporters.

  “There is simply no choice,” the mayor said. “I know it’s hard, but everyone has to bear their fair share.”

  Mum shook her head.

  The shot switched to a studio panel containing three opposition politicians. The Future Party’s Roman Riley sat at the end of the row.

  “We have just heard Mayor Latimer claim that everyone has to share responsibility for the crisis,” Riley said. “But why? If a man robs a shop, we expect him to pay for his crime. Him. Not the shop. And certainly not his neighbors. Yet in closing a hospital, the Government is forcing the poorest and most vulnerable to pay a heavy price for crimes they did not commit.”

  Mum smiled at the screen. I knew she was remembering how much Lucas had looked up to Roman Riley in the months leading up to the bombing. But all that adulation had been a con. Lucas’s real heroes had been the hate-filled bigots in the League of Iron. I got up and grabbed a bag of cookies. For the millionth time, I wondered how on earth Lucas could have turned away from Riley to sign up for the League’s ugly violence.

  A shiver snaked down my spine as I thought about the meeting I was going to on Tuesday. After all the months of watching and waiting, I would hopefully find out exactly what Lucas had been involved with at last.

  CHARLIE

  More than once during that first week I felt so overwhelmed that I seriously thought my head might explode. It wasn’t just having to get used to a new home, a new school, and lots of new people, it was also having to decide whether or not to stay on with Brian and Gail after my two-week trial period.

  I was torn. Sometimes I missed Aunt Karen badly. She had loved Mum as much as me and we’d spent a lot of our time together—before the fights started—sharing our memories of her. Brian and Gail had barely known my mother and, though I was sure Gail would have been all too delighted if I had opened up, there was no way I could imagine chatting about Mum with her.

  On the other hand, now that I’d actually made the break and moved away from Karen, there seemed little point in returning to live with her again. It would never bring Mum back. Plus Karen’s home was in Leeds while I belonged in London.

  And she had no money while Gail and Brian were rich.

  I guess that makes me sound materialistic but I was fed up with being poor. Everyday life with Mum had been a struggle, but Gail and Brian had money to burn—and to spare. Right now, for example, I was borrowing Brian’s old laptop but I knew that, if I stayed, I’d get a brand-new one of my own. I was also about to upgrade my phone and Gail had made it clear I was free to buy whatever clothes I liked.

  The biggest downside to staying was Rosa. We just had nothing in common. For example, she was obsessed with some reality-TV-based boy band that played the kind of music I’d been into when I was ten. She would talk for hours about which of the singers was the best looking—that’s when she wasn’t poring over her hideously girly clothes or gossiping with her silly friends.

  About the only thing Rosa and I agreed on was that Nat was hot, but rude. He’d still made no effort to speak to me, even though it was obvious his twin sister and I were becoming really good friends.

  Jas asked me back to her house the following Tuesday.

  “Dad gave me some money earlier so I could buy some food on the way home,” she said, blushing. “Mum’s always out at the hospital till late and Dad said he had a load of paperwork to do at the garage so they won’t be in.”

  “What about Nat? Will he be there?” I asked, trying to keep my tone light.

  “I don’t know,” Jas said, looking at me sideways. “Nat goes out a lot.”

  “Oh, right.” I wanted to ask if he had a girlfriend, but the words stuck in my throat. I hadn’t seen Nat spend time with any girls, but that didn’t prove anything.

  I sent Gail a text telling her I’d be back late. I avoided speaking to Rosa, slipping away to meet Jas as soon as the bell rang instead of going back to Plato House.

  • • •

  Jas and Nat’s home wasn’t what I expected. Even though I knew they were both on scholarships, I’d assumed that anyone going to private school must live in a big place, like Brian and Gail did, but Jas and Nat’s house was tiny. Jas showed me around, constantly apologizing for the mess.

  “Mum and Dad are out a lot, so it’s hard . . . ,” she kept saying as we wandered into the living room.

  I told her it was fine as I stared at the piano in the corner. The lid was down and covered with dust.

  Jas wrinkled her nose. “I used to play all the time, but since what happened to Lucas I only really do stuff at school. . . .” She trailed off with a sigh.

  We went upstairs to Jas’s bedroom. It was small—barely bigger than the room I’d had at Karen’s—but beautiful, with different fabrics draped across the walls and soft lights. Somehow Jas seemed to have the knack for putting all sorts of different colors and textures alongside each other and making the overall effect look effortlessly stylish.

  “You should be a designer,” I said.

  Jas shrugged, but she looked pleased.

  I wandered over to the bed where pieces of fabric had been laid out in a series of broad, dramatic swaths. A length of soft, black and cream check wool caught my eye.

  “That’s lovely,” I said.

  “I was going to make a coat with it,” Jas said, “but I’ve gotten stuck on the darts. I can’t make them even.”

  “Wow.” I turned to her, impressed. I’d never met anyone who could make their own clothes before. “How did you learn to do that?”

  “Mum taught me, before . . .” Jas trailed off and I knew she was referring to the bomb and to her older brother being in a coma.

  I quickly steered the conversation back toward the fabrics on the bed. Nat must have come in quietly because I hadn’t heard the front door, but after we’d been upstairs for an hour or so, he poked his head around the door. A strand of hair fell over his face.

  “Hey, Jas, I’m off, so—” He stopped as he saw me, his blue eyes widening in horror.

  I opened my mouth to say hello, but before I could speak, Nat had mumbled something and ducked out of sight. A few moments later, the front door banged shut. He was gone.

  There was an awkward silence. My face was burning. I didn’t want Jas to see, but there wasn’t much chance of that as she was sitting right opposite. In the end I looked up to see her watching me, concern in her eyes.

  “Did I do something to upset him?” I asked, the words slipping out before I could stop them.

  Jas shook her head slowly. “I don’t know what it is . . . he’s not usually like that with my friends.” She cleared her throat. “He
said he remembered you from that day . . . at the market. . . .”

  “Oh.” I looked away. I could see that might bring back horrible memories for Nat, but I still didn’t understand why he had looked so disgusted at finding me in his house.

  Jas made some sandwiches for us to eat, though I noticed she only picked at hers. We chatted for a bit, then her dad called to ask her to check some invoices he’d left at home. Apologizing again, Jas went downstairs. I popped into the bathroom, wondering how late her dad worked. It was already almost seven. Brian was usually home by six thirty. As I came out, the open door across the landing caught my eye. It was covered in ancient soccer stickers. Was this Nat’s room? I hesitated for a second. He was out and I could hear Jas downstairs. No one else was around. Why shouldn’t I take a sneak peek?

  I peered around the door. The room was slightly larger and much emptier than Jas’s with a bed on either side of the window. Did that mean Nat had once shared the room with Lucas? Nat’s school uniform was hung neatly in front of the wardrobe though most of his other clothes were in piles on the floor. The paint on the furniture was peeling away while the walls were covered with Blu-Tack marks, where Nat had presumably taken down old posters. Only two remained—one of some soccer player I’d never heard of, another of a girl in a bikini. She was posing with her hands on her hips—some model or singer, I guessed. I didn’t recognize her.

  I turned away, feeling a twinge of jealousy. Well, that was stupid. Nat was perfectly entitled to like anyone he wanted. Just because he clearly couldn’t stand me . . .

  Shaking off these thoughts, I wandered over to Nat’s computer. It was an old model—secondhand by the look of it—and still open, though the screen was dark. I touched the keys, thinking idly that if I stayed with Gail and Brian, I would be able to get something much sleeker and faster.

  The screen lit up. I hesitated, intrigued, then I bent down to take a closer look. It was wrong to snoop, of course, but I could still hear Jas talking on the phone downstairs—and there was no harm in just taking a peek.

  Nat’s desktop was covered with folders and files. Some of them looked like they contained soccer stuff, others were clearly labeled with the names of school subjects. There was nothing that looked particularly interesting.

  As I turned away from the computer, it beeped.

  I glanced back. The browser icon was flashing at the bottom of the screen. One of the programs must still be open, presumably something from the Internet that Nat had minimized before he left. Downstairs, Jas was still chattering away. Without thinking about what I was doing, I clicked on the file.

  It opened in front of me. A second later I gasped, unable to believe what I was looking at.

  NAT

  I stood outside Deakin’s Electrics and took a deep breath. Man, my hands were actually trembling. I shoved them into my jacket pockets. It was just the cold.

  I glanced up at the shop entrance. If I’d worked out Saxon66’s coded message correctly, I was about to meet people from the League of Iron, probably including those responsible for the Canal Street market bomb. They must know Lucas—and exactly how and why he had been involved in the bombing.

  I blew out my breath. I needed to appear strong. And calm. An image of Charlie in Jas’s room flashed into my mind. I’d been shocked to see her there. In fact, if I was honest, I hadn’t handled it well at all. It was just because of the connection with Lucas. Definitely nothing to do with her looks—or the way she’d stared at me in that haughty way of hers, her dark eyes slightly slanted like a cat’s.

  Enough stalling. I rang the doorbell. The shop behind was wreathed in shadows from the secondhand stoves and fridges that filled the small showroom. No one came. I waited a moment, then rang the bell again, harder this time.

  A slim man in a black shirt and glasses hurried toward me, past a line of freezers. He shot back a bolt and pulled open the door.

  “Yes?”

  “AngelOfFire.” I gave my user name, as the coded message had instructed.

  The man, who looked in his early twenties, let me in, rebolted the door, then checked the tablet in his hand. I waited, feeling anxious. After what felt like an age he nodded.

  “You’re on the list. Follow me.” The man led me through to a storeroom at the back of the shop. About thirty people were gathered, mostly guys in their late teens or twenties, though there were a few women too. I straightened up, grateful for my height. If anyone asked, I was planning on saying I was eighteen. But, as I gazed around the room, I realized nobody was actually paying me any attention. I slunk over to the far wall, trying to lose myself among the stacks of cardboard boxes. Most people were staring toward the front of the room. A second later a man in a black shirt got up onto a packing crate.

  Everyone looked at him expectantly.

  I glanced around again. Most of the men wore black T-shirts and had shaved heads or crew cuts. I smoothed my own hair off my face and slid farther into the shadows cast by the boxes.

  The chatter in the room died down.

  “Welcome,” the man on the crate said. He was thickset, with stubble on his chin and a deep groove etched into the center of his forehead. “Some of you know me as Saxon66. I called this meeting. We are the London branch of the League of Iron and we are ready to fight.” His voice rose as he spoke. The room erupted in a cheer.

  I gulped.

  “Tonight’s meeting is an opportunity to confirm our intentions,” Saxon66 said, looking around the room. “To prepare for action.”

  Really? On his forum post Saxon66 had specifically said the meeting was for those “seeking answers.” I had assumed he’d meant answers to questions about the League of Iron’s terrorist activities. Had I misunderstood? It looked like it, as most of the other people in the room were nodding approvingly at Saxon66’s words.

  Saxon66 pointed to a young man in the front row with a shaved head and a clenched fist. “Why don’t you start, Inquisitor?”

  The young man nodded. “We should get the Government and everyone in a religion. We should have village squares and public executions like they used to. I’d do it myself. Cut their freakin’ heads off.”

  The two women opposite me nodded.

  “The real problem’s all the immigration,” one of the woman called out, her sallow-skinned forehead screwed into an angry frown.

  “Yeah, we should gas them, all of them,” added the other. She was wearing a black dress, with heavy Goth makeup and a white streak in her long dark hair.

  I wriggled farther back against the boxes that lined the wall.

  “One at a time,” Saxon66 said. “Go on, Inquisitor.”

  Inquisitor stared around the room. “They’re taking our jobs: blacks, Pakis, that lot from Poland, too.”

  “And the Government let it happen,” shouted another voice. “We should bomb Parliament.”

  “And gas the foreigners,” Inquisitor insisted.

  “And put all the freakin’ bankers in with them,” snarled the Goth woman.

  Everyone cheered.

  I looked down at the floor, my head spinning. After spending so much time on the League of Iron forum I’d been expecting some extreme views, but not all this incoherent hatred. These people weren’t interested in organized attacks, they just wanted a place to vent their anger and resentment. Clearly I’d been totally naive thinking it would be easy to bring up either Lucas or the bombing.

  “Another view?” Saxon66 roared. “What about you?”

  A girl near me with mousy blond hair shuffled nervously from foot to foot.

  “I’d like us to make the politicians do more,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “They say a bunch of stuff, make everyone think they care, but nothing ever happens.”

  A murmur of agreement ran around the room.

  “Sometimes I think all Roman Riley does is talk,” the girl went on.

  “Yeah.” Saxon66 snorted with contempt. “Riley’s good at talking.”

  Everyone apart from me
grunted in agreement.

  I frowned, trying to make sense of what I was hearing. These were Lucas’s contacts, responsible for organizing the market bombing. Their blind rage fit with the ugly violence of the explosion, though I still didn’t understand why they thought bombing people lining up for food would get rid of the government or black people or any of the other groups they hated.

  “What about you?” Saxon66 was pointing into the audience again.

  Oh, no. He was pointing at me. Everyone looked in my direction. What the hell did I say now?

  CHARLIE

  If I’d stopped to think about it, I don’t know what I would have expected to find on Nat’s laptop: maybe a soccer website or one showing pictures of girls or perhaps something relevant to his homework. Instead, I found myself on a forum thread with the title: Who should we bomb?

  Forgetting Jas downstairs, I scanned the posts. The top few consisted of an argument between two users debating whether black people generally or just Muslims should be blown up.

  What was Nat doing looking at this horrible conversation? The language—and the hate behind it—made me feel sick.

  Beneath this were similarly ugly comments about death camps and how immigrants were stealing English people’s jobs. And then I saw an entry from another forum member with the user name AngelOfFire. . . . It had been made just twenty minutes ago:

  People need to see how POWERFUL we are. Bombing ordinary people causes PANIC and makes them realize they need strong leadership. Like in the Canal St market bomb. Iron Will FOREVER.

  I froze. The lettering on the AngelOfFire user name was in bold, which surely meant that it had been made on this computer. I clicked to start a new post.

  AngelOfFire make your comment here . . .

  I stared at the words. Twenty minutes ago Nat had been in here while Jas and I had been in her bedroom across the landing.