She looked about Robin’s age and moved with a slight limp. She wore an unzipped hoodie with fraying cuffs, over a summer dress patterned with yellow roses. Huge swimming-pool-blue eyes contrasted with a split lower lip and grimy hands with dark crescents under chipped nails.
‘Where am I?’ Robin asked, pain shooting through his head as he shifted to get comfortable.
The room was filled with light from a low sun, and he felt sure it was morning.
‘You’re safe,’ the girl soothed, combing her fingers through her tangled hair as she settled in the orange bucket-chair beside the bed. ‘This is our free clinic. We’re shabby, broke, and our only doctor is eighty-three years old. But we do our best.’
Now he’d sat up properly, Robin could see the empty bed next to him, and an elderly man attached to a drip by the far wall.
‘How’d I get here?’ Robin asked uncertainly.
‘Why were you in the forest?’ the girl asked.
‘Had to run,’ Robin said, deciding to keep things vague, because he didn’t know where he was, and Gisborne had friends everywhere. ‘My dad got busted on some trumped-up theft charge, and the cops were after me too.’
‘It’s a big forest. You’re lucky we found you.’
‘Where was I?’ Robin asked.
‘I was checking fish traps along a stream with my cousin Freya,’ the girl explained. ‘It was starting to get dark, but as we were about to head home I noticed blood swirling in the water. I tracked it back, expecting a wounded deer or badger. You were unconscious but breathing.’
The girl pulled out her phone and showed Robin a picture she’d taken when she found him.
His legs had wound up in a shallow pool. The top of his backpack and the rocks around were stained dark red, and arrows had spilled out of his quiver.
‘That’s a lot of blood,’ Robin said queasily. ‘What about my brother?’
The girl shook her head. ‘You were alone.’
Robin’s looked worried. ‘Seriously? No sign of him?’
The angst sharpened his mind. It was morning when he fell, and the girl said it was getting dark when she found him. Anything could have happened to Little John in the hours between. From being captured by Rangers to death in the ravine.
‘I closed the big cut on your head with superglue and knotted together hair from either side to keep it sealed,’ the girl continued.
Robin’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Superglue!’
‘Always keep a tube in my medical pouch,’ she explained. ‘You need first-aid skills if you’re planning to survive in Sherwood Forest.’
Robin nodded. ‘That and a lot of other things.’
‘Luckily you’re not so big. Freya chucked you over her shoulder and we ran here, to the clinic.’
Robin’s tongue felt like a scouring pad. ‘Can I drink?’ he croaked.
He fretted about Little John as the girl found a water jug and a stack of disposable cups on a trolley by the open doors. Her right leg was noticeably thinner than the left and there was an operation scar down the length of her calf.
‘I was born with a club foot,’ she explained, looking ashamed as she handed Robin the flimsy cup. ‘They operated to even my legs up when I was six, but I’ve gone back to being a freak as I’ve grown. One foot twisted and three sizes smaller than the other …’
Robin felt embarrassed that she’d caught him staring.
‘You’re not a freak,’ he said, then hid his face by gulping water.
Sometimes things are beautiful because they’re perfect and sometimes they’re beautiful because they’re not. Robin’s eyes blurred less now he’d blinked, but he was still fascinated by the girl’s amazing eyes, squashed nose and grubby hands. He desperately sought the right thing to say.
Not something creepy like, You’re pretty.
Not something patronising like, I hardly noticed your wonky leg …
But inspiration failed to strike, and Robin wound up blurting, ‘I’m really short, so …’
More intelligently he added, ‘You saved my life and I don’t know your name.’
‘Marion Maid,’ she said, smirking at Robin’s unease as he crushed his empty water cup.
‘I’m Robin Hood.’
Marion nodded. ‘When you got here, Dr Gladys made me check your wallet, in case you had a medical alert card.’
‘You saw that goofy photo on my school ID?’ Robin asked self-consciously.
Marion nodded and laughed. ‘Getting ink on your cheek was a nice touch …’
Robin glanced up and was surprised to see a cluster of mirrored disco-balls on the ceiling and a suspended sign pointing to Kids’ Department and Fitting Rooms.
He gave Marion a baffled look and asked, ‘Where exactly am I?’
20. DELUXE SHOPPING EXPERIENCE
‘This used to be a big-ass shopping mall,’ Marion answered, then spoke in a deeper, mocking tone, like she was commentating on a TV documentary.
‘The Sherwood Designer Outlets was once the region’s premier shopping destination, with bargain hunters packing out one hundred and seventy retail units.’
Robin smiled as Marion reverted to her normal voice. ‘People from Locksley stopped buying trendy kicks and designer handbags after the car plants closed. And Chinese tourists stopped coming when forest bandits started robbing tour buses at gunpoint. So now us Forest People use the abandoned mall for shelter.’
‘So you’re a bandit?’ Robin said.
Marion narrowed her eyes and sounded narked. ‘Forest People aren’t all criminals,’ she growled. ‘Despite what TV pundits and Sheriff Marjorie would have you believe.’
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean …’
‘My mum and auntie came to Sherwood as hunt sabs before I was born.’
‘What’s that?’ Robin asked.
‘Hunt saboteurs,’ Marion explained. ‘Sheriff Marjorie has stuffed the forest around Sherwood Castle with exotic animals, and rich people pay a fortune to shoot them for their supposed sport. Hunt sabs do everything possible to disrupt hunting parties. Drums and sirens to scare the animals off. They release animals bred for hunting from cages, drop paint bombs on the hunters and chop down trees to block paths.’
‘Do you do that stuff?’ Robin asked.
Marion did a yes-no gesture. ‘I was born in the forest. I’d obviously like to stop hunting, but Sherwood’s my home and I care about a lot of other stuff too. People are in the forest for a million different reasons.
‘There are people like you, on the run from cops. On the lunatic fringe, you’ve got religious cults and anarchists. There are isolationists who believe the government is out to get them and ecologists who want to be at one with nature. There are campaigners like my mum and charity workers like Dr Gladys, who set up this free clinic.
‘Obviously there are some criminals and bandits. But by far the biggest group in Sherwood Forest are refugees and migrants. Thousands of people who came to this country to escape wars and famines and stuff.’
As Marion finished her explanation, a man strode purposefully into the room. He had a Union Jack bandana tied around his head. His age was hard to read, with youngish dark skin and a trim physique, but brown peg teeth suggesting either a hard life or too much candy.
‘Robin woke up,’ Marion told the man brightly, as he approached. Then she looked at Robin. ‘This is Will Scarlock. He’s the boss of Designer Outlets.’
‘Because nobody else wants the hassle,’ Will added as he reached over the bed to shake Robin’s hand.
‘I’ve heard that name Scarlock somewhere,’ Robin mused, as Will inspected his head wound.
‘Marion did a grand job gluing your big cut,’ Will said, ignoring Robin’s question.
‘You probably saw Will’s name in the news,’ Marion said proudly. ‘Sheriff Marjorie has a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-pound bounty on his head and the Japanese fisheries minister called him a terrorist menace after he blew up a whaleboat.’
‘We made sure nobody wa
s on board,’ Will emphasised, as he glanced at his watch, then at Marion. ‘I’ve had Freya on the radio. Our crew successfully robbed the truckload of silver cutlery, but Castle Guards shot them up as they got away. At least three are going to need treatment and there’s only one spare bed in the clinic.’
Robin was intrigued by the tale of a robbery, but it didn’t sit with Marion’s claim that her people weren’t bandits …
‘Looks like you’ve got your marching orders,’ Marion told Robin.
‘You’ve lost a lot of the red stuff, so go easy and don’t be surprised if you’re light-headed when you start moving around,’ Will cautioned. ‘Dr Gladys said you’re fine, so Marion will take you to her family den and her mums will keep a good eye on you.’
‘Feel up to walking?’ Marion asked. ‘Or would His Majesty like a wheelchair?’
21. REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH
Robin didn’t need a wheelchair, but the back of his head was painful, and he was way off full strength as he followed Marion out of the twelve-bed clinic. In one direction lay the unlit arcade that ran down the centre of the mall, in the other a set of plywood steps led to a rectangular hole cut in the mall roof.
‘I can give you a tour up top,’ Marion offered, pointing towards sun blazing through the hole. ‘Or you can rest in our den. My three little brothers are brats, but they’ll clear out if I threaten to thump them.’
Robin had ten aches and six pains, but he was curious about his surroundings and knew he’d get crazy bored doing nothing all day.
‘The air-con’s dead and our drains get stinky when it hasn’t rained,’ Marion explained, as she walked up the steps behind Robin, with his pack, quiver and a slightly scraped bow slung over her shoulders, ‘so most action happens up on the roof.’
Robin felt overwhelmed by chatter and bustle as his eyes adjusted to bright sunlight on a flat roof that stretched at least a hundred metres in every direction.
Will’s eighteen-year-old son, Sam Scarlock, stood over a giant wok tossing peppers, mushrooms and new-laid eggs. Little kids chased around, and half a dozen people sat on brightly coloured prayer mats, sharing coffee from a dented steel pot.
Further off, the flat roof had an informal market selling homewares and groceries; huge rusting satellite dishes; male and female shower blocks; a hydroponic vegetable garden; solar panels; three giant chicken coops and a troublingly frail three-storey observation tower, whose lookouts had powerful binoculars and sniper rifles.
‘I had no idea bandi— I mean Forest People, were so organised,’ Robin said, which made Marion laugh.
‘It’s not that organised, but Will mostly keeps water flowing, puts food on the table for everyone and generates enough electricity for essential services, like light and Netflix …’
Robin made a sun visor with his hand, to see what lay beyond the roof.
In the fifteen years since Sherwood Designer Outlets closed, the forest had eaten into the vast open-air parking lots. Prickly purple-flowered bushes grew from every crack in the tarmac, and in places trees had punched through, some up to ten metres tall.
‘Marion-yon-yon!’ a woman said playfully as she jogged up and gave Marion a friendly thump on the shoulder.
She was striking and heavily tattooed, and her deodorant had been overwhelmed by a night of exertion in Sherwood Forest. She carried a towel and a washbag and had bloodstained bandage wound around one well-developed bicep.
‘Robin, this is Azeem,’ Marion said. ‘Just back from stealing silver.’
‘Pleasure,’ Azeem said, as she fist-bumped Robin.
‘How was the raid?’ Marion asked. ‘Anyone hurt bad?’
‘Did the job but it got rough,’ Azeem said, shaking her head. ‘You can’t run fast with thirty kilos of silver cutlery rattling around in your pack and Castle Guards on your tail, shooting up trees.’
Marion explained for Robin’s benefit. ‘You can’t get a straight shot at a target in dense forest, so Castle Guards aim their machine guns into the canopy and shatter tree trunks.’
‘A wooden shard through an artery is as deadly as a bullet,’ Azeem added, as she tapped her bandaged arm. ‘My splinter was no bigger than a cotton bud, but we had to stretcher one lad who got a big spear through his body armour.’
‘Are Castle Guards the same as Rangers?’ Robin asked.
‘Heck no!’ Marion said angrily. ‘Rangers are locals. They patrol forest roads, pick up broken-down cars, deal with poachers, floods and forest fires.’
‘Rangers will bust you if they catch you doing something illegal,’ Azeem said. ‘But they don’t rough you up.’
‘Castle Guards are ruthless,’ Marion continued. ‘They’re Sheriff Marjorie’s personal stormtroopers. Ex-military, hard as granite. They’re supposed to be private security guards protecting Sherwood Castle and the surrounding estate, but they go way beyond that.’
Robin didn’t want to rile people who’d saved his life, but felt he had to ask the awkward question.
‘So, you’re not bandits … But you robbed a truck filled with silver cutlery and got shot at by Castle Guards?’
Marion glared, but Azeem cracked up laughing.
‘Sheriff Marjorie would call us bandits, but that’s not how we see ourselves,’ Azeem explained. ‘Real bandits are in it for themselves. They’d rob another forest person’s food, sell drugs, kidnap refugees to work in sweatshops and generally prey on the weak. Our crew just takes what we need. We train to fight, but only use violence if we have to and we only steal from the big fish, like Sheriff Marjorie and King Corporation.’
‘Everything they have comes from ripping off ordinary people in the first place,’ Marion added, before Azeem continued.
‘We were tipped off by a source who works at Sherwood Castle. A huge summer hunt is being organised. The source told us Sheriff Marjorie spent a hundred thousand pounds on a solid-silver cutlery service for the castle’s banqueting room. Last night, we laid out stinger strips in front of the delivery truck, tied up the driver and robbed it.
‘We’ll melt and sell the silver, but that money will go in a flash. Will’s wife Emma distributes food parcels, blankets and maps for refugees whose boats wash up in the Eastern Delta. The mall plumbing needs an eight-thousand-pound overhaul to stop us choking on the smell of drains. We’ve also had thieves sneaking into the mall at night stealing, so Will wants night-vision goggles for our security patrols.’
‘Don’t forget the cost of running the clinic,’ Marion said. ‘Where you just spent the night in a free bed, had a three-hundred-quid plasma infusion to replace the blood you lost and left with sixty pounds’ worth of antibiotic pills, antiseptic cream and replacement dressings.’
‘I get it,’ Robin said, wishing he’d phrased the bandit question more delicately. ‘You steal from the rich and give to the poor …’
22. THE LOCKSLEY GAZETTE IS A BIASED RAG
‘Gotta wash away my stink!’ Azeem said, waving her towel like a flag as she backed away. ‘Fab to meet you, Robin.’
After a few steps Azeem stopped by a lively group cooking flatbreads on a hotplate and began speaking fluently in Arabic. The only word Robin made out was his own name.
‘I think Azeem is asking them to give you food,’ Marion explained. ‘Are you hungry?’
Pain and worry made it hard to gauge his appetite, but Robin hadn’t eaten since breakfast the previous morning and figured he ought to try.
As they stepped onto a lavish Persian carpet, an elderly woman drizzled honey on a square of her just-baked flatbread and passed it to Robin. The warm flaky dough and melting honey made him smile as he bit into it.
‘So good!’ Robin said, trying not to get honey on his fingers as he took a huge second mouthful.
‘It’s a Moroccan bread called m’smen,’ Marion said, as she got a slice for herself. ‘I could live off this stuff. Especially when it’s still hot.’
The baker seemed pleased with Robin’s reaction, but in the background three wome
n and a boy aged about nine were frantically chattering in Arabic. Robin kept hearing his name, but was baffled as the boy pointed at his bow, which was over Marion’s shoulder because of his weakened state.
The slender boy stepped in front of Robin and nodded. His face was young, though he was almost Robin’s height. He looked down at the carpet and spoke nervous English, his pronunciation excellent, but each word requiring brow-furrowing concentration.
‘My lady the grandmother wants to ask,’ the boy began, as he pointed at a woman sitting on the carpet, ‘are you Robin Hood, who used a bow to shoot Guy Gisborne in his …’
The boy didn’t know the English word, so he looked down and made a pained expression and a cupping gesture between his legs.
Azeem still hadn’t gone for her shower and shrieked when realisation hit.
‘You’re that kid who shot Guy Gisborne in the grapes!’ she blurted, pointing at Robin as she broke into a huge grin.
‘He did what?’ Marion gasped.
‘How can you not have seen?’ Azeem asked. ‘It’s hilarious! Gisborne had to have an operation in Locksley General Hospital. Someone in the emergency room made a video when he arrived and it’s trending everywhere.’
‘There was no nurse on duty, so Dr Gladys made me sit with Robin all night, in case he started vomiting,’ Marion said. ‘My phone was almost dead and the Wi-Fi’s horrible down in the clinic.’
The slender boy grabbed a cracked-screen iPad off the carpet, then opened a local news website and passed it over so Marion could see.
‘You said cops tried to frame you for stealing …’ Marion told Robin accusingly, as they saw a headline on the Locksley & Sherwood Gazette website.
GISBORNE SHOT
Hospital spokesperson says injury serious but not life-threatening.
Below the headline was a picture of Gisborne looking respectable in a grey suit and tie, alongside school photos of Robin and Little John with WANTED stamped across them in red.
Marion read aloud, ‘Locksley Police Department has launched a manhunt after esteemed local businessman and charity donor Guy Gisborne was shot in the groin area with an arrow. Two ruthless youths attempted to rob Gisborne, 42, as he made breakfast waffles for his children at his East Locksley home. Brothers John Hood, 16, and Robin Hood, 12, then bound Gisborne with rope before escaping with cash and valuables in his $130,000 Mercedes automobile …’
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