‘We need to contact a parent or guardian to let them know we’re sending you home,’ Mr Barclay added, as he reached across the desk and pulled an emergency contact form out of John’s file. ‘But your details haven’t been updated since your father was arrested.’
John was no smart mouth. He could take half an hour deciding which pair of shoes to wear and, with his head spinning after the lunchtime craziness, it was only the mention of contacting a parent that made him realise he had an ace up his sleeve.
‘I’ve been living with my mum,’ John said.
Mr Barclay reached behind to grab a pen off the desk. ‘I’ll need a number to call her, and a full address to send out a letter.’
‘Sheriff Marjorie Kovacevic, The Penthouse Suite, Sherwood Castle,’ John said, as he reached down his backpack to get his phone. ‘I don’t know her mobile number by heart, but it’s saved in here.’
Mrs Bhattacharjee seemed sceptical, but Mr Barclay had taught John PE since Year Seven and knew he wasn’t a kid who’d make stuff up.
‘How can Sheriff Marjorie be your mother?’ Mrs Bhattacharjee quizzed, as she closed on John.
‘I only found out after my dad was arrested,’ John said. ‘It isn’t a total secret, but my mum has a lot of pull with the local media, so it’s been kept quiet.’
The two senior teachers gawped as the news sank in.
While Guy Gisborne was a thug who ran every racket in Locksley, Marjorie Kovacevic was a much bigger fish. Four-term Sheriff of Nottingham, Guardian of Sherwood Forest, senior board member and regional director of the multi-billion-dollar King Corporation. There were even rumours that she planned on moving into national politics and becoming Prime Minister.
As his teachers impersonated statues, John pressed his advantage by tapping the call button on his phone.
‘Mum, it’s me,’ John said, when Sheriff Marjorie picked up. ‘I kind of got in a fight with Clare Gisborne. The school is saying it’s all my fault. I’m in the Deputy Head’s office and they want to kick me out.’
He put his phone on speaker, then held it out towards Mrs Bhattacharjee, who’d gone wobbly and had to lean against her filing cabinet.
‘My mum wishes to talk to you,’ John said, stifling a grin.
7. FUN WITH POLYESTER RESIN
Robin acted like he didn’t want to do chores, but he’d been stuck in his den all morning and being busy was better than sitting around feeling sad about his dad.
Indio had said they needed to wear long sleeves, full-length trousers and their forest boots for roof repairs, and Robin took his bow everywhere for security. He could load an arrow, aim and shoot accurately in under a second, which is a useful skill when there’s a £100,000 bounty on your head.
‘It’s crowded today,’ Robin said, as they joined a small queue for one of the wooden staircases that linked the mall’s upper level to the roof.
‘Market day,’ Marion said.
Designer Outlets’ heating and air conditioning no longer worked. So when the weather was decent, mall residents preferred fresh air on the roof. It was also the location of the shower blocks, chicken coops, vegetable gardens, solar panels and stalls that sold clothes, hardware and a dozen types of food.
The mall was protected by armed guards and electronic surveillance. But Monday and Thursday were market day, when outside traders set up stalls and Forest People were allowed in to buy supplies.
After being inside all day, Robin’s eyes spent several blurry seconds adjusting to the cloudless sky. It wasn’t hot, but the sun had enough kick to let you know summer wasn’t far off.
Robin enjoyed market day, with grubby forest dwellers gossiping and haggling over bags of rice or huge packs of toilet rolls. He always lusted after the gear on a stall that sold gadgets and the latest phones, and he usually liked the hot food stalls too, but after today’s epic lunch wafts of curry and paella made him queasy.
‘Robin!’ an elderly French bookseller yelled brightly. ‘I saved a book about the Crusades for you. Come and take a look, yes?’
‘Later,’ Robin said, as he followed Marion. ‘I’ve got chores.’
Before Robin and Marion made ten steps, they found Azeem and her younger sister Lyla standing in front of them. The muscular sisters wore boots and combat trousers and had stun guns and assault rifles.
‘You can’t be up here on market day,’ Lyla told Robin aggressively.
‘I’m not in prison!’ Robin said, as his eyes rolled with frustration. ‘Don’t you search everyone for weapons on the way in?’
Azeem sounded more sympathetic. ‘If you don’t live in the mall, you have to go through security at the main entrance. But we can’t check every sack of vegetables for a hidden pistol, or open up laptops and solar batteries looking for explosives. So you need to go back to your den.’
‘My mum sent us up here,’ Marion said. ‘We’re supposed to be helping Unai with roof repairs.’
Azeem gave her sister a What do you think? look, before shrugging.
‘Well, if Will OK’d it,’ she said. ‘But if you’re working near the market, let me know and I’ll make sure there are eyes on you at all times.’
‘Fabulous,’ Robin said grumpily. Then, to Marion as they walked away, ‘I know they’re trying to keep me safe, but I’m going crazy!’
‘Life’s a bitch, then you die,’ Marion said, and emphasised her point by slapping the calf above her twisted club foot.
They found Unai by the showers. The roofer was a chain-smoking Armenian with a scruffy beard and reddish face. His overalls and boots were crusted with dried clumps of grey gloop.
‘This roof is a full-time job,’ he explained as they headed away from the market towards dazzling reflections from rows of solar panels. ‘It wasn’t built to hold market stalls and greenhouses, or have hundreds of people walking on it. If I repair one leak, there are two more the next day.’
Unai kept his tools and supplies on a flat-bed wire cart. It held huge plastic drums filled with the gluey resin that was splattered over his clothes, along with paint rollers, brushes and a toolbox that rattled on every bump.
Their destination was the crossing point at the centre of the H-shaped mall. Robin had never been beyond the rooftop market and vegetable beds and couldn’t resist peeking through the glass dome, down at the dead fountains and a food court that had once been the mall’s centrepiece.
Unai had already marked several cracks in the fibreglass roof with pink X’s and began by showing his new recruits how to make a simple repair to the roof’s surface.
First he scraped away moss and bird poop from around a crack and roughed up the surrounding area with a cordless power sander.
The repair involved painting the area generously with the gluey plastic resin, then laying a square of plastic mesh on top. After letting this harden for a few minutes, he painted another layer of resin over the mesh.
‘Now you try!’
As Unai lit a cigarette, Robin and Marion put on work gloves that were far too big and breathing masks for the resin fumes. Every now and then he’d yell something like, Paint the resin thick and quick, or, Cut the mesh smaller.
It wasn’t exactly fun, but Robin appreciated learning a proper grown-up skill and contributing to the mall’s upkeep.
Once Unai finished his smoke, he joined Robin and Marion on their knees and they crawled about until they’d repaired all the marked cracks.
‘You’ve learned the basics,’ Unai said, as he began a march back towards the market and signalled for Robin to pull the clattering trolley. ‘Our next job is harder.’
8. SHERIFF ON SPEAKERPHONE
Little John set his phone on the deputy head’s desk and Mrs Bhattacharjee and Mr Barclay backed up in dread.
‘Teachers,’ Sheriff Marjorie said, her voice booming confidently from the phone, ‘my son, or Gisborne’s daughter – who are you going to pick?’
John wasn’t a mean person, but the two teachers had been happy to kick him out of schoo
l and let Clare carry on running around with throwing knives, so he had zero sympathy now it was their turn to squirm.
‘Guy Gisborne and I go back a long way, though relations between us are not always easy,’ Marjorie went on. ‘I stay clear of his affairs in Locksley, and in return his people keep out of Nottingham and Sherwood Forest.’
The room went quiet, until Mr Barclay asked, ‘Sheriff, are you still there?’
‘Thinking!’ Marjorie snapped back.
It had been less than three months since Little John got blown away by the news that Sheriff Marjorie was his mother. He couldn’t decide if he liked his newly discovered parent, let alone loved her. But he had now lived with her in Sherwood Castle for long enough to know that she was extremely clever, and always got her way.
Marjorie Kovacevic had grown up in a care home. She founded her first business while she was still a pupil at Locksley High and became a millionaire in her early twenties when she sold out to King Corporation. She then pivoted into politics, becoming the youngest-ever Sheriff of Nottingham and building a political machine that won her three more terms in office, while she grew richer by awarding lucrative government contracts to her friends.
‘Here’s what we do,’ Marjorie began, when she finally broke silence. ‘Locksley High is a terrible school. I’d rather my son was educated privately, but as sheriff, I’m in charge of all the schools in the county and it looks bad if I send my son to a fancy private school while my administration slashes school budgets for everyone else.’
‘All my friends are at this school,’ John said warily. ‘I’m on the rugby team!’
Sheriff Marjorie barely paused. ‘Son, a good education is the greatest gift a parent can give, and Clare Gisborne almost killed you with ninja stars. I’d rather avoid a clash with Guy Gisborne, so this is what will happen:
‘Locksley High School will issue a letter from the PE department saying that John Hood is an outstanding rugby player who has won a scholarship to another school. If the press finds out, we can say it was a, “Unique opportunity that no parent would deny their son”.’
‘I’m on the team, but I’m only average,’ John pointed out.
Sheriff Marjorie sounded miffed. ‘Darling, be quiet and let the grown-ups sort this out . . . Where was I? So, my son gets an excuse to move to an excellent fee-paying school, and you don’t have to expel Clare Gisborne. Problem sorted, yes?’
‘What about me?’ John blurted. ‘I have friends, and exams after half-term.’
Marjorie spat words like machine-gun bullets. ‘John, if you wish you can have a blowout pool party at Sherwood Castle for all your friends and you’ll be the most popular kid in town. And I’m sure Locksley High can arrange for someone to fill out your exam papers.’
John was outraged that someone else could take his exams, but Mrs Bhattacharjee didn’t miss a beat.
‘Of course, we can do that for you, Sheriff. I’ll make sure your son’s exam papers are completed by staff and he’ll get straight As.’
‘See what a good mother I am, John?’ Marjorie said. ‘Straight A’s with no revision!’
‘Everyone else has to work for their grades,’ John blurted. ‘Why should I get a free ride just because you’re sheriff?’
‘John.’ Marjorie sighed. ‘Your father, Ardagh, is the most decent and honest man I have ever known. Right now he’s flat broke and lives in a filthy prison cell, because that’s what the real world does to people like him.’
John wanted to stand up and yell, ‘Stop, this is all wrong and nobody is listening to me,’ but the Sheriff had solved all Mr Barclay and Mrs Bhattacharjee’s problems, and his mother spoke so fast . . .
‘Make sure you erase all CCTV footage of the incident,’ Marjorie said. Then finally, ‘Call my assistant Mary if you have any more questions. John, I love you and we’ll talk tonight over dinner. But now I have to go. I should have been in a committee meeting six minutes ago.’
The phone call went dead and John and the two teachers gasped.
‘Such an impressive woman!’ Mrs Bhattacharjee said, after a pause.
‘Sheriff Marjorie knows what she wants and gets it,’ Mr Barclay agreed. ‘I hear her staff call her The Tank.’
‘Not to her face, I’ll bet,’ Bhattacharjee laughed.
Little John didn’t join the laughter, because he felt like The Tank had just rolled over him.
9. GREASED RAT FANDANGO
Marion sat cross-legged on the end of Unai’s trolley as Robin pulled it. They wound up sixty metres from the busy market, where a large section of roof was ponded with stagnant water. Robin noticed globes of golden fat catching sunlight on the water’s surface, but while it looked pretty, the smell was like a kitchen bin.
‘It’s the damned food stalls,’ Unai explained, as he puffed on yet another cigarette. ‘I’ve told them a hundred times not to throw fat down the roof drains. But who listens to me?’
Marion and Robin followed Unai into the smelly water and towards the roof’s edge. It deepened until it was precariously close to flooding their boots. When they looked over the edge, they saw a half-metre-wide gutter plugged with a gruesome sludge of rotting leaves, cooking fat and litter.
Marion gagged from the smell and flies fizzed into the air as Unai took a hand trowel and probed the smelly brown mass.
‘It won’t kill you,’ he told her with a smile. Then he looked at Robin. ‘Fetch my big shovel and the drain rods from the cart.’
Unai did the nasty part of the job. After putting on knee-high wellies, he squelched around the gutter, shovelling sludge into thick plastic bags. It was breezy, so Marion held the bags open while trying not to catch the stench. When each bag was close to bursting, Robin had to carefully carry them through the mini-lake and dump them on the cart.
By the time he’d carried six bags, the rooftop lake was starting to drain. Unai was done with shovelling, and after spraying a strong detergent that would dissolve the remaining fat, he began screwing together a set of bendy drain rods to make a long pole.
Once fitted with a stiff brush, the rods could be shoved into the thick downpipe that led from the end of the gutter to a drain in the mall parking lot.
‘It’s just puddles now,’ Robin said, proud that they’d cleared the huge lake in less than an hour.
Unai aligned the brush with the opening of the downpipe and gave the bendy pole an almighty shove. Marion was horrified as brown water and fat squirted back out of the opening, splattering Unai, with a few drips catching her.
She shot backwards, tripped on a shovel and wound up sat in blobs of fat and foaming purple detergent.
‘These jeans are ruined!’ she yelled furiously.
But laundry was the least of Marion’s problems. When Unai gave the rods a second shove, he disturbed rats nesting on a ledge inside the downpipe. As Marion sat up, she saw three huge rats bounding towards her.
The one that ran over her chest felt warm and heavy, and because they’d spent their lives eating fat in a drain hole, they were slippery and covered in clumps of wriggling maggots.
‘AAARGHHHHHHH!’ Marion screamed.
She retched as she stood up, but there was fat and grease underfoot, so her boot slipped and she went down again.
‘AAAARGHHHHHH!’ she continued. ‘GET THEM OFF ME.’
Robin had left his bow on the trolley while he was working, but he’d pulled the trolley closer as the lake drained so it was only a few steps away. As the three cat-sized rats splashed through puddles towards the shower blocks and busy market, Robin snatched his bow and a handful of arrows.
The first rat was an easy shot. From less than five metres, he speared its back, pinning the slimy-furred creature to the roof. The second shot was into the sun, twelve metres and running an erratic path. His first attempt grazed butt, but the rat flipped before shooting off again.
His second shot hit the mark and the creature let out wild squeals as it thrashed about, bashing the arrow through its body agains
t the rooftop.
Robin scanned the rooftop for signs of the third rat, but sunlight glinting off puddles made it hard to see and he was sure he’d lost the target, when his eye caught movement in front of the yellow wall of the women’s shower block.
The fast-moving target was at the limit of the range an arrow can fly accurately, and pulling back harder to get distance makes aiming more difficult. The rat changed direction as Robin released, but coincidentally his arrow pulled left, hitting the slimy rat face on and skewering it like a kebab.
Marion’s screams and the sight of Robin firing arrows had set Azeem and a couple of other guards sprinting out of the market towards them. After throwing down his bow, Robin dashed towards Marion to check that she was OK.
Marion wasn’t hurt, but she was soaked through and coated in gunk. Her hair was stuck to her greasy face and her expression was a mix of shock and rage.
‘That was exciting,’ Robin said sarcastically.
He instantly had Marion’s mucky finger wagging under his nose. ‘If you dare laugh, I’ll snap every bone in your body!’
10. LOW ON AMMO
Some people are born organisers and Will Scarlock was one of them. When he’d first arrived at Sherwood Outlets with wife Emma and five kids, less than thirty Forest people lived in the huge abandoned mall.
There was no power, and they either had to lug barrels of drinking water into the forest or risk picking up a nasty bug from the river. Bats and rats had free run of the mall’s main arcades and with no security there was a threat of having your stuff stolen every time you went out, or of waking in the night with a bandit’s knife at your throat.
Over ten years, Will had restored water and sewage and built a solar farm for electricity. Besides the market, there were chicken runs, vegetable plots, a free medical clinic, mobile phone masts, internet and a library. It was all protected by a watchtower, electronic surveillance and well-organised patrols.
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