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  Street Heroes

  RUNAWAYS

  Street Heroes

  RUNAWAYS

  JOE LAYBURN

  Illustrated by John Williams

  Text copyright © Joe Layburn 2011

  Illustrations copyright © John Williams 2011

  The right of Joe Layburn to be identified as the author and John Williams to be identified as the illustrator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 (United Kingdom).

  First published in Great Britain and the USA in 2011 by

  Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, 4 Torriano Mews,

  Torriano Avenue, London NW5 2RZ

  www.franceslincoln.com

  All rights reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electrical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the United Kingdom such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House,

  6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-84780-080-0

  eBook ISBN 978-1-90766-663-6

  Set in Bembo

  Printed in Croydon, Surrey, UK by CPI Bookmarque Ltd. in November 2010

  1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Omar

  George

  Melissa

  Hyun-Mi

  George

  Melissa

  Hyun-Mi

  Omar

  Hyun-Mi

  Melissa

  George

  Hyun-Mi

  Fatima

  Jack

  George

  Hyun-Mi

  George

  Hyun-Mi

  Melissa

  George

  Melissa

  George

  About the story

  For Ahn Chol

  OMAR

  When I first heard his voice, late that autumn night, my nerves were already messed up. Whitechapel High Street, eleven o’clock. A drunken old tramp had just lurched across the pavement towards me like a wild-eyed zombie. There was even a ghostly mist in the damp East London air. It felt as if I was walking through the set of a cheap horror film.

  My name is Jack. I know that you can hear me. Please be afraid!

  It was someone’s idea of a joke. Nothing to get freaked out about. That’s what I told myself, anyway.

  Remember, I’ve been hearing voices all my life, starting with my sister Fatima’s. She has always been able to read my mind, share her thoughts with me, even when we are far apart. But this wasn’t a child’s voice or even a young person’s. It was deep and strange, and ‘Jack’ was using Fatima’s trademark greeting.

  I said, I know that you can hear me, Omar.

  I actually swung around to check if he was behind me, even though I knew this was a ‘thought-voice’. When you’re telepathic, you get used to people dropping into your brain for a chat. They’re usually friendly. You hardly ever feel threatened by them.

  I began walking faster, cursing my father and his forgetfulness. It was his fault that I was out on the streets at all. How many times had he left his glasses at home? And how often had I been called to bring them to our uncle’s restaurant so my father could see well enough to sort out the evening’s takings?

  You seem afraid, Omar, and I like that. You should be scared of me.

  I decided to ignore him and his weird, mocking voice. But it’s not easy to block people’s thoughts. Jack knew that I could hear him. If you try to screen out a thought-voice, it’s like not picking up the phone when someone knows you’re at home.

  I won’t be ignored, Omar. That’s one thing I cannot stand. I’ve been around a long time. And people take notice of me.

  I’d reached the neon-lit street in Bangla Town where my uncle’s restaurant jostled for business alongside all the others. At last I could start to relax. My father wasn’t telepathic, nor was my mother or my big brother Sadiq. But they knew about Fatima and me, and what my father called our ‘gift’. I would tell my father about the creepy voice I’d been hearing and ask if I could wait to walk home with him.

  Of course, it’s your sister I’m most interested in, Omar. I’ve never liked goodness. It’s always brought out the worst in me.

  I clenched my jaw, my fists. No one threatened my sister - I’d merk them if they dared. But suddenly, I was flying through the foggy night, sent sprawling by a black bin-liner full of rubbish.

  I rubbed the pavement grit off the palms of my hands. The fall had ripped the cloth of my trousers and my left knee was grazed. As I got up, I glanced into a shadowy alley that ran down the side of an off-licence. What I saw there made me shiver. Looming out of the darkness was a tall figure. I could not make out his features, but he was beckoning me towards him with long, bony fingers.

  “Come and help me, there’s a good boy. I just need a bit of change if you’ve got any on yer.”

  I laughed out loud. It was just another old tramp begging for money. I felt relieved, as well as stupid for letting myself get so worked up. That’s when I heard Jack’s voice again.

  Look further down, Omar, past the old fool and the dustbins. It’s dark, isn’t it? But can you see me? I won’t stay in the shadows forever, Omar. This is just the beginning. Even I don’t know where it will end.

  For a second, I felt too frozen to move. I was afraid for myself and scared for the old tramp too.

  “Get out of there, you’re in danger!” I screamed. Then, without looking back, I ran.

  GEORGE

  He kicked me so hard I lost a tooth. He kicked me because he was drunk. He kicked me, as I lay sleeping, because he knew he could get away with it.

  It wasn’t a dream. I didn’t wake up in my nice warm bed. I woke up terrified and cold. I’m always cold.

  When he kicked me, I was lying under a blanket on a flattened out cardboard box. I looked like rubbish. He was dressed to kill: sharp suit, shiny black shoes - a young City worker with short, brown hair and flushed cheeks.

  Perhaps he’d had a bad day, lost his firm some money, been turned down by one of the secretaries he fancied. Whatever, he took it out on me: kicked me in the head, then ran off, shouting, into the night.

  I’m Georgie Smith. Unless you’ve been living in a cave in Afghanistan or a crater on the moon, you’ll have heard of me. You’ll also know George Smith, my dad. He’s the former leader of the British Fascist Party. He’s the man who wanted to march with his followers down Cable Street in East London and terrorise the Muslims who live there. He’s the loser who was turned back by a bunch of kids - well, about a thousand of them, actually, but kids even so.

  I was there that day. I stood shoulder to shoulder with those kids and helped to destroy him. Thanks to me - his ‘son and heir’ - George Smith is a broken man, despised by all the Nazis who used to support him. He’s also loathed by those people who never liked him anyway. I suppose I still love him. Despite everything, he’s my dad. But none of that matters now.

  After our victory in Cable Street, one of the newspapers called us ‘Street Heroes’ for standing up to the fascists. I don’t feel much like a hero and I don’t expect a hero’s welcome if I ever do go home.

  I’ve stayed away for nearly five weeks now. It’s easier than you might think for a teenage runaway to simply disappear. I haven’t tried to contact my mum, or Albion, my sister. I suppose I’m starting to see my family as part of my old life.

  Where my
new life will take me, I don’t yet know. I’m just trying to survive. When you live on the streets, that’s the best you can hope for.

  MELISSA

  Fatima has become totally obsessed with street children. She tells me about these kids living on rubbish dumps in Brazil who got ‘disappeared’ when the authorities decided to clean up the big cities for the tourists. By ‘disappeared’ she means murdered.

  I say to her, “How could they get away with killing kids?”

  She says, “There are places you wouldn’t believe, Melissa. Places that are very different from here.”

  She goes on and on about this street kid from North Korea, a girl called Hyun-mi. According to Fatima, North Korea is this scary, closed-off country near China that’s run by a madman. He’s let millions of his people starve to death and put thousands of them in prison. Fatima tells me it’s going to be her ‘life’s work’ to make Hyun-mi’s story known to a ‘global audience’.

  I say, “I thought what we did to George Smith in Cable Street was your life’s work.”

  But it seems Saint Fatima has plans for more good deeds.

  I shouldn’t joke about her. I know how special she is. She may be blind, but she can tune in to a million different people’s thought-waves - mine included, which is why I have to be careful what I think if I don’t want a pinch on the arm. She gets a lot of her information from the computer in her bedroom which talks to her day and night in this robot voice. But being telepathic means that, even without the internet, Fatima can plug in to a network of minds all over the world.

  I’m pretty sure her new obsession started because of Georgie. Since Cable Street, he’s been sleeping rough. He’s had a hard time on the streets of our own city and she’s worried about him. But her concern never stops with just one person. Fatima won’t rest until this whole messed-up world is a better place, especially for kids.

  “Why don’t they show stuff about street children on television, Melissa? You tell me that,” she says.

  I look at her guiltily because I usually only watch rubbish on TV. This is one of those questions where she doesn’t really want me to answer. I say nothing.

  “It’s because the television companies make easy money from crap like Celebrity Skin, even though, deep down, they must know they could do so much good with their programmes.”

  She throws up her hands like a magician releasing a dove. Fatima hardly ever uses bad language, but Celebrity Skin, with its one-hit pop singers in bikinis and nearly-naked soap stars, really annoys her. It’s filmed in a compound in Docklands, just a few miles from her house, and she keeps threatening to go there and burn it to the ground.

  “I thought you disagreed with violence,” I say. “I thought your hero Gandhi was all about ‘passive resistance’.”

  She pinches my arm.

  “For Celebrity Skin I’d make an exception. Probably even Gandhi would.”

  HYUN-MI

  The icy water almost makes me gasp. I stop myself, though. I know I must stay silent if I am to survive this night - no splashing, coughing, or cursing the cold. I wade a few steps, then push off from the rocky bottom and start swimming with slow, careful strokes towards the other side of the river.

  Unlike most people in my country, I learnt to swim in a proper pool. There were other luxuries too: embroidered dresses, music and dance lessons. But that all changed. One day my father was an important man, trusted by the Dear Leader himself, the next he was dragged off to a prison camp. Now I’m leaving North Korea with nothing but the ragged clothes I am wearing.

  I’ve seen the Tumen River on maps at school, spoken about to it to the orphan children I’ve met on the streets of our towns and villages. It’s not that wide, not that fast flowing, but it’s often deadly for North Koreans who try to escape.

  This is my country’s border with China and I, Hyun-mi, am finally swimming across it! My hands and feet are getting numb, but cramp is only one of my worries. If the North Korean guards who patrol the river see me, they will shoot without thinking. If I am picked up on the Chinese side I’ll be sent back to a North Korean prison camp, maybe to die there like my father.

  Luckily for me, the night is dark and starless. Pollution from the factories on the Chinese side of the river makes sure of that. But no North Korean is truly lucky, apart from the Dear Leader that is.

  It seems strange to have to tell anyone about the Dear Leader. Everyone in my country knows him as a god. His picture hangs alongside that of his long dead father, the Great Leader, in every home, school and workplace. In the streets and squares, their statues watch over us too. They give you the creeps once you realise they’re not gods. Not kind gods, anyway.

  If you talk to the truly brainwashed people like my grandmother, they will say that the Dear Leader is more handsome than any film star, that he is our cleverest mathematician, our most brilliant scientist, our bravest soldier. They will coo like doves about how he loves us, his people. The truth is he loves only himself. And he doesn’t look like a film star either. Our Dear Leader is fat, with horrible, wiry, brushed-back hair and big round glasses that make him look like a confused old owl. That he stayed so fat when millions of his people were dying of starvation tells you much more about him than my grandmother’s fairy stories.

  I’ve been swimming for what feels like ages, but the other side of the river seems to get no closer. My strokes are becoming tired and erratic now and I keep swallowing great gulps of river water. I start to panic. I’ve travelled so many miles to get here. Am I really going to drown within yards of freedom? Then I hear the border guards’ cries from behind me.

  “Hey you, come back here!”

  “Stop, now, or we will shoot!”

  A torch beam swings across the water just to my right and a single rifle shot rings out. Then I hear the coaxing, encouraging voice of my faraway thought-friend, the one who’s been with me throughout my escape.

  Stay strong, Hyun-mi. You must keep going. You’ve come so far and now you’re almost there.

  It is Fatima. I fill my lungs with the chill night air then dive beneath the water, kicking my legs dolphin-tail-style, as I’ve been taught. When I surface, I hear another rifle shot. The bullet zings through the air close above me. I feel like shouting back at them that they must be mad to stay in North Korea. Why don’t they put down their guns and join me? But no doubt these are true believers, probably boys, not much older than me, who remain devoted to the Dear Leader.

  Finally, I stretch down my toes and realise I can touch the bottom. Crouching low, still shivering with terror and cold, I wade to the bank then scramble up it into some scraggy bushes.

  China, at last! Lying exhausted on my back I look up into the dark night sky. I’m still not safe, but I’ve escaped the great prison that is the country of my birth. Despite my fear, I feel the muscles of my face form themselves into a smile.

  “I’m coming to you Fatima,” I whisper. “You promised we would meet one day and I’ve never doubted you for a second.”

  GEORGE

  When you live on the streets, it can seem like everyone’s staring at you. I get really paranoid. I worry that some do-gooder will call the police and they’ll try to send me home. I’m jumpy every time I see a uniform - even if it’s just a traffic warden’s.

  Mostly, though, street children are made to feel like they’re invisible. If you haven’t got money for food, you end up begging. That’s when you start to doubt you even exist. People look away from you, cross the road to avoid you.

  Some of the homeless kids I’ve got to know will sit all day near cashpoints, mumbling the words I’m so sick of saying - “Spare us some change, please?”

  Sometimes they do all right. Often they’ll get nothing.

  One drizzly evening, I was sitting by a cashpoint in Soho with my blanket round my knees and a McDonald’s cardboard cup clasped in my hands. It was empty except for a few coppers and a ten pence coin. Two youngish women came towards me, teetering on high heels and wea
ring what my mum would call their ‘glad rags’.

  “You look freezing,” the blonde one said. “Are you all right?”

  Her dark-haired friend barely glanced at me. She fumbled in her designer handbag and pulled a bank card from her purse.

  “There’s no point giving him money, Ange, he’ll only spend it on drugs.”

  I wanted to tell her she was wrong - that I didn’t take drugs, that I was dry-mouthed and dizzy with hunger. But what was the use? People don’t believe a word you say when your face is unwashed and your clothes are dark with grime.

  The cash machine was spitting out notes as though the dark haired woman had won some huge prize. She sorted them into a fat wedge, then bent down to squint at me. Her eyelashes were so thick with mascara they made me think of spiders crawling through black paint. Her Ferrari-red lips were thin and unsmiling.

  She waved the wad of money under my nose.

  “Listen. The reason I’ve got this is cos I work hard. I don’t sit on my backside and beg off of other people. You should get a job, you little sponger.”

  The blonde woman, Ange, put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Leave him, Cathy. How can he get a job? He can’t be more than fifteen.”

  The dark haired one straightened up.

  “Well, what about his family? They should look after him, not leave it to the rest of us.”

  I wanted to tell her that, as cold and miserable as I was, I would rather take my chances living rough than go home. That was true of all the long-time street kids I’d met. The homes they were running from were even worse than the dark, dangerous streets they kept running to. Imagine your mum’s a drug addict and her new boyfriend has threatened to kill you. Or let’s say your dad is the most hated man in Britain. You might feel the same.

  The blonde woman was opening her own purse now. She took out a two pound coin which flashed silver and gold under the street lights, like pirate’s treasure.