There Ain't Gonna Be No World War Three, Chapter 2

2. Throwing Stones at Cars

"- next you, Anthony - don't crowd him on the board, Jake -"

Ant bounced once on the board, rolled in mid-air, and arrowed straight down into the pool, vanishing from sight almost instantly. Miss Facemire, who was not allowed in the pool due to grommets, contact lenses, and a rumoured colostomy, squinted minutely at her stopwatch. The seconds ticked by.

"Ant's looking a lot fitter these days", said Tamora from the next row of seats down. "Since he started the running and the swimming, I mean. I could go out with him myself. That is, if you weren't going out with him. Which of course you are."

Ant's head broke water; he was holding up two objects, a ring made of rubber, and a brick apparently made of brick. Miss Facemire applauded, unaccompanied by anyone else in the pool. "Well done, Anthony. Though we only really needed you to retrieve the ring."

"Stevens picks up all sorts of trash, miss", said a voice from the diving ladder.

"Just like his mum", said another voice.

There was general smaning. Ant turned and looked meaningfully up at the diving board. There would have been a time when such a comment would have sent him into a spitting rage. Jake Moss mock-glared back, crossed his eyes, and stuck out his tongue.

"Mind you, Jake has the body of a Greek god."

"Tamora", said Cleo, looking up from her copy of Orbital Mechanics for Dummies, "you are two years younger than Jake."

"Mum's two years younger than dad. Jake’s dreamy. And my name's not Tamora, Cleopatra."

Tamora had somehow contrived to appear not be be sitting near Cleo, whilst at the same time being directly in front of her in the middle of her Year Seven friends. Cleo removed and folded up her reading glasses, and rolled them into her swimming towel, before turning her attention back to her younger sister.

"Tamora Athena, you know perfectly well that Mr. Fulcher, your first year maths teacher, also has the body of a Greek god. He has the body of Dionysus."

Tamora's little friends squawked with glee.

"Cleopatra, you are such a freak."

"Tazza, how can you be related to this humanoid?"

Cleo smiled sweetly. "None of you have the slightest idea who Dionysus is, do you?"

She looked Tamora's friends over critically. She believed they were called Keesha, Aleesha and Ayesha.

"Do you have any friends who don't look like slightly uglier versions of yourself, Tazza?"

Tamora coloured. "Are you saying I don't go round with white people?"

This immediately became fact.

"Bitch! I'm part white, man!"

"Are you calling Tazza a racist, right?"

"If I'm part white then that would mean I'd be racist against myself, and like, that could so not happen, because I quite like myself actually, innit."

"What are you doing with a white boyfriend anyway? Race traitor, man!"

After posing for some seconds on the diving board, Jake bounced up into a double somersault and struck down into the pool. Miss Facemire applauded even more enthusiastically. Ant, who was not Cleo's boyfriend, but was being forced to pretend to be by circumstance, flopped down on the plastic seat next to Cleo.

"I seem to have this brick", he said.

"Someone must have left it from Gold Lifesaving earlier", said Cleo, returning to her book. "Do you know the difference between a Hohmann Transfer Orbit and a Bi-Elliptic?"

Ant shook his head.

"I can't find it in the index", tutted Cleo. "You're going to have to know it sooner or later if you want to fly a Harridan."

Ant sat silent, communing with his brick. Then he said:

"I never said I wanted to fly a Harridan."

"You've memorized every line and piece of punctuation in that manual Richard Turpin gave you 'to photocopy'. You want to fly a Harridan so badly it might as well be tattooed on your forehead."

Ant rubbed his forehead absent-mindedly.

"Hello, Anthony", said Tamora.

"Hello Tamora", said Ant.

"Her name's Tazza now, apparently", said Cleo, without looking up from her book. "I can't wait to tell Mum and Dad."

"You never used to be any good at swimming, Anthony", said Tamora.

"I never want", said Ant, "to be swept away helplessly by a three-moon spring tide ever again."

Ant put his brick down and began to fold and unfold his towel elaborately. Eventually, he found a way of folding it that he seemed to be satisfied with, and put it down on the floor in front of him next to his brick.

"They're up there", he said to Cleo, without looking round.

Cleo did not look away from her book. "I know. And they've been outside school all day. Same big black Mercedes."

"And they're just the ones we know about", said Ant.

Tamora looked up at the spectators' gallery, which was full of the usual mixture of admiring parents and slightly suspect-looking middle-aged men. "Why? Who's up there?"

"Ssssh", said Ant. "We're being followed."

"Anthony", said Tamora, craning her neck, "you are a numb-nutted dimboid from Poohead Town. There's no-one up there but everyone's mums and dads, Creepy Kev, Pervy Pete, Long Lens Camera Man and three respectable looking gentlemen in long macs and glasses, who I can only assume are talent scouts for an international water polo team."

"That'll be them", said Ant, nodding. Cleo nodded and turned the page to chapter seven, Lagrange Points in a Two-Body System.

"Look at that old dear up there knitting, innit", said Keesha.

"She probably comes here to watch her granddaughter, right", said Aleesha.

"If we find out who her granddaughter is, man is she for it man", said Ayeesha.

The Old Dear smiled sweetly and waved at Ayeesha. She had pure white hair so rigidly permed it could have doubled as a crash helmet, gigantic winged spectacles, and a pink flesh-coloured hearing aid. Ayeesha dropped behind her plastic seat in embarrassment. Tamora, Aleesha and Keesha looked questioningly at Ayeesha.

"She is NOTHING", said Ayeesha, "to do with ME, man. She's just looking at me."

"I can't pay for the German trip", said Ant suddenly.

"Don't worry", said Cleo. "I've got that covered."

"They're trying to find out where the Mail Drop is", said Ant. "They want to know how Gondolin's passing messages to us."

"They almost certainly have microphones planted on us at this very moment", said Cleo.

"Testing, testing", said Ant. "One, two, three."

"You two are Olympic standard freakazoids", said Tamora. "What is this, some game of Let's Pretend? Is Ant your Dungeon Master? Is he, like, three hundredth level or something?" She got to her feet and waved at the men. "COOEEE, WANDERING MONSTERS!" One of them waved back.

"TAMORA!" squeaked Miss Facemire from across the pool. "Please SIT down and be QUIET."

"Sorry Miss Facemiiiiire", said Tamora in a sing-song voice that Aleesha, Ayesha and Keesha found the funniest thing ever.

"I should think so. Now, line up everyone for synchronized swimming. Emily, start the beatbox. This time around, I want the girls to be the big bad bumblebees, and the boys to be the delicate flowers."

***

Outside the public baths, a long line of gabbling Lea Way pupils stood waiting for the school coach to finish reversing painstakingly into the car park.

The men from the Big Black Car were also in the car park, sitting wreathed in woolly scarves in their Mercedes with the engine on. The Old Dear was getting into her own car, her arms full of multicoloured bundles of wool. She saw Ayeesha and smiled sweetly at her. Ayeesha stuck her tongue out back. Tamora, Aleesha and Keesha giggled.

"It is NOT FUNNY. She is NOTHING TO DO WITH ME", protested Ayeesha.
"She is WHITE, man."

"You could have been adopted", said Tamora.

"Black man, white woman, black baby", said Keesha. "Innit", she added.

"They do have a black Mercedes, right", said Aleesha. "Look."

Ant and Cleo were standing at the head of the queue. Jake Moss was standing behind them doing impressions of Ant's parents living in a gypsy caravan. Ant was not responding in any way.

"That is actually well scary, man", said Ayeesha.

One of the men in the car began a conversation with his coat lapel.

"Oh my god, he is so actually talking into a concealed microphone, right?" aid Aleesha.

"I'm like, we better go tell Cleopatra, man", said Ayeesha.

"That is bare wrong", nodded Keesha.

Tamora's three-inch heels clicked up the tarmac towards Cleo.

"Yes, Tazza?"

"White flag of truce, sister", said Tamora. She turned and pointed towards the Mercedes, where the man was still talking into his raincoat. "That man there is following you around. Why is he following you around?"

Cleo peered at the man. "I have no idea." She brightened suddenly. "Hey, Ant! It's Mr. Karg!" She stood on tiptoe and waved. "HI, MR. KARG!"

"That figures", said Ant sourly. "He's probably still working for Alastair."

Mr. Karg smiled weakly and waved back whilst continuing to talk to his own clothing.

"Who's Mr. Karg?" said Tamora.

"He used to be a policeman", said Cleo. "Then he was a private investigator."

"You are not going to tell me, are you?" said Tamora. "After I walked a whole ten yards over here to warn you of your dire peril."

"Yeah, after all she's done for you, man", said Ayeesha.

Cleo shrugged. "They've been following us around all week. I imagine they're probably doing a feature on incredibly talented, beautiful, thin people for Vogue."

"Who you calling fat, innit", said Keesha defensively.

"Keesha is so not fat, she is her ideal body weight for her age height and waist measurement right, actually", said Aleesha.

"That is weight fascism, man", said Ayeesha.

"Ant", muttered Cleo, "this is getting out of hand."

"Hey, Stevens, is your mum having you followed again?" yelled Jake Moss from the front of the queue, which was beginning to file into the coach. There was more laughter. Jake was, after all, a comic genius.

Ant mulled this over for a second.

Then, he strolled over to the Mercedes. Mr. Karg's face grew pale. He turned to the door panel beside him, clearly looking for the lock. The driver of the car found it for him; the central locking came on with an audible CLICK. Ant tried to wrench open the passenger-side door without success, then stood in impotent fury glaring in at Mr. Karg through the windscreen. Jake Moss and his entourage collapsed in hysterics.

Ant walked over to the wall around the car park. It was an old wall, poorly made, and it had many loose bricks. He tugged one free.

The driver of the Mercedes started the car very, very quickly.

"LEAVE - my FAMILY - ALONE", said Ant, and threw the brick. It starred the windscreen, completely ruining it, bounced off and left a trail of dents and brick dust down the incredibly expensive bonnet. Jake Moss actually fell over with the hilarity of it all.

"SteVEEEENS!!!" yelled Mr. Gormley, the P.E. teacher.

"Oh my God", said Tamora. "You utter juvenile delinquent."

Ant walked back into line. As he passed Cleo he said quietly: "Sorted."

"Anthony, you have severe anger management problems, man."

"You need to imagine you're lying on cool wet grass, right."

"And looking up at all the fluffy white clouds, innit."

"STEVENS", roared Mr. Gormley, approaching like the inescapable hand of Fate. "WHAT the BLOODY HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING? You will APOLOGIZE TO THAT GENTLEMAN AND I HOPE YOU CAN GET A PAPER ROUND TO PAY FOR THE -"

He turned to point sternly at the damaged windscreen, but the car was already reversing at full speed and being expertly manoeuvred out of the car park as if the car park were rigged to explode. Once it reached the road, the car screeched through one hundred and eighty degrees on lightly smoking tyres, then tore off for the horizon.

"Somehow", said Ant, "I don't think they're likely to complain about the damage."

"Alastair really won't like that", said Cleo.

"Good", said Ant. "His Special Operations goons can be less bloody obvious from now on."

Mr. Gormley towered over Ant. He had been known to consider the laws against the corporal punishment of children as more of a guideline.

"I do not know what just went on there, Stevens", he said, "and I hope for your sake you're right. You probably just did that car around a thousand pounds of damage. Now, you know and I know I can't let you get out of this without a week's detention and very possibly another interview with Mrs. Holroyd."

Ant nodded bleakly. If there was one thing his academic career didn't need, it was another interview with Mrs. Holroyd.

"Thanks, Ant", said Cleo. In the crowd, unseen by anyone, she squeezed his hand.

***

The Shakespeare family were seated round the breakfast bar. Mrs. Shakespeare, dressed like the first ever Afro-Caribbean cover girl for Country Life, was sitting at the opposite end of the bar from Mr. Shakespeare, who was dressed pathetically in a T shirt and jeans. The T shirt was faded and far too small for him, and said HEY! I'VE JUST BECOME A DAD! This was the first time in years that Cleo had seen her father dressed in anything other than a suit on a weekday. Between Mr. and Mrs. Shakespeare sat Cleo and Tamora, trying hard not to get caught in the crossfire.

Cleo was wearing a turquoise tracksuit, a pink belt, and a diamanté scrunchie.

Tamora, meanwhile, was wearing a lime-green tracksuit, a pink belt, and a diamanté scrunchie.

"That's sweet", said Mr. Shakespeare. "My little girls want to look like each other."

"Would that this were true", said Cleo, stirring her muesli with feeling. "However, my dear little sister only wears exactly the same clothes as I do because she knows it annoys the hell out of me."

"I am not wearing the same clothes you are. You are wearing the same clothes I am. I am a trend setter, not a follower."

Cleo continued to stir her breakfast. "I like to imagine that this bowl is Tamora's head, and that I have flipped open her skull and am spooning out the brainy goodness."

"CLEO!"

"Sorry mother."

"Cleo has been measuring the bathroom again", said Tamora, stirring her porridge angrily.

"For heaven's sake, Tamora Jane, if Cleo wants to measure the bathroom then let her", said Mrs. Shakespeare.

"She does it with a tape measure", said Tamora. "When you and Dad are downstairs and when she thinks I'm not watching. But I am watching."

"I have no idea what Tamora is talking about", said Cleo serenely.

"I suspect she is making a scale model of the bathroom for some bad purpose", said Tamora.

"You go on thinking that", said Cleo.

"So you're not going out today", said Mrs. Shakespeare, looking at Mr. Shakespeare's T shirt in disdain.

"I don't have any meetings with the Union today", said Mr. Shakespeare miserably. "They're still conferring, examining the evidence."

"How can they have evidence?" said Mrs. Shakespeare acidly. "You're not guilty!"

Mr. Shakespeare shrugged. "I said it was evidence. I didn't say it was good evidence."

"Then if it's not good evidence, why can't they just dismiss the whole thing?"

"The committee have to give it due consideration, poppet sweetheart. Justice has to be seen to be done."

"And in the meantime, we can't even afford to send Cleopatra on her school trip."

Cleo seized her chance. "Um. That might not be as much of a problem as before."

With the speed of a casino croupier, she reached into her school satchel and dealt out eight gorgeous blood-red fifty pound notes onto the breakfast bar under her mother and father's astonished gazes.

"All with watermarks", she said, trying hard to avoid her mother's x-ray eyes, "all genuine non-forgeries."

Mr. Shakespeare fought to put his eyes back in his head. "Have you knocked over a bank, daughter?" he said.

"Where did you get this money, Cleopatra?"

Cleo shrugged and tried to smile winningly. "Dougie. Ant's dad. He won big on the horses, and he kind of insisted I go on the school trip to Spitzenburg with Ant."

Cleo's mum stared down hard as flint, but her dad, who believed Dougie Stevens to be the salt of the earth, the backbone of the nation and the bedrock on which Western civilization rested, was clearly touched.

"Well, god bless Dougie's polyester socks. But he should be thinking of himself and Anthony, not wasting money on us. We can afford this sort of thing ourselves -"

Cleo's mum shot a sharp glance at Cleo's dad.

"- well, maybe not right now we can't. But I thought you didn't want to go in any case?"

Cleo grinned foolishly. "I, uh, sort of said that because I knew we couldn't afford it."

"You were very convincing, sweetheart angel pie."

"Dougie said I was to say I found the money on the street", said Cleo. "He thought you'd be too proud to accept it if I said it came from him."

"He's a good man", said Mr. Shakespeare.

"The best", echoed Cleo. "Apart from my dad, that is."

Mr. Shakespeare beamed helplessly as Cleo hugged away his ability to object. Mrs. Shakespeare, meanwhile, reserved her judgement, frowning into her low-calorie friendly bacterial breakfast yoghurt with an expression that could strip wallpaper.
She clearly knew something was wrong, but could not quite put her finger on it.

When she finally did, however, Cleo's lifespan would be measured by how quickly she could run.

"We'll make it up to Dougie", said Mr. Shakespeare, "when we can. For the time being, daughter, you'd best go fetch your passport and sharpen up your sausage-eating skills."

***

"You are a big fat lying toad, Cleopatra Shakespeare."

Cleo stopped in the doorway of her room; she had gone upstairs to make routine unscheduled last minute adjustments to her hair. Her room, however, was occupied by Tamora, who was sitting on the beside table holding her father's incredibly ancient Reader's Digest Guide to Britain.

"I have no idea what you are talking about, sister of mine. Please move aside from my reflection. I wish to gaze adoringly at it."

"In a moment." Tamora flipped the Guide to Britain open and dropped Cleo's father's reading glasses over her eyes. "Page thirty-six, The Isle of Grain. A well thumbed page, this one. Someone has been reading it really carefully. Now, tell me, sister, as a starter for ten - what is the most striking feature of the Isle of Grain, where you went on holiday with Anthony for an entire week in August?"

Cleo stared coldly at her sister. "The windswept desolate emptiness, stretching away to the sea. The enormous variety of bird and sea life."

"WrONGGGG!" sang Tamora. "The most immediately striking feature of the Isle of Grain nowadays would be, in my opinion, the several thousand new cars parked all over it. I saw it on Jeannette Krankie's History of the British Isles. It's Britain's holding area for new cars arriving from overseas. Oh, I'm sure there is bird and sea life. I imagine the birds nest in the radiators and the fish just swim around all that engine oil. The fact is, sister, you have no more been to the Isle of Grain than you have been to Alpha Centauri."

"It is true", said Cleo with perfect truth, "that I have never been to Alpha Centauri."

"Also", said Tamora, "strange men are following you. Strange men who are more afraid of being asked what they're doing parked outside the local swimming baths than they are of having to pay for the windscreen on their car."

"Now we're moving into the realms of whimsy", said Cleo. "Remember what the nice psychiatrist said about the realms of whimsy, sister?"

"And finally", said Tamora, "there is this."

She reached out with a foot and hooked it into the handle of the suitcase under Cleo's bed. The suitcase slid out. Its locks were popped open.

Cleo stared in horror. "You've -"

"Never set the combination of your suitcase to your birthday, your mum or dad's birthday, or the birthday of your pet's favourite television actor, sister."

"Kevin Whately?" Tailrings, Cleo’s cat, always screeched loudly at the television during Peak Practice. It was accepted Shakespeare family gospel that Kevin Whately was the cat's favourite TV star. Tailrings himself, who had entered the room silently behind Cleo, sat looking gruff and annoyed on the dresser, washing his enormous Mandarin moustaches.

Tamora eased the suitcase open a crack with her toe. Banknotes caught the light. Many, many banknotes, of many many denominations, arranged in rows by country and bound with elastic bands.

"It's drugs, isn't it", said Tamora.

"It is not drugs", said Cleo. "That money has been given me for safekeeping by, by, by people who do not have bank accounts."

"It's drugs", nodded Tamora. She peered deep into Cleo's eyes, examined her nose, and then apparently fell to counting her teeth.

"Lawks a lordy, Tammie, I'm not on drugs -"

"Are you experiencing any aggressive tendencies?"

"Yes."

"Any sudden mood swings?"

"FOR THE LAST TIME, TAMORA, I AM NOT -" Cleo suddenly noticed Tailrings nuzzling up against her on the bed - "hooza oogy boogy woo woo."

"Repetitive or obsessive behaviour?"

"Mummy loves the fluffy puggy wumfkin, yes she does. Yes she does. Yes she does. Yes she does."

"Short term memory loss?"

"What? Tamora, what are you going on about? OOOH look, there's a fluffy puggy wumfkin here! Mummy loves him, yes she does! Yes she does! Yes she does -"

Tamora shook her head. "Sister, I believe you to be on PGP, grass, weed, spliff and hash, as well as whizz, zap, buzz, zing, bing, bong, vim and lignocaine. I suspect you may also be taking the dreaded Patagonian Black."

"Tamora, I am on no drug more potent than custard powder. And Vim is a floor cleaner, whilst PGP is an internet encryption protocol and lignocaine is what dentists use to anaesthetize your teeth."

"It's all right, sister, you might not even know you've taken it. Many high-denomination banknotes are covered with a light dusting of cocaine."

"What do you think I've been doing, eating them? I've been doing what normal people do with them - using them to pay for things."

"Like holidays", said Tamora in triumph.

Cleo clamped her jaw shut in frustration. She could think of nothing to say.
Tamora could, however.

"I want to go to Germany too", she said. "Otherwise I won't get a holiday at all this year."

She looked at the case of banknotes meaningfully.

Cleo stared at Tamora in homicidal horror. Grudgingly, feeling as if somebody else was doing the nodding for her, she nodded.

"YOUR MAJESTIES!" came a voice from downstairs. "YOUR TAXI AWAITS!"

Still glaring at Tamora, Cleo shouldered her schoolbag and made for the stairs.

***

"You want to go where? They bombed our country!"

"Fifty years ago, dad. Forgive and forget."

"They killed your Great Uncle Norman!"

"You drove your truck there last month."

"That was business. They blew up the North Bank Terrace at Highbury!"

"Dad, the Germans are our friends now! They're in NATO and Europe and everything!"

"They shot at your grandad! Luckily unsuccessfully!"

"Dad, Cleo's going. I want to go with Cleo. And Cleo's dad said he'd give us the money."

Mr. Stevens hauled the truck round in a circle, making the gravel outside the Super Sausage snap, crackle and pop like breakfast cereal. His artic, fifty feet long, slid into place between two others as smoothly as a CD into a rack. "Aha, why didn't you say so! You young lovers, eh? And Len's paying for all of this, you say?"

"All of it. He was quite insistent. He said if Cleo was the one who was going to begin with and I was just going because Cleo was going, then Cleo's family should pay for it."

"Triffic." Ant's dad tugged hard on the handbrake and opened the driver side door. Ice splintered under Ant's shoes as he stepped down to the ground. The gravel was frozen together in clumps.

Mr. Stevens pushed open the door of the Super Sausage. A warm cloud of Full English Breakfast smell wafted out of the café like a friendly amoeba.

"When do they want you to go?"

"Erm", said Ant. "Monday."

Mr. Stevens turned and looked at Ant. For several seconds, there was no sound but that of bacon frying.

"I've got a current passport and everything", said Ant. "I checked."

"I'll square things with your mum", said Ant's dad. That, Ant knew, would involve a full two hours of bickering, slammed down phones, continuation via text message and threats of legal action. At that single moment, Ant's dad was the greatest hero in the world.

The inside of the café was plastic-topped tables, handwritten menus, and cigarette smoke. Men who had already eaten far too many Full English Breakfasts were grimly tucking in to more. A radio was blaring out a song that began 'Oooh girl...' and went downhill from there. Nobody was listening to it, but they would complain if it were turned off.

Dougie Stevens relaxed, like a fish back in its heavily polluted home waters.

"Come on, then", said Mr. Stevens. "You'd best get your molars round the last proper breakfast you're likely to get for a while. TWO FULL ENGLISH PLEASE, AND HEAVY ON THE INCREASED RISK OF HEART DISEASE."