The Dead Land: Chapter 11

11.
Three painfully awful days passed, and nothing seemed to happen. When Robbie wasn’t grieving for her father, she was thinking up the many inventive ways of killing Agatha Redknapp and trying to stop herself from screaming at Zara and Ian to hurry up with their plan. She realised that they wanted things to go right, and she was smart enough to know that they couldn’t do it alone, but she wished they would hurry. She wanted her father avenged.

On the fourth day, several neighbours sneaked over to the Crawley household and discussed plans in whispers. Robbie tried to hear what was going on through the door, but she only heard snippets.
“Make the call tonight…but the children…can take care of it…”

Robbie grew frustrated with the feeling of not knowing and she itched to talk to Beth about it, but of course she was oblivious. She sat up in her room all day, brushing her hair and playing with her stash of Barbies under her bed. She was steering clear of Robbie to give her some privacy to mourn for her father, but otherwise seemed to have forgotten that the country was in a mess, under the most evil leader known to Britain. It was too much for her ten year old mind. She simply wasn’t ready to accept the horrors around her in the world.

Robbie was sat alone, fiddling with her shoelaces when Ian called her to the living room. Excited to be included, she jumped to her feet and bounded into the room full of adults. They all had the same tired and angry expression. As though they were on the brink of giving up. Like they had already lost the battle. Some adults she recognized as parents of her friends as school; her other close friend, Adrian’s parents were there, as were Sally and Sam’s. They smiled in encouragement at her, but their eyes were gloomy. Ian motioned for her to sit beside him on the arm of the chair, and she did so obediently.

“Okay, Robbie, we have a very important job for you. The plan…well, to put this simply for you, we are going to phone some people to get us through to the government, and request to be let out of the house for a street party to welcome Agatha to power. If this goes well, we will organize the party. It is likely that if we are allowed to have this party that it will be heavily guarded, but that’s ok, you don’t need you to worry about that. And I know how much you want to help, so this is your job. The party is due to be held two weeks today. We will be converting our cellar into a safe place where you and the other children can stay during…well during what we do. You will be in charge. We don’t know how long you might be down there. It could be days, even several weeks worst case scenario, but of course, I trust you. There are twenty seven children, plus you. Can you handle that?”
“Of course I can,” Robbie said without hesitation. “You know me. Everything will be just fine.”