John Marsden - While I live

Maybe the Youngs were having friends for afternoon tea? I didn’t think so. I snuck closer to the edge and peeped over. I caught a glimpse of the man. He didn’t look like one of the Youngs’ friends. He walked across to a pot plant in a big blue and white tub, unzipped his daks, and started pissing in the plant.

I grabbed Gavin’s arm again, just as he tried to grab mine. As the man sprayed all over the broad green leaves he kept talking in a loud voice to other people in the room he’d left. Someone answered him and there was another shout of laughter, even louder.

I couldn’t believe him. I hated him, the way he was so calmly and arrogantly taking over my friends’ house. Plus my most hated thing is people spitting in the streets and here was this guy going about a hundred degrees worse.

The pungent smell drifted up to us and I wrinkled my nose. Seemed like these guys urinated every time I got near them. I thought of yelling out ‘You’re killing the flamingo flower’, just so I could see his expression.

The man finished and started back to the room. The door closed and everything went quiet again.

I looked at Gavin and shook my head. He looked at me. His eyes were the size of my watch face, which is big. Without saying a word we both snuck back a metre. Then we tiptoed down the hall to the cupboard. I knocked on the door, which might seem stupid, but I didn’t want Homer bopping me with a walking stick. I opened the door and Homer emerged from the coats, brushing them away from his face.

‘They’re here all right,’ I whispered. ‘Downstairs. Sounds like they’re having a party.’

‘How many of them?’

‘I don’t know. We only saw one. They’re in a room to the left, the sitting room I think.’

‘Any sign of the Youngs?’

‘No.’

‘We should check the rooms up here, don’t you think?’

‘Yes, absolutely.’

We knew Shannon’s bedroom was clear, so we started with the next one. We didn’t go about it like the professionals — well, the professionals we’d seen on TV anyway, the ones who bust down the door and cover each other while they search. We didn’t have any weapons to speak of, so we quietly turned the knob of each door and let it swing open, then waited a minute. If nothing happened we snuck in and had a good look.

There were four bedrooms and a bathroom and a sewing room. Each of the kids had a bedroom. Occasionally as we slipped from one to the next we heard more noise from downstairs. There were shouts, laughter, even, once, breaking bottles. They had occupied the house and were enjoying themselves. I was sure they were getting well and truly into the grog supply.

I just wished I knew what they had done with the Youngs, and I had the worst fears about that.

We ended up in Alastair’s room. He had a poster of Terri Boswell on the wall, and a few photos of her on his cupboard, and more sports equipment than I’ve seen outside a branch of Rebel Sport. Apart from that and the basic bed, desk and dressing table, there wasn’t much else. It was such a boy’s room.

‘So, what do you think?’ I asked Homer as we crouched in a corner.

I’d been thinking desperately and hadn’t come up with the beginning of a plan. But I knew we had to act fast, because if the Youngs were still alive, we had to get to them soon. Their chances would be lower with each minute that passed.

Homer pulled out his phone. ‘Call the cops,’ he said.

‘Oh yeah!’

It seemed so obvious. But I was really startled. For so long we’d lived in a world where police did not exist. I’d gotten out of the habit of thinking of the police: I was used to a life where either you solved your own problems or you died. I rather liked the idea of handing this over to the cops.

I should have known it was optimistic though. No sooner had I said ‘Oh yeah’ than I heard someone coming up the stairs. I made a face at Homer. He went white and put the phone away. I made the same face at Gavin but there was no need — he was always so quick to pick up on what was happening.

I grabbed Alastair’s cricket bat and Homer and Gavin each took a stump. We tiptoed to the door. Homer took one side of it, with Gavin behind him, and I took the other. I had the wardrobe behind me, which wasn’t so good as I wouldn’t be able to get a good swing.

The footsteps outside sounded confident. And they sounded like they were coming straight towards Alas-tair’s room. I had the horrible feeling that it might be Alastair and we were about to knock him into another dimension, but the steps sounded too old and heavy for Alastair.

The handle turned. I have no idea why an enemy soldier was coming into this room, unless he’d suddenly decided on a game of cricket with his mates, but he didn’t hesitate. The door opened and he started to enter. Homer took a swing straight away, before the man was right inside, which was a mistake as it gave him an opportunity to back out again. Nevertheless Homer got him across the forehead, with a hell of a crack. The man put his hands to his face and staggered backwards. Blood spurted between his fingers. But now he was out in the corridor again. He was having trouble standing but he let out a noise, a sort of cry and yell at the same time. I’d followed him but I couldn’t stop him doing that. There wasn’t time for much of a backswing there either, but I belted him as hard as I could, on the top of his head. There was a terrible clunking noise, like I’d hit a solid rock. His eyes rolled and his mouth opened and he dropped to his knees. Homer hit him again with a full backswing, this time to the side of his head. The whole thing was pretty disgusting. I hauled off Gavin, who was sneaking round to my other side so he could have a go. Gavin had been corrupted by the war enough already; I didn’t want him to get even worse.

The man fell sideways and lay on the carpet. Blood poured from his scalp. You could see the stain, the lake, quickly spreading across the carpet. His eyes were now closed.

We waited anxiously, watching over the stair railing, to see if anyone had heard. The door downstairs was still shut, so that was in our favour. But I saw it open again. I darted back. I heard a man’s voice, in a foreign language, calling out what sounded like a name. And he was aiming his voice right up to us.

‘Oh geez,’ I thought. ‘He’s calling for his mate.’ The same mate who was lying on the floor to my left, bleeding so freely that the carpet was already wet and soggy.

I glanced at Homer. He’d picked up my cricket bat and was on the other side of the stairwell. It seemed like a huge gulf suddenly stretched between us. We all retreated a bit, Homer towards Shannon’s room, Gavin and I towards the door of Alastair’s room. A floorboard creaked under me and I shuddered at the sound. The man called again. This time he seemed puzzled.

Still going backwards I got a better idea. On hands and knees I scuttled back to the unconscious body. I knelt beside him and checked his pocket, the one I could reach. Just a packet of cigarettes and some coins. I tried to roll him over. He let out a low groan. Gavin helped me. I glimpsed the triumph in his face as we saw, at the same time, a big bulge in the left pocket. Either this guy was glad to see… but no. He was unconscious. It had to be a gun.

I worked it out of the pocket. I wasn’t sure if the man downstairs had heard the groan. But I had to assume the worst. I mightn’t have much time. Thank God the war had taught me how to use a hand gun. It was all right for Gavin to think our troubles were over, now that I had a revolver, but it wasn’t that easy. I didn’t know if the thing was loaded, let alone how many bullets were in it, how many enemy soldiers were down there, whether the gun even worked.