When Baz asked that question, I knew I needed to say, “No. No, just getting by. Heads down. Playing the game”. I needed to disappoint him. He might have spat at me, or hit me, or simply turned his back and gone looking for the next possible idiot. But that’s not what I said. I said, “Yeah. Yeah, of course.” Because I’m weak. Gutless. I wanted him to think I was … something. And, because it was true. In some backroom of my brain, I was still hoping there was a way to change things, to get back what we’d lost. D said, “Um ….” Baz just looked at him once. D shut up. “Good. Good. Got a plan. Been looking for a couple of blokes just like you to make it work. Gonna hit ’em hard. Real quiet, but hard. You in?” “What’s the plan?” I asked. “Better you don’t know really. Just going to give one of them curfew guards a bit of a fright.” “Thought you said you were going to hit them hard?” He laughed. “Yeah well, hard enough, eh? Just a bit of fun tonight. Get you trained up. Come on.” That’s how, later that night, D and me found ourselves squeezed between two big, parked trucks in the council depot, waiting for the soldier who was doing patrol. We were supposed to wait until he was close by, then make scuffling noises to get his attention. The Baz was going to ‘frighten’ him. Amazing plan, eh? I’d been more than slightly underwhelmed when we’d finally got so far beyond curfew that he deigned to tell us, knowing that we couldn’t just run home. To be fair, it was a good night for it. No moon. Pools of illumination from a few streetlights, pitch black between. A good night to be scared. And we were. Scared and praying – to no particular god – that no patrol would 96
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