Ballots blasts and betra.., p.1
Ballots, Blasts & Betrayal, page 1
Contents
The Story So Far . . .
Coming Next . . .
1. The Crowd Goes Wild
2. Our Once Great Country
3. Strawberry Sobs
4. Fruity Fridge Art
5. Little Bit Naughty
6. Ya Can’t Hide
7. YM6
8. Marjorie’s Getting Nukes
9. New Kid in the Forest
10. Everybody’s Stuffing
11. Back in the Game
12. Daddy Thug & Baby Thug
13. I Predict a Riot
14. Locker Room Lads
15. Afternoon Phishing
16. Red-Hot Splinter
17. Return of the Cheater
18. Serial Killer
19. Shoot to Kill
20. Flo’s Caff
21. A Million Splinters
22. Kangaroo Courts
23. Blurry White Van
24. In the Can
25. Tiff’s Rebel Friends
26. Nowt on Telly
27. Guns & Yoga Pants
28. The Brown Lagoon
29. Tough on Crime
30. Belly Tube Tangle
31. Someone’s in a Mood
32. Live to Millions
33. Borrowed Pants
34. Adults Be Crazy
35. Disorderly Departure
36. Unprecedented Voter Turnout
37. One Night at the Marquee
38. Tongue-Tearers
39. A Guy Gisborne Production
40. Van on the Run
41. Cherry-Red Coupe
42. Corporate Communication Policy
43. Happy Ever After
44. Y’all Ain’t Got Guts
45. Peach and Love
46. Can’t Feel a Thing
47. Home Sweet Home
Robert Muchamore’s ROBIN HOOD series
Copyright
THE STORY SO FAR . . .
Robin Hood lived with his dad, Ardagh, and half-brother Little John, until his father got thrown in jail for a crime he didn’t commit.
Robin’s half-brother discovered that his mum was the wealthy businesswoman and politician Marjorie Kovacevic and went to live with her, while local gangster Guy Gisborne put a bounty on Robin’s head, forcing him to hide out in Sherwood Forest and join a gang of righteous rebels led by Emma and Will Scarlock.
With his new rebel pals, Robin blew up cash machines, hacked computers, caused a massive flood, flipped a police car and busted his best friend Marion Maid out of prison.
The thirteen-year-old also became a social media sensation, with footage of his escapades getting millions of views.
COMING NEXT . . .
Tomorrow is election day.
If Guy Gisborne is elected as the new Sheriff of Nottingham, he’ll expand his brutal criminal empire across the county and into Sherwood Forest.
Nobody took Ardagh Hood seriously when he got out of jail and announced his rival bid to become sheriff. But Robin’s dad has gained support from university students, rebels and locals who are sick of Gisborne’s corruption.
Even though Gisborne funded a lavish advertising campaign, polls released on election eve show that the race to be the next Sheriff of Nottingham is too close to call.
Meanwhile, former sheriff Marjorie Kovacevic has used the run-up to election day to turn around her troubled attempt to become national president.
Thanks to a brilliant new campaign manager and gaffes by her opponent, Marjorie is hot favourite to become the next occupant of the Presidential Palace.
If she wins, Marjorie says she’ll send soldiers and tanks into Sherwood, crushing the rebels and bringing the vast forest back under government control.
1. THE CROWD GOES WILD
21:01, ELECTION EVE
Being the world’s most wanted thirteen-year-old can be a bore. Robin Hood had spent forty minutes hiding in a cobwebbed room, with several dead mice, a rusty cinema projector and his best friend Marion Maid.
‘It’s getting packed down in the hall,’ said Marion, peering through a narrow projection slot that gave the room its only light.
‘AHHHH . . .’ Robin inhaled, then buried his nose in the sleeve of his hoodie to muffle a sneeze. ‘The dust in here’s getting right up my nose. We were only supposed to be here for five minutes.’
Marion ignored Robin’s whingeing and kept looking down into the giant space thirty metres below. The building was still called ‘the cinema’ on maps of Locksley University, but its screen and seats had been stripped years ago, leaving an open space, used for stuff like exams and end-of-term parties.
On a wall that still bore the dirty outline of a cinema screen, a banner read:
YOUR VOTE COUNTS – REGISTER NOW!
More detailed signs explained that anyone aged eighteen or over who’d not yet registered could queue at one of a dozen desks, fill in a form and claim their right to vote in the following day’s election.
But most of the students packing the hall hadn’t suddenly fallen in love with democracy. They were at the voter registration drive because they’d heard rumours that Robin Hood and Marion Maid were going to make a headline-grabbing appearance.
Nobody in the crowd had seen Robin and Marion being sneaked in, but the presence of journalists, TV crews and vloggers convinced people that there would be something worth seeing if they stuck around.
Some in the crowd had doubts: Marion Maid had only escaped from prison a couple of weeks earlier and the bounty on Robin’s head had just been upped to a million pounds. Why risk making a high-profile appearance in the heart of their enemy Guy Gisborne’s territory?
But with polls showing the race to become Sheriff of Nottingham on a knife-edge, Ardagh Hood’s campaign team hoped that a dramatic appearance by Robin and Marion under the nose of Locksley’s corrupt police department might create a social media buzz among the kind of young voters that they needed to win over.
As Robin sneezed again, the projection room’s door creaked open. Rebel security officer Azeem Nasri stepped in, wearing body armour and with a stun gun and pistol strapped to her belt. She was followed by Ten Man Eric, whose mountainous presence would hopefully discourage anyone from getting too close to Robin and Marion
‘It’s go time,’ Azeem said, smiling guardedly. ‘Have you two memorised the alternative escape routes?’
‘Watched your walk-through videos twice,’ Marion confirmed.
As Marion and Robin moved out of the projection room onto a tight set of spiral stairs, Ten Man gave the rope harnesses on the teenagers’ backs a tug, making sure they were properly fitted.
‘And you learned your speech?’ Azeem asked Robin as she led the quartet down the stairs.
‘Bit late if I didn’t,’ Robin quipped.
After four flights of stairs, they crossed through an abandoned staff locker room. The lights in the main auditorium had just been dimmed, and when Robin and Marion stepped in, a trumpet fanfare came over the PA system. A roar rose from the crowd and a spotlight swung around, blinding the pair of them.
‘Good evening, all genders,’ a young person announced over a PA. ‘For one night only, I give you Marion Maid and Robin Hood!’
Rebel security was taking no chances. As Robin’s eyes adjusted to the light, he saw a line of armed rebels on either side and at least two snipers up on the former cinema’s balcony. To his left, a carefully picked mix of TV and online news crews had been allowed to get close, while in front eager students surged towards the metal barriers for a better look.
A green-haired student organiser handed Robin a microphone.
‘Y’all having fun?’ Robin shouted, managing to sound more confident than he felt. ‘I can’t stay long, because Marion and I have had one or two recent legal difficulties.’
Robin paused as the jostling students laughed, cheered and recorded on their phones.
‘I wanted to drop by to tell you to register to vote. Then vote for my dad, Ardagh Hood!’
A more muted cheer went up.
‘We can’t let Guy Gisborne keep wrecking this town, ripping off students in his dodgy nightclubs and flooding the poorest neighbourhoods in Locksley with drugs. And we can’t let someone like Marjorie become president, to send tanks into Sherwood to kill or lock up thousands of innocent people.
‘I always thought politics was boring, but this election matters. If you’ve got friends who haven’t registered to vote, hit them up and tell them to get their butts down here by midnight. And tomorrow, go and vote to make your town and your country a better place.’
As Robin spoke, Marion moved closer to the crowd barriers, where people reached out, grasping her hoodie and begging for selfies and autographs.
‘Why me?’ Marion said, looking baffled.
‘You’re as famous as Robin since you busted out of jail,’ one student yelled.
‘You rule,’ another added. ‘Girl power!’
After Robin did a mic drop, lights flashed and pounding music came out of the PA system as he joined Marion at the barriers for selfies and autographs.
Ten Man leaned between them and spoke firmly. ‘We’ve kept the cops out, but you’ve got ninety seconds before we have to get out of here.’
Robin had his selfie taken with a woman in a sombrero who smelled of rum, signed two T-shirts, posed for selfies, and had milkshake splashed on his hoodie by a guy who tried to pull him over the barrier for a hug. Marion had a similar experience, but looked less comfortable since it was her first brush with fame.
‘Robin, I’m a reporter from the Daily Courier,’ a grey-haired woman said as she pushed between students while videoing on her phone. ‘We’re running an interview with the wife of the prison guard you murdered in tomorrow’s paper. Is there anything you’d like to say to the grieving widow and her nine-year-old son?’
The Courier was a notoriously pro-Marjorie, anti-rebel newspaper. A burly student shoved the journalist away and growled, ‘I wouldn’t wipe my crack on your newspaper. Get out of here!’
As the Courier journalist stumbled back and got hissed at by a couple of Robin’s fans she yelled, ‘Read my article, Robin. It’s just gone live on the Courier website.’
Robin was startled, but managed to stay composed for a couple more selfies. Then he waved to the TV cameras as Ten Man grabbed Robin’s rope harness and tugged him back from the barrier.
‘Time to fly,’ Ten Man said, as he hooked a rope that had just dropped from the ceiling to Robin’s harness.
‘You OK?’ Robin asked, glancing at Marion while Ten Man clipped a second rope to her harness.
Marion smiled awkwardly. ‘Probably the weirdest minutes of my life.’
It got weirder. Ten Man gave a double thumbs up to a pulley operator in an overhead lighting gantry. As the crowd of students went nuts, the rope jerked Marion and Robin off the ground and zipped them towards the ceiling.
‘Vote Ardagh!’ Robin shouted, making victory signs with both hands as he rose up.
The pair stepped onto the narrow metal gantry, and security officer Azeem and her sister Lyla helped them remove their harnesses.
‘Up the ladder, over the roof and down the fire escape,’ Azeem told them firmly. ‘Ísbjörg’s waiting for you in the getaway car.’
2. OUR ONCE GREAT COUNTRY
21:19
Lyla handed Robin a pack with his bow sticking out of the back and gave him a gentle thump on the shoulder. Then Marion pulled herself up through the hatch in the cinema’s moonlit roof.
‘Your speech was great,’ she said. ‘The crowd was eating out of your hands.’
A gust of wind swept rain into Robin’s face as he jogged over a flat section of roof then got a wet bum as he followed Marion, sliding down sloping tiles to a gutter at the roof’s edge. Next, they had to straddle the streaming gutter and make a three-metre drop onto a fire escape.
‘Want me to lower you down?’ Robin asked, wiping rain out of his eyes as Marion hesitated.
Marion’s instinct was to scowl and insist she could manage. Then she glanced down at the drop, and the rain blasting the narrow fire escape, close to a railing with spiked strips to deter birds.
‘This drop looked easier in Azeem’s escape video,’ she admitted. ‘In daylight.’
Robin squatted down with one boot in the gutter, gripped a ventilation pipe with one hand, then let Marion take the other.
‘Can you lower me with one arm?’ she quizzed.
Robin was small, but he lifted weights and was crazy strong. Marion was impressed when Robin lowered her and her backpack down to the fire escape, with one arm and no sign of strain.
‘All good?’ Robin asked, then let Marion drop the last half-metre down to the rusting gantry.
‘Good,’ Marion confirmed, as her boots clanked on the metal floor.
There was a short ladder decorated with bird poop, then a more substantial outdoor staircase, built to allow hundreds of patrons out of the upper balcony after a film. But as Robin swung his legs out over the gutter and prepared to jump, a garbled message came from the walkie-talkie zipped inside his sodden hoodie.
‘We didn’t catch that,’ Marion said into her own radio.
They both recognised the voice of Ísbjörg, the young rebel security officer who was supposed to be their getaway driver.
‘Robin, Marion, don’t come down here,’ Ísbjörg repeated urgently. ‘I’ve got cop cars blocking my exit and a panel van behind with nasty-looking dudes pouring out of the back.’
‘Tits!’ Robin gasped, looking down at Marion.
Marion spoke into her radio. ‘Keep safe, Ísbjörg. Azeem, where shall we go?’
Azeem’s voice came back over the radio. ‘You two get back inside. We’ll figure another way out.’
Robin gave Marion a worried look as he went full stretch to pull her back up to the roof. They held hands as they stumbled up the slippery roof tiles.
‘We just got soaked for no reason,’ Robin complained, as he dropped back through the roof hatch in front of Azeem. ‘What now?’
Robin glanced over the lighting gantry and saw pushing and shoving down in the hall. Students screamed and bolted out of emergency exits, while a dozen thugs armed with cricket bats and metal bars had stormed the hall and begun to demolish the voter registration tables.
‘I guess Gisborne reckons students aren’t gonna vote for him,’ noted Marion as she leaned over the gantry beside Robin.
They watched a bulky man in a puffa jacket pick up a folding table stacked with Vote Ardagh leaflets and roar as he hurled it towards the retreating students.
‘You two stay put and keep out of sight,’ Azeem ordered. ‘I’ve got plenty of guys on the ground. We’ll get you out of here somehow.’
As Azeem shot off to organise her security teams, Robin and Marion laughed as the thug who’d thrown the table got hit with a rebel officer’s stun gun and spasmed on the floor like a fish out of water.
‘Serves the dirtbag right,’ Marion said, as she slid a compact crossbow from her backpack. ‘You should get your bow out.’ Then she was surprised to see Robin pulling out his phone and typing something.
‘Hello? Earth to Robin? Can you stay offline for ten seconds?’
Robin ignored her and kept staring at his screen, waiting for something to load.
‘Azeem told us to hide,’ Robin said irritably. ‘We don’t know which escape routes are blocked, and if we shoot arrows from up here, those thugs down there will know we’re still here.’
Marion saw no sign of cops entering the building, but the vanload of lightly armed thugs that Guy Gisborne had sent to stop students registering to vote hadn’t expected a room containing two dozen rebel security officers.
‘Gisborne’s guys are getting battered,’ Marion said happily.
‘Uh-huh,’ Robin mumbled.
Marion wanted to know what was distracting Robin from the giant screaming punch-up going on below. She spotted the red-and-white banner of the Courier newspaper on his screen and sighed.
‘Don’t believe anything on the Courier website. That newspaper is so biased. Marjorie could throw dynamite into a room full of bunnies and they’d still take her side.’
Robin didn’t answer. His eyes were fixed on a headline that read:
ROBIN HOOD MURDERED MY HERO HUSBAND
Below the headline was a picture of a young man wearing a Pelican Island prison guard’s uniform. A second picture showed the guard’s wife and little boy, sitting on a sofa wearing black clothes and looking sad.
‘This isn’t all lies,’ Robin said, sounding upset as he zoomed in on the picture of the guard. ‘I remember that face. I shot him through the chest with an arrow while you were trying to escape.’
Marion rolled her eyes. ‘He had an automatic rifle and a clear line of sight. If you hadn’t shot him, he would have blasted me, Freya and all the others as we ran across that factory roof.’
‘It still feels heavy,’ Robin said with a sad shrug. ‘I used the bow that’s on my back right now to kill another human.’
‘Don’t be soft,’ Marion said forcefully. ‘Pelican Island guards are barely human. One time, they made my cousin Freya work a double laundry shift in high summer. When she fainted, the guards dragged her to the bathroom and made her drink water from a filthy toilet.’
‘I’m not soft,’ Robin growled, eyes still fixed on his phone. ‘But I see that guy’s face in my dreams. And people who read this article are gonna hate me.’
‘People who read the Courier never liked you in the first place,’ Marion pointed out. Then she read from the opinion box at the bottom of the article in a mocking voice, ‘“The Courier says it’s time to get tough on welfare scroungers, rebels, immigrants and murderers like Robin Hood. Voting Marjorie Kovacevic for president could be our last chance to stop our once great country descending into anarchy.” Seriously, Robin, you can’t let drivel like this get you down.’
