He trotted on, a sudden assurance in his step. This was going to be fine. If a kid like that could be standing around here, all by himself, then obviously the place couldn’t be very dangerous. The warm, empowering glow of confidence was still surging through him when he heard the voices—several voices, high-pitched and excited—echoing around the bend behind him. Almost instantaneously, he felt a twinge in his stomach, which was answered a moment later by a second, stronger twinge in his knees. Albert quickened his pace, suddenly eager to be out of there, walking more and more briskly, not daring to look behind him, moving as swiftly as he could without actually running. The voices followed.

Heart pounding, he turned yet another corner, trying to put as much distance between himself and them as he could without making it obvious. And then he stopped, face-to-face with a blank wall. He had nowhere to go.

Relentlessly, almost inevitably, the voices drew closer. He turned, staring down the path behind him, and saw them as they rounded the corner, jostling each other, laughing and whooping, almost a dozen of them in all. They carried a variety of different weapons: pipes, sticks, stones; one or two even advanced barehanded. The eclectic nature of their arsenal notwithstanding, they had much in common, Albert noticed. Like the malicious expressions they wore and the unbridled, almost naked sense of menace they radiated. And that they were all children.

Albert moved backwards, one step at a time, until he felt the wall pressing up against him, preventing him from going any further. Panic rose in his throat, trying to choke him, and he swallowed. Like a fool he’d ventured where he never ought to have gone, and now these children were going to rob him, maim him—maybe even kill him.

He stared up the path at them as they advanced, fanning out to surround him. Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed the beautiful child standing on his left, glee spreading slowly across his face like a live rash, the cherubic features contorting as he giggled. It had infected the others too; now they were all standing there, chuckling, winking, whistling before they moved in.

‘Look—’ he called out.

‘Save it, Mac!’

The shout came from a slight boy in the middle of the pack. He was wearing an oversized flak jacket that had once been green, but was now just ugly. Wisps of stringy hair peeked out from under a cap that was at least two sizes too large for him, and obscured most of his face. His voice was shrill. It was difficult to make out how old he was but, judging by the pitch, he certainly hadn’t hit puberty yet. All in all he cut a comical figure, standing there.

But Albert noticed that when he spoke all of them stopped laughing and listened.