“All right,” said Maxie. “But any sign of trouble and we get out.”

“Cool,” said Blue, and they walked on down Oxford Street, heading west toward Marble Arch.

Maxie felt okay. She had given in to Blue and Jester, but at least they had listened to her and discussed it sensibly. She felt sure that if she’d flatly refused they’d have respected her decision. Ollie had been right. She had to stand up for herself, and for the Waitrose crew.

And also ...

She dearly wanted a change of clothes.

After a couple of minutes, Freak joined her on the flank.

“I don’t like this,” he said.

“We don’t want to turn up at the palace like a bunch of dirt balls.”

“We should keep going,” said Freak. “This reminds me too much of the other day. When we went to the pool. We got greedy.”

“Face it, Freak,” said Maxie. “We could just as easily get attacked going the other way. The truth is we just don’t know where the next danger’s coming from. Besides,” she added, sniffing the air and wrinkling her nose, “you stink.”

“So do you,” said Freak, and he smiled at her.

Some shops had been looted, some burned, some were just empty, as if the stock had been taken away to a safe place before the collapse. They found a shoe shop that had racks and racks of shoes on display, but they were all singles—the other halves of the pairs were in a dark back room somewhere, and nobody wanted to go and look.

They found a discount store with a few T-shirts and tracksuits hanging on racks, and they fought over who should get what. Blue picked up a New Era cap from a tourist shop, but on the whole the pickings were slim.

After a while they came to Selfridges, once London’s biggest department store. Miraculously it was still standing and looked almost untouched. The front doors had been busted open, however, and the window displays were empty.

“What do you think?” asked Blue, with a certain amount of awe. “You can get anything in Selfridges. We should look inside.”

“Wait,” said Maxie. “First we send in a scouting party. If it’s safe and if it’s worth it, then we can all go in. But we check it out first.”

“I’ll go,” said Lewis, and he was soon joined by Achilleus, Sophie, and Big Mick, the Morrisons fighter who looked like he was about eighteen.

“Be back here in ten minutes,” said Maxie. “Don’t mess around—even if you see something you want, leave it for now. Just make sure it’s safe in there, that’s all that’s important.”

“See you in ten minutes,” said Achilleus with a smirk, and the four of them went into the gloom.

Everyone else stood in the road, gawking at the massive building.

Maxie went over to Ollie.