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Back The Enemy Save as PDF
Chapters (69)
  1. Table of Contents
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He walked down the corridor as if he were heading for the toilet, checked that no one was looking, and kept on walking.

It was time for a little snooping.

Blue was at one end of the table with Jester and David. He was quizzing David. Anxious to find out how everything worked at the palace. “So are you in charge, then, Dave?” he asked, shoveling food into his mouth.

“He doesn’t like ‘Dave,’” said Jester. “He likes to be called David.”

“Sorry. David.” Blue took a sip of water. “David what?”

“Actually my name is David King.”

Blue spluttered, spitting water onto his plate. “You are not serious, man?”

“I am.”

“Well, remember. Just because you live in a palace it don’t make you a real king.”

“No?” David smiled.

“No way, man. We all used to live in a shop; didn’t make me a shopkeeper.”

“I never said I was a king anyway. It’s just my name.”

“Well, you certainly act like you’re the big cheese.”

“When we first got here it was chaos,” said Jester. “We were all over the place. But if you want to survive you have to be organized. If you want to grow food, to drink clean water, to stay warm, to defend yourselves, all those things need organization. David arrived a little after the rest of us. He pulled us all together. He organized us.”

Blue glanced at Jester. “Things are going to be very different from now on, man. Very different.”

“How so?” said David.

“How so? Well, for one, you ain’t gonna be organizing me, pal. Right? Ain’t nobody gonna be organizing me. And that’s a fact. You ain’t my king. I never voted for you.”

“You don’t vote for a king.”

“Listen—”

“We’ll talk about it later,” said David, smiling. “It’s no big deal. We’ll work out a way that we can all get along.”

“Why can’t we talk about it now?”

“Let’s enjoy the food. You all need to settle in and find your feet. In the morning everything will seem so much simpler.”

Ollie followed his nose toward the kitchens, making sure that he wasn’t being followed. Most of the palace was eerily dark and empty, but it made it easy to stay hidden. A staircase near the state dining room led down to the service level. There was a lot of noise coming from the kitchen, and Ollie approached cautiously. Standing in the corridor was a large plastic bin on wheels. He looked inside. Empty tins of dog food.

That explained the spaghetti with meat sauce.

Oh well, he’d eaten worse.