“Don’t you ever shout at me again, boy,” she said, her voice cold and calm. David’s face went scarlet.

The four guards leveled their guns at Whitney. She gave them a look of utter scorn.

“Do you even know how to use those things?”

“Do you want to risk finding out?” said David, his voice tight and high.

Whitney let him go.

“What you gonna do with us if we don’t want to go along with this?” she said. “Execute us?”

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Jester, putting up his hands. “Hold on a minute. This hasn’t gotten off to a good start. We didn’t expect you to get so upset about all this.”

“Then why didn’t you tell us about it before?” said Blue.

“The time wasn’t right. We wanted to show you the palace first. All we’ve achieved.”

“This is too weird,” Maxie muttered.

“Look,” said David, rubbing his throat, “all this arguing is getting us nowhere.”

“I don’t want no one telling me what to do,” said Blue.

“Fine,” said David. “Nobody’s going to tell you what to do. If you’d only listen.”

“I’m listening.”

“Good. Okay. This is how it works. I don’t order anyone about. I just organize things. Everyone has their own job. Franny’s in charge of growing food, for instance, Rose is in charge of the medical facilities, and so on. What I’m proposing is that you, Blue, would be our commander in chief, our general. You would train the troops and lead them. Everyone else here would keep the job they have now. You’d still be in charge of your own people. Things wouldn’t really be that different.”

Blue grinned. “General Blue?” he said. “I like the sound of that.”

“One thing?” said Ollie, who up until now had been silent.

“What?”

“This army? What’s it for?”

“To fight grown-ups, of course,” said Blue.

“Jester told us the grown-ups had all been driven out of the area.”

“It’s true,” said David. “But there are other problems.”

“Like what?” said Ollie.

“Like St. James’s Park,” said David.

“Where’s that?” asked Achilleus.

“Just over the road,” said Maxie. “It runs all the way down to Trafalgar Square.”

“So what about it?”

“We want to expand our farming activities,” said Jester, “and turn the whole of St. James’s into fields. But there’s a group of squatters who’ve set up a sort of camp there, and they don’t want anything to do with us. We need to sort them out.”

“These are kids, right?” said Maxie. “Like us?”

“Kids, yes, but not like us. They’re not organized. They just run wild. They’re a real threat. If we can sort them out—”

“Sort them out?” Maxie interrupted. “What does that mean? You want us to attack them?”