“Leave it,” said Ollie. “We couldn’t have known.”

“All for a bloody vending machine,” said Achilleus. “Chips and candy! We’re not babies.”

“Would have been nice, though,” said Ollie. “I could really do with a Mars Bar right now, and a can of Coke.”

“Yeah.” Achilleus smiled. “You know what I used to really like? Jaffa Cakes. I could eat a whole pack in one go. But all we’ve got to look forward to when we get back is roast dog.”

“Better than nothing,” said Ollie. “We haven’t had meat in ages.”

“Hold up. . . .”

Achilleus raised a hand and they all stopped. They had come to the part of Holloway Road where they had had the fight with the dogs. A group of people was up ahead, clustered around the carcass of the dead German shepherd.

“Can you make out who it is?” said Achilleus.

Ollie had the keenest eyesight of all of them. He shaded his eyes and squinted.

“They’re kids,” he said.

“Ours?”

“Nah. Morrisons.”

When everything had fallen apart, one group of local kids had ended up taking shelter in Waitrose, and another group had taken up Morrisons, the cheaper supermarket in the nearby Nag’s Head shopping center. Kids had mostly ended up in the place where their moms and dads had gone shopping. Not all, though. Ollie guessed Achilleus was more of a Morrisons kid.

In the struggle to survive, where every scrap of food was fought over, the two groups of kids led totally separate lives. There was even the occasional skirmish in the street.

Achilleus turned to Arran.

“What do we do? There’s more of them than us. Should we go around the back way?”

Arran looked at the other gang, then at his feet, then up at the sky.

“I don’t know,” he said eventually.

“I’m wiped,” said Achilleus. “I can’t face another fight, and I can’t face going the long way around, looking out for grown-ups every step of the way.”

Arran sighed, pushed past him, and kept walking.

“If they want to have a go at us, let them,” he said. “I don’t care anymore.”

Achilleus watched him go, then shared a look with Ollie.

“Come on.”

They made sure that Freak was still with them, and hurried to catch up with Arran.

The Morrisons crew soon spotted them, and they took up a defensive stance in the middle of the road.

Arran carried on walking toward them. He wasn’t going to stop. Achilleus ran past him.

“We don’t want no trouble,” Achilleus called out to the other gang. “We’ve had enough for one day. We just want to get back. We ain’t got nothing you want.”

The Morrisons crew stood their ground, sullenly watching them as they approached. They were armed with an assortment of knives, sticks, and spears. Ollie spotted their leader, Blue, a muscley kid with close-cropped hair. Ollie smiled at him, being as open as he could, showing that they meant no harm. A couple of the Morrisons crew nodded at them as they arrived, showing no expression. Blue noticed the dog, still strung across Arran’s back.