Pod and his team of fighters were along one wall. Maxie and the chief Holloway kids were along the other wall. Maxie thought it was like some ridiculous school play, like Shakespeare or something, with kids pretending to be kings and queens and soldiers. But she was interested to see how the scene would play out. She could see a faint smile curling David’s lip. For the moment he had the upper hand. The squatters were thrown, their guard was down.

He raised his hand for silence and started to speak.

“This morning my ambassador spoke to you.”

Maxie bit her lip. Since when was she David’s ambassador?

Just John obviously didn’t like the idea of an ambassador any more than Maxie did.

“Ambassador?” he said, his voice sounding choked and nasal. “What you talking about, moron?”

“The girl, Maxie, was speaking on my behalf. Now I will speak for myself.”

“Listen, mate,” said Carl. “We didn’t come here to talk, we came to get John.”

“That wasn’t the deal, though, was it?” said David. “The deal was—if you wanted John back you’d have to talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” said Carl. “As I see it we won the fight.”

“But we’ve got John,” said David.

“This doesn’t need to get heavy,” said Jester. “We don’t have to be enemies.”

“Who says?”

“We have food here,” said Jester. “We have security. We also have many more kids than you do. We have weapons as well, good weapons, and a well-organized army. All we’re saying is—why not join us? Together we can be strong. We can take on any other gang of kids. We can rule London.”

Again Maxie winced. She had no desire to rule London. She just wanted a roof over her head, food on her plate, and to be able to sleep at night without waking every half hour in a sweat of fear and anxiety. But maybe this was the only language the squatters would understand.

“We don’t want you to change,” said David.

“That’s big of you,” said Just John.

“You can keep your camp,” said David, ignoring the interruption. “You can still be in charge, John. But we make peace. We grow food together. We share everything. If there is an outside threat, we stand shoulder to shoulder against it.”

A couple of the squatters sniggered at David’s fancy language. But Carl was looking at Just John quizzically.

“You say you won this morning,” Pod chipped in. “But we could have destroyed your whole camp if we wanted.”

“You didn’t fight fair,” said John. “You cheated.”

Now it was the turn of some of the palace kids to snigger. The idea of someone like Just John complaining about fair play was more than faintly ridiculous.

“I could have beaten you with a blindfold on, man,” said Achilleus. “You are sad.”