She heard the sounds of the fight – grunting, hissing, thudding – and when she looked back one of the grown-ups was lying half in the River Thames, turning it red, and another was lying across the Houses of Parliament. The third, a mother, had made it to the pathway and was lying there, her arms and legs sort of wriggling. Scarface was squatting over her, cutting her with one of his knives. He spotted Ella watching him and scowled at her so that she looked away again.

If only it would be that easy to kill all the grown-ups in London. If only the three giants were all they ever had to deal with and Scarface was Jack the Giant Killer.

But Ella knew this wasn’t the end. Not by a long way. This was just Legoland.

Chapter 8

8

The next few days were the same. Wake with the sun. Feed the chickens and clean out their run. Check the traps. Follow trails. Track down grown-ups.

Kill them.

The grown-ups mostly went about in ones and twos. Sometimes there were more, sometimes there was only one of them, and every time Scarface was able to sneak up on them and kill them without being seen, without getting hurt. Most of them were asleep, hiding inside buildings, and Ella would wait outside while Scarface went in and did what he had to do. She would sit there, nervous, hoping there were no others nearby. She would try not to listen to the sounds of Scarface clearing out the nest, the sound of fighting, things crashing and breaking. Then Scarface would come out all covered in blood.

But sometimes the grown-ups were wandering lost and confused in the daylight. And every morning there were more out in the fields, standing like the first scarecrow. Arms stretched out. Once Ella saw a crow sitting on the head of a father, pecking into his earhole, and he didn’t move at all.

Occasionally they found more scarecrows on their travels, and always Scarface would cut them down. They were the easiest ones.

Ella got to know the area around the farm very well on her travels. There was a big park nearby with trees laid out in long, straight lines. And lots of lakes – there seemed to be lakes everywhere. Sometimes in the distance she saw what looked like a city, with a real castle watching over it, but Scarface never went near it. He seemed to want to avoid towns and houses, unless he had to go in to find hiding grown-ups.

Ella thought they weren’t really in the countryside at all, not the faraway countryside. There were roads everywhere, criss-crossing the fields and woods, with grass and weeds beginning to poke through the tarmac.