‘Look!’ said Harley.

  ‘What?’ said David.

  They had come to a standstill under a streetlight between the smudgy brick walls and broken windows of Forbes Street. An upstairs window suddenly shone out like a jagged star of dirty gold. Looking up at the stab of light, David saw the bricks below it were striped with graffiti. The same few words were scrawled on top of one another, but in different colours. Where’s Quinta? someone was asking, over and over again. The senseless question staggered from wall to wall.

  It was Harley’s fault they were picking their way through such a dangerous part of town.

  ‘It’ll be cool,’ Harley had said. ‘Forbes Street’s really wild. Glue sniffers are scared to go there. Even the police are.’

  But Forbes Street was not wild – just poor and dirty. It was people who made a city dangerous, and Forbes Street was deserted. Yet there must have been someone around somewhere, because Harley, standing under a street lamp, was staring at a car – an ordinary, battered, smeary, blue car.

  ‘Might belong to a drug dealer.’ David’s voice was sarcastic.

  ‘No! Look! There!’ Harley hissed. ‘They’ve left the keys in it.’

  Sure enough, dangling from the ignition was a round silver ball on a silver chain. It seemed to wink at David.

  ‘Twinkledandory!’ said David.

  ‘Stop it,’ said Harley. ‘You sound such a nerd.’

  ‘I like words,’ said David. ‘I like inventing them.’

  ‘Well I don’t,’ Harley said. ‘Skip it. Look at the keys!’

  Over the last six months – ever since his mother, the school music teacher, had run away with a jazz guitarist – Harley was more and more intent on living dangerously. The trouble was that he wanted David to come along for the ride.

  ‘Forget it!’ said David, staring at the swinging silver ball. It winked at him.

  ‘Why not?’ Harley persisted. ‘Whoever owns this car is so stupid he deserves to lose it. It would be good for him; he’d take more care of it next time. After we’d had a turn with it, that is.’

  ‘Forget it!’ David said. ‘Anyway, who’d drive?’

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t have to,’ Harley said scornfully. ‘I would. I’ll bet I could drive this thing, and the crate it came in.’

  ‘Yeah, but any cop who sees us will know we’re only kids,’ said David, immediately irritated with himself for sounding so cautious – so dull. Though he knew so many fierce words, somehow he was always cautious when it came to actual adventures. But no way would he say that he wanted to go straight home – that his mother would already be worrying. Harley, with his hair sticking up like the crest of an excited cockatoo, was ready for anything – reckless and free.

  ‘My uncle showed me how to drive,’ said Harley. ‘He said that I could drive better than most of the guys he knows.’

  ‘You could be the best driver in the world,’ said David. ‘But some cop’d still stop us. You’re only fourteen and you look about eleven. Not ’cause you’re short. It’s the way your hair sticks up and your ears stick out. You’re an earocomic!’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ mumbled Harley, trying to flatten first his hair and then his ears. He hated being reminded that he was small. ‘If we’re cruising along, not breaking any rules, no cop’ll even look at us.’

  He ran around to grab the handle on the driver’s side. The door opened so obediently that it frightened David all over again. Things just weren’t as easy as that in real life – or they shouldn’t be.

  ‘See?’ said Harley, sliding sideways into the driver’s seat.

  ‘Stupidodorous!’ muttered David, but he couldn’t help following. So what if they did get into the car for a minute or two? They could always get out again.

  ‘Wow!’ Harley was squinting at the shelf below the instrument panel. ‘CDs. Great!’

  Then he put his hand on the key. The silver ball on the end of the chain swung slightly, seeming to glance from one to the other of them.

  ‘It’s watching us,’ exclaimed David. ‘Autovisulati! Come on, Harl! Let’s go or we’ll be in big trouble.’

  ‘Got to get home to Mummy, do you?’ said Harley. ‘Is it getting too late for you? Scared the spooks’ll come out?’ He flicked at the key chain with a fingernail. ‘You just do that word-thing to try to make out you’re brave.’

  Harley was always accusing David of being frightened of something – of teachers, parents and ghosts.

  Harley twisted the key. The car started up, running so smoothly that David had to listen hard to be sure it really was ticking over.

  Harley released the handbrake. The car slid forward. David sat back and said nothing. What they were doing was beyond word invention. Harley changed gear. They were really moving now, gliding faster all the time between dingy brick walls. The words Quinta! Come home! flashed past, sprayed on the bricks in luminous green paint. But David barely noticed. He and Harley were stealing a car. Actually stealing it. They were involved in vehicularrobberation. From here on in, they were men on the run.

  ‘Let’s have some music.’ Harley’s hands were clenched on the steering wheel.

  David squinted at the panel in front of him. One of the buttons said CD, and he pressed it.

  ‘You’ve got to shove a CD in first,’ Harley cried, but music was already pouring in from every direction. Some rock band was really letting go – guitars, amplifiers, keyboards, drums ...

  ‘Cool!’ yelled Harley, as David strained to make out the words.

  Dilly, dilly! Dilly, dilly! Come and be killed

  For you must be stuffed And my customers be filled.

  David’s finger shot out to hit the stop button.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ asked Harley crossly.

  ‘Didn’t you hear what they were singing?’ David asked.

  ‘Nah,’ said Harley. ‘Good beat, though. Put it on again.’

  As the music played they had been sliding smoothly through decaying streets. Now they were out on a well-maintained one-way system – familiar territory.

  ‘Don’t speed, or they’ll pick us up,’ David said.

  ‘I’m not speeding,’ Harley snapped, but somehow he sounded less sure of himself. He certainly looked small in the driver’s seat; he could barely see over the steering wheel. ‘What was so mind-blowing about the words, anyhow?’

  ‘They were about death,’ David said.

  ‘Is that all?’ Harley said. ‘Anyone’d think you were scared of dying. Dilly, dilly dill-head!’ His left hand shot out to jab the CD button. ‘Let’s have that one again.’

  Music filled the car once more, but this time the voices were ethereal, the pure voices of some wonderful choir. Yet the words of the song were the same – or almost.

  Dilly, dilly! Dilly, dilly! Come and be killed

  For you must be unstuffed So that my customers are filled.

  ‘Great counter-tenor!’ Harley said in a suddenly gentle, appreciative voice, reminding David that Harley, rather unexpectedly, enjoyed classical music. In more normal tones, he added, ‘Freaky words!’

  ‘Too freaky,’ said David. ‘And they’ve changed a bit, since the last version. Stop the car. I want to get out.’

  Harley clucked like a chicken.

  ‘Okay! So I’m chicken!’ said David. ‘Just stop.’

  He noted the confident press of Harley’s foot towards the floor. There was a pause, followed by anxious shuffling.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ David asked sharply.

  ‘Nothing,’ Harley replied, his voice suddenly high and tight. ‘No worries! Just that, well, since you’re a mate of mine, I’ll run you home.’

  ‘First turn left,’ said David.

  But Harley drove straight past that turn, and the next.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ David cried.

  ‘Nothing,’ Harley replied again, but his lips were curled back in a wince of fear.

  Ahead of them traffic lights turned red. Harley neither stopped nor slowed down. They sped through against the red, and a car, shooting towards them from the right, gave such a blast on its horn that David’s head rang with the sound.

  ‘You’re mad,’ he yelled at Harley. ‘Stop! Stop now!’

  Harley turned his head and stared at him, panting a little.

  ‘Watch the road! Watch the road!’ screamed David.

  ‘I don’t have to,’ Harley replied in a strangled voice. Slumping back in his seat, he took his foot off the accelerator and held his hands away from the wheel. The soft hum of the car’s motor did not decrease. The car did not lose speed. If anything, it seemed to accelerate.

  ‘It’s driving itself,’ Harley said.

  Directly ahead of them a glowing ribbon tied in one edge of the city. The motorway! The car seemed to surge forward as if it were eager to show them what it could really do on an open road. It selected the inner lane, and away it went. The hum of its engine deepened into a whispering roar.

  ‘Man!’ shrieked Harley. ‘What sort of car is this?’

  ‘I told you to leave it alone,’ David screamed back.

  ‘You got into it, though, didn’t you? It’s not all my fault.’ Then he wailed, ‘It’s taking us somewhere. But where?’

  ‘I reckon it’s some – some police thing,’ David said. ‘A trap of some kind. Ultraofficialata!’

  ‘Stop doing that!’ yelled Harley. ‘It isn’t funny.’

  David stared wildly out at the motorway flickering past them. They were being swept away from the city. Strange and bleak under its great night lights, the motorway was unrolling out into the country. In the artificial light the trees planted beside it looked artificial too, alien structures put there to fool gullible travellers. The car sped on.

  ‘Willesden Forest,’ David read on a great sign that came rushing towards them. ‘Turn-off 200 metres.’

  The car shifted into the lane for the turn-off.

  ‘Willesden Forest,’ yelled Harley. ‘That’s just trees, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s a government forest,’ David said, trying desperately to work out what might be happening. ‘They started a programme on genetically altered trees – special, quick-growing ones.’ He remembered something. ‘It’s run by the forestry department – well, it used to be. But the government has a private scientific company running it for them – some big international conglomerate sort of business ... ’

  ‘I don’t care who runs it,’ Harley yelled. ‘I just want to go home. If I get home,’ he bargained with the night air – maybe with the car itself – ‘I’ll keep out of trouble for the rest of my life.’

  As he spoke, they swung off the motorway onto a long, straight road, sealed and fenced on both sides. In front of them, black hills pushed up towards the sky, blotting out the starlight. Willesden Forest came rushing towards them. Somehow it felt as ancient as a forest in a fairy tale, even though the trees had been planted less than twenty-five years ago. At the speed they were travelling it seemed to David that the forest was leaping forward to swallow them alive.

  Willesden Forest began with row after row of pines lined up like a corps de ballet. Each tree had its lower branches trimmed away so that it stood poised on one grey leg, a spiky green tutu fanning out around it. Some of the blocks were signposted: EXPERIMENTAL BLOCK A 46 one block declared itself as they slid past.

  ‘I feel sick,’ moaned Harley. David felt sorry for him, knowing as he did that Harley’s toughness had always been faked. Deep down, the world frightened him. And then David thought how completely terrified he was himself, though his terror was different. He was used to being alarmed by life and everyone knew it. That was why Harley teased him.

  On and on! The car sped down that straight road which must have been at least three kilometres long. The line of hills showed now and then between the trees, coming closer and closer, until at last one hill thrust out a great black elbow, nudging a crooked curve into the road. They took this curve at such speed that the whole forest seemed to tilt around them, then they swept up and over a rise, only to find themselves looking down on a glowing village – long, low buildings and streets as straight as if they had been ruled, with one building rising above the rest like a cylinder of silver. This whole built-up area was caged in by tall fences of wire mesh and steel pipes, and the road directly ahead was blocked by huge gates.

  WILLESDEN EXPERIMENTAL STATION said a notice on the gates. David felt for a second or two that the car was standing still while the words rushed towards them.

  ‘We’re going to crash,’ screamed Harley, hurling himself sideways, arms clasped over his head.

  But the gates – like gates in a fairy tale – swept open, and the car, without the slightest reduction of speed, shot into the complex beyond. It turned left, then right, passing blank windows and doors.

  ‘It’s going to be all right,’ David said to Harley. ‘The car’s probably programmed to come back home to the people who ... who invented it. I mean, we’ll probably get in trouble, but nothing worse than that. Nothing ... ’ And here he stopped, surprised at finding himself flooded by a huge relief. Just for a second or two back there he had believed he was being swept to his death. Being in trouble was nothing compared to dying.

  The car slowed a little. It turned to the right. Directly in front of them was yet another steel fence, a compound contained within the main compound, and behind this second, smaller fence rose that huge, silver-white cylinder of a building they had seen earlier. It looked like a blunt spaceship, pinned to background darkness by narrow shafts of light.

  Something moved. The gate to the cylindrical building was guarded. A man had suddenly appeared and was watching them as the car rolled towards him.

  David felt huge relief at seeing another human being in this zone of geometric buildings. It was worth the prospect of an official telling-off, and an angry phone call to his parents; worth it to be back in the safe world where things would be in proportion once more, where someone else would know best what he should do.

  The guard must have pressed a button or pulled a lever, for the gate opened. As the car slid slowly past him, David saw, briefly, a cheerful moon of a face beaming in at them. The car rolled on by. A door in the building directly ahead of them was already swinging upwards, but then, as the car slid into a slot of darkness, the door hesitated before swinging down again and closing tightly behind them. The car sighed, inching forward then coming at last to a standstill.

  Immediately lights came on. They were in a square white box so neat and pure, it was hard to believe it was a mere garage. The sound of music came faintly from somewhere but, to David’s great relief, there were no voices singing.

  Then, as he stared around him, parallel black cracks appeared in the white wall directly in front of them and not one but two doors opened. The two black spaces in the white wall seemed to issue opposing orders. ‘Go through me!’ each door seemed to be commanding.

  As Harley flung the driver’s door wide, that music came roaring in, twisting around them in ropes of sound.

  ‘I’m not getting out,’ said David.

  Harley immediately shut himself in again, but he could not shut the music out. ‘Oh, come on!’ he begged. ‘What are you scared of?’

  ‘Electronic ghosts,’ David muttered. ‘What if the security system vaporizes us?’

  ‘You said they do forestry research here,’ said Harley uneasily. ‘That’s trees, right? They won’t be worrying about tree security with us. What’s the bet they’ll just tell us off, and then drive us back onto the motorway and turn us loose?’

  David was amazed at Harley’s optimism.

  ‘You’re unreal,’ he said wearily. ‘I mean – think of this car. It’s not just an average old taxi, is it? It’s weird. The whole place is weird. Let’s ... let’s just ... just make some sort of a plan, and then maybe we can ... ’

  His voice trailed away and they both flopped back in their seats, studying those black doorways in front of them. As they stared blankly ahead, a figure appeared in the left-hand doorway.

  One moment the doorway had been dark and empty. The next, someone was there, looking back at them. In spite of the shadows they could see her in totally unexpected detail: a girl older than they were – sixteen or seventeen, perhaps – a little hunched, hugging around her (as if her pockets were full of treasures) a disintegrating leather jacket that fell almost to her knees. Her hair, dyed bright red, was cropped close to her skull. Big, dark glasses with metal rims hid most of her face, but they could see three rings in her right ear and one in her left nostril. She was certainly not the kind of person you would expect to find in a forestry research establishment.

  The boys stared at her, and she stared at them. Then she must have stepped back as quickly as she had stepped forward. Without giving any impression of moving, somehow she just wasn’t there any more.

  ‘Hey!’ said Harley. ‘Some chick!’

  Obviously the sight of this girl had lifted his spirits a little, and he was trying to play it cool again.

  ‘Okay,’ said David, giving in. ‘Let’s face the music.’

  ‘What music?’ asked Harley. ‘Mozart?’

  ‘Oh, ha ha!’ said David. ‘There’s bound to be some trouble, isn’t there? I mean we did sort of steal this car.’

  ‘It stole us!’ Harley sounded almost pious. ‘And, anyhow, anyone who leaves a car with the keys in it is asking to get it lifted.’

  Harley’s words bothered David. It was true. The car had almost been begging for theft and misuse.

  And, as he thought this, someone tapped on the car window.

 

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