‘You like it?’ I asked shyly.
He looked at me and smiled his big smile – all white teeth and twinkly eyes. A proper hero’s smile. ‘I love it!’
‘You’ll be able to stay out of trouble here,’ I said. ‘And they’ll never find us.’
He looked up, alarmed, and his voice was sharp, like I’d pressed on a place that hurt. ‘Who won’t find us?’
‘Um . . . Shiv and his gang – the Starfish,’ I stammered. ‘That’s all I meant. I . . .’
‘Oh.’ Tokes seemed to relax. ‘Them.’ And the way he said it, I wondered who he thought I was talking about. ‘I reckon they always track you down in the end,’ he said, flopping down on the sofa and looking upwards towards the platform. ‘How’d you find this place anyway?’
‘I have a lot of spare time,’ I said with a shrug. ‘And I need somewhere no one else knows about.’
‘Because of your mum and dad?’
I could feel the weird clicky feeling in my throat that I get when I have to think about what happened, but luckily there was no time to answer because I could hear the sound of a train overhead. ‘Duck!’ I yelled, grabbing an old umbrella from behind the sofa. ‘It sounds like a through train.’
‘What?’ said Tokes as I slid on the sofa next to him and pulled the umbrella over both our heads.
‘You’ll see!’
I was pressed up so tight against Tokes I could smell a faint tang of sweat and toothpaste. As the train went thundering through the station above us, suddenly all the pigeons up in the arches started flying about and making a load of noise, and splats of poo fell all around us.
‘The trains make the pigeons poop,’ I yelled.
‘Like poo rain!’ he shouted over the clamour of the train and we both laughed.
‘Does that happen often?’ asked Tokes, grinning from ear to ear once the train had passed.
‘About every ten minutes,’ I said.
He laughed. ‘This is one weird place to hang out, film girl!’
I shoved the umbrella down the back of the sofa.
‘So you want to tell me about your mum?’ he asked.
I wasn’t expecting that.
‘I mean, it must be kind of weird having a mum who’s in the government or whatever,’ he said. ‘It’s sort of cool though.’
‘It’s not cool at all.’
‘Why? I mean, she gets to make the law. She can change stuff – make things better. That’s good, right?’
I bit my lip and tried to explain. ‘I think she cares more about “society” than her own family.’
Tokes didn’t say anything, but I could feel his eyes watching me.
‘And she only pretends to care about that stuff anyway. All that really matters to her is her career.’ I wasn’t sure why I was telling him this, and my voice came out a bit funny as I spoke. ‘That’s why they split up. My mum and dad.’
‘Because of her job?’
‘Because she puts her career ahead of everything else,’ I said. I remember hearing Dad say that, saying he’d had enough of coming in second place to Downing Street. That was the day he walked out. My funny, brilliant, kind dad who left because of her.
‘So it was your dad who left?’ Tokes said.
‘Last year.’
‘And you figure that’s your mum’s fault?’
I nodded.
Tokes glanced up. He had the questioning look in his eyes again. ‘You ever talk to her about it?’ he asked.
I shrugged. ‘No point.’
Tokes nodded, then after a second he said, ‘You should put it in your film then – maybe.’
‘Maybe,’ I said, although I couldn’t imagine what my mum would do if I said stuff about her in my film and then it won the competition and got shown on TV – which was part of the prize.
‘You miss your dad?’ Tokes asked.
‘Lots.’ I looked up. ‘He’s funny. And he doesn’t nag. He gets me. She doesn’t.’
‘You see him much?’
‘No. He’s in New York now. He sends me stuff all the time and we Skype sometimes.’ I pushed to the back of my mind the thought that we hadn’t spoken for over two weeks. ‘I’m going to go over there soon, he says. We don’t have a date yet, but . . .’
‘But it’s not the same?’
I nodded. Nothing was the same since my dad left.
Tokes’s forehead wrinkled. ‘That’s something we got in common then.’
‘What? Your dad is abroad too?’
‘Sort of.’ He didn’t look up when he said that, just changed the subject. ‘So we gonna make this film or what?’
I tugged my camera out of my pocket, nervous suddenly. ‘I should probably interview you,’ I muttered.
‘Me?’
‘It’s just you’re sort of the main character now,’ I murmured shyly. ‘You know, like the hero. Because of what happened in the park.’
‘Don’t be dumb,’ he laughed, then his face was serious suddenly. ‘I’m the opposite of a hero – trust me.’
‘The way I see it, you’re the hero, Shiv is the villain and Little Pea is the funny man,’ I said. ‘It all kind of fits.’
‘And what does that make you?’ he asked, squinting at me in the sunlight.
I shrugged. ‘The geeky weirdo, I suppose.’
‘She usually turns out to be the star in the end,’ he said with a smile. ‘Doesn’t she?’
‘Not in my case.’
Tokes gave me another of his funny looks then he shook his head and scuffed his feet against the rubbly ground, sending up clouds of dust. ‘And you’re really gonna let Pea be in the film?’
‘He’s good to watch,’ I said.
‘Yeah, but why does he want to be in it?’ said Tokes. ‘A kid like that doesn’t do anything unless there’s something in it for him.’
‘Maybe he just likes performing.’
