91Èȱ¬

The police have been again. They asked me about Robin. I told them nothing. I won’t betray him, not ever.

I ought to tell you, his real name is not Robin. That’s just what I call him. His real name is Darren. He’s two years above me in school. But Robin’s hardly ever in school. He bunks off, mainly.

He lives next door to me. From my bedroom window I can see his garden. It’s all overgrown and littered with bits of engines and rusty bicycles. At the bottom there’s a rackety shed. I used to watch Robin coming and going, taking things into the shed, and taking things out: mostly at night. His dad works nights, and he hasn’t got a mum. At school, they say Robin’s mum ran off with the milkman. When they’ve said it, they laugh, as if it’s a joke. I don’t like to ask if it’s true, because then they’d call me thick. People are always saying I’m thick, but I’m not. It’s just that when I try to talk, the words come out all wrong: except when I talk to myself. I don’t sound thick when I talk to myself.

Robin’s got no one to tell him what to do in the evenings. Not like me. I have to be in bed by nine, because mum and dad want me out of the way. I can never sleep much before ten. That’s how I came to be looking out of my window, watching Robin. And one night he saw me watching. He looked very fierce.

Next morning, he was waiting for me. He got me on my way to school, in this lonely little alley between some houses. He pinned me up against the wall and asked me why I’d been spying on him.

I don’t mind telling you, I was scared stiff. Robin’s a real hard case. He always wears a hoody, and trackie bottoms, and expensive trainers. He’s got this scar on his forehead that goes across his eyebrow, and where the scar is no hairs grow. And he’s got a crooked nose where it got broken. He’s been in loads of fights, and he smokes and can drive a car. Unlike me, he’s scared of nothing.

So there he was in the alley, strangling me with my own school tie. I said I wasn’t spying, I just couldn’t sleep.

He said, ‘Do you know what I keep in my shed?’

I said, slowly, ‘Well, I know you’ve got tellys and DVD players and X-Boxes and mobile phones and – ’

He tightened his grip. I was choking. ‘Where do you think I got all that stuff, eh?’ He put his face right up close to mine, and then he said, ‘I nicked it all, didn’t I.’ He added, ‘I only nick stuff from rich people’s houses, don’t I. They get it all replaced on the insurance. They can afford insurance.’

I said, ‘You’re like Robin Hood. He stole from the rich to give to the poor.’

He grinned, and I could see where one of his front teeth is chipped. ‘Yeah, that’s right. I’m Robin Hood, I am.’ I knew then that he is really not as bad as people say he is.
Robin let me go, and he said I was OK and that I could be one of his Merry Men. And I sort of guessed that meant we were mates, and I was pleased about that because I don’t have many mates. Well, none, to be honest. People don’t much like you if they think you’re thick: that’s the truth of it.

Robin liked me. I know that because he gave me an MP3 player. He said I deserved it because I am one of the poor. I suppose he’s right. My parents must be poor, because they have never given me anything as expensive as that MP3 player.

A few days later, he came to me and said he needed my help. No one ever needs my help usually. People think I’m too thick to be any use. But Robin doesn’t think I’m thick. He told his mates as much, when they started taking the mickey. I didn’t like his mates much, but I guessed they were the other Merry Men, and we would just have to get on as best we could.

What he wanted me to do was this. There was a big posh house with a little open window. Because I’m so small and skinny, I could get in through the little window and open the door for Robin. He was very pleased with me. It made me feel good, because he smiled at me, and he never usually smiles at anyone at all.

After that, I helped Robin a lot. There were lots of houses I could get into that he couldn’t. And he asked me to store some of the stuff he nicked, until it was time to give it to the poor. I put the stuff under my bed and at the back of my wardrobe. I liked to imagine how happy the poor would be when they finally got their stuff, just as happy as I was with my MP3 player.

I don’t know how the police found out. They came to our house and said I was in deep trouble. They found all the things hidden in my bedroom, and they said my fingerprints matched those at the crime scenes. Who were my accomplices, they asked. Did I work with Darren Carter?

But I won’t tell them. Robin’s my mate, and I won’t betray him, ever.