Terror Kid (3 page)

‘Well, what about my day at the office? There I was, happily tending to my little old ladies, when suddenly I'm asked to go to A&E to deal with a great big policeman who tells me that some kids beat him up, and then I have to deal with a fifteen-year-old boy who tells me that he had been kicked and beaten with a truncheon by a policeman. I used to work in the NHS, now I work in a war zone. And last week they told us that we have a pay freeze for another year. They keep giving us more targets to reach with fewer staff and less money.'

Rico saw how tired and frustrated his mum looked.

She threw her bag down on the sofa. ‘I guess you expect me to make dinner now?'

‘No way,' said Stefan. ‘I've been slaving in that kitchen for the last hour preparing something just for you. And you,' he said to Rico.

‘Now, let me guess,' said Lena. ‘Pasta.'

‘How did you know?' asked Stefan.

‘Well, every time you cook up a surprise, it's pasta,' said Lena. ‘Don't you get it? That means it's not a surprise any more.'

‘It's pasta,' Stefan said, grinning. ‘But not as you know it. It's pasta with a twist.'

‘Oh, yes. What's the twist?

‘Salad,' replied Stefan, throwing his hands up as if completing a magic trick.

‘It will do – again!' said Lena. Her face was tired but she was smiling.

‘Maybe I'll just go for the salad,' said Rico. ‘The last time I had your pasta it stayed around for days.'

‘You said you liked it,' said Stefan.

‘I was just trying to encourage you,' replied Rico. ‘I realise now it was a mistake.'

Stefan stamped his foot down as if to chase Rico, but he was laughing. ‘Get out of here.'

Rico ran upstairs to check on his computer work and Lena went to change her clothes.

Rico's software had downloaded, but his mother's words were still running around his head, so he left his work and started to look at news reports about the health service and the targets they had to reach. Then he began looking at all the cuts the service was suffering, and in a chat room for health service workers he read their own stories of depression and hardship. Very soon he was on the local National Health Service site. He looked around it for a time and soon he found a login area for administrators. Rico became curious, so using the password-cracking software he had developed to help people who had forgotten their own passwords, within a few minutes he managed to gain access to the back end of the site, and found details and login credentials of other systems within the NHS. He entered the payroll system and keyed in his mother's name. He could see her years of service, her position in the hospital, her National Insurance number and her wages. Then he saw in bold red letters:
TRADE UNION ACTIVIST
.

Stefan shouted up from the bottom of the stairs, ‘Your dinner's ready.' Rico quickly closed his mother's profile and loaded some more software that would help hide any trace of his activities.

Downstairs, the family sat down to eat and, after an initial tasting of the food, both Lena and Rico gave it the thumbs up.

‘This is quite nice, you know,' said Lena.

‘Yes,' said Rico. ‘I really like it.'

‘You see,' said Stefan. ‘I told you it was different.'

‘Something's happening in this country,' said Lena. ‘Accident and Emergency used to be full of men falling off ladders, children falling off swings, and women falling off their heels. Now it's stab wounds and bullet holes, and tonight it's revolution.'

‘I wish it was revolution,' said Stefan.

‘I wish they'd all just go home. Nothing's going to change by smashing up a few shops,' said Rico.

‘How come you're so sensible?' said Lena. ‘You didn't get it from your dad. Anyway, are you OK?'

‘I'm fine,' replied Rico.

‘How did they treat you?'

‘Like they always do,' said Rico.

‘You didn't do anything, did you?'

Rico was surprised by her question. ‘Mum, come on. You know I'm not doing anything wrong out there.'

‘I'm sorry.'

Stefan interrupted. ‘Wrong place, wrong time again.'

‘When is it not the wrong place, and the wrong time?' Lena sighed, leaning over and stroking Rico's arm.

‘That's exactly what I said,' said Stefan. ‘That's exactly what I said.'

Rico ate his food as quickly as he could and stood up from the table.

‘Excuse me. I've got to go. I've got some software running that I need to check.'

As Rico was heading back upstairs his mother asked, ‘So how are your computers then?'

‘It's all good,' Rico replied. ‘I got four now.'

Lena thought he was exaggerating. ‘Rico! Two days ago you told me you had three and you were going to start work on another one.'

‘That's right,' Rico said casually. ‘I was building another one, and now I've finished it.'

‘You finished it already?'

‘Yes, I told you I would get it done before the end of the week.'

‘And I heard you, but I thought you were talking about next week. What are you doing with four of them?' she asked. ‘Are you now going to start selling them as well as fixing them?'

‘I don't know. I might do.' Rico replied. ‘I just like building them and writing software. To test some of the codes I've written I needed a network of computers, so I've created my own network.'

Lena looked at Stefan proudly and said, ‘He's so clever. Didn't we do well?'

‘Got to go,' said Rico, slightly embarrassed. ‘I left my computers working on something in parallel and I need to check the output.'

‘I need to check on you too,' shouted Lena. ‘Parental guidance. I know what you teenagers are like.'

 

Some were calling it the summer of discontent. And it was not just in Britain. A series of uprisings had begun in Tunisia and spread to Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and other Arab and North African countries. Russia demanded free and fair elections. Then the uprisings started in Europe. Hungarians took to the streets so their voices could be heard. Portugal, Spain and Italy were running out of money, and in Greece there were daily riots as workers demanded better wages and pensions, and the unemployed demanded jobs.

Britain was broke, and the government raised taxes on fuel and goods in shops. Household taxes were raised too, but as homelessness increased, cuts were made to the money spent on charities, youth clubs, art centres, services for the disabled, libraries and schools, whilst at the same time the fees that university students had to pay were raised. So as unemployment rose, people took to the streets. Those who were educated, connected and organised began to plan marches and demonstrations. Those who were not, simply went out and vented their anger on the streets in any way they could. Sometimes that meant occupying banks and churches, sometimes it meant burning and looting.

In the weeks and months following the riots in Britain, the government ordered the courts to open late into the night and at weekends. They requested that, where possible, judges give out maximum sentences to make examples of the offenders, and to administer judgement swiftly. Tired judges and lawyers struggled to keep up with the numbers of young people being taken into custody, and most newspaper reports failed to question why such riots would happen in the first place, simply portraying all the rioters as mindless thugs.

Karima and her friends were treated leniently because of their age. They were sentenced to one month in youth custody. They were warned that any appearance in front of the courts in the future would attract much longer sentences. They were lucky. One fourteen-year-old was sentenced to four years for sending a text message to his friends telling them to take to the streets. His friends didn't take to the streets, and nor did he, but the judge said: ‘It's the thought that counts.'

Rico was angry. He watched what was happening around the world, frustrated that he couldn't do anything about it. He watched television programmes about how the rich lived and how the poor lived, and how people lived divided all over the planet. Everything he saw made him realise that people all over the world could have much better lives if they had more of a say in the way their lives were governed. He believed in the power of the people. His problem was, he just didn't know many people. He didn't know anybody like him: people who weren't rioting but who wanted to do something. He had nowhere to go to find like-minded people. He had tried to start debating groups at school but there had been no interest. He had tried to organise a group of kids at school to go on a demonstration supporting his mother and her trade union when they were on strike, but no one turned up. He went on his own to demonstrations organised by university students who were protesting about the rise in their fees. The first student protest he went on was with his sister when she was a student, but he felt so strongly about issues concerning young people that even when Lola had left home he went on other demonstrations. On these demonstrations he would not chant or sing, he would just walk silently. He just wanted to be counted.

 

The day after the riots, Rico went to work as he always did. There were still small pockets of unrest and there were noticeably fewer people around than usual, so business in the shop was slow. The newspapers, the television and the Internet were covering news of the troubles. Students from all over the West Midlands were going to march through the city centre protesting against increases in university fees. The police had told them not to, but the student union insisted that the march would go ahead. It had been planned months in advance, and they were not going to reschedule. Rico wanted to go on that march and, just like the student union, he'd be stopped by nothing. He had to show his solidarity. He knew the issues, and he wasn't going to wait until he was a student before he started caring.

With so few customers visiting the shop, Rico was allowed to leave work early. He walked the short distance to Digbeth, where the students and their supporters had gathered. After some speeches and a lecture from the stewards on how to behave, they began walking towards the city centre. After an hour Rico was beginning to wish that he had brought something to eat. He was getting hungrier and hungrier, but they kept marching on, and the more they marched the louder they became. Rico started to get tired, but he was encouraged by the demonstrators chanting, the drummers drumming out rhythms to match their chants, people blowing whistles, and onlookers shouting words of support. But he was still hungry.

The sun began to get brighter and hotter, and by the time they reached Colmore Circus their numbers had swelled and spirits were high. The crowd gathered in front of a large stage to hear speeches from student leaders, trade unionists and poets. As he stood listening to a student reading her poem, Rico heard someone call his name.

‘Rico.'

The voice came from close behind him, so close he thought it might have been in his head. Then he heard it again.

‘Rico. How's it going, mate?'

This time Rico looked behind him and saw a tall man smiling at him. Rico ignored him; if this wasn't the man who had called his name, Rico didn't want to embarrass himself. After all, the man smiling could just be smiling because he was happy, or because he liked the poem. Rico just wasn't sure, so he turned back and continued listening to the poet.

‘Rico. I'm your man,' the voice said again.

This time when Rico turned around, the man spoke to him directly.

‘Good to see you.'

The man moved so that he was directly in front of Rico.

‘It's a good turnout.'

‘It's all right,' replied Rico.

The man was in his late thirties, clean-shaven and smartly dressed in pressed trousers, white shirt and black waistcoat. Despite his well-ironed image there was something edgy about him. He had two small earrings in each ear, and a tattoo of a lion's head on his neck. He continued to look ahead as he spoke.