‘Bibi,’ I yell as I scramble up the side of the rocket crater. ‘Watch out for landmines.’
I can’t see her. She must be in the next gully.
‘Stay still,’ I yell. ‘Don’t move.’
Please, I beg the landmines silently. Don’t let her tread on you. She’s only nine. This is her first time out here. Be kind.
I slither into the gully. Bibi isn’t there. Neither is the ball. They can’t be blown up or I’d have heard the bang.
Incredible. Her shot must have gone even further than I thought. I bet even David Beckham couldn’t boot a ball that far, not over a rocket crater and a gully. Not unless it was in a cup final.
I climb out of the gully and up onto a sand dune, peering into the wind. And see Bibi. She’s down on the flat desert, running towards the ball.
‘Bibi,’ I scream. ‘Watch where you’re putting your feet.’
The flat desert goes all the way to the horizon. Luckily the ball hasn’t rolled that far. Luckily it’s been stopped by a tank.
Dad’s always saying the desert’s been ruined by all the abandoned tanks and crashed planes and exploded troop carriers lying around, but sometimes war debris has its uses.
‘Thank you,’ I mutter to this rusting hulk as I totter down towards Bibi. I’m shaky with relief but I still manage to put my feet exactly in her footprints. If we both do the same on the way back, I’ll be able to get her home safely.
As I get close to her I hear a creak. I look up and see something unexpected.
The gun barrel of the tank is moving.
Just a fraction.
Towards Bibi.
She stops running. My heart has a missile attack. Then I grin as I realise what’s going on.
‘It’s OK,’ I pant as I catch up to Bibi. ‘When the tank was abandoned, they mustn’t have bothered to put on the hand-brake or whatever it is that stops tank barrels moving in the wind.’
Bibi glares at me. ‘What are you doing here?’ she says. ‘Don’t you think I’m grown-up enough to get a ball on my own?’
I sigh inside. When Bibi’s feelings are hurt, she usually gets violent.
‘It’s not that,’ I say, thinking fast. ‘I’m just worried about the time. If you’re not back home when Mum wakes up from her nap and Dad gets back, they won’t know where you are. They’ll panic.’
‘No they won’t,’ says Bibi. ‘I left a note.’
‘A note?’ I say weakly.
‘Telling them I’ve gone to play soccer.’
My throat is suddenly dryer than the rusting hulk’s fuel tank.
‘Bibi,’ I croak. ‘It’s really important we go home now and tear up that note.’
‘Why?’ says Bibi defiantly.
‘Girls playing soccer is a big crime,’ I say. ‘Almost as big as Mum and Dad running an illegal school at home. If the government finds that note, Mum and Dad are in serious trouble.’
Bibi’s face falls. ‘I didn’t think of that,’ she says.
She turns and starts to go back.
‘Make sure you tread in your own footprints,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll grab the ball and be right behind you.’
I hurry towards my ball, which is lying against one of the tank’s huge caterpillar tracks.
As I get closer I see the tank isn’t rusty after all. It’s covered in camouflage paint. I realise something else. That throbbing noise. The one that sounds like the wind vibrating the armour plating. It’s not wind, it’s the throbbing of the tank’s engine.
I freeze.
My brain shrivels with fear.
This tank isn’t abandoned, it’s parked.
I stare up at it, desperately trying to work out if the markings are American or Russian or British or Iranian. Not that it makes much difference. I can’t remember who’s on our side this year anyway.
When I was little and I used to play tanks with empty hand grenade cases, I’d always paint the good tanks white and the bad tanks black. Why can’t armies do that?
The tank gives a clanking lurch and a loud snort. With a horrible screech of metal, the huge gun barrel swings slowly round till it’s pointing straight at me.
My insides turn to yoghurt. I want to dig a hole and hide but I know tanks have got infra-red heat-seeking devices for tracking fugitives and right now my armpits are like ovens.
‘Run,’ I scream over my shoulder at Bibi.
Perhaps the tank won’t shoot us. Perhaps the soldiers inside are just irritable because it’s really cramped and stuffy in there and one of them’s got a bit of tummy wind.
It’s possible, but my legs don’t think so. They’re wobbling so much I can’t even run.
Clang.
What was that?
Clang.
A rock bounces off the tank.
I spin round. Bibi, eyes big with fury, is hurling another one.
‘You squishy lumps of camel snot,’ she yells at the tank. ‘Give us our ball back.’