Robin’s sixteen-year-old pursuer had brutal speed. The baton swung from her tactical belt as her combat boots stamped up two stairs at a time.
‘Come out with your hands up,’ Clare demanded. ‘The more energy I waste finding you, the harder I’ll pound when I get you.’
Robin knew his escape route: the same one he’d used when he drained the ink from two biros into Little John’s shampoo bottle.
Robin reached his attic bedroom, then jumped onto his homework desk, reached up to open a roof hatch, then pulled himself up through the hole.
If Clare had looked up when she entered the room, she’d have seen her adversary gently closing the hatch. But she didn’t know about Robin’s climbing skills and her instinct was to check under the bed, then open Robin’s wardrobe.
‘I’m a champion boxer,’ Clare yelled, as she looked in the gap between the chest of drawers and the wall. ‘I’m gonna hang you upside down and make you my new punchbag.’
Robin had been out on the mossy roof a million times, but quickly discovered that his one socked foot was slippery. After peeling it off, he swung a leg around a brick chimney that ran down the outside wall of the house, to the grand fireplace in the ground-floor drawing room.
He climbed skilfully down vertical brick, suspending himself from strong fingers dug into gaps in the mortar.
After reaching a ledge one floor up, Robin made a two-footed leap onto the roof of the shed his dad had wanted him to spend the day cleaning out. This roof looked fragile, so he spun, dropped and splattered his feet and ankles with mud as he hit the ground. The area was always puddled, because it lay below a broken gutter.
Mud squelched as Robin stumbled towards firmer ground. After a quick look around to ensure there was no sign of Clare, he leaned against the side of the house, thinking up his next move.