While most of Locksley crumbled, a couple of smart new developments had cropped up on the outskirts, providing modern homes for people like the Chief of Police, the CEO of Locksley Redevelopment Corporation and a variety of clean-cut folks shipped in to make Gisborne’s front companies look respectable.
One such house, with a Spanish colonial vibe and a Range Rover on the driveway, belonged to Nasha Adale, the controller of Locksley’s public bus system. Her oldest child, Alan, had just finished a dreary Monday afternoon at Locksley High and he was curious about a slight gym-locker smell as he slotted his key in the front door.
‘Hey,’ Robin whispered.
Alan jumped back, then glanced around and saw his long-term friend and a girl with striking blue eyes squatting behind shrubs.
‘Made me jump,’ Alan moaned, then smiled. ‘Good to know you’re alive.’
‘This is Marion,’ Robin said. ‘Are you home alone?’
Alan nodded. ‘Mum picks my sister up from rugby practice and gets in about six o’clock. Dad’ll be home a while after that.’
‘Perfect,’ Robin said, as he stepped towards the open front door.
Alan blocked his path into an immaculate white-tiled hallway. ‘Not in those boots. You gotta come around the side.’
He jogged into the house, out through sliding patio doors at the back and took the bolt off a gate at the side of the house.
‘My parents will figure if you trail muck everywhere,’ Alan explained. ‘We had Locksley P.D. here asking me questions about your habits. My ma is tight with Gisborne’s people and she’s lecturing me: If you know about that hoodlum boy Robin Hood, you tell the police or there’ll be big trouble!’
‘Please don’t snitch.’ Robin smiled, knowing his oldest friend wouldn’t.
Marion hadn’t seen this kind of house before and gawped as she walked past the hot exterior blast from air conditioners and into a garden with a pool and a trendy wood-fired oven.
‘Use the pool shower,’ Alan said, pointing to a slatted wooden cage up against the back of the house. ‘I’ll grab towels.’
Marion showered first. Robin gave her a spare T-shirt from his bag of clothes, but it was short, so Alan found some shorts and a two-seasons-old Macondo United shirt that fitted her fine.
Alan and Marion sat with their feet in the pool eating chips and dip, while Robin shampooed twice to get all the mud out of his hair.
‘Your dad still got that 3D printer?’ Robin asked, reaching down to grab chips as he towelled off.
‘In the garage, with all the other junk he never uses.’
The two boys headed to a triple garage, home to jet skis, an electric piano, hunting gear and soccer goals.
‘You printing keys for another robbery?’ Alan asked. ‘Hope it works better than your fiasco in Mr Barclay’s office …’
Robin almost swallowed his tongue and was thankful Marion had stayed out by the pool.
‘Don’t mention that,’ Robin hissed. ‘Marion thinks I know what I’m doing.’
‘Poor deluded creature.’ Alan laughed, then took the cube-shaped printer upstairs to his room, where it wouldn’t immediately get spotted if a parent arrived home freakishly early.
3D printers are fiddly to set up. Robin’s hacker pal had hooked him up with the digital design for a tool that engineers use to open cash machines, but the printer’s error light kept flashing, until Robin realised Alan’s dad hadn’t run the cleaning procedure after the only time he’d used it.
After ten minutes unscrewing a nozzle and picking chunks of melted plastic out of the filament dispenser, Robin started his print job and headed downstairs, where Alan and Marion had crashed in front of a true-life car-chase show called Triple-Digit Speed.
‘You know the graffiti wall behind the gym at school?’ Alan asked.
‘Sure.’ Robin nodded as his eyes hunted for his half-drunk tin of Rage Cola.
‘There’s a massive new mural,’ Alan said. ‘It says Robin Hood Lives. And the double-o in Hood is drawn like a pair of balls with an arrow sticking out of them.’
Marion laughed so hard that her feet flew up in the air. ‘Seriously?’
‘Get out of town,’ Robin said, as he flopped over a couch.
‘You’ve attained legend status,’ Alan said. ‘I’ll take a picture next time I go around there.’
‘How much longer for your 3D lever thingy to print?’ Marion asked.
‘Half an hour if it doesn’t crash,’ Robin said, as a car on the TV smashed through a barrier and got obliterated by a truck going the opposite way.
‘You guys can stick around till just before six,’ Alan said. ‘But you’ll have to give me time to clear towels and stuff. Cos I’m a dead man if my parents find out you were here.’
‘Yeah,’ Robin said, shaking his head slowly. ‘You’re the one whose life is in danger …’