up the wooden grandstand towards Alfie. ‘What did I do to you?’ Leon shouted. ‘I’m gonna smash your face in.’
But physical reality stood in Leon’s way. He was an average-sized eleven-year-old, while Alfie was thirteen and held his own playing rugby with lads several years older.
‘Suddenly not so brave,’ Alfie said, smirking and pounding a beefy fist into his palm.
‘This won’t end well,’ Ning shouted wearily. ‘Pack it in before it gets out of hand.’
But while Leon wasn’t stupid enough to throw a punch at someone who’d flatten him, he wanted revenge and Alfie’s backpack lay on a bench two metres away.
‘Yoink!’ Leon said, as he grabbed the strap and started running.
‘You’d better give that back,’ Alfie roared.
Alfie was speedy in a straight line, but he was more battering ram than ballet dancer and Leon’s whippy frame gained ground as he hopped across the wooden benches towards the top of the grandstand.
‘See how you like it,’ Leon shouted, as he flung Alfie’s backpack over the rear of the grandstand into a mass of overgrown bushes.
Alfie got within a couple of benches of Leon, but his boot slid and he bashed himself.
‘I will kill you!’ Alfie shouted, as he rubbed his kneecap. ‘Go get that back.’
But Leon was sprinting across the top of the grandstand, and when he reached the end he turned towards Alfie and gave a succession of two-fingered salutes.
Alfie realised he had little chance of catching Leon and decided to lure him out instead.
‘OK,’ Alfie shouted, as he stepped back towards where Leon had been lying. ‘You throw my backpack away. See what I do to yours.’
When Alfie reached his target, he raised a size 7 boot and stamped down on a Puma backpack. There was a sound like a ruler snapping, and a pop of a yoghurt carton. Then Alfie took a step back and booted the backpack high into the air towards the racetrack.
‘Happy now?’ Alfie shouted, but he couldn’t understand why Leon was still smiling.
‘My bag’s up here,’ Leon said.
As soon as Leon said this, Ning remembered that she’d left her backpack down there. And the one she’d seen cartwheeling through the air looked awfully similar …
‘Alfie!’ Ning shouted, as she stood up.
Few girls, even grown women, would intimidate Alfie, but Ning was a former Chinese boxing champ and when she threw a punch you knew all about it.
‘I thought it was Leon’s,’ Alfie said, holding his palms out meekly as Ning steamed towards him. ‘He tricked me.’
‘You started it with the spider,’ Ning said, as she picked up her backpack and unzipped it. ‘I told you to pack it in.’
Ning looked furious as she stared into the backpack, seeing science textbooks and a calculator smeared in yoghurt.
Ning turned back towards Leon. ‘You wipe that smirk off your face and go look for Alfie’s pack in the bushes,’ she demanded. Then she thrust her pack into Alfie’s belly. ‘I don’t know how you’re gonna clean that out, but you’d better or you’re buying me a new one.’
Ning’s steely glare made it clear that she meant business. Alfie started hunting in his pockets for a pack of tissues and Leon headed behind the grandstand to retrieve Alfie’s pack, but before either made much progress they were distracted by the sound of cars on the track.
‘Finally,’ Leon said.
Grace was now highest up the grandstand and got a glimpse over treetops at two VW Golfs – one silver, one blue – driving in close formation on the far side of the track. Tyres squealed on a tight corner as the engines grew louder.
On the final approach to the straight in front of the grandstand, the silver car in the lead put its rear end out and there was a hairy moment as the other Golf nearly clipped it before overtaking on to the main straight.
When it reached the grandstand in front of the kids, the man driving the blue car hit the brakes and threw the car sideways into a donut, throwing up clouds of choking grey rubber smoke. As it did this, the silver car stopped more sedately and a crash-helmeted driver stepped out.
‘All right, boys and girls,’ the driver said, as he unbuckled the helmet. ‘You’re all here for the Advanced Driving course?’
When the helmet came off, Ning liked what she saw. The instructor was six feet tall, in his early twenties with a solid physique. He had blue-green eyes, and blond hair just long enough for the helmet to have mussed it up.