The Parent Agency

“Hey! OK! Thank you, but I just need to get back to my house!”

“No, Barry! Come and live with us at our house!”

“No, our house is much nicer!”

“We live next door to a theme park!”

“Our house is made of candyfloss!”

“That’s not true!”

“OK, it isn’t, but we’ve got a lot of candyfloss under the stairs!!”

“What?” Barry said. “Why are you saying all this?”

They were all around him, bumping him and knocking him in their desperation to get him to look at their bits of paper. He was starting to feel afraid. Then, suddenly, he heard a voice, a kid’s voice. Which made him realise, for the first time, that he hadn’t seen any other children on this street, or in this crowd. The voice was tinny and amplified.

“OK, get back,” said the voice. “Come on! All of you! Back we go!” It sounded strangely familiar. “You know the procedure!”

The adults all fell silent, moving away from Barry, who squinted and saw, coming across the crowd, two figures he immediately recognised. One of them was talking through a loudhailer.

Barry stared at them. “Lukas!” he said. “Taj! What are you doing here?”

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_46bdefe6-3c56-594a-98de-628ade41cda7)

“Sorry, but we don’t know who you’re talking about,” said Taj. “I am PC 890 and this is PC 891.”

“PC?” Barry realised then that they were wearing uniforms. Not exactly like police uniforms – they were more, in fact, like dark blue… onesies – but similar enough for Barry to say: “Like Police Constable?”

Taj looked at him as if he was talking gibberish. “No! Parent Controller, of course!”

“Huh?” said Barry. “What’s that?”

“Watch and learn,” said Lukas. Which made Barry think that he definitely was Lukas as that was exactly the sort of thing he would have said.

Lukas and Taj turned round. Lukas raised the loudhailer to his mouth again and Taj took out of his pocket a large silver whistle. Lukas looked at the crowd, who were still all standing there, waiting. “OK, everyone! Go back to your homes!” he said.

“But I’m on my way to work!” came a voice.

“Well…” said Lukas, “all right. Go back… or onwards… to your place of work! Whatever! You all know the procedure!”

“You said that before!”

“Yes, all right! Anyway. We will be taking this boy to the Agency. You are, of course, all welcome to send your applications there, those who aren’t already on file. And now…”

He nodded to Taj, who blew on his whistle as loudly as he could. The blast was deafening and went on for quite a long time. Barry put his fingers in his ears. The crowd began to move silently away. Well, Barry thought it was silently; as he had his fingers in his ears, it was hard to tell. So he took his fingers out. In fact, the grown-ups were all murmuring.

“I’ll get our updated file sent in straight away…”

“He’d be perfect for us…”

“Stupid PCs, always turning up from nowhere…”

When they had finally all gone, Barry turned to Taj and Lukas. “Do you really not know that your names are Taj and Lukas?” he said.

“PC 890,” said Taj.

“PC 891,” said Lukas. “And now, if you don’t mind…?” He paused, doing a questioning face. Barry knew what the question was, although it made no sense that Lukas – his best friend, or his best friend sometimes – was asking it.

“Barry,” said Barry.

“Really? It’s really Barry?”

“Yes, of course it is! You know that!”

“And you’re really about to be ten? In five days?”

“Yes,” said Barry, “you know that too!”

Lukas turned to Taj and shook his head as if they couldn’t understand what Barry was talking about. Taj frowned and looked concerned. About what, Barry had no idea.

“OK, Barry,” said Taj. “Would you please… follow us?”

They took the tube from a station called Green Bogey Park. Barry sat in between PC 890 and PC 891. Every so often he would notice a grown-up in the seat opposite look over at him meaningfully. One mouthed at him something that looked like, “Pocket money: we’re talking three figures.” Another, as she was getting off, tried to slip him a card, but PC 890 – Taj – flicked her away.

They got off at another station called Ha Ha Ha This Station Is Called Watery Loo (the name took up the entire wall along the platform). When they came out, standing in front of them was a large, important-looking building, like the ones Barry had seen on a school trip to Downing Street once. (They hadn’t gone into Downing Street, just looked at it through the gates, while Mr Podmore, their form teacher, had read something out from the internet about it.) Around the building were a lot more grown-ups, some of them just standing there, others sitting by tents or lying in sleeping bags. They looked up expectantly when they saw Barry.

Lukas got his loudhailer back out.

“Move away, please!”

The grown-ups looked disappointed, shuffling backwards to let them through. The three boys walked up to the door, which was large and black and on which were written, in big brass capitals:

Barry stepped back and looked again at the building. It looked exactly like the drawing at the centre of the map of Youngdon he had found on the subway steps. Except, of course, much bigger.

Lukas knocked on the door. It was opened by a girl in an orange onesie, with dog ears.

“Hello, 890 and 891. Stray, is it?”

“Yes.”

“Through you go…”

Inside was not a grand hallway, as Barry had imagined, but a very, very busy office, with lots of people working there. By people, I mean children: all the workers seemed to be about Barry’s age. He and Lukas and Taj walked through them. They were all wearing orange onesies – although some had cat ears, and some bunny ones, as well as the standard dog version that the girl who answered the door had been wearing. Some of them were carrying files; some were talking; some were at desks on computers. Others seemed to be having meetings.

Barry, Lukas and Taj carried on walking.

“Where are we going?” said Barry.