It sounds like a good idea in my head. Dramatic, life-changing. I’ll be a fugitive, like someone in a book or movie. I’ll shave off the locks I’ve been growing since I was eight, get a couple of tattoos, start wearing baggy tracksuits and suede boots. I’ll pump iron until I look at least eighteen, then get a blue collar job doing road maintenance or something. Ja, I can do this. I’m smart. I’ll survive. But then reality starts to sink in.

Delta, where I live, is smaller than Desert, but it’s also more densely populated. The Capital City is home to about twenty-five million people, and then there’s the forty million living in surrounding towns. That’s a lot of people who know my face, my favourite pair of sneakers and how many zits I have at any given time. Running won’t be easy.

It’s not like they’ll spot me sprinting down the road and wave. “Hi, Your Highness. Do you need a lift?” Nah. They’ll report it. Our citizens are responsible like that. It’ll be more like, “The prince is running past the civic centre without a guard! Help! Do something!” And there’ll be an armed escort waiting for me before I’m halfway across the city.
Public transport is even worse – no driver will let me into his vehicle without a guard. He could lose his licence for that. I’ve tried telling my parents I’m old enough to move around on my own, but it makes no difference what I say. Every member of the royal family and the Council has at least one guard, because apparently the city’s full of secret assassins. Please.

Even if I could get through town without being seen, I’d have to get out of the palace first. My guards follow me pretty much everywhere I go. There’s one posted outside whatever room I’m in – including the toilet. Sometimes I just sit there messing with my phone and making loud grunting noises like a cow in labour, and picture the expression on the guard’s face. By the time I come out the guy’s acting all cool and unconcerned, but he’s standing a few steps further from the door than when I went in.

Anyway, my guards are going to be a problem. The citizens are going to be a problem. It’s like the city was designed to make it impossible for princes to run away.

There is one good thing about Delta. Trees. Lots of them, which means lots of shady little nooks a skinny guy can squeeze into, or slip behind. Those nooks are my best chance of getting out of the city unseen. Once I’m in the bush I’m good. They’ll have to send the army after me and I’ll already have a good head start.

Socca and I head back towards the palace compound. The guards see us coming round the back of the library, and give me a good long lecture about compromising security. I nod and apologise and swear that I thought they were right behind me. There’s nothing they can say to that – they should have been right behind me – so as usual they drop it and follow me home.

The palace compound is big, as far as compounds go. Seven rondavels in total. One for the kitchen and laundry room, one for the dining room, TV room and lounge, one for the Kgosi’s quarters, one for the Head Queen’s quarters, one for the secondary queens’ quarters, one for the servants’ quarters and one for the throne room, where the Kgosi welcomes important guests.

Since Papa has no secondary queens, he and Mama stay in the Kgosi’s quarters, and the Head Queen’s quarters is mine. The secondary queens’ quarters have become a sort of guest room for friends and relatives. In the old days sometimes foreign dignitaries would use those rooms, and all the other wives would stay with the first wife. But now we have five star hotels in the city with special wings for important visitors.

I know. Lucky me – I get a whole rondavel to myself. A big bedroom, my own bathroom and a lounge with a huge screen for movies and video games. More than most kids get. More than most adults, too. I like the privacy, but still – it would have been nice to have someone to share it with. At least I’ve got Socca.

The two of us retreat to my bedroom, where we’ll be safe from the eagle eyes of the public and the security cameras. One guard stands across the corridor, too far to overhear us. I scribble ideas in my notebook as they come to me. Socca sits at my desk, eating my lunch. I can’t eat when I’m anxious. My stomach does funny twisty things that send the food right back up. Socca can eat through anything. He needs the energy – he’s as big as some of the guards and he’s only fifteen.

“You can’t run,” he says between bites. “After today your guards will be extra hard on you. You won’t make it past the palace gate!”
He has a point. My guards probably won’t report me because it’ll make them look bad, but after one of my vanishing acts they’re usually on me like ticks for a week or so. After that they relax a little, just enough for me to disappear once more, and the whole cycle starts again.

“I’ll need a distraction.” I tap the pen against my cheek. “Something to hold their attention while I slip out. Five minutes; ten tops.”

Socca looks doubtful. “What kind of distraction?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. A disturbance in the kitchen, or something. A small fire, or an animal loose in the throne room.”

“As long as I don’t have to be the distraction. You know I’m the first person they’ll suspect when they realise you’re gone.”

“And you’ll tell them you know nothing.”

“What if they torture me?”

I give him a look. “They won’t. They might arrest you, but only for a little while.”

“A little while?” His eyes bulge. “I don’t want to be arrested for a little while!”

“I don’t mean days, man, relax. A few hours. Twenty-four, tops.”

“I’m thinking more like zero hours.”

“Now you’re just being unreasonable,” I tell him, keeping a straight face.

“We’re talking about my life here! You’re saying you can’t handle one day in jail for me? One day? To save me from dying?”

His expression is priceless. His eyes widen and his jaw trembles, like he’s going to cry. He might, too – he’s not shy about stuff like that. “It’s not even like that, K, come on.”

“It’s cool, Socca. I thought we were boys, but…” I shrug and sigh. “Whatever, man. I thought you had what it takes to be a hero, but obviously I was wrong.” I look into the distance, going all deep and serious. “I picked the wrong guy to go into the shadows with.”

There’s an awkward silence as we both register the words.

“That just sounds wrong,” says Socca.

“Ja, OK, but you get where I was going.”

There’s the sound of voices in the corridor and a moment later the door bursts open. Socca turns around too quickly, tipping the plate and spilling gravy down his shirt.