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when doing so. Sandy knew that Mr Patterson used to be friendly with his grandfather, and that Mr Patterson had been with his grandfather the night he had been knocked down. His mother had never spoken to him about that night, and so he assumed it was something nobody wanted reminding of. He knew that this was why Mr Patterson gave him his sweets free, and even money sometimes, especially at Christmas, but always with the admonition 'Don't tell your mother. You know what she's like.' Yes, Sandy knew. Mr Patterson's kindness would only remind her of times which had been pushed into the past in order to be forgotten. Sandy smiled, thanking Mr Patterson for the sweets.

    'Cheerio, son,' said Mr Patterson, who was rubbing his pudgy hands together as if trying to wash away the stickiness of the sweets.

    When Sandy left the shop its bell tinkled and some women outside stopped talking and stared at him instead. As he passed the silent huddle, sucking on the hard nougat, he wondered if they had been talking about his mother, and his face flushed. They would not be as generous as Mr Patterson in their words. Sandy was the son of the local witch, and although he seemed a nice enough lad -- quiet, kind, polite still you could never be sure. They pitied him his fate, whatever that might be, but they scrubbed at his clothes with their eyes, imagining the filth beneath.

    Sandy could have told them that, being fifteen, he took baths often. He could have told them that the reason they thought him just a little grubby was his root-black hair, shot through with hints of blue. He had dark eyes too, with thick eyelashes which curled like a girl's.

    It wasn't his fault if he was dark.

    His mother's hair was silver and black, but mostly silver.
    It straggled down her back when she brushed it out in front of her mirror. His mother had dark eyelashes like his. Her face was pale and fragile. Yet the townspeople thought of her as the witchy woman, and she had never, to his knowledge, denied it. But she wasn't a witch, he knew as he swung his satchel to and fro and made his way vaguely homewards. She wasn't a witch.

    It had begun even before he had started school. He had not wondered at his lack of friends. In his solitude it seemed to him that everyone had to be the same. Then the taunts had begun. Witchy, witchy, tinker, your mummy is a stinker, she
    casts a spell and runs like hell, witchy, witchy, tinker. And he a tiny boy and amazed by it all, carrying bread home to his mother and his grandmother. Witch. Tinker. If he came into the house with mud all over him from having fallen, then his grandmother would slap the front of her apron and stand back to mock him: 'Well, well,' she would say, 'and who's this wee tinker-boy, eh?' Tinkers were gypsies. They travelled around in cars and caravans and hoarded their money while pretending poverty. They came to your door and offered to sharpen your cutlery, then ran away with your forks and knives and sold them elsewhere. They tried to sell you flowers which they had picked from dead people's graves. They were dirty and sly and not to be trusted.

    'I'm not a witchy-tinker!' he had shouted at the pack of taunters one day. They had stood back a few paces at that, as if expecting him to lash out at them. His face was red. He repeated the denial and some of them giggled. He started to chase them, but they flew apart like leaves in a sudden breeze. He touched one or two, no more. They shrieked and ducked and flew further from his reach.

    'I've got bugs!' one yelled. 'The tinker got me!' The others had laughed and he had continued to chase them. The boy who had cried out stood catching his breath and trying to blow on to the spot where Sandy had touched him, as if that would cleanse the stain. Sandy walked up to him, the loaf of bread squashed beneath his arm, and touched him again.
    The boy screeched. Someone said, "You're it!' and the boy began to chase them all. Sandy soon caught on and ran with the best