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collected them, because there wasn’t anything else and it was a pop of colour in an otherwise grey cell. Lemon or orange shower gel was the best because it was almost like having a bit of sun in that god-awful place. But now I have coke and beans and bread and a yellow fruit shaped like a star.
    I’m Ben. I still don’t feel like Ben. Ben lives here, in this flat at the top of Wolsey block. Ben buys star fruit. I look at it like it’s a prize I won, but don’t know if I should peel it or not. The skin is thick and waxy and I bite it then spit it out. I can’t see how to peel it so I use my teeth to suck out the juice inside, which isn’t sweet like I expected but has a flat, dry taste. Ben decides that it’s delicious and when he next goes to the supermarket he will tell Shirl so, and see if she smiles at him again.
    I walk around the flat, looking at my new home. You travel light in prison, so I don’t have many belongings and around me is everything I own in the world:
    One grey jumper (well worn), burgundy jogging bottoms, cheap trainers, four pairs of ragged boxer shorts (more than my just my bottom has been in them).
    It all goes in the bedroom, on top of the chest of drawers because it looks too bare if I put them inside.
    There’s English literature coursework. That goes in the lounge, neatly on the table.
    My CV and GCSE certificates. (Eight. An A star in English.) Also on the table, but maybe I’ll buy some Blu-tack and put them on the wall. Would that be showing off, or is that what normal people do?
    There’s one photo of Mum and my brother at the aquarium on my tenth birthday. I’m ripped out of the picture, so there’s a gap where I stood in the middle, my mum smiling tightly, my brother draping his arms around the space where I was. This goes beside my bed, on the bedside table until I decide that my own face being removed is too much of a giveaway, so I place it inside the drawer.
    Letters. Some from my mum. A few from Dad, but years apart. My dad, as absent to me as my face in that photograph, cut from my life. Three years he went without writing and when the letters started up again it was like he didn’t realise I hadn’t lived in Humberside for three years, so all he could ask is how Hull Rovers were doing in the Rugby league, as if I still cared, as if I could ever watch a match without thinking of Noah. Anyway, what do you say to a boy whose life consists of a building smaller than a school and a patch of stubble grass? No cinema, no McDonald’s. No trips to the zoo, no swimming. No parties. That’s it. All I knew was a concrete wall and bars. But I liked the part when he told me about his job, and where he was in the Atlantic, about the Black Sea and how cold it was and how numb his fingers felt even though he wore gloves to his elbows, how the waves got as high as a tower block. Then the letters stopped, and that was the end of my relationship with him. The only time I think of my dad is when I look in the mirror and see my white-blond hair, my pale skin. So unlike anyone else in my family.
    Finally, Adam’s letters. The ones he wrote to me after he got released. The biggest pile, my most precious possession.
    I put all the letters back into my duffel bag, and slide it under my bed because I know I shouldn’t really have them at all. They are dangerous, because they reveal that I am not Ben at all, I’m a fake.

9
    The Day Of
    “No school today! Jammy!”
    Adam jumped onto Ben’s bed, one leg either side of his brother’s slumbering form, and bounced so hard his body rose from the mattress and the headboard banged hard against the wall. There was a replying bang from their mother’s room.
    “Stop yer roaring! I’m trying ter sleep!”
    Ben pulled the duvet higher so it covered his ears and rolled onto his side so he didn’t have to see Adam’s jubilant face or hear his yelps of joy.
    Adam kicked his brother’s ribs, “Nah then, runt. I’ll get yer a stick of peppermint