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was out the front door, tearing down her road,
adrenalin rushing through me.
    I leaped up and grabbed a handful of sycamore leaves, disturbing a pigeon by mistake. Its grey wings beat the air as it flew into the cloudless sky, and I felt something inside me taking off
with it.

Six

    The next morning, I went out early. By the time I’d got to the corn den after Matty’s yesterday, Trick had gone and I wanted to see him. I couldn’t resist
stopping at my trusty alder to spy on his family. Across the ditch, his dad stared into the fire, finishing off a cup of something.
    The sky was still pale, and his squat shadow fell onto the caravan behind him. There was a bandage on the knuckle of his right hand, and his thick neck and shoulders were sunburned, and I would
never admit it, but he scared me. What would he say if he saw me, watching him like this? I didn’t dare move.
    I could hear the brook, and I willed Trick’s dad to turn his back for ten seconds so I could run. I wanted to be there and safe, in the mud and wild garlic of the bank, and the moss of the
stepping stones, feeling the cool air by the water. He tipped his cup out onto the grass and walked into the caravan, and I made a run for it.
    Sunlight stabbed through ash and willow to make a spotlight on the stepping stones, and I basked there for a moment, catching my breath and warming my face. Two chub slid beneath the surface of
the brownish water. Minnows scattered. An emperor dragonfly bobbed above the surface.
    I ran through the corridor to the corn den. Thick green stalks brushed my shoulders, and I crossed my fingers, nervous in case Trick was or wasn’t there.
    ‘Iris,’ he said, lifting himself on his elbows.
    ‘Eh up,’ I said, and relief tingled the back of my neck. I dropped down cross-legged, and pulled a sweating bottle of pop from my rucksack. I’d bought it on my way home from
Matty’s with the money Dad had given me for chips. It had been in the fridge all night. The bottle gasped open, and I took a big drink then passed it over.
    All around us the corn made a grinding, shifting sound, and I settled on my side, temple on palm, thinking of all the insects drinking and feeding around us.
    ‘Where were you yesterday?’ he asked, and I apologised.
    ‘Had to go to my stupid friend’s house. I came here after, but you’d gone.’
    He passed the pop back.
    ‘Ever had a friend who made you feel like a dickhead all the time?’
    Trick lay back without answering.
    ‘You in a mood with me?’ I said, and started explaining how I hadn’t wanted to go to Matty’s in the first place, but he shook his head.
    I stared beyond our feet to the corridor, and the bamboo-like maize stems, and the different shades of green, but still he didn’t say anything, and so I asked if he went to the lake, like
we’d planned.
    ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t be arsed.’
    He relaxed into his usual position – flip-flops off, hands behind his head – but he seemed different, and after a while I realised why: his feet were tapping the air constantly, as
if he had itchy bones. Usually, he lay lizard-still.
    I asked him if he was all right, and he nodded, but I knew he wasn’t telling the truth.
    ‘It’s me da . . .’ he said, finally. He sat up, wrapped his arms round his knees, and focused on a bunch of ragwort near his toes. ‘He found out that I haven’t . .
.’
    He pulled at his top lip, and the field was so quiet I heard the kissing sound it made as it suckered his gums.
    ‘What?’
    He glanced at me, then back at the ragwort. ‘He found out I haven’t been going to school.’
    I was confused. Of course he hadn’t been going to school, it was the summer holidays.
    ‘I mean, he found out I’ve been
chucked out
of school.’
    ‘Oh. But you said—’
    ‘I know,’ he said, meeting my eyes properly for the first time. ‘Let me tell you what happened.’
    I plucked an ear of corn because my heart was thudding against my chest and I