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out where that was. His investigations led him to a row of black dustbins outside the kitchen door behind the school. They were conventionally hidden round the corner and not overlooked by any windows, and he was able to rifle through the dustbins with little chance of being discovered. There was enough there to feed an army of foxes, but he chose only what he thought the fox cubs would appreciate most – sausages, bread rolls and cheese.
    As it turned out he chose badly, for when he emptied his duffle bag on the mound that afternoon during lunch break, the fox cubs simply played with the sausages, tossing them into the air and ignored the rest. He tried to encourage them by breaking the sausages open, but although they ate some of the cheese they were still unenthusiastic. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ he said. ‘I can’t get you corned beef all the time. They don’t serve it up at school – no one would touch it if they did. Look, I know it’s school food, but it’s food isn’t it? It’s not that bad.’ But the foxes clearly did not agree and they lay down together in a disconsolate, disappointed pile. ‘All right,’ said Billy, ‘I’ll see if I can find something better, but it won’t be until after teatime.’ They would not play with him that day, so he left them and made his way unhappily back to school. He would have to raid the dustbins once again, he thought. There was nothing else to be done.
    Billy was sitting alone on the steps of the mobile classroom waiting for afternoon lessons to begin and wondering how he could lay his hands on a large supply of corned beef without having to shop-lift it when there was a scream of delight from the direction of the school gates. He ignored it at first, but then sauntered over to see what was up. The playground fence was lined from end to end with children, nosespressed through the mesh and clinging on with their fingers; and there was a rush of running children all about him and the teacher’s strident voice above his head. ‘What’s the matter here?’
    ‘’S’a fox, sir,’ said someone.
    ‘Foxes. There’s three of ’em,’ said someone else. Billy barged his way to the front of the crowd.
    ‘Well I never, bold as brass,’ said the teacher, standing beside him. ‘Never seen that before, have you, Billy?’
    ‘No, sir,’ said Billy quickly. ‘Never.’
    Three fox cubs were sitting out on the grass in the open just outside the fence. The children cooed with delight, but the
oohs
and
aahs
were soon superceded by a vociferous band of hunters that aimed their fingers through the wire and blasted away at the fox cubs, who, suddenly alarmed by the distant hullabaloo, wriggled back under the wire and vanished into the undergrowth of the Wilderness beyond.
    That afternoon Mr Brownlow made them write a story about foxes, but Billy could not write a word. He sat stunned by his window, and when Mr Brownlow asked why he had not written anything he said he wasn’t feeling too well. And this time it was no lie.

CHAPTER SIX
    THAT AFTERNOON AFTER SCHOOL, BILLY ran home and took three tins of corned beef off the shelf and just hoped he’d be able to replace them before Aunty May noticed. He took particular care no one was watching him when he crawled under the wire into the Wilderness. The fox cubs were ravenous, snarling and snapping at each other as they waited for the tins to be opened, and then they attacked the corned beef voraciously. When they had finished not a shred was left on the grass. In their anxiety to drink the milk, they stood on the edges of the bowls and upset them, sending the milk soaking into the ground. Twice more he had to fill them up from the canal and mix up the milk powder before they were satisfied. Then when Billy lay down they spread themselves all over him and cleaned themselves, each other and Billy, minutely.
    ‘You sillies,’ said Billy. ‘Why did you have to come out and show yourselves like that? I’d have brought