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got was Anthony’s eyebrows. But that first time was the best, when it just sort of invented itself out of our excitement.
    Cash Jenga is a great game if you can afford it.
    We were late for school, but somehow it didn’t matter. Whenever we saw each other in the playground or in the corridor, we just grinned. Having a secret is like having a pair of wings tucked in under your blazer. I gave Barry my Pringles (barbecue flavour) without being asked. I just handed them to him while we were lining up at the end of Small Play. I said, ‘Enjoy.’ He looked a bit surprised.
    On the way home, we stopped at the shop and Anthony bought a bottle of Sunny Delight the size of an oxygen tank. He saw me looking at it and said to the man, ‘Make it a double.’
    While the man was getting my bottle, a girl from Anthony’s class – the one with the nice corn rows in her hair – came in and Anthony said, ‘Make it three and have something for yourself.’ And he gave a tenner to the man and the bottle to the girl. Just as he was handing it to her, Barry came in and went, ‘Ooooohooo, you love her! You bought her Sunny Delight.’
    ‘Why shouldn’t I buy her Sunny Delight?’
    ‘Why shouldn’t you buy me Sunny Delight?’
    ‘All right, then, I will.’
    So he bought another bottle. By which time, Barry’s mate Kaloo was there saying, ‘You only bought that cos you’re scared of Barry.’
    So Anthony bought a fifth bottle and gave that to Kaloo.
    By now people were piling in to see what was going on. Kaloo went, ‘The new kid’s sucking up to us. Buying us Sunny Delight.’
    ‘I’m not sucking up to anyone,’ said Anthony, and he proved it by buying everyone a bottle. Twenty-three bottles of Sunny Delight and a box of Walker’s prawn cocktail. Not a packet, a box. One of the big boxes you get from the wholesaler.
    ‘Spending money like it’s going out of fashion,’ said the shopkeeper.
    ‘It is going out of fashion,’ said Anthony.
    Outside, on the pavement, everyone scrummed hungrily round the Walker’s box. A couple of them left their bikes sprawled on the pavement. Anthony shouted, ‘Who wants to lend us a bike?’
    A couple of lads stood up and looked at him.
    ‘Tenner,’ offered Anthony.
    The bike owners clambered over each other to get to us first. In the end, we went for Terry Keegan’s Raleigh Max and Franny Amoo’s Pavement Shark. Payment was on collection of the bikes from our house, before five, which is when Dad was due home.
    It was good to be able to get nice stuff without having to go on about dead people. Both the Pavement Shark and the Raleigh Max have excellent suspension, so we rolled home over the back field, by the railway. Anthony talked about all the things we could get – bikes of our own, quad bikes even, new trainers, new tops, mobiles, Beyblades. All the things that Dad said were a waste of money – sea monkeys, or the X-Box, or the Gamecube, or extra channels or X-ray specs.
    ‘They don’t work. You only see skeletons.’
    ‘Skeletons are good.’
    And when we got home, instead of turning the oven on, we called Pizza Reaction and ordered pizzas. I asked for one with extra cheese and extra pepperoni. While we were waiting we played Cash Jenga, which I won.
    Then Anthony thought of real-money Monopoly. ‘It’ll be brilliant,’ he said. ‘I’ll be banker.’ But we’d only just got the board set up when Mr Pizza Reaction came up on his moped.
    As we opened the door, Dad was just pulling into the car port. ‘What the hell is going on?’ he asked, as he headed for the house.
    ‘We’ve ordered pizzas instead of cooking. We thought it would be excellent.’
    ‘Where did you get the money?’
    ‘I’ve got money,’ said Anthony.
    ‘What, from your birthday and stuff?’
    ‘Stuff, yeah. It’s sterling, so we have to spend it before € Day anyway. We ordered one for you.’
    ‘What kind of one?’
    ‘Seafood with extra anchovies.’
    Anthony opened the box and steam