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blanket and sheet kicked right to the bottom of the bed. She walked up to him and shook him hard. ‘Pigface, wake up.’
    â€˜What?’ Finn’s fair hair stood on end and he rubbed his eyes. ‘What do you want?’
    â€˜Pigface, am I going to die?’
    He turned on the bedside light. ‘Yes.’
    Grace burst into disconsolate tears.
    â€˜Don’t be silly. Everyone’s going to die,’ Finn said.
    â€˜But I’m dying
now
,’ Grace wailed.
    â€˜You’re not.’
    â€˜Am.’
    â€˜Not.’
    Grace opened her eyes wide, wiping them with the back of her fist. ‘I’m not?’
    â€˜You’re so dumb. Why should you be? There’s nothing wrong with you.’
    â€˜There isn’t?’
    â€˜No. Apart from being a typically annoying little brat and usually that isn’t fatal.’
    â€˜Fatal?’
    â€˜Dead-making. Now go back to bed.’
    â€˜Promise I’m all right?’
    â€˜Let me have your camera all tomorrow and I will.’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Then I won’t.’
    â€˜You will too. Promise I’m not dying.’
    â€˜Let me have your camera all tomorrow?’
    â€˜OK then.’
    â€˜You’re not dying, Clothears; promise.’
    Back in her own room Grace was wide awake. She did not trust Finn. His own camera had got broken at the beginning of the holidays and he had been nagging her all day about using hers for some experiment. He might have said she was not dying just so that he would get the camera. She took it out of its cardboard box, turning it in her hand. She had taken two pictures earlier in the day, both of the cake, but she had had help. Her grandmother said that little Patricia, in spite of not even having owned a camerauntil she was ten, had been taking beautiful pictures from a much younger age.
    Grace, still awake, sat on her bed, the light on, fiddling with the loaded camera, when raised voices reached her from downstairs. Instead of hiding her head under the pillow to muffle the noise, Grace wandered outside and downstairs, lured by the comforting sound of her parents having
words
.
    She stood in the doorway in her birthday pyjamas, the camera still in her hand. Her parents did not notice her being there. ‘I told you it didn’t mean anything,’ her father said. He said it in that tired loud voice he used when he had to say the same thing over and over again. ‘And you said you forgave me. We were starting again, that’s what you said. One day, that’s all you managed.’
    â€˜I tried, you … you pig.’ Moira’s voice was quiet. ‘God knows, I tried.’ She was still wearing her pretty dress. Gabriel’s dark hair was falling across his forehead. Grace was proud of how handsome they looked. None of the other children had such young good-looking parents. And they weren’t tearful and good and planning a funeral, they were cross. Grace felt a warm feeling all over as she raised the camera to her eye and clicked the button just as her mother raised her hand. As the flash went off they both turned round.
    â€˜Grace, what are you doing up?’ Moira snapped. ‘Back to bed this minute. And put that camera away.’
    Grace padded off happily. Pigface had not lied. In return he used up all the rest of the film. Gabriel took it in to be developed. All three of Grace’s pictures had turned out well. She held up the picture of her mother and father for everyone to see. She was proud of herself. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I managed without help.’

Nell Gordon:
After her mother’s death in a single-vehicle car accident, Shield and her family returned to England. When Shield was ten her father remarried and the new family settled in the Home Counties village of Northbourne.
    Grace and Noah Blackstaff were sitting cross-legged on the rug in front of the open fire in Noah’s grandparents’ house, playing