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chocolate’s going to get cold.”
    â€œHe went up to the lake because Hugh pushed Liz into a ditch and told her his mum wanted you to go up to the lake but Neil would do instead,” Owen said.
    I glared.
    â€œSneak,” I said.
    Owen did that thing where he turns his head a bit as if he’s looking back over his shoulder at whatever he just said or did to see what he’d done wrong this time. His eyes went wide and his face fell.
    â€œSorry!”
    Dad had stood up and was looking down at me very seriously. I could see him thinking about giving out to me and telling me what I’d done wrong and that I was an idiot but without the smiles this time. He swallowed it all down.
    â€œI’m going to go get him. Stay here.”
    I said I couldn’t do that because I was going, too, only I didn’t say it out loud because that way he would have heard me and said no. Instead I stared at the carpet as if I was properly ashamed of myself. Mum and Owen followed him to the front door, and I hopped off the couch and went out the back and around. Dad got his bike out of the shed and cycled away, turning left down the road, and when Mum and Owen went back indoors I got on my bike and cycled after him.
    Dad went fast, standing on the pedals the whole way, and I could barely keep up with him. Even with the shower and the creams and the dock leaves, I was still sore and weary, but he was in such a hurry he never looked behind.
    The tiny old road up to the farm was muddy and rocky and broken enough to wreck a bike, rider and all. The gate was off the hinges and lying against the hedge. Dad got off and walked, and so did I. He must have heard my bike rattling on the rocks, because he stopped and turned, looking exasperated.
    â€œLiz,” he said. “Go home.”
    I shook my head. We stood there for a while, neither of us going anywhere.
    â€œOK,” he said at last, “but stay back.”
    We came up to the house. There was a big barn across from it and a wide yard between full of weeds. At the other end was the gate that led into the field and the lake, and through the open gate came Neil, tripping over his own feet, wearing nothing but his underpants, shivering, hair plastered to his head, lips blue with the cold, body smeared with mud and grass. He was trying to hold on to his clothes, which kept falling out of his hands and his arms. Behind him, roaring and cursing and waving his fists and kicking at him with his big wellies caked in cow dung, came John-Joe Fitzgerald.
    â€œWHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” Dad roared. I’d never heard Dad use his Big Voice on another grown-up before. Somehow it sounded even bigger when he did.
    â€œUh, suh-sorry, Duh-dad, I juh-just—”
    â€œOh, not you, Neil, YOU, you big thug! GET AWAY FROM HIM!”
    â€œTrespassin’ and poachin’ on me land!” barked John-Joe, waving a finger in the air but keeping Neil between him and Dad. “Thinks he can come down and go for a swim on me lake as if he owns it! I’ll have the cops on him, I will! On the lot of ye!”
    â€œCops, my eye, you’ll be lucky if I don’t have you up for assault!” Dad told him. Then he knelt beside Neil and began to help him dress, all the time scolding John-Joe who was doing a hopping dance, forward and backward, making more threats and accusing Neil of rustling, burglary, and tax dodging.
    I clenched my fists and took a step forward, ready to get between Neil and John-Joe and scream at him till his eardrums burst, but then an odd movement in the barn caught the corner of my eye. I do not know to this day how anything in the world could have distracted me from the sight of Neil and Dad and John-Joe, but I turned, and then I crossed the yard to get a better look.
    The barn was full of broken wood, rotting and crumbling, and choked with dock weed and thistle and ragwort. Behind the wood was Hugh. He had a stick. He