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she went on, Sir Ian weighed in. “All in all, I think we need more time. I agree with Mr and Mrs Flint – and with Reverend Johnstone. There may be more danger handing this boy back than there is in keeping him.”
    “Then why not just kill him?” Dolan said. “We have laws here. That’s what we do to intruders…”
    “Shame on you!” Rita had got to her feet and I had never seen her so angry. She had quite forgotten where she was. “He’s a fifteen-year-old boy, young enough to be your son, and you talk about killing him as if he were no more than an animal. Well, maybe the village doesn’t deserve to survive if that’s what we’ve come to!” She drew a breath. “He can come and stay with me, if the Council will allow it. I’ll vouch for him and I’ll make sure he doesn’t set foot outside the house … at least until he’s been before the Assembly. As for you, Michael Dolan, I remember you when you were his age.” She nodded at Jamie. “You were cruel and spiteful then and it’s a shame you haven’t grown up to be any kinder. Now it’s late and I want to get to bed. So what do you say?”
    There was a bit more argument. Sir Ian was obviously annoyed that his precious Council had been interrupted a second time, but in the end it was agreed. Miss Keyland didn’t even have to pass her vote.
    And that was how Jamie Tyler came to live with us.

FOUR
    There were three bedrooms in our house and now there were five of us living there, but Rita had already worked that out. She moved Jamie into the bathroom – it had been years since the bath or the toilet had worked – with cushions from the spare sofa spread out in the bath. It wasn’t very pleasant but at least it was private and, as she said (so often that it was one of her favourite sayings), beggars can’t be choosers and we were all beggars now.
    It was a Wednesday when Jamie first appeared … I think. Officially, we didn’t really have days of the week any more because if you had days of the week you had weekends, and since the work never stopped that wasn’t exactly helpful. Of course, everyone had a rough idea of the date. For example, I knew my birthday was coming up. But most of the time, things were kept deliberately vague.
    Anyway, we had to wait four days until the next Assembly, which was different from the Council because everyone was expected to be there – and that was when Jamie would be presented to the entire village. Until then, he couldn’t leave the house, which, for the rest of us, meant there was going to be no avoiding him. George and John reacted to the new guest in different ways. As usual, John said very little but I saw him glance at Rita once or twice and knew that he was questioning her judgement and that he was nervous about what might happen next, having a stranger living with us. As for George … he disappointed me. When I first told him about Jamie, he seemed to be on my side but now that Jamie was living with us, he completely changed his opinion.
    “The house isn’t big enough.”
    “George – he won’t be here for ever. As soon as the village has got used to him, he’ll be given his own place to live. Anyway, he’s sleeping in the bathroom! I thought you were glad I’d helped him.”
    “I was glad you didn’t just walk away when he was hurt. And you were right not to turn him in to Mike Dolan and Simon Reade. I hate those two. But that didn’t mean you had to bring him here.”
    “That wasn’t me. That was Rita.”
    “Well, I’m surprised. Living in a place like this, you just have to keep your head down and get on with it. You don’t want to do anything that upsets anyone. Everyone’s going to be talking about us now and – you’ll see – no good will come of it.”
    George was right, of course. For the next few days everything went on as sort of normal. George left for the bakery as soon as the sun was rising and I headed for the orchard. We had breakfast together but we never talked