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say, ‘You were lucky this time’.
    They walked out the door into the hall. Anto turned back to Johnny.
    ‘I’ll be seeing you later. Do you understand me?’
    The boys didn’t know what to say. They had never seen Anto get aggressive with anyone. Hehad seriously put the shits up Gringo, who was supposed to be the hardest lad in the Strand flats.
    ‘He had loads of money in that box, Anto,’ said Jay.
    ‘The poor fucker has more money than sense. If anyone ever gives you any grief, you tell me and I’ll sort it out.’
    ‘OK, of course we will.’
    ‘I’ll see the two of you later at boxing.’
    Bobby and Jay walked back to the flats. Bobby still had the twenty in his hand.
    ‘What did you make of Anto?’ asked Jay.
    ‘More like what did you make of Gringo. I’d say he shit his pants when Anto dragged him out onto the balcony!’
    They laughed and laughed at the thought of Gringo shitting in his pants.
    Without fail the same time every Friday, the parking fines man knocked on the door. Just as
A Question of Sport
started on BBC1, the knock would come on the door.
    ‘Tell him I’ll pay him next week, Kevin,’ said his mam.
    Bobby jumped up from his favourite television programme.
    ‘I’ll tell him.’
    ‘My mam gave me this to give to you,’ Bobby whispered.
    ‘Twenty pounds. Thanks a million.’
    He wrote out the receipt and gave it to Bobby. Bobby put it in his pocket.
    ‘See you next week.’
    Bobby thought he may as well give the money to the parking fines man. After all, it wasn’t his to begin with, and his dad was in the Sunset again.
    ‘What did he say, Bobby?’
    ‘He just said he’d call back next week.’
    ‘Is that all he said? Did he look annoyed?’
    ‘No, he was grand.’
    Bobby went up to his room with the receipt. The carpet in his room was actually a rug over a carpet. The original carpet was a horrible brown colour. The new rug was red and really soft on your feet. The side of it had white tassels. Bobby pulled the rug back in the corner of his room. He put the receipt underneath. It was the same hiding place he had used before for his dad’s cigarettes. His dad said he only smoked one pack of twenty a day. Bobby thought if he robbed three or four a day, and his dad didn’t notice, then he would smoke less without realising. His granny and granddad had both died from smoking cigarettes and Bobby really wanted his dad to give up. He wrapped the borrowed cigarettes in tin foil and put them under the rug. After a week, he had twenty cigarettes. He took one of his dad’s empty boxes and filled it up. He did the same for the next few weeks and gavethem to his dad as a present. He thought his dad would be delighted.
    ‘Sure, they’re all stale now.’
    ‘If they were dipped in Guinness you’d smoke them.’
    ‘Get up to your room.’
    That was the worst punishment Bobby could get.

CHAPTER 6
    The unknown man had the shortest stay of anybody in the history of Ballybough. He moved into one of the bungalows on Sackville Avenue opposite the flats. Most of the bungalows were boarded up. The unknown man moved in on a Friday and moved out on a Sunday.
    Git and Willo Brown used to be good at football. They played with Anto when he was younger.
    ‘Stay away from them,’ Anto would say.
    They thought they were hard. Only because they had their father, Billy, to back them up. Billy Brown was hard. Bobby’s dad said he was ‘as hard as nails’. To annoy their new neighbour, the two Browns decided to kick a football up against his house. When he came out to tell them to stop, they would smile at him and say sorry. The second the hall door closed, they would start again. The enraged unknown man ran out with a long knife and the two Browns scarpered. He picked up the ball and rammed the knife straight through it. He had never met Billy Brown before.
    Git and Willo ran up to their flat with the burst ball. Mr Brown came down, followed by his two daughters, who looked hard too. He knocked