“Mum and Dad have got these letters home from Porks,” said Stephen. “The headmaster. I’m out for all of Leighberth, supposed to do a pile of reading and maybe get back in, and then keep my marks up and no more demerits or else, and it doesn’t seem like it’s about the pencil sharpener at all.”

“What else did you do? Besides the pencil sharpener.”

“How do you know I did anything?”

Cyril stared at him, blinking slowly once. Bern, in the corner, shifted on a patch of creaky floor. Tension rose.

Stephen didn’t break fast—a good sign—but he did break eventually. “All right, I’ve been suspended twice this term for sneaking out after curfew, and I put Duquesne in the infirmary. He didn’t tell anybody it was me, but they knew.”

“You hit him?”

“With a bowling pin, in the shed after practice.”

“Why?”

“He said my family was dirty traitors. The shit Gedda should’ve wiped off its…” It wasn’t modesty that kept him from saying it, but rage. “’Cause of Mum working for the embassy, I guess. Before the Ospies went. And … because of you, probably. And Dad. He got a couple of digs in there about Porachis. I think I broke his nose.”

“And he didn’t name names?”

“He’s bigger than I am. He didn’t want to be embarrassed. And he knew I’d get him back if he told. Plus, even the teachers don’t like a tattler.”

It sounded as though school hadn’t changed much in thirty years.

Cyril gave him a choice. “Do you want to know what they would say if you asked? Or do you want to know why they’re really so upset?”

“Both,” said Stephen.

“Smart.” Cyril turned his water glass pensively in his hands. “If you asked, they’d tell you people could have gotten hurt. And that’s part of it; a bomb is different than a bowling pin to one boy’s nose.”

“It was funny,” said Stephen, voice breaking awkwardly on the last word.

“Not to them; like you said, Gedda’s had more than enough to do with bombs the last few years.” He remembered Lillian saying how Stephen reminded her of him, at that age: sent home at the holidays with reprimands heaped on his head. Scandals and switchings and long hours spent locked away without dinner.