The clay pits. The thought of them made me feel calmer, somehow. Perhaps it’s because I associate them with getting rid of bad feelings. Poodle was still drinking his tea, looking stupidly happy. I couldn’t just march in there, so I did the next best thing. He’d stolen from me, Mousey. The moment I’d been waiting for; the look on Harry’s face as he opened his present; the perfect day we would have had if stupid Poodle hadn’t been there—that’s what he’d stolen, Mousey. All I could do was pay him back. And I knew right then what to do.

So I rode my bike down to the clay pits. I found Poodle’s den in the rusted-out car. And for thirty minutes or so, I went about building a bonfire. First, I took out Poodle’s books and ripped out all the pages. I stuffed his magazines inside the back of the car with some bits of wood and added some stacks of old comics. Then I used one of his cigarettes to set it alight, like a longship at a Viking funeral.

It didn’t take long to start burning. But I wanted something more. Something bigger, to match the fire already burning in my heart. So I dragged some pallets across from the far side of the dump and made a wooden cage, in which I stuffed some cardboard, paper, rags—anything at all that would burn. Then I went around the dump, collecting empty cans of paint, petrol, turpentine, solvents, aerosols—things that would help the fire to take (and maybe explode like fireworks). Pretty soon it was getting hot; but I went on feeding it until it really was a funeral pyre, sending a column of thick black smoke high into the winter sky.

Maybe it was the fumes, or the heat, but I think I zoned out a bit, Mousey. And next thing I knew, I wasn’t alone. Another boy was standing there. He was about my age, I guess. Maybe a little bit older. A boy from the rough end of the Village, in a brightly coloured nylon jacket, like the Sunnybankers wear. You’d never see a St. Oswald’s boy wearing that kind of jacket, or a balaclava, or carrying a sports bag instead of a leather satchel. I knew then that he wasn’t One of Our Sort, but that was okay. I’m not either.

“All right?” said the boy.

His face was small and pinched, like a rat’s. He was quite a bit smaller than me. But he looked scrappy—like a rat—with greasy hair and beady eyes and a little wisp of something on his top lip that might have been the beginning of a mustache. He took out a tin of tobacco and rolled a skinny cigarette.

“Here. Have one of mine,” I said, handing him one from Poodle’s stash.