Ratboy took one and put it behind his ear. Then he took another one and lit it from a match, cupping the flame in his bony hands, his face bright red in the firelight.

“That your bonfire?” Ratboy said.

I nodded.

“Wicked,” said Ratboy. “What’s your name?”

“Ziggy.”

“Mine’s Lee. That your bike?” I’d left it propped up against a rock down by the side of the Long Pond. I nodded. “Wicked,” said Ratboy.

We didn’t talk much after that. Just stood and smoked and watched Poodle’s stash go up in flames. These boys don’t talk much, as a rule. They play soccer, eat chips, smoke roll-ups. They say All right? instead of Hello, or sometimes they just nod, or spit. There’s a whole language of spitting, there on the Sunnybank development. It’s got its own grammar and everything.

And then, a few minutes later, Poodle came ambling along. He stopped ambling when he saw the smoke, though, arriving in a hurry. I saw him coming up the path below the ridge between the Long Pond and the Pit Shaft, and went to meet him, taking a route between the junked cars and rocks and ancient fridges. I didn’t want him to see me talking to Ratboy.

I dodged around the back of a rock and came out behind him.

“What happened?” he said.

I jerked my head to where Ratboy was standing, up on the ridge, fifty yards away. He looked bigger from where we were. The bonfire made him look dangerous.

“Who is it?” said Poodle.

“Dunno. A Sunnybanker.”

Poodle isn’t very good with Sunnybankers. He’s the kind of boy they like to wait for in the park and bully for his lunch money. Up on the ridge, Ratboy didn’t look back, just kept on looking into the flames. The air smelled of burning rubber, and smoke, tobacco, charred paper, and secrets.

Poodle looked on helplessly. Of course he thought Ratboy had burned his stash. I wished there’d been more for me to burn. I wished it could have been Poodle’s house. I wished it could have been Poodle.

“You were at Mr. Clarke’s,” I said.

Poodle looked at me, surprised. “He told me I could come anytime. He’s helping me with my problem.”

“Since when?”

That anger again. Since when did Poodle call the shots? Has he not learned anything? I started to think that he might be in need of another lesson. He cried like a baby when we did the rabbits, but that was ages ago.