It was worse than that, though. Something else had got into me. It must have, because suddenly the bad thoughts were back, and this time, it seemed, they wouldn’t stop. One of them was about Sin, and Miss McDonald and Mr. Lumb. The other was the Wages of Sin, and what really happens when you die. And then there were the games with the mice—but now they didn’t seem like games. Now they seemed like something more, and I was starting to need them.

I began to go to the clay pits alone, in the mornings, and after school. There wasn’t time for pirate games, or toy Noah’s arks, or bombings. But I was growing out of that. All I liked was the drowning. I’d bait a few milk bottles every night, and in the mornings I’d harvest them. Most days I’d catch one or two. More, if I was lucky. I’d put them in the little cage I’d made from string and chicken wire, and I’d lower them from the top of the bank into the Pit Shaft, the deepest of all the clay pits. Sometimes, the mice were Mr. Lumb. Sometimes, Mr. Rushworth. Sometimes, Miss McDonald. But, whoever else they were, Mousey, they were always you.

It had been a whole term since the thing with Miss McDonald’s scarf. The clay pits were green and flowering, and there were ducks on the water. Pretty, except for the burned-out cars, and of course the litter. Spring was in the air at last; wild garlic grew in the hollows. And, with the spring, there were lots of mice. Mice are rapid breeders. Rats too. The females can get pregnant every three weeks, with litters of a dozen or more. That means a lot of sex, I guess. That’s why we call them vermin.

Meanwhile, at school, Miss McDonald announced that she was leaving at Easter. No one told us why, but I knew. It was because she was pregnant. All that sin had finally made a life inside her. They call it a miracle, Mousey. But the truth is, it’s disgusting. On TV it’s different; a nice clean baby, wrapped in a sheet. But really, it’s disgusting. Did you know that mice and rats actually eat their babies? They do it when they get upset. They eat their babies, Mousey.