“You can,” I told him. “Listen to me. It’s not like you meant him to die, is it? It’s not like you knew he couldn’t swim. It was just an accident. Accidents happen all the time. He could have been standing there alone, and the bank could have given way under his feet. Or he could have slipped on the ice, or fallen when he reached in to pick something up out of the water. Anything could have happened to him. Anything at all.”

Poodle was watching me, glassy-eyed.

“Think about it, Poodle,” I said. “Telling people won’t bring him back. That would only cause trouble—for us, and for our families. You know what Sunnybankers are like. They all hate St. Oswald’s. He’s probably got friends who’d tell the police we planned to get him from the start. They’d never believe what really happened. So even if the police let you off, the Sunnybankers would get you.”

That made him twitch a bit. I smiled and passed him half a cigarette.

“Look, the worst is over,” I said. “All you have to do is go home. Have your dinner, watch TV, forget this ever happened. You can do that, can’t you?”

Poodle didn’t answer. He just wiped his face with the back of his hand, turned, and walked away from me. The last I saw of him, Mousey, he was heading down toward White City, looking like a dog with no tail. And that was how it ended that day. Not even with a whimper.

• • •

Dad’s already talking about sending me to another school. Perhaps he’ll wait till the end of the year, but then again, perhaps he won’t. He has a way of looking at me, when he thinks I’m watching TV. And I’m nearly certain that Mum’s been looking through my things again. She’d never say, of course. But there’s something about the way she goes through my books and papers, straightening loose edges that have been carefully left crooked. She may even have glanced at my St. Oswald’s diary, which is why I’m going to hide these pages where no one will ever find them.

The thing about my parents is that they don’t really want to know. They’d rather live in ignorance, believing they’ve done all they could. Bring it into the open, and everything begins to stink. My parents; the Church; Goldie’s dad; Mr. and Mrs. Poodle. That’s why they won’t say anything. Especially not at school, or to me. Instead, they’ll pray, and light candles, and hold fund-raising coffee mornings, and shake their heads, and wonder why Poodle ran away.