The tiles were slippery beneath my feet. I grabbed hold of the banisters of the stairs to stop myself from falling. I couldn’t afford to take it slowly, or watch my step. I had to move as fast as I could. This school, stretched across three buildings, each from a different era, was a warren of classrooms and corridors linking them together. The oldest building, to my right as I ran, had been converted from old outhouses.

There were stairways there to an upper floor that only those really familiar with the school would have been able to find. But if they were blocked up now, I’d quickly run out of space and find myself at a dead end. The newest building, to my left, held what had once been a darkroom as well as a host of storerooms and offices. Perhaps, I thought, I could hide there. But I’d have to run a considerable distance in plain sight to get to it. I knew I had to get to the safest place possible, as quickly as I could. Instead, I opted to run towards the assembly hall at the front of the school.

I vaguely remembered that there was a storage area under the stage. If I could get there, if I could hide out in a place he may not be able to find, perhaps I’d stand a chance. Or maybe I’d just be imprisoning myself further.

On the off-chance the front doors to the school had been breached before, I ran at them, ramming into them shoulder first, trying to get them to move. They didn’t budge, but the echo of my body slamming against the wooden hoarding echoed through the cavernous halls and I heard a voice echo back.

‘Come out, come out, wherever you are …’

The worn carpet was damp and sticky beneath my feet, the building crumbling after years of neglect, the echo of his voice bouncing off the walls making it difficult to assess just exactly where he might be. I looked up, around, hoping for a glint of light. A broken window. A splintered door. If I could get out, I’d be on the main road back into Derry in seconds. It was bright, traffic would be busy.

I rattled the heavy wooden doors to my left, those that led into the assembly hall, and was able to make my way in. The high-varnished sheen of the floor had long dulled. Echoes of my past were everywhere. The faded posters on the wall, the once plush red velvet curtains sagging, moth-eaten. Only the thinnest slivers of sunlight lit the otherwise tomblike space and I swore I could feel the ghosts of times past. Of that first day at school. When I sat on that floor and Clare and Julie sat beside me and we found each other. We found friendship.