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Chapters (75)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. About the Author
  4. Title Page
  5. Intoroduction
  6. ONE
  7. TWO
  8. THREE
  9. FOUR
  10. FIVE
  11. SIX
  12. SEVEN
  13. EITHT
  14. NINE
  15. TEN
  16. ELEVEN
  17. TWELVE
  18. THIRTEEN
  19. FOURTEEN
  20. FIFTEEN
  21. SIXTEEN
  22. SEVENTEEN
  23. EIGHTEEN
  24. NINETEEN
  25. TWENTY
  26. TWENTY-ONE
  27. TWENTY-TWO
  28. TWENTY-THREE
  29. TWENTY-FOUR
  30. TWENTY-FIVE
  31. TWENTY-SIX
  32. TWENTY-SEVEN
  33. TWENTY-EIGHT
  34. TWENTY-NINE
  35. THIRTY
  36. THIRTY-ONE
  37. THIRTY-TWO
  38. THIRTY-THREE
  39. THIRTY-FOUR
  40. THIRTY-FIVE
  41. THIRTY-SIX
  42. THIRTY-SEVEN
  43. THIRTY-EIGHT
  44. THIRTY-NINE
  45. FORTY
  46. FORTY-ONE
  47. FORTY-TWO
  48. FORTY-THREE
  49. FORTY-FOUR
  50. FORTY-FIVE
  51. FORTY-SIX
  52. FORTY-SEVEN
  53. FORTY-EIGHT
  54. FORTY-NINE
  55. FIFTY
  56. FIFTY-ONE
  57. FIFTY-TWO
  58. FIFTY-THREE
  59. FIFTY-FOUR
  60. FIFTY-FIVE
  61. FIFTY-SIX
  62. FIFTY-SEVEN
  63. FIFTY-EIGHT
  64. FIFTY-NINE
  65. SIXTY
  66. SIXTY-ONE
  67. SIXTY-TWO
  68. SIXTY-THREE
  69. SIXTY-FOUR
  70. SIXTY-FIVE
  71. SIXTY-SIX
  72. SIXTY-SEVEN
  73. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  74. CLIMATE EMERGENCY
  75. Copyright

‘Never mind. Sorry, Josh.’ He pauses for a few seconds, then says it. ‘He’d have been proud of you, you know.’

And I leave, quickly, my ears ringing.

Mr Walters is the only one who ever mentions Dad. The first time he did it was a few months after it happened. I was in a revision class after school, catching up on the work I’d missed. Mr Walters was reading a news website. He didn’t realise the projector was still on, beaming everything he was reading up onto the whiteboard. He was looking at pictures of the bombing, and people in orange jump suits, and people sitting in front of black flags. He kept tutting and sighing, rearranging himself in his chair. It must have been during the trial. Mum and I had been trying hard to avoid the coverage as much as we could, but the news had been pretty full of those kinds of pictures for ages. Even before the London attack, there were bombs in other countries and reports of ‘constant threat’.

Dad used to say it was ridiculous fearmongering.

Mr Walters had looked over and seen my eyes on the screen, then realised. ‘I’m sorry, Josh. I forgot you were here,’ he’d said, picking up his remote control.

Click. And it was gone. Just like that.

FIVE

FIVE

The house is empty when I get home. I drop my keys on the shelf by the door and kick off my school shoes.

Sometimes I still expect the cats to greet me, but they were shipped off to live with someone else a couple of months after the explosion. Someone from the Cat’s Protection League came round while I was at school. Mum told me when I got home. To be fair, they were getting pretty mangy, and one or both of us kept forgetting to feed them or let them out. The empty spaces on the kitchen floor where the bowls used to be still trigger an ache somewhere deep in my gut – a kind of guilt that we didn’t do right by them. Mum says that she could smell the difference after the first few days.

I turn the radio on in the kitchen so the house doesn’t sound so empty, then go and get changed upstairs. Mum has a thing about being in school uniform in the evenings. She says it’s good to come home and ‘peel off the day’. She still holds me to some standards at least. This done, and with my homework spread out on the kitchen table, I fall into the rhythm of quadratic equations, and lose track of time.