“Daft bugger,” he said. I think he was talking to himself.

Then I was on a trolley being wheeled around the hospital, with Dad on one side and Jenny on the other.

“Are we going to Kenny?” I asked.

“Aye,” Dad said.

“And he’s OK?”

“You’ll see.”

“How do you know he’s OK?”

“We’ve already been in to see him,” said Jenny. “He’s good.” Jenny wasn’t our mum, but I loved her.

And then we got to where Kenny was. It was a ward with five beds in it, and Kenny was in one. He was watching the telly, but with no sound on.

“All right, our Nicky,” Kenny said. “I was worried. But they said they’d get you. I freezed me knackers off. Tina didn’t like it when the water got deep, so she ran back to you. I lost my hat. A doctor said he’d get me a new one. I said Man City not Leeds. Leeds are rubbish. What have they done to your leg?”

“They fixed it up,” I said. “They’ll put a cast on it tomorrow and you can sign it.”

Kenny loved writing his name. He put his own special swirls and loops on all the letters.

“They said it was too late to have the sound on the telly,” Kenny told me. “So I was just watching the pictures. Where’s Tina? Do they not let dogs in the hospital? Is it cos they’ve got germs?”

Kenny didn’t look at me but kept his face towards the small TV screen.

I knew what I was going to say. I’d practised it in the ambulance.

“Tina loved it there, on the moors. She didn’t want to come back to our town. There was a farmer waiting when we got to the road. He said that Tina could go to his farm, and he’d train her to be a sheepdog. The farmer said it was the best life for a dog, with all the walks she wanted and other dogs to play with. He said it was heaven for a dog.”

Kenny’s face was pale in the light from the telly. I could tell that he was imagining Tina there on the farm, herding the sheep and playing with the other sheepdogs.

“Yeah,” Kenny said. “I’m tired.” The remote for the telly was on the bed. He picked it up and turned the screen off. “I’m glad you’re OK, our Nicky.”

“Only thanks to you, Kenny,” I said. “You saved me. You’re a hero.”

It wasn’t until then that I realised he had on his Spiderman pyjamas. Jenny must have brought them for him. Dad would never have thought of it.