This phase of their campaign is three weeks old now. Nate Mackie’s whisper from behind me in that school assembly replays in my head. ‘We’re going to burn your house down, Morcombe,’ his speech slow, no intonation to the words. ‘We’re going to burn it down when your grandad’s asleep.’ His hot breath was millimetres from my ear, the rancid waft of stale Marlboros curling round me. ‘He’s getting cremated, Ollie.’

The fight, once contained within the school’s perimeter before sprawling out into the parks, alleys and pavements of my route home, had now reached my own front door.

I ease the key round in the lock, lean my shoulder into the door and noiselessly yank it clear of its frame. The mat bows under its sodden weight as I step outside, the dewy front lawn freezing beneath my bare feet. I angle it to dry in the low sun. Only a little of the solvent has spilled over on to the carpet, nothing a sheet of kitchen towel won’t soak up. This brings me an odd sense of relief. The first time there’d been a lot more of the stuff. And the carpet was only laid a few months back. It’s a brown-and-white swirly affair, like it was inspired by the icing on a vanilla slice. ‘Won’t show the dirt,’ Gramps had enthused as he thumbed a musty book of samples the guy in the shop had taken ages to find.

I cried myself dry that first time – not out of fear, but out of concern for Gramps’s new carpet. Why the hell was that the most upsetting thing? I fight an aching in my throat even now, as I massage at the pile, absorbing every last trace of lighter fluid.

The silent clean-up complete, I sit on the bottom stair with the unburnt match in my palm. An idea comes to me. It’s perfect.

‘Have it your way then,’ I mouth, slipping it into my pocket. There’s only one thing to be done with this little match. It’s unnecessary, but I’ll do it anyway. Because then I can tell Sophia that I did. She’ll love it. And what matters more than that?

6.29 a.m.

‘Looking very dapper, Ollie-wally,’ Gramps says, tossing half a pig’s worth of bacon in the pan with a TV chef’s flourish.

I’m hardly dapper; it’s just that I’ve bothered to wear the fresh shirt he ironed and hung in my room a week ago, and I’ve run some of his Brylcreem through my hair. I tug on the yellowed cord to start the extractor fan – the smell of cooking is doing nothing to help my nausea.

‘Not sure I’m hungry actually, Gramps,’ I say, watching him assemble a tower of rashers on to four slices of bread.