Nicks was standing up, his whole forearm still black with pond mud. He made a garbled monster sound, and waved his hands, fingers clawed.

Matty was laughing as much as Dad used to do at Spitting Image. When had Dad last laughed?

Nicks waded out of the pond, growling, and Matty scrambled up. Everything went a bit dizzy, like the trees were falling in on themselves. ‘No.’ Giggled more.

‘Yes,’ said Nicks, as he advanced, in a dastardly villain-voice. ‘There is no escape. I am coming for you.’ He wiped his palm right down the side of Matty’s cheek.

Wriggling didn’t help. Nicks grabbed onto a shoulder and wiped the other cheek. He was really close, but in a different way from in the water. His hand was cool and his eyes were gleaming. He drew his middle finger all the way down from the crown of Matty’s head. Nose. Lips. Chin.

Tribespeople. The Tribe of the Not Allowed Pond.

‘There,’ he said. ‘Now you’re mine.’

An exclusive tribe of two.

Matty stopped giggling and went still, blood pumping loudly.

Nicks’s crooked grin slowly disappeared. ‘What are you?’ he said, in a different voice. Not accusing, just curious. Careful.

‘What?’ The word sounded tiny.

His hand was still on Matty’s shoulder. ‘You know what I mean.’

‘No, I don’t.’

Somewhere, there was a goose cackling. Nicks slowly turned his middle finger round so that he was swearing. But he still didn’t move.

Matty swallowed, and felt the taste of it wind downwards.

Then leant over and was sick on his feet.

***

Dad and Mamma’s bedroom again, hand ghosting over the pattern on the bedcover.

Nicks had yelped and dashed into the pond, hopping up and down, splashing his feet loads and using all of his swearwords before helping Matty wash off the mud and climb back over the fence. ‘Nutcase. See you tonight,’ he’d said, with a grin, before disappearing.

No tea tonight. Not even thinking about eating tea. Matty had been sick again into a bin on the way home and a girl had said ‘gross’ as she’d walked past. It was horrible, and the smell of the bin had made it worse. No communion wine, ever again. How could Mamma could drink so much wine and not be sick? Dad too, his wine in Italy, his beers after the football. Shit-skank piss-breath disgusting wank.

Their bedcover had diamond stitching, like a Pac-Man trail. Everything was neater in here than it had been in the first couple of weeks. It smelt better too, less stuffy. Less like that bin.

Matty opened a drawer. It was half-empty.