Of course it quickly spread along the tree branches and the floor caught alight in no time. Lincoln raced down the steps calling for Caleb to follow, but Caleb kept saying he needed to see the cross start to burn, and Lincoln left him to it. Lincoln told Ruthy this was the thing that gave him the worst nightmares. Perhaps if he’d gone back and pulled Caleb out, he could have avoided what happened next. Ruthy told him she doubted it. She said Caleb was a sweet, skinny, sickly boy but he had a big streak of stubbornness and bravery in him, and nothing would have changed his mind. I think this was quite kind of Ruthy, and I wouldn’t have thought to say this.

Within minutes our timber picket back fence was ablaze, and Lincoln heard the neighbours start to shout. He ran as fast as he could to the olive grove and climbed a tree, waiting for Caleb to join him. He saw Mr Driver and a tall boy run out of Mr Driver’s house to the backyard, and other neighbours come out onto the street, screaming. Mr Driver spotted Lincoln and sent the tall boy to ask him what was going on. Lincoln was crying and said ‘Caleb’ and pointed to the backyard. The tall boy raced down the drive of our house to the backyard, calling out to Mr Driver that Caleb was in the garden. Lincoln didn’t see what happened in the garden but he saw the fire brigade arrive, and then ran home.

The fire destroyed the olive tree, the tree house, the back fence, parts of four neighbouring fences, Mr Driver’s greenhouse, Dad’s shed and the big shed belonging to the Spinelli family who lived behind us. Luckily a few neighbours were able to manage it until the fire truck arrived, and the firemen put it out before it burned houses to the ground.

The tall boy Lincoln had seen was my brother Daniel. We didn’t know it, but he had hitchhiked home and arrived late the night before. He had arranged to stay with Mr Driver until he could ring Dad to tell him he was home and to ask if they could talk. Mr Driver and Daniel were pretty much responsible for saving all the neighbours’ houses, but they couldn’t save Caleb.

Daniel ran into the fire and pulled him out, which was very brave, and resulted in burns on his arms and legs that meant he had to go in an ambulance to the hospital, but Caleb was already dead when he carried him out to the street screaming for help. Caleb wasn’t all burned up, but he had breathed in too much smoke, fallen as he tried to escape, and gone to sleep forever.

Ruthy told me they found the cross intact in the fire mess. She had gone to look for the string with our beads on it, but it had been burned up. She said there was a poetic justice in that, which I don’t understand, but I liked the sound of the word poetic given everything was so sad.