I watched the long springy lolly as he fed it through the hole. ‘Thanks, Caleb,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t seem to have a head though.’

‘Yeah. Sorry about that. I did eat the head, but I left the rest for you. Will you be or-right? If they leave you out here all night, Ruthy and I will bring you a candle and pillow and rug so you don’t die of frostbite.’

‘That’s nice, Caleb, but how will you get all that through that hole?’ I asked, interested.

‘Good question.’ He went quiet as he thought of a strategy. ‘I might go in next door and ask Mr Driver about that.’

‘Better not, Caleb. I think Mum might put you in here with me if she finds out you told Mr Driver.’

‘Aw. No she won’t, Dorcas. You know where I am on the string. Besides, Mum doesn’t like me going into the laundry because she says the cold and damp is bad for my chest.’ He went quiet again for a moment. ‘I wouldn’t worry anyway, Dorcas, I think Mum is getting over it now.’

Then we heard a scream like a banshee. I think that is actually the right word to describe it, because my teacher Miss Thompson said a banshee is a female spirit who cries out to warn that someone’s going to die, and given it was Ruthy screaming, I was pretty sure I was going to be the one to die.

‘Muuuuuum. Dorcas put Milly Molly Mandy into the wee patch. She’s ruined for life. Muuuuuum.’

I hoped Caleb would work out a way to get supplies through the hole in the door, because now I knew I’d need them.

CHAPTER 3

Generally speaking, I didn’t like boys all that much, except for Daniel. And Caleb. And Mr Driver. And, of course, Dad. But one of my two best friends at school was a boy called Maynard.

He wasn’t like the other boys. He didn’t play rough and tumble and he didn’t play sport. He didn’t call me names like Sausage Head. His clothes were different. He wore white shirts with waistcoats and a tie. He wore his hair long, despite the fact this was the fashion and he usually had no time for fashion. I suggested he say he had ‘no truck’ with fashion, and he was quite impressed with that idea. He had too much hair on the top of his head, resulting in a thick brown wave always falling over half his face.

His voice was different from most of ours. At first, I thought he was English, because some of them can sound a bit la-di-da, but he wasn’t. He said it was just the way they spoke in his family. He lived in quite a flash two-storied house with trees that were clipped – he said tortured – into neat round shapes. They had a woman to clean for them every week, and a gardener who made the front yard look like a bit of the botanic gardens on North Terrace.