I’ll tell you something, though. Most of the time I actually did know when he was coming because I could see his shadow out of the corner of my eye way before he got there. But I never said. Because getting hit in the head with a sand ball by Jax is about the best fun you could ever have.

Once when I was on the beach waiting for the sand ball that’s never going to come and trying not to think about how much I missed Jax, I wondered how I’d feel if one of my arms got cut off and whether that’d feel worse. I decided missing Jax still hurt more and then even when I worked my way through all my major body parts it was the same for everything. Then I thought about trying to do a deal with God. Just in case. Because I thought maybe he’d consider swapping one of my eyes, or a couple of arms, or a leg or two for bringing Jax back. Or both eyes and an ear even. I got the deal right down to me being a blind, deaf, no-talking torso sitting on the beach and I still decided that would be okay if only I could have Jaxy back sitting next to me.

But it didn’t look like God was in the mood for deals that day, or else Mum is right. Because when I went home I still had all my body parts and Jax was still dead. And I still had to finish the plan without him.

I reckon me without Jax is like Dean Martin without Jerry Lewis or Abbott without Costello. Me and Jax were perfect together because I was the one that set him up for all the good lines and he was the one who picked them up and ran with them. Sometimes he ran so fast and so far with them I couldn’t keep up, but he always made it fun to try. And trying is the only way that anyone ever gets anything done, Jax says.

Just try, you teeny tiny flucker, he always says. Which he reckons doesn’t count as swearing because it isn’t his fault if people can’t listen properly. And the thing is, being around Jax always makes me want to try, even though probably more than half the time the things he makes me try aren’t the best idea. But they’re always the most fun. So even when I was laughing so hard at the teeny tiny flucker thing I thought I’d pee, I’d always try to do whatever it was he was trying to make me do.

If you want a for instance, it’s like the time we were nine and he made me squeeze through the one broken paling gap in our back fence to pick some of Mrs. Egerton’s roses for Mum, with him pushing my bum with his foot to get me through and going, come on, you little flucker, you can do it. I made it too, but then when I had to try to squeeze back through that one paling gap without his foot to help me on the other side Jax said that the sight of half my head, one leg and one arm sticking through the fence holding a rose out in front of me was the funniest thing he’d ever seen in his life.