‘OK, everybody – clean page,’ he said. ‘This is going to be a piece of persuasive writing. Title: “House of the Week”. You are going to persuade people to buy this house. The trouble is, the house –’ he paused and looked around with fake shock on his face – ‘is Not Very Good. There are holes in the floorboards. The plaster is crumbling from the walls. It’s part of your job to think about what else might be wrong with this house and persuade buyers to purchase it anyway.’

I picked up my pen, but didn’t write. I thought about Ash House.

Three walls charred, one wall rubble.

The roof blackened.

Ash blowing along Halfway Lane.

The sun came out and I stared through the window. Mr Francis came round and skimmed my blank paper.

‘No thoughts yet, Alfie?’

34

Questions

24th August, 6.30 p.m.

They’ve brought a plate of sandwiches, a carton of fruit juice and some cream crackers to my room, because I wouldn’t eat anything in the dining room. It’s their fault. There were three of them and one of me. A social worker, Miss Hughes, who settled me in on my first night here, and another person I’ve never seen before who’s come here especially for me.

Twenty million questions. It started straight after last lesson.

‘Can you remember how you were feeling that day on the recreation field? Why you felt the need to light that fire?’ The lady asking all the questions was small and thin with short dark hair and a smart black suit, like she’d come from an office.

The police asked me that fifty thousand times before I came here. ‘It was an accident. I didn’t light it. It says what happened in my journal. On my laptop. They took my laptop, so you must know—’

‘Were you trying to impress somebody? Or were you just bored?’

‘No.’

‘You know how dangerous fire can be though, don’t you, Alfie?’

They all stared at me, waiting. The door of the room they had me in was made of swirly glass that you can’t see through. Blurry shapes passed backwards and forwards on the other side of it, like ghosts in another world. I nodded.

‘Right. So you’re saying that you did realise fires are dangerous.’

‘I made a mistake. It’s never happened like that before.’

‘So you’ve started fires before?’

‘No. I’ve never started an actual fire on purpose. My phone went weird and sent out hot beams. Just like I said in my journal.’ I stopped. Six eyes stared at me. ‘It was an accident. It’s not how everyone makes it sound.’

‘So you are aware then, Alfie, of how this sounds.’

Trapping me. With my own words.

‘You can see that lighting a dangerous fire that gets out of control makes people concerned about your own safety and that of others.’