‘OK, Alfie, we’re going to leave it there for today because I think you’ve had enough. But I want you to carry on thinking about all the things we’ve talked about today in your own time. Is that OK?’

I nodded.

‘Sometimes we do things without thinking about them much, without a clear reason. We can all do that. We don’t always mean the things we do, but I want you to carry on thinking about the consequences of everything you did on both occasions, and we’ll all get together again in a day or two for the next session.’ The suit woman nodded at me while she spoke, then smiled and said, ‘Time for your tea, I think. Hungry, Alfie?’ Chairs scraped the floor as everyone stood.

I nodded, but I wasn’t hungry. Not at all.

35

Not at Home

25th August

This place is stupid. Just when I find out that you can’t be full-on scared or upset forever, someone comes along and ruins it. I’m not saying I was happy this afternoon, but I wasn’t screwed up into a ball any more. I was doing normal things, like eating and playing pool.

Things we don’t have: Any kind of water that hangs around, so no pond outside. No baths – only showers – no plugs in the sinks. No sharp things, so the knives are blunt, and there’s no dartboard. You never have seconds of anything at dinner either, because if you leave your juice cup on the table, it’ll have something floating in it when you get back. Food, if you’re lucky.

But we do have an Astroturf pitch for football and tennis and basketball courts. And there’s a games room with a pool table, football table, table tennis and a Wii. That’s where I’ve just been, until this happened.

There were three other boys around the pool table – Matt, Olly and Dev. They were all laughing and joking. Things seemed friendlier and I started to relax a bit, and suddenly the urge to let go and talk about everything got too strong. It all burst out of me. I started at the beginning, with the Cloaked Strider, the trespassing, and then Whizzy. The boys were silent. They were listening so perfectly, I thought they were rapt, so I carried on and spilt the whole story.

Olly winked at the others and grinned at me. ‘Yeah, right.’

My face started burning. ‘It’s true.’

There was giggling. Sniggering. Then cackling and snorting.

‘How big?’ Matt asked, smirking. ‘This big and then that tiny and then weeeeeee! It’s ginormous again!’

‘An electrical stringbean!’ Olly said, trying to sound like me. ‘Freaky!’

Then he whooped and I stalked away from them and pretended to get interested in bouncing a table-tennis ball on the floor. It was awful.