No point in saying anything. No point in saying anything at all. No one’d listen. Not yet, anyway. Not till I was a hero. Which is what I was going to be, as soon as I’d caught a wanderer.

Soon as I’d caught Una.

Which I was definitely going to do, once her dad got better.

And then everybody’d start listening.

“Now, Class Four, I’m sure I can rely on you to be very careful around Lindi this morning. No pushing or shoving and if she shows any signs of being ill, please let me know immediately.”

At breaktime everyone wanted to hang round Lindi.

“Can I see your stitches?”

“Did Doctor Sunita save you?”

“Did Jed give you the kiss of life?”

“Jed kissed you?”

“Did you actually die and come back to life?”

“Ugh. Did you wake up with Jed’s mouth all over you? Ugh.”

“I nearly died.” Lindi looked at them all from under her dark eyelashes. “Jed saved me. In fact, if it wasn’t for him knowing all that first aid I probably would’ve died for sure.”

She twirled a piece of hair that had escaped from under her headscarf.

Trig started jogging on the spot, which is what Dad told him to do when he starts feeling panicky.

Jed opened his mouth like he was going to say something, then closed it again.

“Come on, Trig,” he said, catching my eye.

We both took one of Trig’s arms and led him off to the other side of the playground. We sat down on the hot tarmac. I pulled at the chickweed growing up between the cracks.

“It’s good that Lindi’s all right, isn’t it?” said Trig, legs still jittery.

“Yeah.” Jed wiped his nose on the back of his hand.

“Yeah,” I said.

“It was me who remembered the first aid, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it, Jed? Wasn’t it, Maggie?”

“Yeah. It was you.”

“Course it was.”

I pulled more chickweed.

How long’d it take to pull all the chickweed in the whole playground?

A day?

A week?

Jed brushed his hands over the ground. Picked up a stone.

“Did you hear what Beth Goodman said yesterday breaktime?” said Trig. “Did you hear, Maggie? Did you hear, Jed?” He picked at his top lip. “She said Mayor Anderson forgot to do her blackouts the other night. Said her mum had to go round and knock on the mayor’s door to remind her. And Beth said her mum said if Mayor Anderson keeps forgetting we’re all going to get blown to smithereens in the middle of the night and it’ll all be the mayor’s fault. D’you think she’ll forget again? D’you think we’ll all end up in smithereens? What are smithereens? Jed? Maggie?”