No clanking from Mr Gebby. The dead relatives were silent too.

Only the crickets were still singing.

I waited.

And waited.

I lay down on William Whittington and cried huge loud chest-heaving sobs. Sticky sunshine leaked through the leaves.

I waited two hours, eight minutes and forty-six seconds.

Grandad Cruise’s watch doesn’t lie. It’s steady as a cart horse.

“Hey! Maggie! Maggie!” It was Una, climbing through the hawthorn.

My tears had dried up. My chest had stopped heaving. I was calm.

Act normal, Maggie. Act normal.

“You OK?” she said. “You been crying? You have, you’ve been crying. What’s wrong, Maggie? What is it?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. I can tell, Maggie. What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing.” But the tears brimmed up in my eyes again. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh no? Try me.” She sat her dirty, deceitful wanderer self right down next to me.

“My brother’s gone away. That’s all.” A tear escaped from the inside corner of my eye and rolled down the side of my nose. “You haven’t got a brother. You wouldn’t understand.” I edged away from her, so our legs wouldn’t touch. I plucked at the overgrown grass so I didn’t have to look at her.

“I did have a brother, so I do understand. Kind of, anyway.”

I stopped picking at the grass. I looked up. “You had a brother?”

“Yes. He went to camp. Is that where your brother’s gone? Do they still have camp? I was only a baby when mine went, so I don’t miss him. Well, not like you’re missing yours.”

She had a brother who went to camp?

“What?” I said. “How?”

“Felix, his name was. He was much older than me. But you don’t want to hear about all that when you’re feeling so bad, Maggie.”

She was lying.

She must be lying.

Wanderers don’t sent their eldests to camp.

“Tell you what,” she said. “Come through the boundary again, properly this time. Come and meet my dad. It won’t bring your brother back, but we’ve got a Cleercan to filter water and a fire hole to heat it up. I dug a really good one this time, it hardly makes any smoke at all. I can make you a cup of tea. And tea’s good, when you’re feeling bad. Especially tea made like Grandad taught me. Come on, Maggie, I’ll get you back to your hawthorn hedge before anyone even notices you’re gone.”

Felix.

Camp.

Lies.

My head was heavy and tired and full of tears.

But I should go. Find out where she lives. Get some evidence.

I pulled up the bottom of my T-shirt and rubbed my eyes dry. Swallowed down the crying.

“All right then.” I made my face into a smile. “A cup of tea would be great.”

CHAPTER 17