“I don’t understand.” It was lies, wasn’t it? All that stuff about Una having a brother?

But the face on the photograph grinned out at me with its gappy smile. It was so much like her.

“It’s not hard.” Mr Opal wiped his face. “I had a son, he went to camp. Una was born a few months before he left. She never really knew him.”

“But wanderers don’t send their eldests to camp. Mayor Anderson says so.”

“You’ve got to stop believing everything this Mayor Anderson tells you, Maggie. Got to start thinking for yourself.” He tapped hard on his head with his dirty fingers. “Some wanderers sent their eldests to camp, some didn’t.”

“Sent? What do you mean, sent?” I said.

“The point is, it was all about freedom. Freedom to make the choice you want to make. Not having some self-important mayor telling you what you can and can’t do all the time. D’you see?”

No. Not really.

“But what did you mean when you said sent?”

“Mmmm?” Mr Opal gazed at the photograph.

“Some wanderers sent their eldests. That’s what you said. So they don’t send them now? So Mayor Anderson’s right?”

He pushed his glasses on to his head. Rubbed his eyes. “What does she tell you, this Mayor Anderson of yours? Does she tell you your brother’s off to fight the glorious fight in the Quiet War? To keep you all safe back home?”

“Of course. He’s a hero. They all are.”

He balanced his glasses back on his nose. They dipped down on the taped side.

“They’re heroes, all right, I’ll give you that. And until a few years back that’s exactly what they were doing. Keeping us all safe, fighting in the Quiet War.”

“The eldest edict,” I said.

“Exactly. Good old Andrew Solsbury. Took all the eldests off to war. Saved the country when it needed saving the most. Statue of him in every town. Brought us all peace and happiness, as long as you didn’t have the misfortune to be born first. Couldn’t afford hospitals for them, or a postal system, or transport back home. Just sent them off and that was that. Gone.”

“But it’s good and brave,” I said. “And right.”

“Maybe, for a while.” He placed the photograph down on top of the book cover. “Pass me that Cleercan, will you? I’ll see if I can knock it back into shape.”

“What d’you mean, for a while?”

He sighed. “I should never have come so close to this town,” he said to himself.

“Tell me, Mr Opal. What d’you mean?” I picked up the Cleercan, handed it over.

He pressed it from both sides.

“It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Maggie. There is no camp any more. War’s over. Finished years ago.”

War’s over? What was he talking about?