I get to my feet, unsure whether I should check if he’s okay or just go. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I notice Naz whispering something in Laughing Boy’s ear. He stops talking the second I turn my head.

‘What is it?’ I say. ‘It’s Billy, isn’t it? You know something about him?’

There’s a sound from the bushes behind me. The sound of someone crashing through the undergrowth, snapping off twigs and scraping past branches in their desperation to escape.

‘Billy?’

Bushes and brambles scratch at my chest, arms and hands as I force my way through them, following the sound. My dress catches on a brier. It rips as I tear it free and continue to run.

‘Billy, stop! Stop!’

He’s fast, so much faster than me. My smooth-soled sandals have no traction on the gnarly ground and I trip several times as I scramble through the near-darkness. The sound of laughter follows after me. Thorns tear at my palms and something sharp whips me across the cheek as I pick myself up and stumble after my son. He’s been in the bushes the whole time, watching me, listening to me talk to the boys. Why would he run? Why?

‘It’s Mum! Billy, it’s Mum!’

And then it stops. Almost as suddenly as it began, the noise of crashing and snapping stops. The only sound is the thud, thud, thud of my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

No, I can hear footsteps too. The faint pad of someone running. He must have made it onto the pathway.

‘Billy, wait!’ I wrap my arms over my head and plough through the bracken in the direction of the sound. My foot hits something solid, the path.

‘Billy, it’s—’

A hand grasps my wrist and a concerned face peers into mine. It’s a woman’s; she’s roughly the same age as me, with her hair tied back in a ponytail. She’s dressed in a neon vest, shorts and running trainers. ‘Are you okay? I heard screaming and shouting coming from the bushes and—’

‘Did you see him?’ I look up and down the path but all I can see is near-darkness, stretching away from me in both directions.

‘See who?’

‘My—’ Something brushes against my ankles; a border terrier with its tongue hanging out and bits of twig woven into its thick fur.