The streetlights came on, rosy and orange, flickering at the edges. There was no one else on the street, everyone had gone in. I felt a pang in my stomach getting up to our door. I’d stayed out too long and didn’t hear them calling all-y-in! I thought it was all right to be out if I was with Connor, but he’d run off. I thought about the man, crumpled up by the wall. I didn’t know why Connor hit him, but I felt bad about begging. But there was a Guy, so he was wrong. But maybe what was wrong was I’d gone too far to be able to show him. And if I’d come round with him, it wouldn’t be there, so that would be begging.

Connor came round the corner at the top of the street. ‘What you waiting for?’ he shouted. ‘A punch?’ He was angry and I didn’t know why.

‘Where’s the Guy gone?’ I said.

‘They’ve taken it and they’ve nicked the money.’

‘Who has?’

‘How much you give ’em?’

I gave everything I’d got to the two brothers round the corner who were Manus’s friends. They said they’d stay by the Guy and look after it. They put the cardboard under it and even had a biscuit tin they put the change in so it rattled when they both held on to it.

‘They’ve run off with the money,’ said Connor, ‘I’ve just gone and kicked their door!’

‘Won’t they give it back?’ We hadn’t decided how to spend it, so why would they give it back if it wasn’t for anything? I didn’t really want it any more, anyway.

‘They wouldn’t come out,’ he said.

But that was because they were coming out our house with their dad holding the biscuit tin. Manus was at the door and saw us. ‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Daddy wants you.’

‘More dirty toerags,’ their dad said as they walked past us with the tin rattling under his arm.

It was a punch. We stood there and watched them go.