‘Wait a minute,’ Connor said, and got an empty milk bottle by the door to keep the cat still. I moved back in case it flew off the shovel when Manus lifted it, but it wasn’t like that, it was heavy. Connor dropped the bottle as the cat slid towards him. It clattered and didn’t break, and Manus had to use both hands on the shovel to stop the body slipping off. He got hold of it but the tail flopped over on his fingers making him wobble until he could get it steady again.

‘Where we going?’ I said.

‘Get out the way!’

I wasn’t in the way, I was walking up behind him. Connor was coming up the other side by the kerb. Manus was holding out the cat in front with people getting out the way in case he wanted to give it to them. But they were slowing down as well, as though what we were doing was grown-up and important. ‘Mind out!’ Connor was saying, and I started saying, ‘We’re going to bury it!’

‘Where you going with that?’ The old lady up the top of the street was leaning out her window with her cats on the sill beside her. I dropped back, dodging puddles to go round on to the road, and I didn’t look up again till we got to the corner. She was looking out with her grey hair hanging down.

‘Where you going?’ It was my friend Brian. He ran up behind me and kept up to see what was going on.

‘We’re going to bury the cat,’ I said, ‘up the bombsite. You coming?’

Connor looked at us like we shouldn’t be there.

‘Which one?’ Brian said.

I looked at Manus to see where he was going and ran up beside him, ‘Can we come?’

‘Just get out the way!’ His face was scrunched up and his arms were shaking, like it was gonna drop and he couldn’t help it.

‘What about this one?’ Brian was pulling back the corrugated iron on the bombsite that was blocked off round by the pub. We didn’t play in there because it was dangerous and could fall in on top of you. Manus rested the shovel up on the metal fence to get his grip, but the cat’s head got squashed and he had to lift it off again. Brian pulled the corrugated iron back a bit more to show you could get in.

‘All right, in there,’ Manus said.

I didn’t look at Connor in case he stopped us, I helped Brian pull the fence back and keep it open.

Connor pushed in and went first, Manus went in backwards, lifting the shovel over the wood across the bottom. Brian held it open for me and it banged back into place as he stepped through.