The boy turned round and looked up at the house. He saw us looking. For some reason we all waved. There was something wrong in the way he looked back. It was like we weren’t there, or if we were, why hadn’t the rain come and washed us away? He was bossing his mum into the back seat of the car and giving her the cage to hold. Another older woman got in beside her and he slammed the door. It caught on her dress blowing out, so he opened it and slammed it again. He looked up at us like we shouldn’t be watching, and got in the front seat beside a man with a beard we hadn’t seen before. The car started and drove off with his mum putting the bird cage up at the back window.

‘She’s looking at us,’ Danny said.

We watched them go.

‘He’s stuck up,’ said Julie.

Overcrowding

‘You’re in trouble,’ Manus said, ‘Daddy’s looking for you. Don’t say you’ve seen me.’ And off he went, round the bend, wherever he was going.

I was crouched down by the bonnet of a car up the top of the street, watching people coming and going, trying to get my nerve back to go home. Everyone had been sent out to look for me, and at first I thought it was because our dad was home from Liverpool and I was late coming back.

Busola found me in the playground and said, ‘I haven’t seen you. Dad wants you home.’ I didn’t believe her, because what was she still doing out? But she came up to me again on the swings, ‘You better go.’

‘I’m waiting for you,’ I said. ‘Why ain’t you going?’

‘He ain’t looking for me,’ she said, and laughed and ran off.

I did a few more kicks to get my swing up so it joggled on the chain, so I could look down at the ground, and up at the sky. She was on the roundabout. She looked round and round, and tilted her head. She looked puzzled.

‘You’re adopted, you are!’ she shouted when she saw me looking. She always said that.

‘No,’ I said, and gripped the chain tight to fling it back, ‘you are!’

I wasn’t going home because of her. Why should I listen to her? What did she know? Why was she so horrible to me? I kept my arms back behind me on the chain and swooped down. I kicked my legs up and swung in the air. It was getting late. As I came down she was showing me getting my throat cut with the side of her hand. And then she ignored me, going round and round, with her blank face on.

So I left her there.