I wasn’t looking forward to the summer half-term that year. Not with the secrets flying around in our house, still freezing me out – still no one had talked to me about Shirley and the boy. Not with Crinky’s death hanging over me, too. Not being treated as suspicious, Chrissie had said. But she and the police didn’t know what I knew: I had recounted the details of such a death in the playground, surrounded by-. I tried to think. Tried to see their faces. Walter Smith, Roy Fallick, most of the class. Tried to shake it: surely it was an accident, a coincidence; surely my white lies about Mum hadn’t led to Crinky's death. Surely? Being back in with Justin, however, saved the day. Saved the whole week we had off, in fact. I didn’t have to stick around with a house of liars. And Dad had stopped objecting to my hanging out at the Tankards’ house full stop. It had been more Mum’s rule than his, but he’d still made the odd noises of disapproval. Now it was simply anything-to-get-him-out-of-the-way.
