---

The hammering on the door echoes throughout the house – a thud, thud, thud of urgency. The boy lifts his head from the pillow, eyes heavy with sleep, and listens. His head still throbs. The day before, he’d been kicking his football against the kitchen wall, practising his moves, doing keepie uppies and then kicking it hard, as if scoring a goal, when his father had come thundering outside in a blind fury and whacked his head against the brick wall so hard he’d seen stars.

‘Keep the noise down. It’s doing my bloody head in listening to you. I can’t hear the telly.’

He’d spent the day at home in bed with the curtains drawn. His mother had sat with him on and off. Told him he wasn’t to mention it at school when he went back, and he was to say he’d tripped up. He wasn’t to tell anyone, no one at all. She made him promise, and kissed him on the cheek and told him it would be okay. They both knew it was never okay. He might still be alive this time but what would happen the next?

Now he’s awake. His head isn’t hurting as badly and his senses are on full alert. His parents’ bedroom door creaks open and he hears his mother descend the stairs, one at a time, hesitating until the thumps begin again and a voice calls her name. She scurries lightly down the last few stairs and the door opens.

He gets out of his bed and pads to the door. His sister hasn’t woken. She sleeps so badly at night she needs a good shake every day to get up. She’s wrapped up in a faded duvet covered in lambs, no doubt lost in a magical world far away from parents who scream at each other, where plaster crumbles from the ceiling to leave light flurries of snow-like grey dust on their bedding, and where large damp patches of mould spread up the bedroom wall. She lets out a soft sigh. He leaves her sleeping. He knows it is much better to be asleep. When you’re sleeping you don’t feel the hunger that rumbles like a caged tiger or the anxiety that you wear like a heavy cloak.

The voices below are mumbled then his mother cries, ‘No!’ A deeper voice speaks and the door closes again, the voices moving into the kitchen.

He creeps down the stairs and hovers outside the door, not daring to enter but desperate to know what has made his mother cry out. He can’t hear what’s being said. He walks silently to the front window and peers outside. The police squad car is difficult to miss in its fluorescent yellow and blue. His heart thumps against his rib cage as he thinks about why the police might be behind the kitchen door. The day before, before he’d had his head smacked against the wall, he’d gone into Mr Bridge’s local shop. It hadn’t been planned. He’d been going home from school with Johnny Hounslow, whose dad owns a factory in Birmingham. Johnny, who gets loads of pocket money, decided to buy some crisps. While Johnny was hunting through the various flavours in a large box next to the counter, he’d wandered down the aisles. Mr Bridges had been so busy watching Johnny, he didn’t spot the theft of a king-sized chocolate bar. Neither did Johnny. What if it had been caught on camera and now the police were here to tell his mother? It wasn’t the first item he’d stolen.

The sound of a kitchen chair scraping on the floor makes him draw back up the stairs. The door opens. His mother emerges, her face ghostly white. She spots him and signals for him to return upstairs. Two uniformed officers head for the front door, speaking in hushed tones.

‘Someone will be in touch soon.’

His mother shuts the door behind them and stands with her back against it.

‘What’s happened?’ he asks. ‘What did the cops want?’

‘Your dad. He got into trouble. Looks like he’ll be going to prison for quite a while.’

He takes in her words. No more drunken beatings. The relief is palpable and he wants to shout hurray, then he notes the silent tears.

‘Why are you crying? If he’s in prison, he won’t be able to hurt you any more.’

She shakes her head, sniffling so badly, snot runs down her face. ‘He can’t hurt us but I don’t know how I’ll manage. I don’t have a job and the rent is overdue on this place again, and I’ve not even got the emergency money.’ The words trail away, overtaken by sobs. ‘If I can’t look after you, they’ll take you away…’

He doesn’t understand. ‘It’s okay. You can get a job and I’ll look after my sister when you’re out. I’ll get a job too. Maybe I could deliver papers.’

Her shoulders shake up and down like she’s laughing hysterically. The tears fall faster. She can’t speak. The look on her face makes his blood run cold. He senses it’s going to be worse without his father.