Nick sat cross-legged on the threadbare carpet. His dad, Kevin, stretched out on the worn sofa, fag in one hand, ash falling onto the floor. There wasn’t anywhere else to sit. It wasn’t like Nick had a bedroom to retreat to. Cigarette smoke spiralled around the page of Nick’s colouring book. He pressed his crayon harder onto the page, turning the dragon from white to green, and tried not to think about the time they lived in a proper house, like a proper family. That was before his dad put his back out and couldn’t work. Now, he couldn’t even be bothered to shave. The odd can of Foster’s he drank to ‘unwind’ at the end of the day became a lunchtime drink to ‘ease the pain’ until the snapping of the ring pull and the fizzing of lager was the sound Nick woke up to. His dad looked different. Smelled different. Was different. With all of his small heart, Nick missed the dad who used to helicopter him around the garden, as well as his grandad, Basil, who had recently died. He had loved staying in his tumbledown cottage, waking to the crashing sound of waves, the smell of salt on the air. Endless summers playing with the local kids on the beach.

Mum took on extra cleaning and looked permanently exhausted, and she probably was despite her reassurances that she was fine. Nick might only be seven but he was aware that her hair, that once looked like spun gold from Sleeping Beauty, was now dark at the roots, and there were lines etched onto her face that hadn’t been there this time last year.

‘It’s only temporary,’ she had said as they moved their meagre belongings into the tiny flat. She showed him where he could keep his things in the battered old sideboard the previous occupants had left behind, with its door hanging from a single hinge. Most of his toys had already been sold at a car boot sale, and their solid wooden furniture was long gone.

Nick’s dad had groaned as he shuffled into the lounge and flopped down on the sofa that mum explained folded out into a bed. It was where Nick would sleep. Dad had drunk can after can of lager as Mum scrubbed the kitchen and washed the windows until they sparkled but the flat still smelled sour. Despite the patchwork rug and the bright cushions Mum carefully arranged, it didn’t look like home. It didn’t feel like home.

Nick yawned. He couldn’t go to bed until Dad did, and Dad would wait until Mum finished her shift at the pub. Once home, Nick’s mum would always find time to tell Nick a story and kiss him good night. Afterwards, Nick would lie on the sofa, his thin, itchy grey blanket pulled up around his shoulders, and cuddle Teddy Edward, his bear, running the red ribbon tied in a bow around his neck through his fingers, listening to the voices drifting through the paper-thin walls. His dad’s voice low and angry, his mum’s soft and soothing, and later, the squeaking of bedsprings. Nick would clasp his small hands over his ears.

Nick had nearly finished colouring in the dragon, as green as the ring his mum always wore that once belonged to his grandma. His tongue protruded from the tip of his teeth as he concentrated hard. For once, he had stayed in all the lines. Now for the knight. Nick didn’t have many colours to choose from. ‘Father Christmas doesn’t have much money this year,’ his mum had said, ‘although you’ve been really, really good.’

‘Stop fucking babying him,’ his dad had bit back.

But when Nick woke on Christmas morning, the pillowcase he had left out was bulging with sweets, a new jumper that was Nick’s favourite blue – although when Nick pulled it over his head it smelled a bit funny and there was a small hole in the elbow – and the colouring book and crayons. Nick’s fingers hovered over the box as he deliberated between red and yellow but they had learned about St George in class last week so he picked out the red. He had tried his hardest to listen as Miss Watson’s soft voice had told the class about swords and shields, but he had drifted off, waking as his friend Richard kicked him under the desk, whispering the answer to the question he had been asked. Richard always covered for him. Nick had sat bolt upright and wiped the trail of drool from his mouth, embarrassment heating his face as he’d caught the sympathetic glance of his favourite teacher. After class Miss Watson had held him back and asked him if everything was all right at home, tilting her head to the side the way mum did when she wasn’t too tired to listen to him. He’d told Miss Watson everything was fine, and she’d told him to run along to the canteen. Nick said he’d forgotten his lunch, ashamed to admit his dad usually ate the sandwiches Mum made before she went to work. It didn’t matter much though. He never got that hungry and Richard was always happy to share. Miss Watson had pulled open her drawer and silently handed him a Mars Bar, and he thought she was pretty, like the princess in the story.

Nick’s eyes were heavy with sleep now. The ten o’clock news was on so it shouldn’t be too much longer before his mum came home. In a bid to stay awake Nick pinched the red crayon harder between his fingers and pressed down on the page. There was a crack as the crayon split into two, and his head snapped forward as Nick’s dad slapped him. Hard. ‘Do you think your mum works all these bleedin’ hours so you can break things?’

Nick shook his head as he tried to stop his lip from trembling. His dad hated it when he cried.

Dad’s eyes had glinted in the light of the flickering TV as he ripped the dragon picture out of the colouring book and tore it in two.

‘That was for mum. For the fridge.’ Nick drew his knees up to his chest and tried to stop trembling.

‘I’ll let you into a secret. Mum hates your pictures and tacky fridge magnets. Says they make the place look untidy. Let’s not tell her I told you; I’m trusting you to keep your mouth shut. Deal?’

His dad held out his hand and Nick slipped his small one inside and tried not to wince as his dad shook it so hard his shoulder felt like it was being wrenched from the socket.

That was the last time Nick ever coloured and the first time he had to keep a secret, but it wasn’t the last time.

And it was far, far, from being the worst.