LITMIR.BIZ

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had for lunch, Daniel thought. He’d quite fancied her until he’d seen those teeth.

      “Everybody knows everybody’s secrets here,” she added over her shoulder as she went to rejoin her friends, hips and plaits swinging as she walked.

      Daniel and Louie exchanged a look: you don’t know ours.

      “YOU SHOULDN’T BE HERE.”

       “I know. I’m sorry.”

       The man sitting on the other side of the desk had my file open in front of him, tilted away so I couldn’t read it. He said he was my key worker and told me to call him Alan. I thought it meant he was the one who would lock me in. That’s how much I knew.

       “I meant you shouldn’t be at Lissmore,” he said. “It’s not for lads like you.”

       For a second I felt hopeful: maybe they’d changed their minds and would let me go. Then a sudden plunging dread: maybe they were sending me somewhere worse.

       “I’m sorry,” I said again.

       “You’ve never been in any kind of trouble before this.” He read on slowly, shaking his head. “You’re not a Lissmore boy,” he said.

       This was a compliment: they were psychos.

       You know that feeling you get when you’re coming home on the night bus and someone gets on and comes weaving along the aisle, off his face, looking for a fight? You sit there trying to make yourself invisible, gazing out of the window as though there’s something out there so interesting you hadn’t noticed the psychopath on the bus. And you don’t dare stand up and go downstairs where it’s safer, because the minute you move he’ll notice you. The other passengers are doing exactly the same as you: all trying to be invisible, knowing that one of you is going to get your head kicked in and hoping like hell it isn’t them. That was the feeling I had at Lissmore. Every day.

       Chapter 5

      “AND IF YOU come when all the flowers are dying And I am dead, as dead I well may be…”

      Fifteen clear soprano voices bounced off the high walls of Stape High’s music room and the teacher let her fingers trail across the piano keys, until the singers straggled to a halt. She had never come across a choir with such tuneful voices and yet so little musical sense. They sang as if they were reading out a shopping list. “Could we try that again with a little bit of emotion?” she pleaded. “Danny Boy is meant to be a sad song. It’s famous for reducing beefy Irishmen to tears. But not the way you’re singing it, girls.”

      In the back row of the choir Ramsay was finding herself distracted by thoughts of another boy. He hadn’t turned up to the beach barbecue, which was a shame as she’d worn her new red dress and ended up getting sand and sausage fat on it for nothing. And they’d been back at school for a week now and every day he’d failed to turn up. Ramsay’s one tiny criticism of life on Wragge, which was otherwise perfect, was the lack of new faces. It was reassuring to know and be known by everybody on the island, to be safe wherever you went day or night. She hated the way people lived in cities; squashed together in their little boxes, not talking to the neighbours, frightened to go out after dark. But sometimes Ramsay wondered what it would be like to walk into a roomful of strangers: people who hadn’t already made up their mind about her because they knew her parents and her grandparents and had watched her grow up. It would be nice, just once in a while, to go to a party and not be absolutely certain that she would know every single person there.

      Visitors from the mainland or abroad were a rarity – like her friend Georgie’s cousin Josh who came for Christmas. He had been at all the parties, but she’d hardly spoken to him because he was always surrounded by a crowd of admirers. Although more than once she’d caught him staring at her. Then at the New Year’s Eve fireworks at Port Julian she found herself next to him when the countdown to midnight began, and he had grabbed her hand and in the confusion of everyone saying “Happy New Year” and hugging each other he’d pulled her around the back of the war memorial and kissed her. It was the best moment of her life. You could still see the crushed poppies where she’d stumbled and stuck her foot through the wreath. The next day he went back to the mainland and she never saw him again. He’d be eighteen now, she supposed. At university or off travelling somewhere.

      As she sang, Ramsay made a mental list of the known facts about the new occupants of The Brow. Their name was Milman. The mum had inherited the cottage from old Mr Ericsson. (She knew this because her dad was Mr Ericsson’s solicitor, and had witnessed the will.) There seemed to be no dad around. Someone in the house was an artist, because there was an easel in one of the upstairs windows which wasn’t there when Mr Ericsson was alive. Mrs Milman smoked Benson & Hedges and drank Bombay Sapphire Gin and someone in the house was a vegetarian, according to Ellen, who had a Saturday job at the grocer’s shop. She’d overheard Kenny the handyman, their nearest neighbour, telling the school cook he’d seen the kitchen light burning through the night – that they sometimes didn’t go to bed before 3 a.m. It painted a slightly odd picture of family life that made Ramsay curious to know more.

      “But come you back when summer’s in the meadow,” the choir warbled, mechanically, “Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow…”

      “You’re bringing tears to my eyes, girls,” the music teacher called out as she laboured away at the piano, “for all the wrong reasons.”

       Chapter 6

      OVER THE NEXT few days when he was out walking Chet, Daniel often found himself drawn in the direction of Stape High. He would stand at the edge of the field looking at the rows of silhouetted figures at their desks. It gave him a buzz to be outside and free, while others were stuck inside working. Since Lissmore he couldn’t stand being shut in.

      If it was break or lunchtime and there were students out on the field then he would walk straight past without slowing down. He didn’t like being stared at either.

      Sometimes he would see shuttlecocks or basketballs flying to and fro through the high windows of the gym. That wasn’t such a good feeling. Sport was one of the things he missed. Louie was no good as an opponent; she could hardly catch a ball without falling over, and never cared whether she won or lost. Swimming was OK, because you were competing against yourself, but only team games gave you that sense of belonging. Already, the novelty of ‘home education’ was wearing off, and he was bored with his own company.

      Another reason for choosing this route was the possibility of seeing the girl from the café. He hadn’t gone to the party on the beach and regretted it almost immediately. Now people would think he was stuck-up or unfriendly or just a recluse, and there would be no more invitations. He kept on looking out for her, although he wasn’t sure he would recognise her in a crowd. Her face had become confused in his memory with a girl back in London who used to catch his bus. She was much older and never even glanced at him, but he’d fancied her like crazy. Once, when there were no other spaces upstairs, she’d sat in the empty seat beside him, and immediately turned her back so she could talk to her mates. When she leant forward her T-shirt rode up and he could see the top of her thong showing above the waistband of her jeans. It amazed him that he could find this tiny T-shaped bit of elastic so exciting. Now her face was a blur too, all mixed up with blonde plaits and green teeth.

      It was Chet who indirectly brought Daniel into much closer contact with Stape High and its occupants. On one of their walks Daniel had let the dog off the lead as soon as they came down off the moors into the village and Chet had been trotting happily along at his side.

      As they passed the boundary of the school grounds Chet’s ears pricked up. He had noticed something interesting in the distance – a cat or a squirrel – and before Daniel could grab his collar he took off across the field, straight through the middle of a five-a-side football match, barking joyfully.

      “Chet! Come here!” Daniel bellowed, as he chased after the runaway

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