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over the back of the bench to strip the silvery discs from the stems, and put them in her pocket.
    She got up and approached the hole, which was bigger than it had looked from the kitchen. The pile of earth beside it retained the inner dimensions of the digger’s claw here and there, she saw, in brief angles and surfaces. Leaning heavily on her stick, she managed to lower herself into a kneeling position. It wasn’t elegant, but then so little was these days. Had she ever been elegant? she wondered. Probably not.
    Some of the bulbs hadn’t been covered up at all, and so were easy to spot in the faint light falling from her kitchen window on the other side of the fence. She picked one up and brushed the soil from it; its papery skin was not unlike her own. Yet underneath it wasn’t pulpy, but firm and waxy, waiting to push up through the cold soil with all the coiled energy of spring. It smelled of earth and rain.
    Painstakingly, Sophia fished the rest of the bulbs from their rows and piled them up on the grass beside the hole. There were fifty-seven. She could feel her knees stiffening, and knew there’d be hell to pay tomorrow. With her bare hands she scooped as much of the soil to one side as she could, feeling the good dirt working its way up under her fingernails, and every so often the cold, wet softness of a worm.
    She sat on the edge of the hole for a moment, thinking through what to do next. Then, she began to fill her pockets with bulbs until Henry’s greatcoat was bulging with them, as were her cardigan pockets underneath. Using her stick and the metal fence, she slowly stood up, her moon shadow faint and ghostly on the grass.
    In the dark, the hole looked as deep as a grave. Sophia began to throw the bulbs in one by one, letting them land wherever they would.
    Finally, the bulbs were all in the ground. Sophia cast into the pit the honesty pods, and the flat seeds which had made their way out of them into the crevices of Henry’s pockets. Finally, and laboriously, she kicked the earth back in from the sides to cover the bulbs. Perhaps it didn’t look exactly as it had when the men from the council had clocked off, but she was willing to bet that tomorrow morning they would simply roll back the turf and move on to the next job.
    Back at home, Sophia’s face was a pale blur in the black glass of her kitchen window. Before going to bed she scrubbed her old hands with Fairy and a nail brush, but it would be days before they were entirely clean again.

3
    Dog Whipping Day
     
    TC typed the name in again and hit return. There were lots of hits – some of them nothing like his dad, even some from abroad. Some of them were kids on Facebook, or people who had won things or done crimes. He clicked through to the next page, and the next. There must be a way you did it – find people. Like detectives, or police. How did you do it, if you didn’t even know what city to look in, if the person had been gone for months now? He didn’t know.
    ‘Do you need any help?’ It was the librarian, nosying up behind him.
    TC hit the ‘x’, slung his bag on his back and headed for maths. His dad had probably written to him or something, and she’d chucked it. There was no way he’d just have left TC behind. Her, maybe; but not him. He’d have to start checking the post, find a way to be around when it came. Or just go through the bins.
    In the corridor he was careful about eye contact, timing too. It was best not to be noticed. Sometimes you got put on the spot, asked questions and there wasn’t a right answer. Or there was something wrong about you, what you were wearing or doing. It wasn’t bullying – that was being punched and kicked – it was just that he was weird, and it was obvious. He couldn’t even blame them for noticing; he could see it himself. It leaked out of him, he couldn’t help it. Like you weren’t allowed to say certain jokes, because it came out wrong in your voice somehow, and then you’d get