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the ground in panic.
    ‘It’s OK,’ Oscar says soothingly to the ducks. ‘They’re nervous wrecks,’ he says to me.
    Without actually thinking about it, I find myself bent over like Oscar, creeping along after two neurotic ducks.
    ‘How far is it?’ I whisper.
    ‘Not far,’ Oscar whispers back. ‘Why are we whispering?’
    ‘I don’t know. It just seemed like a whispering occasion.’
    About two minutes later we turn another corner and are faced with the children’s playground we passed yesterday and, next to it, a small pond full of much less gormless ducks.
    ‘There you go!’ Oscar says. The ducks flutter gratefully into the water. ‘You should maybe just think about staying here, yeah?’
    The ducks stare at him as if they’re genuinely listening. They really do.
    I laugh. ‘What are you? Some kind of duck whisperer?’
    ‘Ah,’ Oscar says, ‘we can all talk to the animals as long as we believe.’
    ‘Yeah,’ I say, grinning. ‘Course we can.’
    ‘You seem to have forgotten that I taught my budgie to talk and you, madam, did not.’
    ‘You taught your budgie one measly word,’ I tell him. ‘Not impressed.’
    ‘It was still one more word than you managed to teach yours,’ he says, bumping his arm against mine.
    ‘It wasn’t even a good word,’ I say. ‘You could’ve at least taught it to say “bollocks” or something.’
    ‘“Hello” was a perfectly reasonable first word to teach it.’
    ‘Yeah, first word. Not only word.’
    ‘Well, I really didn’t expect it to be his only word. I thought I’d have him chatting away in no time.’
    I laugh and remember the look on Oscar’s face when he’d first spotted my budgie, Nipper. Nipper was grey and white and really sweet. Oscar was obsessed and nagged his parents until they gave in and bought him his own budgie. His was green and yellow and he named him Busby. Nipper showed no inclination to talk at all. All he wanted to do was chew up newspaper and look at himself in the mirror. But Busby used to sit on Oscar’s finger for hours, watching his mouth as he chattered away.
    I used to take the piss out of him and call him the Mad Bird Boy of Bramhall. Which was a bit rich now I think about it, since I bloody loved Nipper. When he died, I was so upset I got sent home from school. And I was in Year 8.
    As we turn to walk back to the canal, I shade my eyes and say, ‘What are you wearing?’
    He looks down at himself and then back up at me. ‘What?’ But he’s grinning, so he knows exactly what I’m getting at.
    He’s wearing baggy long shorts and a sort of tank top over a T-shirt with bright green trainers and no socks. He always did dress weird – as if he couldn’t care less what anyone thought – but not this weird. He’s also got a sort of barrel bag over his back with badges pinned to the strap. One of them says WE ARE ALL MADE OF STARDUST.
    ‘More to the point, what are you wearing?’ he says.
    I glance down at myself and feel my cheeks get hot. In my rush to find out what Oscar was doing I didn’t even realise what I’d left the house in. I’m wearing a black T-shirt over Elmo pyjama bottoms.
    ‘I may have Elmo on my pyjamas, but you appear to have him on your head,’ I say.
    He reaches up and runs his hand through his red hair. ‘Oh yeah. I did this for a bet, but I like it. What do you think? It’s eye-catching, right?’
    ‘Almost eye-searing,’ I say.
    He grins and points to his teeth. ‘No brace either.’
    His teeth are straight and his grin is just as huge as it always was. People used to call him Banana Mouth.
    I realise I’m grinning back at him without even thinking about it.
    He sort of pats me on the arm and hops up and down a little bit. ‘It’s so good to see you!’ he says.
    ‘You too,’ I say.
    And it is.

Chapter Six
     
    Oscar had been on his way to see us when he’d spotted the lost ducks, so he walks back with me. Mum used to have this little wooden plaque on the wall in the