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can feel it, can you?’ Jack smirks at Dad. He always makes fun of the way Dad thinks he has some sort of a psychicconnection with swans.
    â€˜Yeah.’ Dad smiles crookedly. ‘I'd feel it if they went somewhere else, sure!’
    Jack squawks with laughter and Dad joins in a little.
    â€˜What?’ Dad protests, still smiling. ‘I would!’
    I think about that young, grey swan circling around the wetlands on her own. Would Dad also feel it if she went? Would anyone? I turn around to face Dad.
    â€˜Can we keep looking for the swans tomorrow after school?’ I ask. ‘Maybe go back to the reserve?’
    Dad starts to nod. But Mum's in the doorway straight away.
    â€˜Doctor first,’ she growls.
    Dad holds his hands up in surrender. He winks at me. ‘Sorry, Bird,’ he says. ‘Soon.’
    I turn back to the telly, rest my head against Dad's knee. It's kind of nice to hear him call me by my kiddy name again. He hasn't done it for ages. It's what he started calling me when I was a baby, before I had a name. He said I looked like a tiny bird, something fallen from a high place. It makes me feel small and young to hear it again.
    Jack turns the telly volume down on the hospital drama he's been watching to talk to Dad. I can smell the mud on the bottom of his trousers and guess he's been playing football this morning. I think about last weekend when he let me and Saskia come with him. He didn't seem to mind too much, even though his mates were all there. Sometimes he's good like that. Or maybe he just felt sorry for me because he knew Saskia was leaving. Maybe Mum told him to do it.
    The hospital show switches to an operation scene and I turn away from it. Instead I remember playing in Jack's football game; how Crowy, Jack's friend, passed the ball across to me. It felt like I could run with it for ever. All the way down the pitch with Saskia cheering on the side. All the way to the moon. That's what I feel like doing now, running. My mind is full of images of the dead swans. Running helps with getting rid of images, somehow. The faster you run, the harder it is for thoughts to stay in your head.
    Dad starts telling Jack about how the swans hit the wires. Jack wants to know every detail . . . the smell, what bones were broken, how cold the water was. It makes me feel sick, hearing them talk about it. I try not to hear what Dad's saying by pressing my ear more firmly against the material of his pyjamas.
    Then the phone rings. I feel Dad's leg tense when Mum answers.
    â€˜I'm sorry to hear that, Martin,’ I hear Mum say. ‘I'll let them know now.’
    She waits a second or two before she comes into the living room. I know already what she's going to say. I see the frown on Mum's face as she tries to work out how to tell us.
    â€˜It's the swan, isn't it?’ I ask.
    She just nods. I hear Dad sighing behind me, thumping his head back onto the couch.
    â€˜Should have taken it to a proper vet,’ he murmurs.

CHAPTER 6
    T he rain lashes against the car as Mum drives Jack and me to school. Mum's talking quietly about Dad, telling us he needs to get tests done this week.
    â€˜They think it might be his heart,’ Mum murmurs.
    I can't hear the rest of what she says above the sound of the rain.
    I look down Saskia's road as we pass it, or the road that used to be her road. The ‘For Sale’ sign is still in front of her house. I hated helping her pack up her room last week; taking down all the silly photos of us she'd stuck to the wall. Hated watching her family drive away. I press my forehead to the cold window glass, wonder what school will be like without Saskia. She'll be up in Glasgow by now, already starting at a new school. Making new friends. Fitting in. Forgetting me. I don't want to think about it. Instead, I scan the sky. I'mlooking for the swan flock, though I know they won't be flying so close to the city. We drive past the corner shop