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possibly go to school today’, so he took the two lunchboxes from the fridge and picked up his bag and walked out into the hall with Anne. He wished he’d had something for breakfast – now he’d have to wait till half twelve to eat the tomato sandwich that was always gone soggy by lunchtime.
    The curtains were still pulled in their father’s downstairs bedroom. Their father had taken sleeping tablets every night since the accident, and he never got up now till around noon. On bad days he was still in bed when the children got home from school.
    ‘Don’t tell about Helen,’ Luke said to Anne as they walked towards Mr Farrell’s car.
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Because it’s none of their business.’ No need to give anyone another reason to talk about the poor Mitchells. ‘She’ll be back soon anyway.’
    Every so often during the day, Luke remembered that Helen was missing. He wondered what the others in his class would say if he told them. Would it get into the newspapers? Would Helen’s photo be on ‘Crimecall’?
    What if she was dead? He couldn’t eat his lunch,thinking about that. He watched a few of his friends playing soccer in a corner of the yard. He hoped Helen would be found quickly, if she was dead. He didn’t like to think of her lying in a field somewhere, with rain falling on her.
    In the afternoon, Mrs Hutchinson asked them how they were getting on with their penfriends. A few girls said ‘brilliant’, and Luke guessed that they were writing to boys. None of the boys in the class said brilliant.
    ‘Well, they’re delighted with you, according to their teacher,’ Mrs Hutchinson told them. ‘Keep up the good work.’
    Helen came home that evening. She walked into the kitchen as her mother was giving a description of her to a policewoman.
    From the sitting room, Luke cocked his head and listened to the shouting. As soon as he made out Helen’s voice, he turned up the volume on the TV. His father, sitting in another armchair, kept his eyes on the screen, but began rocking uneasily as soon as the shouting began.
    ‘Helen came home,’ Luke told him. His father darted a look at him, and then stared back at the screen, still rocking.
    ‘It’s OK,’ Luke said. ‘She’s home now. Everything’sOK.’ When ‘The Simpsons’ was over, he watched the credits as they rolled up the screen. ‘Will I switch to the News?’
    ‘Yeah, the News,’ said his father, brightening up. ‘Yeah, the News.’
    In the hall, Luke stood listening for a minute. There was no shouting coming from the kitchen. The police car was gone from the driveway. He could smell the sausages they always had on Wednesdays, and his mouth watered. He remembered he’d had nothing to eat all day.
    Helen didn’t come down for tea. Luke’s grandmother put sausages and pudding and grilled tomato on a plate and brought it upstairs. His mother looked as if she’d been crying.
    Afterwards, Luke helped with the dishes while his mother put his father to bed.
    ‘Where was Helen?’ he asked his grandmother, but she just shook her head.
    ‘She won’t say. She wouldn’t even tell the guard.’ She finished scrubbing the frying pan and put it on the draining board.
    In his room later, Luke reread his penfriend’s last letter. She still sounded so dumb. ‘I think I’ll be a pop star’ indeed. As if you could just decide to be something like a pop star, and that would be it. As ifa pop star was better than a brain surgeon. Not that Luke had any notion of being a brain surgeon, of course.
    And how on earth was he going to get out of the whole horse business? Why hadn’t he thought more about what stories to make up? His penfriend was being so persistent – it was obvious she didn’t believe he had any horses. Well, no way was he going to admit that. He’d just have to think of something.
    And what the heck was all that about her mother being a famous chef? How could anyone be famous for making gravy? Wasn’t that just powder mixed