To Mairi Kidd, who mothered my boys

First published in 2019 in Great Britain by

Barrington Stoke Ltd
18 Walker Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7LP

www.barringtonstoke.co.uk

Text © 2019 Anthony McGowan

Image © 2019 Nick Hayes

The moral right of Anthony McGowan to be identified as the

author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced in whole or in any part in any form without the
written permission of the publisher

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library upon request

ISBN: 978-1-78112-843-5

Printed in China by Leo

This book has dyslexia-friendly features

 Prologue

“I don’t bloody like it.”

“Language, Kenny,” I said to my brother. “You
don’t have to bloody well say bloody all the bloody
time. It’s not clever, and it’s not funny.”
I copied the whining voice of Mr Kimble, our
English teacher. But it was wasted on Kenny, as he
didn’t go to my school.
“But it is bloody cold,” Kenny said.
“I know.”
“And we’re bloody lost.”
“I bloody know.”
I looked around. It had stopped snowing, but
the path had almost vanished. I saw white fields
and stone walls. The black skeletons of trees
climbing out of the frozen earth. The sky was a
sort of pale grey, like a seagull’s back. In fact,

1
the sky was the weirdest thing about it all. You “Whatever,” Kenny said, getting annoyed. But
couldn’t see any clouds, or any of the blue in at least his mind wasn’t on the snow and the cold
between the clouds. Just this solid grey nothing like and the mess we were in.
cold porridge, going on for ever. “Go on then,” I said.
I had Tina, our Jack Russell, on the lead. She’d “What?”
enjoyed the snow to begin with, snapping at it and “These bad words Milo told you, let’s hear
chewing mouthfuls, as if she’d caught a rat. But them.”
now she looked as fed up as us. She was getting on “You won’t tell Dad or Jenny that I know them?”
a bit, and the cold had got into her bones. Kenny asked.
“And there’s worser words than bloody,” Kenny “Course not. I’m not a grass.”
said. He had his big hands thrust into the pockets “You told them where I hid the turkey.”
of his jeans to hide them from the wind. “There’s “I had to,” I said. “Otherwise there’d have been
this boy, Milo, at school, and he knows all of them.” no Christmas dinner.”
“What?” I snorted. “He knows every bad word Kenny nodded. He could see the logic in that.
there is?” “OK, then,” Kenny said. “Right …”
“Yeah.” And then Kenny told me all the dirty words he
“What, every bad word in the whole world?” knew. It made us laugh, but not enough to warm us
“Yeah, course,” Kenny said. “Well, maybe not in up. Half of the words weren’t even real. Stuff like
the world, but in England. Cos, yeah, there might “splonger” and “bozzle”. I don’t know if this Milo
be bad words in other countries he doesn’t know, kid had said it for a joke, or if someone had told
like the Chinese for knob and the African for arse.” him that nonsense and he just passed it on.
“African isn’t a language, Kenny,” I told The best was when Kenny said, “A sod, do you
him. “It’s not even a country. There are loads of know what that is?”
countries in Africa and hundreds of languages. “Not really,” I replied.
They all have mucky words in them.” “It’s one of the worst words there is,” Kenny
told me. “Even saying it gets you a million years

2 3
in hell. A sod is a man who digs up dead bodies to
have it off with.”
“I’m not sure it is, Kenny,” I said, spluttering.
“It is! And a daft sod is one who forgets his
spade.”
And then I laughed so hard I cried, and snot
One
came out of my nose. The tears and snot were
warm for a moment on my skin, and then cold, cold.
“You, you’re a daft sod,” I said.
Kenny shoved me, and I was laughing too
much to keep my balance and I fell over. Tina got It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was meant to
excited for the first time in ages and barked and be a stroll, a laugh.
scampered around. A lark.
I hit the ground and felt the snow under me, It was our dad’s idea. Kenny had been bored
and under the snow the hardness of the frozen and excited at the same time for a while now,
earth. Then I realised just how much trouble we and that made him act up a lot. Sometimes he
were in. sulked, not saying anything for hours. He’d stare
I stood up and brushed off the snow. I think at the rain running down the windows as if he was
Kenny was expecting me to push him back, so he watching the telly. And then something would
was laughing but keeping his distance. Then Kenny set him off and he’d go manic. He’d punch the
saw my face, and he stopped laughing. cushions on the settee or shout out random stuff
“We better get off this hill, Kenny,” I said. “Or in the street or scramble to the top of the climbing
we’ll catch our bloody deaths.” frame in the park and howl like a wolf. That made
the kids playing there laugh, but it freaked out the
mums and dads and child‑minders smoking on the
broken benches.

4 5
 Kenny was bored because it was the Easter in lessons at school. Except the feelings aren’t
holidays and none of his mates were around. He sweet.
went to a special school, and the kids travelled And there was another thing I wanted to stop
there from all over the place. None of them lived thinking about. I’d had a girlfriend, and then I
near us. didn’t. I couldn’t talk about it to Kenny or my dad
He was excited because next week our mum or Jenny. It was a sick feeling inside me all the
was coming to visit us from Canada. She left us time, like when you’ve eaten something a bit off.
when we were little, and we hadn’t seen her since. So, yeah, I was in a state, too, and when my
It turned out that she’d sent letters and cards every dad said I should take Kenny up for a walk on the
birthday. But we moved so many times, flitting moors, I was well up for it.
from paying the rent, that they never reached us. “It’s nice up there,” Dad said. We were sitting
And then she finally tracked us down. in the kitchen, having a cup of tea. Dad had just
She was coming to stay – not with us, but in a come home from a long night shift and looked
hotel. She couldn’t stay with us because my dad knackered. “Your granddad used to take me up
had a new girlfriend, Jenny, and it would have on the moors when I was a nipper, before he got
messed with Jenny’s head. sick,” Dad told me. “And it’s not like now, when
So that’s why Kenny had been bored and you see people going for a stroll all kitted out as if
excited. they’re off to the South Pole. All we’d bring was a
And he wasn’t the only one. carrier bag with a bottle of pop in it and some jam
I was just as messed up about our mum coming sandwiches. And we’d walk until we got somewhere
as Kenny, but I’d got good at hiding my feelings. high, so you could see all the world below you – the
Years ago, I’d hidden my feelings about my mum fields and woods and hills. Until in the distance
and everything for Kenny’s sake. But after a while, your eyes came to a dirty smudge, and that was
it gets to be a habit. You keep the feelings on the Leeds.”
inside, like the way you hide a sweet in your mouth My dad didn’t talk much about his mum and
dad. They’d died before me and Kenny were born.

6 7
Granddad had been a miner, like my dad was before larks would be shooting up straight into the sky
they shut the pits and everyone lost their jobs. like little brown fireworks. They’d sing their hearts
My dad was looking into the distance now, not out as they climbed – the dads showing off to the
across the fields but back. Back to the hill and the mams.”
moors, and the pop and the jam sandwiches, and his I looked at Kenny. His eyes were shining as he
dad. saw the larks soaring up into the blue sky of his
After a couple of seconds, he went on, “At this mind. He loved fireworks more than anything. He
time of year the larks will be singing.” was probably imagining the larks with sparks flying
“What’s larks?” asked Kenny, who’d just burst out of their arses.
into the kitchen.
“A lark is a bird,” I said.
I was good on birds. I knew what a lark was So that’s when we decided we’d go for a day up
and what it looked like from pictures in books, but on the moors. Dad helped us plan it all out. “I
I’d never seen one in real life. know just the place to go,” he said. We found it on
“Aye, that’s right,” Dad said. “They used to be Google Maps, and Dad printed it out. But the ink
dead common in the fields round here, but you was running out, so the map was faded and blurry.
don’t see ’em any more.” We had to catch three buses to get there, changing
“Why not?” Kenny asked. “Did someone kill at York and then at Thirsk. I liked the idea of
’em all?” Kenny may not have known what a lark getting three buses. It made it seem more like an
was, but he loved animals and hated the thought of adventure.
hurting them. “You get off the last bus here,” Dad said as
“Eh?” Dad said. “No, not really. The farmers he pointed it out on the map laid on the kitchen
changed the way they do things, so there’s not as table. “There’s a nice little lane.” His finger traced
much for the larks to eat, especially in the winter. a line that curved across the fields, joining up two
But back then, in spring and summer, you’d be villages. “It’s only a couple of miles. There’ll be
walking down the lanes and all around you the shops and stuff there if you need extra supplies.”

8 9
He jabbed again at the map. “You can pick up the “Jam of course,” I said, thinking of my dad and
bus back home from here.” granddad back in the olden days. “And cheese. Do
We had to set off early, or we’d never get there cheese as well.”
and back in a day. My dad worked nights, wheeling I crammed some gloves and a scarf and an
sick people around on trolleys at the hospital. We’d extra jumper and a bobble hat in my Adidas school
have to get going before he got home. Normally, bag, because I knew Kenny would have gone out
Jenny would have been there to help us sort without them. The scarf and the hat were in the
everything out, but she was working shifts, too. So Leeds United colours – white with yellow and blue
that morning it was just me and Kenny. stripes. I had the printed‑out map and my phone
He’d woken up when it was still dark, the way was charged up. And I packed my good penknife in
he always did when something good was going to case we had to do some emergency stick‑whittling
happen. or fight off zombies.
“Get up, our Nicky,” Kenny yelled at me, and And I took a lighter as well, cramming it in my
ruined a perfectly good dream I was having. Tina, inside pocket. Just a cheap plastic one. I couldn’t
who always slept with her bum in Kenny’s face, remember where it had come from. My dad didn’t
picked up on the excitement and started barking smoke. Sometimes I wondered if it had belonged to
and yapping. my mum. That’s why I kept it, even though it had
Tina had a body the colour of a dirty hanky, probably just been left behind by one of my dad’s
and a brown face. She wasn’t a genius, but she mates back when Dad was drinking all the time.
was loyal, and she’d have died for Kenny. We got
her after she’d been left for dead by some bad lads.
They’d been using her to hunt badgers. I suppose
we’d saved Tina’s life, and she thought she owed us.
“You feed Tina, then make the sandwiches,” I
told Kenny, “while I get the kit sorted.”
“What sandwiches shall I do?” Kenny asked.

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