Before I get to my father, I must tell you about the park, because Elvis Okoro was standing in it, and Elvis Okoro is a problem that arrives before other problems.
Danny and I had not meant to go there. I want to be clear about that. My plan was to walk past it on the far side of the road, like a mouse walking past a cat that is pretending to be asleep. But Danny's little cousin had left a football in the grass, and Danny, who is loyal to footballs, said, "I'll only be a minute," and ran in. And I was not going to leave Danny alone in a park full of rich children.
So I followed. That is how most of my bad ideas begin. Somebody I like runs ahead.
The National Park is the best thing in County A. It has a proper fence, a proper gate and a fountain that works about half the time, which is a very good rate for County A. There are swings, a football pitch and a long row of flame trees that drop red petals on the path every morning. The children who play there wear clean shoes. Nobody has ever told me I can't go in.
But nobody has ever needed to.
When I came through the gate, I felt it like a change in the weather. The football game slowed. A girl on the swings stopped swinging. Two small boys who had been making a very serious sandcastle turned round and stared at me with the pure, round-eyed horror of people who have just seen a ghost carrying a lunch box.
I stopped. I looked at my feet. I had left a line of dusty prints on the clean path, like a very sad snail.
"Look who it is," said somebody.
I did not have to look. I knew the voice. It sounds like a bell that has been told it's important.
* * *
Elvis Okoro is fourteen, tall, sleek and shiny, with the confident walk of a boy who has never once been stopped at a door. His family owns the biggest supermarket in County A, which is why people greet him first and apologise to him later. He is Danny's older brother.
He is also, by his own announcement, the Hero of the Park, which means he has appointed himself its guard, judge and chief of police. Every afternoon he sits on the highest bench, with three or four friends around him, and decides who may play and who may not.
I have never been allowed.
"Why are you here?" said Elvis. He did not stand up. People like Elvis rarely stand up for people like me. It would mean admitting I was tall enough to need standing for.
"I'm only helping Danny find a ball," I said.
"Danny can find his own ball."
"He asked me."
"He's young. He doesn't know any better. That's why he's always with a pig." Elvis looked at my clothes the way you look at a stain. "Are you not ashamed? Do you want your brother to end up like you? One day you are going to ruin his whole life."
I should say here that I have been called many things. Pig. Jinx. The little mad boy. The goat boy, from the incident of the goat. But there is one name Elvis uses that I have never quite got used to, and I heard it coming in his voice like thunder.
"You are a virus," said Elvis, with great pleasure. "That's what you are. You came into this county and you've been making everyone sick ever since."
I opened my mouth, and a very bad idea arrived in it.
"That's not true," I said. "A virus needs a living host."
There was a short silence.
"What?" said Elvis.
"A virus. It can't live on its own, so it has to get inside somebody. You'd have to be good company for that. I think I would need to be much more popular." I pretended to think. "So really, I'm more of a rumour. Rumours spread without anyone liking them."
Somebody behind me made a noise. It might have been a cough.
I looked round, and to my astonishment saw that one of Elvis's friends, a thin boy with a stripe shaved into his hair, had put his hand over his mouth and was shaking. He met my eye. He stopped at once, and turned a laugh into a sneeze, and I thought: Ah. So he can be wrong about me, too.
It was a very small thing. But it warmed me, like a coin you find in an old pocket.
Elvis, on the other hand, went the colour of a ripe tomato.
* * *
"Say that again," he said.
"I'd rather not. I'm still pleased with the first one."
"JJ," whispered Danny, who had appeared at my elbow with the football under his arm and his tooth-gap whistling like a kettle. "Please stop being clever."
"I'm not being clever. I'm being accurate."
"It's the same thing, in front of Elvis."
Elvis had stood up. He was a head taller than me, and he came toward us in the long, rolling stride of a boy who has watched many films about large men. "Danny," he said. "Come here."
"No."
"I said come here."
"And I said no."
I should explain that nobody says no to Elvis. It is not a rule. It is just a thing that does not happen, like snow in County A. Even the bench seemed to lean back in surprise.
Danny put the ball down. He put his hands on his hips, in a posture I have seen on every angry market woman in this county, and he lifted his chin, and he said, in a voice that shook only a little:
"First, he's my friend, so it is my problem. Second, has JJ ever done anything to you?"
"He's dirty."
"That is not a thing he did. That is a thing he has. Like freckles."
"Danny."
"Third," said Danny, and I swear his voice cracked, "if you want to talk about people who ruin lives, Elvis, you should look at who told Mama I stole money last term. When I didn't."
There was a very quiet pause.
Elvis's face did something complicated. For about one second I saw a boy who knew exactly what he'd done, and wished it were a different day. Then it closed again, like a shop.
"We'll talk at home," he said, thinly.
"Yes. We will."
I was staring at Danny. I had never seen him like this. I had known him since we were four years old and he had eaten half my sandwich and apologised with the other half. I had always thought of him as the small, kind one, the one who needed protecting.
I was wrong. He was the brave one. He had just been very good at hiding it.
* * *
And that is why I could not stand there and let him fight for me.
I know it sounds silly. But I have a rule, and my rule is this: Never let someone be hurt on your account if you can make it stop. I did not learn it from my parents. I learned it from watching Danny's face the first time he got in trouble for sitting beside me at school. He never complained. He only looked at the floor, and I thought: I did that to him. I have a lot of dust but I should not put it on other people.
"It's okay, Danny," I said. I said it gently, in the calm, humble voice that I have been practising for years. "You don't have to argue with your brother over me. I'm going home. I'll see you tomorrow."
"JJ—"
"Honestly. I'm fine. I'm a rock."
"You're a pig," said Elvis, to the park at large, and a few of his friends sniggered. "And you're stupid if you think anybody here would miss you."
I looked around. I saw the disgusted faces. I saw the parents on the benches turning their heads away, the children whispering behind their hands, the girl on the swing who had stopped swinging and was now watching me with a very still, very curious look I could not read.
I did not blame them. I could not face myself, either.
So I did what I always do. I smiled, a small, polite, harmless smile, as if I had come to the wrong party and was leaving quietly. I nodded to Danny. I turned round.
And behind me, as I walked out of the gate, I heard Elvis's voice rise one last time, light and clear and sure of its own importance.
"It is good that you know your place."
The gate clanged shut.
I did not look back. Not once. But I counted the red petals on the path as I went, because it is easier to count than to feel, and I got to forty-one before I realised that my hands, in my pockets, were shaking.
Then I began to run, because the sun was setting, and my father's motorbike was waiting, and I had no idea at all what I was running toward.