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and it was kind of infectious. When we calmed down, I said, “No, but seriously, what actually did happen?”
    â€œI’m a stable boy, aren’t I? Finger loss is an occupational hazard. All it takes is one moment of daydreaming, and whack!”
    He did this big exaggerated mime of a hammer banging down on his hand. “Learned a good lesson, though. Thereare times for daydreaming, but then there are other times when it’s not such a good idea.”
    â€œDo you miss it?”
    â€œWell, it is a bit of a nuisance when I’m trying to point at something, but apart from that I get on fairly well without it.”
    I told Kevin all about how my mother had left me to go and work in Australia, even though I hardly ever discussed that with anyone because nobody usually knew what to say. As far as I know, it’s not that usual for someone’s mother to go off to a whole other continent. He listened to me very carefully. He didn’t go into bogus sympathy mode like some people do when you tell them stuff like that, and he didn’t interrupt or ask me how I felt about it or how I was coping or any other useless thing at all. He waited until I’d finished, and when I had, he said it sounded like I missed her quite a lot, and I said yes I did, sometimes.
    And then he told me a bit more about this girl we were going to collect, and of course the whole time I knew exactly who he was talking about. He said she was great, and he went on about how she had this dark curly hair and a face as pale as eggshell.
    â€œSounds as if you quite like her,” I said, which was obviously the understatement of the entire century.
    I asked him why hadn’t he gone to get her before now, and he said he already had, but her parents had sent him away because he’d turned up on his own out of the blueon a horse, with no documentation or advance warning or anything.
    â€œStop me if I’m wrong,” I said, “but isn’t that exactly what we’re doing again now?”
    He grinned and said there was one crucial difference this time. And the crucial difference was me. Me and the cart.
    No one ever went into service in Blackbrick, or “the big house,” which is what everyone called it, without hearing formally from the owner or one of his representatives. The Blackbrick cart was always sent, not a wild local boy riding bareback on a horse. If the cart wasn’t sent, then nobody could be sure the arrangement was above board. That’s why the last time he’d gone to get her, they hadn’t allowed her to go.
    My chancer of a granddad was trying to smuggle her in. And this was his second attempt.
    Then he told me that I was going to have to pretend to be the nephew of Lord Corporamore. I wished he’d let me know about that a bit sooner than three minutes before we were due to arrive.
    He told me that he was going to hide behind the cart and that I was to tell them my name was Cyril, which apparently he thought was a pretty realistic name for Corporamore’s nephew to have.
    I didn’t argue, although I’d have preferred a nonstupid name for once in my life, even if it was only for a few minutes.
    Kevin handed me the reins. He said if I kept on being this good, he’d let me drive on the way back, too. The cart was rattly, and Ross’s and Somerville’s hooves clopped in a lovely way, making an uplifting kind of sound on the ground beneath, and the wind blew, fresh and energetic and whistly, and there was only one thing I kept thinking about.
    Very soon I’d be seeing her.

    It was a tiny little house in the middle of a row of other houses. I went to the door.
    A load of kids stood very still, staring at me with serious faces. When I said that my name was Cyril Corporamore, I thought I saw a couple of compassionate looks, but I might have been imagining that.
    I shook her parents’ hands and I studied their faces while at the same time trying to