MORNING SERIAL

SHE flushes and makes a note, but Pigeon grabs her notebook halfway through.

– difficult relationship – possibly repeated violence? – Psychological mistreatment? –

“Pigeon, Give that back!” she says. You can hear the strain in her voice. Fear? Her upper lip sweats as he holds the notebook, reading with interest as the description of him grows across the page, her handwriting adding flesh to the bones, describing his pigeonhole to a T. But he gives her the notebook back, impatient to get out. To get away.

“So anyways, I did it. Might as well tell you. I did it.” “What?” “Well, Gwyn’s house for starters!” He shakes his head, almost laughs.

“Who’s Gwyn?” Again she’s confused, again looking in her papers for the answer, frowning.

Pigeon looks at her, and his eyebrows go up.

“Don’t you know anything?” he asks her, as if interested. He smiles. He’s enjoying this, except for the feeling; the feeling that The joke won’t be worth the pain.

She shuffles through her papers, frantically looking for a note, a scribble, an underlined name.

“He’s the ice-cream man,” says Pigeon with a helpful smile. “I burnt down his house.”

If it wasn’t for that Pigeon might have got off lightly, even with the body lying in holes on the ground. He would have got off lightly because he had bruises, Pigeon, and his mam would testify that it was self-defence, and even His friends knew that Adrian was a brute. But burning that house. Burning Gwyn’s house. That carried the boy into a different league. He was malicious. He was dangerous. He had to be locked up a good while. Re-educated. Spat out brand new.

We don’t talk about it much, me and Efa. She doesn’t ask me many questions. I don’t ever ask her if she’s glad Pigeon’s gone. She doesn’t think it’s anything to do with me, so she doesn’t ask.