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as ringing the bell. “Open up! MUUU…”
    Mum got an earful of “…UUM!” when she flung open the door. Beyond her, upstairs, Jenny was creating at the top of her lungs.
    “Well done, Pete! Just got her off.” Mum’s voice cracked. There were tears in her eyes. “You never think, do you?”
    Pete could feel his own eyes prickling. This wasn’t fair.
    “Couldn’t get in the back door, and there’s this old woman hanging about outside and I didn’t know what to do…”
    “What woman?” Mum stepped into the street. She followed Pete to the edge of the crater. She looked left and right. “What woman, Pete?” Mum was frowning now, anger turning to concern.
    “I don’t see anyone, love.”

Chapter 9
    “Sorry, pet.”
    Mum was squeezing Pete in one of the biggest hugs he’d had from her in a long time. She kept hugging even though Jenny sounded as if she was auditioning for the lead role in Scream: The Baby From Hell .
    “You were doing the right thing, coming to tell me about the poor woman. She’ll have realised she wandered into the wrong garden when she saw you.” Mum let Pete go with a kiss and was tramping back upstairs. “Was trying to get Madam down before the furniture arrives,” she was sighing when a parping horn drowned her out.
    That meant Pete ended up on Jenny duty while Mum directed the removal men and made them mugs of tea. He kept her upstairs, watching memories of his old life being carried into his new one from the front bedroom window. He jiggled Jenny, who arched and wrestled and shrieked in his arms until she conked out, exhausted at last. With great care Pete laid Jenny down in her cot and tiptoed out of the room and back downstairs.
    “Don’t suppose I can go and play now? I was invited by this boy in the next garden.” Pete knew he shouldn’t have bothered asking, even though Jenny was in her cot. The hallway was already cluttered with furniturefrom the old flat.
    “Could really do with all hands on deck, son.” Dad passed Pete a couple of kitchen chairs.
    Mum added, “And, anyway, I’d need to check it was OK with your friend…”
    “Dunny.”
    “…your friend Dunny’s mum.”
    “And I’d like to check this Dunny fella out first too,” Dad chipped in, just as the bell rang.
    “Excuse me?” piped a voice from the doorstep.
    Even though the front door was wide open and Dunny, bobbing from one foot to another, could see Pete quite clearly, he asked, “Is Peter there and can he come out, please? My mum says he’s welcome.”
    Dunny was talking in such a proper voice, Pete snorted with laughter as he pushed past Dad. “And you called me Nigel?”
    “Sorry, son, Pete won’t be out for a bit, but you ,” Dad squeezed Dunny’s skinny bicep, “are more than welcome to come in and lend a muscle or two so long as your mum won’t mind. There’ll be a fish supper in it.”
    ***
    It was non-stop for the next few hours, Dunny more than happy to muck in, “And a lot stronger than you look, wee man,” as Dad kept telling him. By some miracle, Jenny stayed asleep. This was despite Dunny sneaking up to her cot every few minutes to stroke her tiny hand and pat her cheek to check if she was awake yet.
    “Thought you didn’t like girls,” Pete had to keep reminding him.
    “She’s a wee princess, but.”
    It was Dunny who helped Pete carry his desk and his mattress upstairs. Then they fetched the crate marked ‘Pete’ from the sitting room.
    “This is a blast. I’d like to go into the removal business, in and out of people’s houses, checking out all their mad stuff.”
    “Just be a burglar then.” Pete was shoogling his desk against the window. It fitted exactly where he’d hoped it would.
    “I can see the whole garden from here,” Pete said, “plus the den.”
    “And my place. Look. There’s Wee Stookie. Hey!”
    Dunny had the window flung open before Pete had even picked out the trampoline in the garden beyond his hedge. On it, a mini version of