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years older than me. They were a boy and a girl, like us right now. I didn’t understand. How was it possible to
stop
loving someone?
    I stood up, brushing the dirt off my shorts, and asked Trick if he wanted to see something cool, which, of course, he did.
    If you followed the brook deep into the Ashbourne Estate, right to the furthest edge of the cornfield, past where the Shetland ponies feed in the meadow and the barbed wire is snagged with
sheep’s wool, you eventually came to Drum Hill, which the brook flowed through inside a concrete tunnel.
    I let Trick go in front so he could see the view from the top first.
    He whistled in appreciation.
    Ashbourne Lake spread out below us, big as a football pitch and glittering in the sun. A pair of swans came in to land as we reached the water’s edge, scattering moorhens with their floppy
orange feet. Trick kicked water at them, making them hiss, and I told him to leave them alone. I laughed a minute later when one waddled onto the bank and went snapping and hissing after him.
    The right-hand verge was striped with an orchard, and I collapsed under a gnarled-looking apple tree, desperate for shade. In the background, Ashbourne Hall stood grey and square, and Trick
asked if we were allowed to be here. I told him that we’d have to run if anyone came, and he didn’t say anything, but I could see from his profile that he was pleased.
    At the lake’s centre, a stone woman poured water over her bare shoulders, and I found myself falling into thinking about Mum again, the way she used to wet a sponge in the bath and squeeze
it so water ran over her head, wetting her long hair. Before I fell any further, I kicked off my shoes and ran into the freezing water.
    Everything was muffled and reeds tickled my belly, and then there was a fizzing noise and Trick had jumped in beside me. We trod water, and grinned at each other because it was impossible to
describe how good it was to have sun hot on our scalps, and water cold on our bodies, and the surface flashing gold and silver every time we turned our heads.
    A bolt of electric blue caught my eye, and I tracked it automatically, moving slowly through the water.
    ‘What is it?’ Trick asked, following behind me.
    ‘
Shhh
.’
    The damselfly flitted from reed to reed then stopped. Its wings moved so fast they almost disappeared.
    ‘It
is
! Look. I can’t believe it! It’s an azure damselfly! I thought I’d never see one.’
    The rod-like body twitched, then took off, and I flung water into the air to celebrate.
    ‘How can you tell?’ Trick asked, and he looked confused by how excited I was, but he wasn’t trying to make me feel stupid, so I told him the truth: because of my dad.
    ‘The azure’s got three stripes on its thorax. They’re really rare. My dad knows everything about plants and animals,’ I said, flicking water at a mist of gnats.
    ‘Cool,’ Trick said, and I ducked my head under the water so I could beam unwitnessed.
    Emerging straight-faced, I hooked my toes against a stone on the bank. Trick did the same.
    ‘I’m glad we came here,’ he announced, and I knew from his voice that he didn’t just mean today and to the lake.
    ‘Me too,’ I told him, and my hair swirled around my ears in agreement.

Four

    We hung around together every day after that. It was so hot there was a hosepipe ban, and I snuck a wonky stool out from Silverweed, which we used to play cards in the shade
under the oak tree. Trick was an Irish traveller, which meant he was Catholic, and supposed to go to Mass a lot more than he did, and, of course, that he was Irish, though he’d only been to
Dublin once since he was born there and couldn’t remember it.
    Sometimes people who love talking are no good at listening, but it wasn’t that way with Trick. He paid attention, and I told him everything. I talked a lot about Mum. He was the only
person I knew who was impressed by what she was doing. I told him how she loved singing, and