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how long I in the shop when I come out pushcart boy still there. In the end I can’t take it no more so I go up to him and say, ‘You following me, bwoy?’
    Him look surprise. ‘Me, sah? No, sah.’
    ‘Yes, you follow me. You come all up Barry Street. I think you go all ’round Orange Street and back again.’ I wave my arm in the air pointing in the direction we been walking all morning. ‘You think you going follow me all day?’
    ‘Uncle Zhang, ’im fi yu papa?’
    ‘None of yu business.’
    I turn. Walk off. Him follow. Then I spin ’round real sudden and I scream right in his face, ‘Ahhhhhh!’ But him just stand there. Not even flinch. Not even bat an eye. So I turn ’round and carry on walk and him follow.
    Later on, is me look out for him. Is me dawdling so him can catch up. Is me bring him glass of lemonade I get from Mr Fung. Is me give him rice and sausage I get from Madame Leung. When we get back to Matthews Lane I stop at the gate and say, ‘What your name?’
    ‘Hampton Stokes. Tilly me big sista.’
    So that was Hampton, and after that him come ’round with me most days excepting when him sister need him to go do something for her. All the time him keep asking me ‘How old you is?’ and I tell him it don’t matter. But it seem to matter to him because him keep asking and asking. So one day I tell him, ‘I was born on the second moon of gui-you, jia-zi in the year of the rat,’ but it don’t mean nothing to him. So I say, ‘How old is you?’ and him tell me fourteen. So I say, ‘Same as me, fourteen.’
    Then one day Hampton tell me him got a cousin little older than him name Neville Finley that want to meet me. ‘What for?’ I ask him.
    ‘Him just want to meet you, man. Any crime in that?’
    So one Sunday Hampton take me over to East Kingston to the house where it turn out him live with him sister, Tilly. Miss Tilly seem like she sweet on me already and I don’t hardly know her. All I do every day is say, ‘Good morning, Miss Tilly, and how are you this morning?’ or ‘Good evening, Miss Tilly, have a good night.’ That is it, but all of a sudden she wrapping herself ’round the porch post and giving me some half-toothless smile I ain’t never seen the like of before. Hampton start grinning to himself, so I lean over to him and whisper, ‘She too old for me, man,’ and him laugh out loud so god knows what Miss Tilly think I say to him.
    Then him take me by the hand and lead me ’round the back to some old shack of a outhouse he say is his palace. Well it is nothing but a rickety old shed, with a creaking door and open rafters in the ceiling. So I look up and I say to him, ‘Yu nuh, if we fix up the door and put some boarding up there we can use it to store things.’
    ‘Store what things?’
    ‘I dunno.’
    Right then the door fling open and this tall wiry thing is standing there. Hampton go over to him and give him a hug. I look at the two of them standing there together and I think, well Hampton got a baby face but him not bad looking and him broad and strong. But the other one, him face look like a horse. I don’t say nothing but Hampton see the look on me and him start jumping and screaming like a jackass. Him laugh so much the tears running down his face. ‘Go on,’ him say to me. ‘What you think me cousin look like?’
    Well a thing like that wasn’t for me to say. But Hampton keep going, ‘Go on, go on,’ till in the end I say, ‘He look like he could judge a good horse.’ This send Hampton spinning and turning and holding on to him belly like it going to bust.
    ‘Horse judge! Man, that is good. What you think of that, Neville?’
    And Neville Finley just say, ‘I think your friend can recognise a man of wisdom.’
    So after that me, Hampton and Judge Finley start go ’round together. Xiuquan not interested, in fact Xiuquan not interested in anything. He don’t hardly even want to leave the house. He don’t want to do the chores Zhang give him to