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you to come.’
    ‘That’s OK,’ said Orla. ‘She doesn’t have to know, does she?’
    Orla’s face was lit with an illicit joy, and Tess felt panic closing in. Emotionally she felt compelled to take her cousin with her and look after her, but the last days as a Switcher were so precious to her that she couldn’t bear to miss out on the chance to make use of them, not even for those few hours.
    ‘Don’t worry about my asthma,’ Orla was saying. ‘I’ll bring my inhaler. I’ll be fine.’
    But Tess shook her head, hating herself as she did so.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You can’t come.’
    Orla stared at her in disbelief. In her chest something began to harden, and the first organ-squeak of a wheeze entered her breathing. ‘Please let me,’ she said and then, when Tess made no response, she went on, ‘I’ll take you to meet Uncle Declan.’
    ‘Who is this Uncle Declan?’ said Tess.
    ‘You’ll see,’ said Orla. ‘Just let me come. Please?’
    Tess found that her curiosity about Uncle Declan had evaporated now that she knew he was someone who could be visited.
    ‘Sorry,’ she said again. ‘Sorry.’
    Bran and Sceolan whined from behind the closed door of their shed as Tess passed through the yard, but she didn’t let them out. Her steps were heavy with guilt, but the morning was so inviting that they soon lightened. The dew was still lying in big, spangly drops on the grass, making the fields pastel-coloured and soaking Tess’s trainers. She looked down at them as she walked, wondering what kind of feet she would be looking at after her birthday, the day after tomorrow. She imagined hooves there, horse-hooves, and remembered the feeling of head-tossing horse-ness; all pride and contained strength. She saw dog-paws, trotting tirelessly through endless miles, then cat-paws, graceful and silent. They were all so familiar and so precious. She realised as she walked that part of the difficulty in choosing what to be was having to give up all the other things. She didn’t want her time as a Switcher to end. The realisation threatened to drown her in tears and she looked up, struggling hard against a growing sense of despair.
    At least Kevin was coming later on in the day. The thought went some way towards cheering Tess up, and she set off again, turning to her right, away from the woods and towards another area of the stony wasteland beyond the farm boundaries. The new route took her over one of the walls that she had been mending the day before with Brian and Uncle Maurice. On the other side of it the sheep sprang up from their woolly huddle and stood glaring suspiciously, leaving behind a large patch of dry, warm grass. As Tess passed among them they waddled out of her way, shaking the sleep out of their fleeces and their small brains. The ewes, recently shorn, seemed puny beside their fat, woolly lambs. There was one certainty, at least; one animal that Tess would never choose to become. Maybe it would be easier to decide the end result by a process of elimination?
    She wouldn’t be a cow, that was certain, nor a pig. Not a gerbil either, or a caged bird, or any of those poor creatures that lived half lives in the service of human beings. Still deep in thought, Tess arrived at the further wall of the sheep meadow and climbed over it into the grey scrubland beyond. She was just coming to the decision that she would be a wild thing, in a wild place like this one, when a snort as loud and sudden as a pistol shot rang out through the still morning air.
    Tess jumped, then froze to the spot until the source of the extraordinary sound became clear. Not far away from her was a small herd of wild goats. Some of them were standing on the rocks, others lying nearby, but getting up now and stamping and staring across the open space at the intruder. Tess kept still, aware that they were on the point of scattering and that one wrong move would set them off. Carefully she turned round and looked back. The