It's as if all the walls have come down. You can't imagine this until you've been here. Like, you suddenly realize there's no limit to anything anymore, and that really there never was, except it never occurred to you to try. The first person to sail to the edge of a flat earth and find the edge just kept getting further and further away from him, he understood this. And I'm sure there's a tonne of people who've all felt it at some stage of their life, obviously, of course there is, but until you get here, you can't know this.

A thumb comes off and the walls come down. All of a sudden you know, the only thing that ever held you back is yourself. All of a sudden you're the kind of person who can joke about what happened at Callahan's club yesterday, because it doesn't matter. What can they do to me? I'm not afraid of anything anymore.

Paddy Hegarty showed up at school today. Still with his scabby nose. Still with a big bruise on the end of his cheekbone. I was glad of that; I still have the bruise from that on my knuckles, so I'd have been pissed off if he'd healed first. That was the first good thing that happened. Then we were standing on the corridor at break, more of us than just me and Conor for once, and somebody, I forget who, nudged me. Said, "Here he comes."

You really can't miss Paddy Hegarty when he's moving towards you. You feel it up through your feet.

This smiling little voice in my ear said, "He'll eat you alive, mate. Even Big Lad'll only get scraps."

Somebody else added on, "Fee, fi, fo, fum." 'Fum' made me smile. Probably don't need to tell you why. And the best of it was, none of them were taking the piss out of me. It was all aimed at Paddy. He could see that. He couldn't hear it word for word, but he saw it happening. Heads turning away and little sideways glances, and even when people won't laugh out loud you always still know that they're laughing. I've lived that too many times.

"Lads, c'mon," says me, like asking them all for a bit of hush, a bit of compassion. And Paddy Hegarty had to watch that too, making his rumbling way down the hall, and watch me waiting for him. He'd come to speak to me, of course he had. But now he was considering walking on, pretending his path just happened to bring him this way. It wasn't an option, though, not when we'd all seen him looking already. So I let him get close and then I stepped up out of the pack. They hovered, but I kept everything a step out of earshot, so we can talk with a bit of privacy. Like gentlemen.

The second good thing that happened was that Paddy didn't just call me a prick or challenge me to a rematch. He had surprisingly little to say for himself, in fact. He just brought up the subject of Friday, and of the unnecessary and unfounded things he'd said, and then he apologized for it.

I considered my options and then stuck out my hand. Like gentlemen, remember? I'd started so I'd finish, as a gentleman. It surprised him, I think. There was no real grip. I got the feeling Paddy's never really thought of a handshake as a way of dealing with anything. But that just made it easier; I held hard to his hand. Not enough to hurt him, I wasn't trying to, but just so he'd know. Then I stepped in, almost past him, so nobody would have a chance of hearing when I said, "The next time you talk about burning my family out of our home, it'll take more than Conor Cleary to stop me cracking your fucking skull in. They're a shower of bitches, but they're mine. I need you to remember that. Can you remember that?"

He looked at me like I was filth. But he never said a word. And he shook. That was the real glory of it. That was the third good thing that happened. And everybody afterward was all up around me asking what I'd said, what was the matter, blah-blah-blah, and I never told them a thing.

I never could have done any of that last week. Even when I battered him, I couldn't have done that. It was yesterday. Yesterday did this to me, turned me into this incredible new… I don't know. I don't know what I am. It's not a bad thing. It sounds like a bad thing, but it's not a bad thing. And whatever happens in the next nine days, however it ends, I'll owe this much to Callahan as long as I live. If I never learn anything new ever again, I'll still be happy.

Conor doesn't get this. I haven't told him what I did yesterday. What I helped with, I mean. Honestly I don't really get why he's all annoyed about it. It's not like I'm lying to him. He knows a thing happened which I can't talk about it, and that it's nothing to do with him, and everything's fine. So I don't exactly know what his problem is.

He's just taken a sudden interest in doing his own homework so far as I'm concerned. Which is absolutely pointless because he'll only end up checking and changing it all against mine tomorrow. But he's got something to prove, so he's staying in, and therefore so am I. I finished my homework in the study this afternoon. I know better than to try and get anything done at home. My sisters are worse than hens. They talk for the sake of talking, even when there's nothing to talk about. Especially when there's nothing to talk about. They watch soaps while they take turns in the shower, so the volume has to be turned up to cover the noise of the water heater and the hairdryer.

Which is why I get a bit wary when, at prime-Coronation-Street-time, the house has fallen into relative quiet. It's just not normal. And I'm bored anyway; if a chance at the television is presenting itself, it would be ungrateful of me not to jump on it. So I go downstairs, carefully. And I don't call ahead, because that's the stupidest thing you can do. That lets them know you're coming. I just keep my eyes open and look about me. Hall is clear, and smells of hairspray, so at least one of them has gone out. We're looking good, so far.

Living room is clear. Television is off, which is a bloody strange thing even if there's nobody here. I come home first in the afternoons sometimes and find the TV on. It's a good sign for them all being gone and a bad sign for everything else ever.

Nothing terrible could have happened. I've only been sitting upstairs. And yeah, with my Walkman on, yeah, fine, but… But nothing terrible could have happened.

I can't smell washing-up liquid. Dinner was over an hour ago. The kitchen should have been scrubbed out by now. Ma starts it, then gets bored and drifts and Cathy finishes it. Why's this not done? Then I let myself into the kitchen and see the back door standing very slightly open. Nothing terrible could have happened, though. This probably just means… I don't know. I don't know what it means.

I go over and pull it open a bit more. And then I fecking wish something terrible had happened. As it is, it's just Ma sitting on the back step, leaning over her folded arms. Smoking too. She's supposed to have packed it in, but she still has one every so often. Times of great stress, usually, so even though she looks very calm out there, I still sort of wish something terrible had happened. She says, "Stick the kettle on, would you?"

Sticking the kettle on, over my shoulder, "Where are they all?"

"Gone to the pictures."

Fuck's sake… "Why did nobody call me? Why am I not gone to the pictures?"

"They went to see that new Tom Hanks one. I'm sure you'd have been so interested."

Yeah, but I could have got a lift with them and gone and seen Fear and Loathing, daft bints. They just don't think, it's dead selfish… Ma didn't think either, y'know. I don't even want to make her tea anymore. Mena may drive me and Conor down there at the weekend, after this bollocks. Swear to God. They've no consideration, y'know?

But I'm making myself tea now anyway, so I stay to the task I've started. Putting out two mugs just as she grinds out her feg and dumps the butt down the drain so nobody will know. She gets up and comes inside, locks the door behind her. Suddenly I know what this is about. Thinking to myself, just make the tea, mate, we can get out of this. We'll just be quick and quiet and do the job and then we'll dodge. Once we're back behind the bedroom door we're safe again.

Then I realize I'm giving myself a whole-hearted and very encouraging speech like I was two different people. Should maybe just focus on making tea for now.

I put a mug down at Ma's elbow and try for the door again with my own in hand. "Sit down," she says, that voice, pretending not to care, just being friendly... It comes over as strain and nothing more.

"I've got loads of homework." That's a lie. It's finished.

"Jim, sit yourself down." Well, she should never have phrased it as a request then, if it was always going to be a bloody order. I hate when she does that. She tries to make me agree, and when I don't, all of a sudden there's no choice in the matter. Never know where I fecking stand. But then again, I don't stand, because I'm sitting myself down, aren't I? And yes, I'm waffling, I'm totally aware that I'm fecking waffling. What would you do, if you were me, and you know the kind of stuff she was probably going to ask about next? I've read about this; it's what spies do when they're captured. They fill their heads with crap so they don't even know the right information anymore.

Ma sits there, gets her thoughts together and says, "Who was that picked you up on Friday night?"

I say, "Nobody. Noel's mate thought it'd be funny. Sent his mates round, borrowed one of their das' cars. It was stupid."

She shakes her head and says, "Then where did you go after school yesterday?"

"Just up to the shed."

"Without Conor?"

"I'm not attached at his wrist."

"Jim, he couldn't lie to save his life. Now tell me where you were." Yeah, not happening. Not in a million years, Ma. You don't need to know. This is not the big thing that's going to affect your life. No, seriously, Mother Dear, stop worrying about me. Soon enough I won't even be your problem anymore. And there is no way, not on God's green or Satan's scarlet earth, not a hope I'm telling you anything about – "It's nothing to do with Mickey Callahan, is it?"

Oh.

Well, it doesn't change the argument, anyway. "Who?"

"Don't lie to me, James. There's too many people saying it for it to just be auld bitches gossiping. Half the ones round here knew that car came for you, so you just think hard for a minute before you tell me some twat borrowed it off his da, alright?"

She knows too much already to just play thick. Okay, new tack: barefaced lying. "Look, it wasn't for anything. It was a total accident, I don't even know what really happened. I was supposed to have heard something I shouldn't have. But he saw me on Friday night, he took one look at me and it was just totally obvious I didn't know anything, so he let me go." She rolls her eyes, not buying this for a second. What do I do, what do I do? I put a fact into it, give her something to hold on to. "It was supposed to have been the night we were in town." Her face furrows. She probably doesn't remember, didn't really notice to begin with. "We didn't stay at Noel's. I wasn't well the morning after." That gets it. She remembers that. And because that's a fact and she's thinking about a fact, all the bits and pieces around it become facts too. They'll fall apart if she gives it any thought, but she won't. She moves right on –

"Then what about yesterday?"

"I told you. Up to the shed. There's too much noise in the house, usually. I had an essay to finish."

"And what about the two hundred quid in the tin of auld football cards?"

Game-changer. Serious game-changer. "…You went through my stuff?"

"I was dipping in for a fiver. Would've put it back on Tuesday."

"Keep the fiver," I tell her, getting up. If she's not going to keep to the rules there's no reason I should even play. I don't intend to. I'm going back upstairs. I can't think of anything she could say that would stop me.

And then, for the second time tonight (and tonight's the first in a long while), she surprises me. A big, heartfelt, emotional sigh haunts me halfway across the living room and she says, "If your Da was here-"

"Da?" Yeah, that'll do the trick. That'll bring me back. "What? Where the hell does he come into it?" She doesn't like the way I'm coming towards her. She shouldn't be scared. It's not threat. I'm just so unbelievably angry she'd even mention that, this one time, in all these years, all of a sudden Da is an issue. "Da? The same one that disappeared before I could spell 'disappeared'? Da who said, when I was fourteen and it had been discussed with everybody but me, 'Aye, yeah, sure I'll take him,' and then bucked me back here four weeks later? That Da? How does he fit into this?"

Ma steels herself, lifts up one plastic claw and points it into my face. "Now that's not fair. He never wanted anything but the best for you."

"Oh, please don't start talking random bollocks in the middle of this, not now-"

"Don't swear at me, Jim."

"I will, actually. Tonight, I will. You're sat there talking about Da and I'm the one needs to wash my mouth out? Does it not leave a bad taste? Not at all, like? It's not bitter or anything, at all? If your Da was here… If my Da was here what? What would he do?"

"He wouldn't want this for you."

"I think you're wrong. I think he made it, like, crystal-fecking-clear he doesn't think all that much of me. I'm not sure he'd have an opinion even if he was here. Which, for the record, because, like, you're forgetting, he's not. Hasn't been. Not in a while. If he'd ever given a toss how I turned out, he never would have sent me back here."

I turn around again. And I'm not coming back to her this time, I don't care what she says. But I do stop, just long enough to listen, when she starts with, "You're right. You're absolutely right. He never would have sent you back here. He'd have let you stay over there. He'd have turned you in. And whatever kiddie-prison or mental ward they put you on, he would have left you to rot there. It's the only thing ever might have taught you a lesson."

"I've told you a hundred times, I never did anything."

"Aye," she says, and sips her tea, "You've told me."