"Adam!" Clare calls up the stairs. "Your friends are here!"
Adam runs down the stairs two at a time. Peter and Jamie are in the hallway, Jamie holding a big white box.
"We made you a cake," she says proudly as Peter lifts the lid. The cake is yellow, Adam's favourite colour, with "Happy birthday!" in Jamie's childish writing in white icing.
"Thank you!" says Adam, blushing as Jamie kisses him on the cheek. Peter claps him on the back.
Adam is the last of his friends to turn 12. Peter gives him a framed photo of the two of them on the swing Peter's dad built them. Jamie gives him a cassette she made with Adam's favourite songs on.
"Let's go out on our bikes," says Peter, once Adam has finished unwrapping his gifts. They cycle into the woods, where they all carve their initials into a tree. The moment seems unremarkable at the time, but later Adam thinks that's the last time he was really, truly happy.
...
Robert's 13th birthday goes by almost unnoticed. He speaks to his parents on the phone in the morning. They had offered to come and visit him, but he doesn't want them to see how isolated he is at school, or the other boys to hear his mam calling him "Adam". His classmates still call him "Paddy" mostly, although he's started to modify his accent to sound like them.
That night, he looks at the photo of himself and Peter, and makes a birthday wish. He doesn't wish for his friends to reappear, he's given up on that. Instead he wishes to become a detective so he can find out what happened to them. That feels like an achievable dream, and he falls asleep with a new sense of purpose.