Chapter One

Dad

The Quigleys lived in the middle of their street, in a house with a red door. There was a mass of rose bushes in the front yard and a smell of cat. The Quiglegs didn't have a cat. The smell was made by other people's cats.

Will Quigley was tall and blonde. His sister Lucy was small and chunky. For some reason Mum and Dad hardly ever called her Lucy. They called her Poodle, or sometimes Poodlefish. They didn't call Win anything but Will. No-one could explain this.

The Peacheys lived two doors down in a house without a front fence. Mr Peacheg Ben - had planted a single laurel bush with dusty leaves, which cats avoided, even the Peacheys' own, Fatbrain. 'Not enough cover,' Ben said smugly. Fatbrain favoured the Quiglegs' rose bushes. Ben's children were Will and Lucy's best friends. Their names were Elizabeth, Timothy and Pokehead.

One afternoon there was a knock at the door. Lucy was the first to reach it. She liked answering the door - she was just tall enough to open it, standing on tiptoe on the skirting board and pulling herself up by the handle to reach the latch. She liked opening it a crack and peeping out.

'Hullo,' Ben said, peeping in. 'There's a smell out here.'

'I know,' Lucy said. 'It's cat's poo.'

After a while she let him in. Lucy liked Ben. She liked his fair hair and his glasses. They stood together in the hall.

'Mum's in bed,' Lucy said. 'Mums need rest,' she added.

Ben asked if her dad was in.

Will appeared brieflye at the top of the stairs, wearing boxing gloves and carrying a copy of The Beano, and drifted away again. Then Dad came out of his study, looking distracted. He often looked