'Absolutely,' I said, high-fiving her. 'It's yellow. And where is Little Scamps from here? How do we get back to it?'

Gilbert turned to look back down the street. 'That way,' he said, pointing.

'How far is it?' I asked. 'How long would it take me to find my way there?'

'Short,' he said. 'Short time to get there.'

'Would it be as long as, say, an episode of Zach and Cody?' I asked, referring to a kids' show of thirty minutes duration that they all watched. When children have only a cursory sense of time, it's good to have something they can easily grasp to compare it to.

'No. Not that long,' Gilbert said.

'All right, then, would it be as long as the ad break in the middle of Zach and Cody?'

This was around three minutes, by my reckoning, and would tally with about how long we would have to walk if we went fairly slowly, and the kids rarely walked fast unless it was to get to the bathroom or to eat something.

'Yeah, that long,' Gilbert said, a vague smile breaking across his strange, beautiful face.

'Well done, you lot,' I said, getting the three of them in a group hug. 'I'd like you all to remember everything we've learned, because I want you to put it all into the amazing map we're going to make. Your part is going to be Mulligan's Store, and I want it to be just the best, most amazing work you can do. You gonna do that for me?'

'Yeah!'

We held hands again and began the short walk back to Little Scamps.

All of the children made similar journeys about the village that day, and every single shop, the butcher's, the barber's, the post office, and the two pubs were visited by representatives from our creche. The reactions were universally the same: the business owners had had no idea of our existence, and seemed genuinely touched that we had bothered to call on them as part of our latest project. Quite a few had stories similar to Mr Mulligan's, and everyone invited us back and offered help and support should we need it. The children were viewed as wonderful additions to the village (even though more than half of them came from a good distance away), and I detected a real sense of pride that Brony was home to such a specialist establishment: other villages or towns might cast out such needy children, but Brony took them to her bosom.

That might or might not have been true, but I thought it a trifling concern. The reality was that our kids had been welcomed with open arms, and they had seen it with their own eyes. More importantly, Milandra had seen it. I wanted her not only to feel a sense of belonging and solidarity with everyone else at Little Scamps, but to experience real pride in the creche. If she was her daddy's African warrior princess, it might appeal to her to be part of such an exclusive group.

The project we were mounting was one I had done and enjoyed while working with Tristan at Drumlin. It was all about getting to know not just your community but your place in it. We would make a huge, colourful map of the village, depicting every shop, house and feature, including Little Scamps, and make them as lifelike as possible. Each child would take responsibility for one building in particular, but we would all help the point of the task was for us to work as a team, learn about our local environment, and one another.

In Drumlin, where the client group were adults, the project had lasted almost a month, and the end result was almost photo-realistic. Susan, Tush, Lonnie and I were under no illusions that that would not be the case at Little Scamps. We endeavoured to make the process as easy as we could, so we produced coloured card and recommended using as much collage material as possible. In that way we could move the task along without boring anyone.

The children, however, proved to be perfectionists.

'That ain't right,' Ross said, looking at the image of the local pharmacy.

I had the relevant photo on the computer monitor so the kids could refer to it, and Ross was leaning on his crutches, looking from the screen to the paper creation we had spread out on the floor. I had suggested the green walls of the building might be re-created using spinach farfalle pasta, stuck on with paste. The children seemed open to this suggestion, and the stiff paper had been smeared with glue and the dried pasta liberally tossed on. But Ross, who was co-ordinating this piece of the map, was unhappy.

'What's the problem, Ross?' I asked.

'Look at dat pitcher,' Ross said, pointing at the screen with his crutch.

'Yeah?' I said.

'The walls are ... like ... smooth. These're b.u.mpy 'n' lumpy.'

I looked at our work, then at the digital image. He was right. 'What d'you want to do, Rossie?'

'All that stuff is gonna have to come off,' he said.

Milandra wandered over. 'Whatcha doin'?' she asked.

'Oh, no,' Ross moaned. 'Have you come to wreck everything now, M'landra?'

I winced. We didn't need one of her legendary rages.

'I'm only askin',' she said.

'All righ',' Ross said. 'The walls is all wrong. We done 'em wit dat pa.s.sghetti stuff, but it's too wobbly.'

Milandra considered the problem. 'Maybe you could smash it all down. Then it'd look hard, but it wouldn't be stickin' up.'

'I don' know,' Ross said, obviously uncertain. 'You always like smashin' stuff. I don' wanna wreck my buildin'.'

I left them to it this was a problem that was within their grasp to resolve, and it was fascinating to watch them sort through the options.

'You won't wreck it,' Milandra said. 'You want to take 'em all off anyways. If you don' like it, you c'n still take 'em off. We just has to be careful not to rip de paper, 's all.'

Ross looked at me for confirmation. I shrugged. 'Can't hurt, Ross. I'll help you get all the pasta off if you still don't like it.'

Ross chewed his lower lip, moving around the piece of paper, which was almost as big as him.

'How should I smash 'em?' he asked Milandra.

'Jus' walk over 'em'd be the quickest way.'

Ross raised a crutch to move on to the piece of art, then stopped. 'I'll rip it if I go on there. My sticks'll do it, I know they will.'

'We can fix it,' I said. 'We can just tape down any tears. Don't worry. You go ahead.'

'No.' Ross shook his head firmly. 'I put a lotta work into this. We all did. I'm not gonna rip it. You do it, M'landra.'

She shot him a look of utter surprise. The children never trusted her to do anything: she was never offered a toy that she had not s.n.a.t.c.hed or stolen, never invited to join a game without having barged in. This was new territory for her. 'You really want me to do this for you?'

Ross seemed to be reconsidering his suggestion. I prayed he would hold firm, but I knew I had to keep my mouth shut. There was delicate work going on here far too fragile for me to interfere with.

'Yeah. Yeah, okay. You do it but go carefully, right? Will you do that, M'landra?'

She seemed to swell with pride and delight. 'I surely will, Rossie boy. Watch me smash those pastas for ya. You keep an eye on me, now this is your bit of de project, isn't it?'

You may have heard the phrase 'walking on eggsh.e.l.ls'. That was exactly what came to mind as I watched Milandra tiptoe about Ross's picture, gently crushing the pasta so that it looked like a thin membrane of green concrete, a spider web of filigreed cracks running throughout. It took her a good five minutes to do the whole thing, and I could see the strain in her as she maintained her concentration she had promised Ross she would do this for him, and she was not going to let him down.

When she had finished, I lifted her off the page and we all looked down. Ross was grinning like a Cheshire Cat. 'It's just right!' he said, to Milandra, with genuine warmth. 'Look what you done, M'landra it's perfect! It looks like real stone, that wall does.'

'It really does,' I said, lifting the paper and shaking off the loose bits of pasta so that we were left with the clean, completed piece. 'Good job, guys.'

'Yeah, well, I did that for you, Ross,' Milandra said gruffly. 'You needed some help, and I done it.'

'Thanks,' Ross said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

'Tha's what friends do for one 'nother,' Milandra said.

'Well, if you need help with your bit, just ask me,' Ross said eagerly.

Milandra looked at him. I could see her mind working. A week ago, she would have cut off her right arm before allowing anyone to help her with anything. I waited for her response with bated breath.

'I think I do need a little bit of help,' she said, 'if you'd like to help me.'

And off the pair went.

The trip about the village in the cold and often wet weather meant the children needed plenty of outdoor wear, and a change of clothes in case they were caught in a downpour. I and the other staff agreed with me was of the opinion that the elements should never be an excuse not to take the children outside. When we engaged in projects like the map, we sent notes home to the parents, asking them to make sure their child arrived in with the gear and equipment they needed, and all responded by doing just that. All except Tammy's parents, Kylie and Dale.

The main work of going around to visit each store was done over one day, but the process of building the village in two dimensions took longer, and required the children be able to pop outside to have another look at the subject of their creativity. Tammy arrived in on the first day with her usual weathered T-shirt and jeans combo. There was no way we could allow her out into the elements dressed so flimsily, so I dug a battered anorak out of our emergency clothes bank and put it on her. By day three when, despite one more note being sent home, she still arrived improperly attired, I decided it was time to create a storage unit especially for Tammy 'The Tammy Cupboard'. In it we kept clothes, a lunchbox and whatever other bits and pieces she needed. It meant we always had something to hand.

I was surprised to discover that Tammy knew exactly where the source of her emergency items was. One day we were going on a nature walk and the other children were putting on their wellingtons. When I arrived at the Tammy Cupboard, she was already there waiting for me, her grey sneakers off and an expectant expression on her face.

Something unexpected happened in relation to Tammy around this time, something I took to be a huge leap forward. It involved little Julie.

Julie was the smallest child in the group, and was generally sweet natured and slow to anger. While some of the kids treated her with a degree of deference because of her apparent meekness, she was often the b.u.t.t of practical jokes, bullying and general ill treatment. Lonnie, Tush, Susan and I kept an eye on her to make sure she was okay, while at the same time encouraging her to stand up for herself. Little Scamps was not a place for the shy or retiring: it was very much governed by survival of the fittest.

As the map was being completed there was great compet.i.tion for materials and art equipment, and the children were constantly s.n.a.t.c.hing odds and ends when they thought their owners weren't watching, or forcibly removing them if they were. Julie was particularly vulnerable to such a.s.saults.

Unfortunately, even with our best intentions, we could not keep her under scrutiny every single second and the moment our eyes were elsewhere, the opportunity was taken.

Julie had been using a pot of bright purple paint to colour the flowers in a window box of the flat above the supermarket. Rufus wanted purple paint to finish off a car he was placing on the roadside near the pub. He could, of course, have waited the fifteen minutes it would have taken Julie to finish, but patience had never been Rufus's strong suit. Without a word, he walked up, took the paint from her hand, and went back to where he was working. Julie looked surprised for a moment, then went to take it back. Rufus pushed her over. Julie began to wail.

And Tammy stepped in.

It all happened very quickly. She walked briskly over from where she had been working and punched Rufus straight in the forehead. He keeled over backwards and Tammy caught the paint pot as he went down. She helped Julie up and handed her the purloined item, patting her gently on the head before going back to what she had been doing.

It was the beginning of a new role for Tammy as Julie's stalwart protector. I had known her to help Gilbert from time to time, but I often thought that had more to do with the piercing cry he could emit when upset Tammy comforted him or came to his a.s.sistance to stop him screeching. She had never expressed any interest in Julie before, yet over the next week barely a day went past without her rushing to the smaller child's aid. Very quickly the other kids started to leave Julie alone, or even to ensure that she was all right, such was their fear of Tammy's ire.

'What do you think it means?' Tush asked me one evening, as we watched Tammy leading Julie out to the bus, the two girls hand in hand.

'If I weren't so hardened and cynical, I'd say Tammy has made a friend,' I said.

'But why Julie?'

'She's little, quiet, needs looking after I'd say that, other than Gilbert, she's the least threatening kid in the creche, wouldn't you?'

'Why would she want someone who isn't threatening? Everyone else here is scared of her.'

'If, as we suspect, Tammy's problems are about being rejected, well, which kid is least likely to reject her?'

'Julie,' Tush admitted.

We watched the pair climbing up the steps of the bus, Tammy, tiny as she was, helping the even littler Julie.

'Kind of sweet, though, isn't it?' I asked.

'You soppy git.' Tush laughed, and went to clean up.

We hung the map in the entrance hallway. Though it was nowhere near as accurate and artfully done as the equivalent in Drumlin, I thought it a thing of remarkable beauty. The kids adored it. I made a point of popping around to all the shopkeepers and businesses in the village to tell them it was completed and on display and, to my delight, a good many dropped in to see their premises immortalized in poster paint, bits of wool and lollipop sticks. The children took great pride in explaining how they had gone about creating their particular representation of the shop, pub or office, and then we offered our visitor a cup of tea.

My favourite aspect of the map, though, was seeing how the children used it. I hadn't intended this it happened naturally.

One Monday I noticed that Gus, Arga and Milandra were missing. Hearing little voices deep in conversation, I followed them to the entrance hall. There the three were, leaning against the wall, gazing up at the map.

'We wented into the supermarket first,' Gus said, pointing at Mulligan's on the wall, 'then I asked my mammy if I could have a cake, so she tooked me into Kate's and she had a cup of tea.'

'I go Kate's too,' Arga said. 'My daddy like cake with carrot in it.'

'Carrot cake,' Milandra said. 'You call it carrot cake. I think it's s.h.i.t.'

's.h.i.t bad word,' Arga said matter-of-factly. 'Carrot cake bad cake.'

'I never been to Kate's,' Milandra said. 'I might ask my mammy to bring me one day.'

'Kate's cafe is nice,' Gus said. 'Kate is big and fat and her belly shakes when she laughs.'

'Kate give nice hugs,' Arga said.

'Nice hugs,' Milandra said. 'It'd be good to get one of those.'

'Time to come in for breakfast and news,' I said. Then I added: 'But there's no rush. Take your time.'

I reckoned the work that was going on out there was just as important.

32.

It was a Sat.u.r.day in early December. I fancied getting out, listening to some good music and having a few drinks. I also figured that a change of scene wouldn't do any harm. I called Lonnie.

'How'd you fancy heading to Dublin for the night? Have a few pints, catch a gig, maybe?'

'Sounds like a plan. You driving?'

'I can do that.'

'Maybe I should get the bus, then.'

Dublin was a-bustle with early Christmas shoppers. I booked us rooms in Brooks Hotel on Drury Street. Justin Townes Earle, son of the great Steve Earle, was playing in Vicar Street and we managed to get some last-minute tickets. The gig was wonderful: Earle is a tremendously talented singer-songwriter and a brilliant guitarist who takes his craft very seriously. He was in flying form. Taking to the small stage alone with his guitar, he treated us to more than two hours of his songs of lost love and hard living, and threw in plenty of stories about his exploits while under the influence of far too many chemicals for one man to have imbibed and still be alive.

When the gig was over Lonnie and I repaired to a nearby hostelry to have a few beverages before turning in for the night.