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boy – half child, half jet – careered onwards, engines roaring. Then the bicycle bells tinkled past unseen.
    The headmaster heard the howl as well and a small shock of memory jarred his bones. He stood up, putting a half-eaten cup-cake down on a plate. He removed his glasses as the
shriek got louder. Then the door was flung open and he was looking into the wild eyes of the wildest boy he’d ever known.
    Miles braked and skidded. He hovered. He panted for breath then stretched out his arms. His face transformed into a delighted smile and the engine-screech reached a new level of happiness.
    The headmaster backed away in fear, hands upraised, and Miles leaped forward. He bear-hugged the headmaster, harder and tighter than ever before.
    ‘Sir,’ he was shouting. ‘Sir! I’m back!’
    ‘Miles!’ cried the headmaster. ‘No!’
    He was crushed against the wall and the window. The frame was rusty and the catch broken – in a moment he was being forced out over the sill.
    ‘Sir, thank you, sir – thank you! You are the best!’
    ‘No, Miles! Please!’ The headmaster felt a rush of cold air. He got an arm free and grabbed at the masonry, and a lump of stone came away in his hand. ‘Please!’ His feet
weren’t on the floor.
    ‘You are my best friend! I am so, so different! You won’t believe it!’
    ‘Miles! I’m falling! Help me!’
    The headmaster tried to break the boy’s grip, but Miles was strong as twisted wire. He hugged his old teacher and it was only by a superhuman effort that the elderly man managed to wrench
himself back to safety. He fell against his desk and the lamp buckled under him in a tinkle of broken glass.
    ‘I thought you’d kicked me out,’ said Miles, tearfully. ‘I thought I was sacked!’
    The headmaster couldn’t speak. Broken glasses dropped out of his pocket. He was shaking, trying to breathe. He managed to get to the other side of the desk, but Miles followed him
round.
    ‘No second chance,’ cried Miles. ‘That’s what you said, and Mum was just crying and crying . . . but then we got your letter, like you changed your mind at the last
minute, and by that time we were out of the country . . .’ Miles had him by the hand and was shaking it. ‘It got forwarded to her office and when we read it! Wow! We just burst into
tears, both of us!’
    ‘Miles—’
    The boy pushed back his hair and clutched a pair of torn shirt-cuffs together, as if at prayer. ‘Mother said the first thing I had to do was write to you and say sorry – but then we
got stuck on this island, so she said the first thing I had to do, to say , I mean, was I am so sorry!’
    ‘Sit down, Miles – please. Let’s have a—’
    ‘Do you forgive me? I got you a present.’
    The headmaster was breathing hard. Miles was fumbling in his shorts’ pocket, and after a moment of searching, withdrew, amongst sweet-wrappers and tiny toy soldiers, an apple-sized lump,
in tissue paper.
    ‘It’s a shrunken head,’ he said. ‘From the island we were on; they were selling them and they are totally real. I put it in our maid’s bed, on the pillow, wearing
this little T-shirt, and she went completely crazy, but I know you love stuff like this, so . . .’ He unwrapped it and put it on the desk. ‘Mum and I call him Gilbert.’
    The headmaster managed to get back into his chair and sat staring. The little head looked as amazed as he did – it had to be some kind of nut or fruit, it couldn’t be human. He tore
his eyes away and looked at Miles. The boy was grinning, eagerly, and the headmaster – through the trauma of the embrace – was filled with an aching tenderness.
    The child wore the regulation grey shirt, but it was three sizes too big and torn already, the collar round his ears. Two buttons at most were done up – the rest were missing; the tie was
loose, the sleeves flapped, and the cuffs were gnawed and frayed. Miles drew the shirt around him like a shawl and peered from under a fringe of