I’ve opened the squeaky door as much as I need to squeeze through when Kez says, ‘I’m not lettin’ you back out unless you’ve got something.’ She pushes me hard, then pulls the door shut behind me with a loud bang, disturbing a seagull from a shed roof.

I look round the space: there’s nothing to steal. I’m quite relieved.

I’ll just go back to the door and say, ‘Kez: there’s nothing to take.’

Doesn’t sound good. I glance around again. There’s a big green wheelie bin, and next to it a smaller black one with a recycling symbol on it, some bin bags, and some flattened cardboard boxes. That’s it: a few square metres of cracked, swept concrete.

There’s a small kitchen window and a back door into the house and to my right is a narrow shed. I try the door and it opens. It’s dark inside, but I can tell it’s just shed junk. Kez said ‘anything’, though, so …

I put my hand out. A thick cobweb flaps into my face. On the floor there’s a paper carrier bag with handles. It’s going to have to do. There’s a box in it or something, but I don’t wait to look – I just want to get out of here. I squash the whole thing down inside my hoodie and zip it up to my throat.

I shut the shed door behind me and I’m ready to run for it when the light in the kitchen window comes on. I press myself against the side of the shed, squeezing myself into a shadowy corner of the wall as I hear the back door open.

From inside comes a woman’s voice.

‘Go on out, you smelly old thing.’

The biggest dog I’ve ever seen shuffles out and starts sniffing around. The kitchen light goes off and I hear an internal door in the house shut as whoever let the dog out goes back inside.

The massive beast has got coarse black-and-ginger hair in tight curls. It doesn’t notice me. It sniffs around on the ground and then squats to do a poo. It’s in the middle of its business when it turns its head towards me.

If fear has a smell, then I must stink.

Slowly, the old dog finishes, rises off its haunches and ambles towards me, leaving a small mountain of steaming poo behind. I’m wondering if it is one of those ‘friendly to everyone’ dogs like Tony and Lynn’s collie over the road, and I’m getting ready to pet it when it pulls back its top lip and emits a growl that makes me go cold.

R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!

Its head dips, as if it’s going to leap at me. It’s between me and the door leading to the back lane.

‘Kez! Kez!’ I’m sort of shout-whispering, but she doesn’t hear me.

When I hear the kitchen door open again, and the light comes on, I have no choice but to run, in a kind of backwards arc round the dog. In my panic, my foot squishes right into the mound of poo. I slide but remain upright and make it to the back door past the dog who has started a loud barking, but is probably too old and slow to chase me. Turns out I’m wrong about that.

‘What is it, Dennis?’ says a woman from the house. ‘What’s up?’

The dog has made a late start, and has followed me, growling, as I wrench open the door to the alleyway. Dennis is coming for me and I only mean to shut the door to keep him in, but I pull it really hard and something is stopping it, so I pull still harder, and that’s when I hear a crack and a howl of pain. I look down and, horrified, I see that I have trapped the dog’s front paw, and one of his claws is bent at a horrible angle.

Immediately, I let go of the door, which springs open again, but I can’t stop. Dennis doesn’t stop, either, and limps after me, barking and snarling and trailing drops of blood. I run down the back lane, clutching the paper bag under my hoodie. I’ve run about twenty metres when I realise that the dog is gaining on me in spite of its injury.

Kez is nowhere to be seen. (I find out later that she legged it the minute she heard the back door to the house open. ‘Test of courage.’ Yeah, right.) She’s still got my phone.

I look behind me. A woman has followed the dog out of the backyard and is coming after me. ‘Hey! Stop! You little—’ she swears at me.

There’s a bend in the lane that takes me out of sight of my pursuers for a moment, and, while I’m running, I unzip my hoodie and chuck the bag I’m holding as hard as I can over the wall. It is evidence of my crime, and I want rid of it. It sails through the air and I hear it land. Still, Dennis is getting closer, probably seeking revenge for his injury, and I know I won’t be able to outrun him. I get to a pair of big wheelie bins and clamber on top of them. On the other side of the wall is a garden belonging to a house that’s been empty for ages, so I grip the top of the wall and haul myself over.

It’s a long drop on the other side. My T-shirt and hoodie ride up and I scrape my belly and chest hard as I lower myself down behind a big bush. On the other side of the wall, the dog is barking and its owner has caught up with it. ‘Where’s he gone, the little toerag? Oh my God, Dennis, you poor thing, you poor thing!’ Then she says something that makes my stomach turn over with fear. ‘We’ll find him, won’t we?’

They’ll find me?

I try to push my fear down.

There are loads of blond kids.

The evening’s getting darker.

She can’t have seen that I’ve stolen anything because there was nothing in my hands – it was inside my hoodie.

She’ll not do anything …

It’s working. My breathing settles. Everything’s quiet, apart from some traffic a couple of streets away.

Wait.

I touch my head. There are blond kids at my school … but almost everyone has their hair short. Mine is a bit of a haystack, and it makes me stand out.

Still, I can’t worry about that now.

My chest is stinging like mad where I scraped it. I realise not everything is quiet: there is a gentle, rapid flapping noise coming from the other side of the bush. Nervously, I peep out and see a big overgrown garden with a flagpole in the middle of it. And now I can see what is causing the flapping sound: countless strings of little flags all tied near the top of the flagpole are rattling in the strong evening breeze. They stretch out from the pole to ground level, forming a large colourful cone like a circus tent. Next to them is what appears to be a bundle of rags.

As I watch, the bundle sprouts a pair of short, skinny legs, and in seconds it’s on its feet and a head pops out of the top and glares at me. I shrink back, but it’s too late: I’ve been spotted. It’s a tiny old lady with deep lines in her dark-skinned face. Her hair is straight, shiny and black with streaks of white. She releases the fabric over her thin legs and I see she has been gathering up a long sarong in her hands.

She waddles towards me, saying something fast and quite angry in a language I don’t recognise. Then there’s another voice, also coming from beneath the canopy of little flags. A girl emerges, holding my tattered paper bag by the handles.

‘Is this yours?’ she asks.