He never got the chance. The mistake that Frazer made was a common one: to assume that because Huru Huru was a bully he must also be stupid. Life would be a lot easier if bullies were always stupid. His brothers may have been stupid, but Huru Huru was not.

‘I see that you are not without courage, boy,’ he said. ‘But courage is a toothless shark when there is no brain.’

Distracted by the looming presence of his adversary, Frazer failed to sense that Tipua had come up behind him. He now seized Frazer’s upper arms with a grip like an eagle’s talons.

Huru Huru came very close to Frazer’s face, so close that he could see the fibres of grey meat stuck in between his brown teeth, smell his breath like some thick concentrate of all the world’s rottenness, feel the moist heat pulsing from his swollen body. Frazer thought he was going to be sick, but somehow fought it down, although he could not fight his body’s overwhelming urge to pull away.

Huru Huru sensed his revulsion and savoured it, the way you might relish an ice cream, or a good book. His smile widened into a grin, and then was replaced by a look of fake concern.

‘Now, truly, I was only going to give your friend here a little bruise – something he could brag about to the younger children. It would let him play the hero. “Look how brave I am, standing up to Huru Huru the ogre!” he would say. But now I am going to do something a little more … let me see … dramatic. Something a little more permanent.’

And then Huru Huru put out his hand to Tipua, and, with a sound not entirely unlike shwiiinnngg, a machete was drawn from a sheath.

‘But that’s … that’s mine!’ said Frazer, and he knew that his voice sounded petulant and silly.

So much for Frazalua the hero.

‘Yes, it is yours. And I trust you will appreciate the … what is the word …? Yes, the irony. You see, it is because of you that I do this. I want you to remember this – the thing that I shall now do – for the rest of your life. I want you to think about it as you fall asleep. I want it to stalk your nightmares. I want it to be there with you when you wake up in the morning. I want it to hum in your mind as you he he he brush your teeth.’

And then Huru Huru came close again to Frazer, closer even than before, and he spoke quietly, confidingly, in his ear.

‘Do you know what the best part of the human body is to eat, hmmm? According to the old ones that is, the ones that taught me, the ones who kept true to the old ways. Shall I tell you, hmmm? Not the fleshy parts, no. Not the leg or the breast, like a chicken, or the belly, like a pig. Oh no. It is the hand, roasted slowly and picked clean, with your teeth.’

And then, with that surprising speed that seemed a product of some supernatural force of evil within the man, Huru Huru spun round, raised the machete and brought it whistling through the air towards Oti’s thin wrist.