Ethan kicked off his muddy trainers and left them on the grass. The pond had been good this morning: he had caught minnows and three newts. He walked along the plank at the front of Deity, and stepped down on to the deck of the bow. The doors were wide open. A voice floated up from inside.

“How is Ethan?”

As he listened at the doorway, Ethan’s heart raced. It was Mary from the council. It was her job to check Mum taught him his lessons properly, because he didn’t go to school.

Ethan ducked his head and climbed down on to the first step and into Deity.

“Is he still reading a lot of books?”

Mary sat by the kitchen on the fold-out chair. Mum was in the lounge on the sofa. Dad sat next to her in his best jeans when he should have been at work. They all stopped talking when Ethan reached the last stair.

“Ethan,” Mary smiled.

Dad’s eyebrows pinched together. He nodded to the sofa. “Sit yourself down.”

Ethan put his net on the floor by the window that looked out over the canal. Mum shuffled along so he could sit beside her.

“How was the pond?” asked Mary. “Catch anything?”

He nodded.

Mum was wearing the brown boots that she kept for town and the skirt she’d just finished making. She put her hand on Ethan’s. “I was just saying how well you’re doing,” she said, smiling. “How you’re starting a new history project.”

“I’m glad.” Mary crossed her legs and leant closer. “So, you’ve been reading all about knights for the last couple of weeks?”

Ethan smiled.

“I hear your maths has come on, and your science. Are you finding enough reading books in the library?”

He nodded.

Mary fixed him with her twinkly eyes. “Are you happy being on the boat so much, Ethan?”

He nodded harder.

Mary tucked her hair behind her ear. “Do you get a little lonely when you’re studying? You see, I had an idea.”

What did Mary mean? She never asked these kinds of question.

Dad’s forehead was creased with lines. It looked the same way when one of his gardening jobs got cancelled. Dad was biting his nails now and jigging his leg like he was nervous. Mum took a big breath.

“You’re doing so well,” said Mary, “I thought. . .”

Dad turned to Ethan and spoke fast like a gush of water. “We thought you could go back to school.”

Ethan stood up. He was going to be sick. How could they surprise him like that?

“It’s OK.” Mum grabbed his hand. “Don’t be upset.”

The boat swayed. Ethan shook his head again and again. He wanted to shout NO! but he couldn’t. He wanted to run up the bow stairs and back down the canal to the pond. He wanted to get away from all of them.

“Ethan, just sit down.” Dad did a big sigh like he didn’t know what to say. “We’re just trying to help you.”

“Sit down, Ethan. Please.” Mum squeezed his hand tight. Her eyes were watery now like she might cry.

He sat. Deity’s walls closed in around him.

“Don’t be frightened,” said Dad.

“It was just an idea,” said Mary. “I know it’s been four years since you were at school. I know it wasn’t easy with some of the other children after you stopped speaking.” Ethan shivered. “It’s bound to be a little scary.”

Mum put her arm around Ethan. She smiled. “We could try a different school? We said being home taught wasn’t for ever. It might help you.”

“We don’t want to . . . hold you back now that you’re getting older,” said Mary.

Ethan drew a sharp breath. He knew what Mary meant by holding him back. She wasn’t talking about his schoolwork, because Mum always said how well he was doing. She meant being taught on the canal might stop him from ever speaking again, because Mum and Dad let him nod, or shake his head instead; because he wasn’t around other children who would try to get him to speak and join in their games. He might miss out on lots of things, like having proper friends and one day getting a job that needed you to talk.

For a while, Mum had taken him to see a special man. The man had asked Ethan why he didn’t talk any more, but Ethan couldn’t tell him. Then Mum had taken him to a nice lady to play speaking games, but still the words wouldn’t come out. Mum and Dad kept asking him lots of questions. Mum tried to get him to read his bedtime story out loud. Dad used to play the guitar to try to get Ethan to sing along. Sometimes Dad used to tickle him to try and make Ethan say stop. After a while, Mum and Dad had to stop asking questions that Ethan couldn’t shake his head or nod to. They weren’t sure what else to do.

“Go on, Mary,” said Dad.

“I’ve spoken with Mr Cabot,” said Mary. “He’s the headmaster at Orchard School. It’s a little further than your old school, but it’s smaller. I could arrange a visit. You’d be in the oldest year group this time, now you’re eleven. There wouldn’t be any older boys. And we’d make sure the children didn’t try to make you speak.”

Ethan looked at the floor.

“Listen,” said Dad. He sounded cross now. “This is important.”

Ethan pushed the rug with his foot so it slid and he didn’t have to look at them.

“We aren’t going to force you to go to school,” said Mary. “It has to be your decision.”

Dad spoke quietly. “Do you think trying another school might help?”

“If Ethan’s willing to give it a try,” said Mary.

Mum looked at Ethan. She tried to smile. She turned back to Mary. “I think that’s enough for now,” she said.

“Of course,” said Mary.

Mary finished her coffee. She stood and put her cup on the kitchen countertop.

“I’ll come back in a few weeks, Ethan. Just have a little think about school for me.”

She took her coat from the back of the chair. Mum and Dad followed her up the bow stairs. He could hear them on the towpath: Mary talking about how school could help him speak again. How the other children would be made to understand. He could hear Dad saying how he didn’t know what to do for the best. How they should try everything.

Ethan’s head swirled. He padded through the lounge and the kitchen, past the bathroom to his cabin at the back of Deity, through the engine room. Ethan opened his cabin door and turned the catch at the top of the cupboard so his bed unfolded. He lay back and said it over and over in his head: school, school, school.

It wouldn’t matter if he was the eldest. The boys his age could still pick on him because he didn’t talk, like the older boys had, before. When they had found out he had stopped talking, three of them tugged his hair to try and make him talk when the lunch lady wasn’t about. They pretended it was funny at first. Then they called him mean names and kicked him and he had cried, but still he hadn’t spoken. He couldn’t.

Once, the lunch lady had seen the boys picking on him and told their teacher, but the boys still called him names when no one was looking. Then, one morning, after the boys had taken his jumper the day before and thrown it up a tree, Ethan wouldn’t come out of his cabin to go to school. He cut up his uniform with the scissors and Mum had cried and Dad had shouted “Enough”, and they all went to see the headmaster. When they got home Mum and Dad sat Ethan on the sofa and Mum said she’d teach him on the boat, “For Now”.

He was meant to go to another school, one day. But he worked really hard to get all his answers right so he could stay at home. And Mum and Dad stopped talking about real school. And Mary came to see him and Mum said he was doing “better than ever”, and they never mentioned real school. But being at home hadn’t helped him to speak again. It had been so long since he had spoken that he couldn’t remember how it felt, or why he had stopped. It was like he had always been this way.

Mum came into his cabin when Mary had gone. She knelt by the bed. Her ponytail was falling out. She stroked Ethan’s forehead with her fingers. “We didn’t mean to startle you,” she said.

Ethan grabbed his stack of knight books from the floor. He was still angry with Mum and Dad. He lay back and opened his favourite book: Life of a Knight. He stared down at the title of the first chapter: “Becoming a Knight”.

Mum didn’t say anything else.

“Starting that project now?” Dad spoke quietly as he poked his head around the door. “You’ll have to show me sometime.”

Ethan didn’t nod. He reached for the laptop under the bed. He turned it on and opened a new document. His project was going to be a knight’s journal. He’d start his journal as if he were a page: a boy sent to a castle to learn how to become a knight.

Dad should understand. Mum said he was teased for being a boater when he was young. But Dad never talked about it. That was why Dad had left school early. That was why he didn’t like it when new people took to canal life. Dad said he didn’t trust newcomers very often.

Ethan started to type. His page hated the castle. He couldn’t even shoot a straight arrow because his hands shook when he pulled back his bow. The other pages teased him for it. He didn’t think he’d ever become a knight and make his father proud.

“Just think about school,” said Mum. She got up and left the cabin.

It didn’t matter what Mary said, or Mum, or even Dad.

He’d never go back to school.