The van swung into the marketplace and stopped. Mum turned to him.

“I’ll pick you up from here.” She looked at her watch and smiled. “At half past eleven, OK?”

Ethan nodded. His hands were sweaty. He’d lied to Mum. He’d written in another note that they were going to the library to get knight books. Now he wished that was true.

Polly opened the door and climbed out. She didn’t seem as nervous as he was. She had chatted to his mum the whole way there.

“Out you get, Ethan,” said Mum.

He slid along the front seat and stepped out. He shut the door. The van moved away, juddering over the cobblestones.

“Where’s the library?” asked Polly. “We’ve only got a couple of hours.”

Ethan pointed to the high street. They walked quickly, across the marketplace to the charity shops and cafes. Ethan pointed to a little road off the high street. They turned into it. The library was just a boat length ahead – it was a little white building with a green door. Today he felt sick as he walked towards it. They stopped when they reached the entrance. Ethan looked at Polly. He took a big breath and led her inside.

The library was quiet, but it didn’t feel peaceful. The silence seemed to fill every corner and hang off every shelf.

Ethan looked at Polly. “Over here,” she said, and pointed to a metal staircase at the back of the room. Next to the stairs was a sign with an arrow: Public Records. Ethan had never been up there before.

They climbed the staircase. There weren’t rows of storybooks, just lines of grey cabinets. The air smelt musty, like Dad’s coat when it needed a wash.

A grey-haired man sat at a desk. “Do you need any help?” he asked.

“We’re looking for the old newspapers,” said Polly. “Copies of the local paper.”

“Old newspapers,” said the man. “Sounds to me like you’re after the microfilm machine.”

Polly nodded. “We’re researching a school project,” she said quickly.

The man got up from his chair. “What year did you want?”

Polly looked at Ethan. He held up four fingers. “Four years ago,” she said.

The man walked over to a row of cabinets. He tapped the top of a cabinet with his fingers and it made a tinny noise. The man pointed to the top drawer.

“Here we are. Do you know the exact date of the newspaper?”

“We’ll just look through the boxes, if that’s all right,” said Polly.

The man smiled. “When you’ve found your reel let me know. I’ll show you the machine.”

The man turned and went back to his desk. Ethan reached out and grabbed the drawer handle. The drawer slid open and he remembered Dad’s words.

Sometimes it’s best not to remember, Ethan.

“Do you know which month it was?” asked Polly. He shook his head. His heart thudded. The drawer was stacked with rows of black boxes as big as his hand. Each box had a label with months written on it.

“What about the time of year? Spring, summer. . .”

White sun shining through cold air; a layer of papery leaves on the towpath.

“Autumn?” said Polly.

Ethan tapped Polly’s arm. He nodded.

Polly lifted out a black box and put it on top of the cabinet. The label said:

September

October

November

Ethan turned to the man at the desk and held up his hand. The man came over to them.

“We’re ready now,” said Polly, picking up the box.

The man led them to an ugly machine perched on a table. It looked a bit like a television. It had a big white screen that stared down at them. Below the screen was a metal spoke. In the middle was a small square of glass, like the lens on the toy microscope Mum bought him ages ago.

Polly put the box on the table.

“Take a seat.” The man pointed to two orange chairs under the desk.

Ethan wanted to stand so that he was taller than the machine, bigger than the horrible news story they might find about a boy getting hurt on the canal. But Polly sat down, so Ethan sat too. The plastic chair dug into his back.

“Now,” said the man, “do you know how to load the reel?”

Polly nodded. She flipped open the lid and lifted out a reel, slotting it on to the metal spoke. She unravelled the end of the film and stretched it across to the empty reel. She flicked a switch and the machine began to hum.

“That’s right,” said the man. “It’s the blue button to look through slowly, the red one to look through quickly.”

“Thank you,” said Polly. “We’ll be fine now.”

Polly hovered her finger over the slow button. They waited until the man was out of sight.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

Ethan shook his head. He put his hand on top of Polly’s.

“Do you want to do it?” she asked.

He nodded. He needed to know the truth.

Polly moved her hand. Ethan pressed down on the button. Pages of the Herald began to move across the screen: September stories. He could read the words easily. Safe stories mostly, about fêtes, football results or new car parks; adverts for pets and jobs and furniture. But sometimes they saw a story that made his stomach pull tight. Horrible stories about car crashes and fights in pubs – but nothing about a boy getting hurt on the canal.

Had he imagined it all? Had it just been a dream?

The machine stopped humming. The screen went blank. Ethan took his finger off the button. They’d looked through all the September newspapers.

Polly lifted the reel off the spoke; she dropped it back in the box and loaded October.

“We need to go faster,” she said. “We haven’t got long.”

Ethan pressed Fast. More stories sailed past: New Nightclub, Council Job Cuts. The stories weren’t too scary this month.

The screen went blank. It was the end of the October stories. Ethan took his hand off the button.

Polly put October back in the box and brought out a new reel. “November,” she said. She put it on the spoke and stretched the film on to the empty reel. It was the last of the autumn stories.

Ethan pressed the Fast button. More stories flashed past. Suddenly, Polly pulled his hand off the button. The machine had stopped on a story.

Polly whispered. “That’s the one.”

He didn’t want to read the big words at the top of the page, but he made himself look.