The first day back at school, and the term had already started badly. It would get worse by the end of the week.

I’d been looking forward to catching up with Spatch and Mo, but something had changed.

I guess it had been happening for a while without me noticing. But now I did. Their holiday together at Spatch’s grandparents’ house in Naples had made each of them much better friends with the other than they were with me.

Spatch had got such a deep tan that he was even browner than Mo, but he said they hadn’t been able to go to the beach much, owing to a sewage overflow closing it halfway through the holiday.

“That’ll be why you’re so brown, then!” I said, punching his arm gently.

He didn’t get it, and pretended my punch had hurt him (which it can’t have done). “Ow! What do you mean?”

“You know—you’re brown ’cause you went swimming in the sewage!”

Now, I know it’s not the sort of joke that could be described as “sophisticated,” but I thought it was pretty funny, and started laughing, but they didn’t join in. Spatch rolled his eyes at Mo.

“You’re so lame, Linklater.”

That’s when I knew that, although we weren’t enemies, our threesome had become a twosome, and the one left out was me.

Besides, what could I say about my Easter break?

“Guess what happened to me over the holidays? I became friends with Roxy Minto. She’s my next-door neighbor.”

“Wow, cool.”

“Yeah, and you know that fire that was on TV? Well, there’s a kid who escaped it and he’s called Alfie and he says he’s a thousand years old.”

“Oh, how interesting. I’d like to meet him.”

Instead I would be teased about whether I was in love with Roxy, and mocked for believing (even temporarily) someone who claimed to be a thousand years old.

As it was, I had to be content with telling the story of the fire, and the fire trucks, etc. They liked that, sort of. The rest of it I kept to myself.

I hadn’t seen Alfie since the funeral a few days before. To be honest, he had been a bit weird, suddenly hurrying off without saying goodbye. Imagine being his friend might be pretty difficult. (I cannot imagine him laughing at sewage jokes, for example.)

I don’t think he quite understood that we were trying to make up to him and convince him that we had not told the police.

Then, on the first day back, he turned up in afternoon assembly, at the end of the row, with the rest of shouty Mr. Springham’s rowdy class. He was two rows in front and hadn’t seen me, but I had a good view of him.

Brand-new school uniform, haircut, and a pair of those glasses like my Uncle Jasper’s that get darker in the sunshine but which were now semi-tinted.

It didn’t look like anyone was talking to him, but that was normal for a new kid.

By lunchtime, word had got around.

1. New kid called Alfie Monk.

2. He’s the boy orphaned by the big fire in the woods.

3. Very quiet.

4. Speaks strangely, like English isn’t his native language.

5. Shocking teeth, like he’s never been to the dentist.

I didn’t see him at break or at lunchtime, even though I was looking out for him. It wasn’t until the next day that our paths crossed.

The first week of term was Local History Week. According to the letter sent out to parents, local history is the Head’s “lifelong passion,” and he’s determined to share it with—that is, inflict it on—everyone else. Some people get totally excited about it. That’s some people for you.

This year we were going to The Saxon Experience, which the letter home said was:

A vivid re-creation of life in Anglo-Saxon times, peopled by larger-than-life characters in authentic clothing. A unique chance to live the life led by our ancestors of more than a thousand years ago.

And here’s the strange thing: until I read that, I had had no idea what Alfie had been talking about.

A thousand years? Might as well have been a million. But now I had what the Head, Mr. Landreth, calls a “frame of reference.” Alfie was from Anglo-Saxon times. Even thinking that was strange.

I was secretly hoping that the trip would be a chance to rebuild ties with Mo and Spatch, but, after just one day, Mo was off sick. (He was skipping, I’m certain. He just needs to cough and his mum keeps him at home.) Worse, Spatch was banned from the trip for “persistent non-completion of homework.” He’d be spending the day in Mrs. Spetrow’s office, finishing his biology project from last term.

There were about a hundred kids—all of our year, more or less—waiting in the school playground before getting on the coaches for The Saxon Experience, and it was pretty noisy.

I felt a poke in my back. It was Roxy, and next to her was Alfie, a nervous, gappy smile on his face.

“Look who I’ve found,” she said.

Before I could say anything, Mr. Springham popped up next to us and said needlessly loudly:

“YOU THREE. COACH ONE, SEATS 18, 19, 20, GO!”

Assigned seats? Oh great.

It was an hour on the coach to The Saxon Experience. An hour in which I discovered:

1. That Alfie was living in a children’s home in Culvercot.

2. It was very strict and had imposed a curfew on him: in by nine p.m.

3. Sangeeta and the council were trying to find him a foster family, but these things take time, apparently.

And he kept asking about Jasper. I mean, more than once. At first, it wasn’t weird. It was just, “How’s your Uncle Jasper?” which sort of surprised me a bit because, if I’d mentioned him at all, it had only been in passing.

“He’s, erm…fine. I guess. Why?”

“Oh, no reason. I was just asking.”

Alfie’s tone was unconvincingly casual, so I asked, “Have you met him before or something?”

“No. Never in my life. Never met him, no. Not at all.”

Hmm. Too many denials there, I thought. Once again, a bad liar spots a bad lie. Did this have something to do with Jasper’s odd behavior the day Alfie was found? But I thought I’d let it go.

Then, a few minutes later, he said: “How did he meet your aunt?”

“Who? Jasper? Blimey, Alfie—online, I think. Why? What’s it to you?”

“Nothing, Aidan. Just small talk.”

And there we left it because the Glasses Incident happened.

Inigo Delombra was sitting behind us, and he is someone you just steer clear of. He’s not exactly a bully, because—as Mo discovered once in elementary school—he’ll back right off if you stand up to him. The problem is he’s already as tall as the women teachers (and Mr. Green) and weighs about 175 pounds, easy. He’s huge, in other words, and standing up to him takes courage.

So when Inigo stuck his head over the back of our seats and said, “Hello, new boy!” I sensed trouble.

Roxy and Alfie were seated together. I was across the aisle. I could see Inigo Delombra’s posse of supporters (all two of them) chortling at what might come next.

“Wanna Haribo?” Inigo said, looking directly at Alfie.

“A what?” said Alfie.

“A Haribo.”

“What is one of those?”

Oh no.

Inigo grinned at his sneering followers. “New kid doesn’t know what Haribos are!” Turning back to him, he said, “Here! Have one.” He showed him a packet of gummies. Alfie looked dubious.

“Go on! Have one! Have two! I’ve got another packet. Where you from then?”

“I was, well, my father was from Gotland, but then he lived in, erm…he…he is sort of Danish.” The fear was written all over Alfie’s face.

“Oh! So you’re from, erm…Danishland. That’ll be why you talk funny, eh? Anyway, let’s have a look at your specs then?”

“My spectacles?”

“Yeah! Your glasses—come on!” He reached out and plucked them from Alfie’s nose. Roxy had been quiet up to this point, but now she piped up: “Hey. Give it a rest.”

“Oh, Little Girl speaks, does she?” Inigo leaned in close. “Shut it, squirt, or the rest of your term is gonna be H-E-double-L. Now what about these specs, eh? They are cool. Let’s see if they go darker.”

He had put them on and was staring out of the window.

“Wow! They do. Here, Jonesy: check these out.” He passed them back to his pal, who held them up to the light and put them on and then passed them to someone else, and then someone else.

One boy said, “Where are these from? Are they unbreakable?”

I glanced across at Alfie, and the pained expression on his face was unbearable.

I got out of my seat and made my way to the back of the bus. By now, the glasses had become just a thing to be passed around. Half of the people at the back had no real idea where they’d come from, or that they’d been stolen from Alfie. It was comparatively easy for me to say:

“Here! Let me have a go!” I had to say it a couple of times, but then they arrived in my hand. I put them on, posed, smiled, and headed straight back to my seat.

“Hey! Bring them back!” shouted Inigo. “Linklater, you’re dead! And you, too, Danish boy!”

It was only a small victory but my heart was thumping.

I was back in my seat when Mr. Springham got out of his, and bellowed down the coach:

“QUIET! I SAID QUIET! DELOMBRA—WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT OF YOUR SEAT? GET BACK AT ONCE! YOU’RE A DISGRACE, ALL OF YOU! SIT DOWN AND EITHER READ OR PLAY SOME BRAIN-ROTTING GAME ON YOUR PHONES! I DON’T CARE, BUT I WANT SILENCE UNTIL WE GET THERE. IS THAT UNDERSTOOD?”

There was a murmuring of “Yes, sirs,” during which I handed Alfie’s glasses back to him across the aisle. If that didn’t convince him that our offer of friendship was sincere, then nothing would.

“Thank you,” he whispered, but he knew what had just happened. You don’t live as long as he has without knowing that making an enemy of Inigo Delombra is a bad idea.

He was about to find out just how bad.