Cool!. Michael Morpurgo

cassette machine. We’ve got one somewhere, I know we have.” And she goes out, leaving Dad and me alone again.

      There’s a bit of a silence, and then suddenly Dad starts to talk. For the first time he’s actually talking as if he really believes I might be able to hear him. “Robbie, it’s about your mum and me. We both feel really bad about this. She thinks that if she hadn’t sent you off to walk Lucky in the park, then none of this would have happened. And I know that if I’d been at home, then I’d have been there to take you and Lucky to the park myself. I’d have been there to look after you.

      And there’s something else, Robbie. About your mum and me splitting up. I should have said something before, I should have explained. It was my fault, not Mum’s – mostly anyway. I couldn’t get work, Robbie, and I got all down in the dumps, and fed up and depressed. I thought I wasn’t any use to anyone – not her, not you, not Ellie. She had enough of me moping about the place, feeling all sorry for myself. I don’t blame Mum. We both said things we shouldn’t have said. Now I’m upset and she’s upset.”

      Dad never ever talks to me like this. He isn’t talking to me as if I’m a kid at all. I like that. I like that a lot. “I’ve got a job now, Robbie. It’s not much, just a little part on TV, in The Bill. But it’s something, a start. I’m getting back on my feet. I’d come home like a shot, but I think I’ve blown it and I don’t know if Mum’ll have me back.”

      Course she would, Dad. Ask her. She misses you like anything. We all do. Ask her, Dad. Just ask her! I want to shout it out loud. But I can’t even open my mouth to talk.

      Tracey’s back. “Here it is,” she says. “I’ll plug it in, shall I? Not too loud now. Good luck.” And she’s gone again.

      “It’s your friends from school, Robbie. They all wanted to say hi. That’s nice, isn’t it?” All of them? I don’t think so, Dad. Certainly not Barry Bolshaw, him with the big mouth, who has a go at me whenever he can, just for the fun of it. I hate his guts, and he hates mine. I can’t say my ‘r’s very well, so he calls me ‘Wobbie’ or ‘weedy Wobbie’, just because I’m a bit on the small side.