"It’s not my bedtime," Michael quickly protested, though Toby had said nothing. "I can stay up as late as I like." Then he opened his eyes so wide that Toby could see the whites around the edges: "See? I’m not tired!"

Michael Lawton had the mumps. Toby didn’t know what the mumps were, but they were obviously making Michael less rowdy than usual. Usually he liked to play wrestling games. Wrestling is what Michael liked to watch on the television, though he wasn’t watching it now. In the playground or in the car park at church, Michael went around claiming to be Giant Haystacks and challenging everyone to a tussle. He was skinnier than most, but he usually won through sheer enthusiasm. Tonight he didn’t look very enthusiastic. He just looked bored.

Toby and his mother stayed an hour, in the middle of which Mrs Lawton appeared with a couple of glasses of Ribena and a single large cookie on a dish. She told Michael to split it in half and give half to Toby, and she watched him do it. Toby spotted his mum standing behind Michael’s, spying from the landing. He didn’t know what was going on, but both mothers went downstairs smiling.

Two days later, Toby had the mumps too.

"I had the mumps," said Uncle Terry, who was driving. "Little bit older than you I was, though." He shook his head. "Bad age to have it. If you get the mumps too late it stops your balls dropping." He turned a grin on Toby.

Toby was sitting in the front seat of Uncle Terry’s Ford Escort. He didn’t know what his uncle meant, so he didn’t smile until Uncle Terry looked over again and laughed huskily. Then Toby knew it had been a dirty joke.

"Yeah, caught it from your dad, I did."

Even though Uncle Terry was Toby’s father’s brother, Toby and his mum still had regular contact with him. He lived in a village called Paglesham, which was close enough to drive to every birthday and Christmas, but was far enough outside Rochford that they wouldn’t bump into him going down the shops. Toby’s mum said Uncle Terry was a character. Toby didn’t know what that meant either, but he assumed it was a good thing, because he liked Uncle Terry.

He didn’t, however, like staying in his house, and that was where Uncle Terry was driving him now. As soon as he’d come down with the mumps, Toby’s mum had decided he wouldn’t return to school until the following week. However, she had to work, so on Monday and Tuesday she’d farmed him out to a couple of the neighbours, but for the rest of the week he would have to go and stay with Uncle Terry. Uncle Terry sounded delighted to hear Toby had come down with the mumps, Toby’s mum thought aloud after she put the phone down. He’d invited Toby to stay before she’d even had to ask. He came early Wednesday morning.

"You got your fingers and toes crossed?" Uncle Terry hissed softly, leering over at Toby again. Toby noticed his uncle did.

Toby crossed both middle fingers over his forefingers and held them up so his uncle could see. Uncle Terry nodded sagely.

"Good. Don’t want to lose them."

The road to Paglesham led along the River Crouch. It was a wide, slow river and just outside Paglesham itself there was a swampy lagoon. In the middle of the lagoon there was an overgrown little island, perhaps an acre in size. They were just driving past it now. Both of them watched out the window. When Toby had first heard the story of Ten Tree Island, it almost ruined his Christmas.

That was two years ago, and it had been Uncle Terry who’d told him. Over tea, Toby had asked Uncle Terry what was wrong with his hand. The little finger on Uncle Terry’s left hand stuck out, bent the wrong way at the first knuckle. This was only really noticeable when he clenched his fist, or was gripping a bottle of champagne, as Uncle Terry had been when Toby noticed. His uncle leapt at the chance to tell the story again, much to the despair of Aunt Melissa.

Apparently, when Uncle Terry was Toby’s age, he and a group of friends waded over to Ten Tree Island and were attacked by ghosts. Uncle Terry had almost lost a finger to them. It was only when he and his friends got back again that they learnt the truth about the island. Once upon a time, Rochford’s lepers had been left on the island to die, and their disembodied limbs haunted the island to this day. Toby hadn’t known what leprosy was until he asked his mum on the way home. Toby didn’t see Uncle Terry again for a year after that, his mum was so angry.

"Okay, we’re safe now," said Uncle Terry, uncrossing his fingers. Crossing your fingers and toes, Uncle Terry had told him, protected them from being pinched by the leprous ghosts, and Toby believed every word.

Uncle Terry’s house was on the far side of Paglesham. On the outside it looked like a cottage from the olden days, painted white but with black intersecting beams. The roof was even made of straw. Inside, it was just the same as every other house. Toby felt butterflies in his tummy as Uncle Terry pulled the car onto the gravel driveway out front. There was a good reason Toby didn’t like coming to Uncle Terry’s house and that reason was named Timothy.

Toby’s cousin was watching from the kitchen window as his dad arrived back, but as soon as Uncle Terry turned off the engine, Aunt Melissa came running out and Timothy was behind her, wearing his school uniform. Uncle Terry handed his wife the keys as Toby fetched his bag from the boot. Little was said. Timothy was late for school. Before Uncle Terry had even closed the front door behind Toby, Aunt Melissa and Timothy were gone. Toby felt a sense of relief.

He hadn’t counted on Timothy being in school all week. He thought he was going to be stuck with his cousin all day. Still, if Timothy caught the mumps as well, he might get a week off too, so Toby was determined to keep his sickness to himself, unlike Michael Lawton. As Toby learnt from Aunt Melissa when she returned, Timothy also had a school trip to the Natural History Museum in London that coming Saturday, so Toby would barely see him at all. She sounded sorry, but Toby was secretly glad. There were worse things than being lonely.

During the day, Toby was allowed to play in Timothy’s room. Timothy was only a year older, heading to secondary school next year, so he had the same kind of toys as Toby did at home. He just had more of them. He had Snake Mountain from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, which had been on Toby’s birthday and Christmas list for two years running, but he’d never got it.

During the evenings, when Timothy was around, Toby kept close to Uncle Terry wherever he went. Usually this meant watching television in the sitting room. Fortunately, Uncle Terry liked Doctor Who as well. Aunt Melissa started a jigsaw puzzle on the floor with the instruction that the two boys work together on it, but Toby didn’t want Timothy catching the mumps, so he sat with Uncle Terry instead and only went near the puzzle after Timothy left for school.

By Friday afternoon, however, Toby was bored. This must have been how Michael Lawton felt, he thought. He didn’t even feel particularly ill. Uncle Terry worked funny hours, a bit like Toby’s mum, and Aunt Melissa was always busy around the house. But they had a big country garden, and the weather cleared up after lunch, so Aunt Melissa let him go out and play on his own. Timothy didn’t like football, but Aunt Melissa still found Toby a ball from somewhere.

He took it out into the garden and dribbled it around. He wasn’t used to having so much space. Their backyard at home was so small it didn’t even have a lawn and his mum wouldn’t let him kick a ball against the house.

Toby thought he might like to live out in the country himself one day. The houses weren’t so close together. His uncle and aunt’s garden was twice as wide as the house and went back even further. There wasn’t a wall at the bottom, just a large, tall hedge. Uncle Terry was in the middle of building a fence down there. The wooden panels had been left out on the lawn to dry. Toby could smell the creosote from the backdoor, even though he didn’t know what it was.

In fact, he only realised where the smell was coming from when he kicked the ball into the hedge and went to retrieve it. Creosote wasn’t as sweet smelling so close up. Toby screwed up his nose and followed the ball. For a moment he feared it had gone right over, but then he saw it lying underneath. As he bent down to pick it up, he heard a rustle in the bush and looked up into a freckled face.

At first Toby thought the boy parting the branches and peering through from the other side of the hedge was about his age. He had a round, fat face and was wearing an oversized Liverpool FC baseball cap that came down over his ears. It was only when he spoke that Toby realised it was actually a girl.

"Hey, you’re not him!" she said accusingly.

"Not who? Timothy?" Toby replied.

"Yeah," she snarled. "Him."

"He’s my cousin. He’s at school."

The little girl screwed up her face.

"I’m Toby," he told her.

"I’m Sophie. What’re you doing in my bush?"

"Just getting my ball. What are you doing?"

"Nothing."

Toby picked up the ball.

"Why aren’t you in school too?" she asked.

"I’m sick." He shrugged. "I’ve got a disease."

Her face seemed to light up at this.

"What about you? Why are you at home?"

"I’m sick too," she announced proudly.

"I’ve got the mumps," said Toby.

"I’ve got cancer," Sophie replied.

"I bet the mumps is worse."

"I bet it isn’t. Look." Then she disappeared for a moment. When she pulled the branches apart again she had taken off her cap and she was completely bald. Her head was white and pasty. Toby turned up his nose.

"What happened to your hair?"

"It fell out," she declared.

"Oh. You’re right. Cancer’s worse."

Sophie smiled. "My mum says it isn’t cancer that made my hair fall out. It’s the magic potion they’re giving me to cure me."

"I’ve got a magic potion too!" Toby said quickly.

"Do they put yours in your arm too?"

"No. In my mouth."

Sophie let the hedge close up again.

"Hey, where’re you going?" demanded Toby.

And then she came back again.

"Just seeing where my mum is," she told him. "She won’t let me see any of my friends in case I catch something else off them."

"Can I catch cancer off you?"

"I don’t know. Maybe."

"I caught the mumps off Michael Lawton."

"She says I don’t have much immunity, whatever that is."

"Maybe it’s something to do with your hair."

"Yeah, I hadn’t thought of that."

Toby bounced the football to show off, but in the long grass it just bounded away into the garden and Toby pretended he’d meant it to.

"Are you friends with Timothy, then?"

She gave him a dirty look and shook her head. "He likes to play games where you have to pull down your knickers," she whispered.

"Yeah. I know," Toby said bitterly.

Toby heard a distant voice calling Sophie.

"Look, I have to go," she said. "That’s my mum."

"Okay," Toby said quickly. "See you."

"Maybe," said Sophie. Then she was gone.

Toby stared into the hedge for a little while longer. Then when it was clear Sophie wasn’t coming back, he went looking for his ball.

On Saturday morning, Timothy left even earlier than usual. Aunt Melissa got back from dropping him off at school whilst Toby was still eating breakfast. It was another warm day, so Toby spent it in the garden, slightly despondent as he watched Uncle Terry put up the fence. He wouldn’t see Sophie again, after all.

When Timothy got back just before tea he was more interested in the toy he’d picked up at the Natural History Museum than Toby. It was a dinosaur head on a stick and when he squeezed the handle at the other end the plastic jaws chomped. Timothy was going around chomping the houseplants and ignoring his cousin.

In the evening, Toby’s mum phoned. She arranged with Aunt Melissa to pick Toby up Sunday afternoon, though Aunt Melissa insisted they both stay for Sunday tea as well. Toby was glad to be going home. If he hadn’t been, Sunday would have been the first full day he would have had to spend with Timothy.

Toby was helping Aunt Melissa clear the dinner table after lunch the next day when the doorbell rang, but he immediately abandoned his pile of dirty plates and ran to open the front door. He overtook Uncle Terry in the hall. When he reached the front door, he opened it without hesitation.

A woman had rung the bell, but it wasn’t his mum.

"Hello," she said, smiling. "Are you Timmy?"

She had two children with her, a boy and a girl.

"That’s not him!" the boy hissed.

He was Toby’s age, the girl slightly older.

"Oh. Is your Auntie Melissa in, then?" asked the woman.

She was about the same age as Toby’s mum, but she was wearing so much make-up Toby could see the dappled texture on her cheeks and straight lines ploughing across a waxy layer on her forehead.

"She’s in the dining room," Toby said.

Just then Uncle Terry caught up with Toby and opened the door wider. The woman stopped bearing over Toby and held a hand out to his uncle.

"You must be Terry," she said.

"Can I help you?" asked Uncle Terry, shaking her hand.

"I’m Joyce." The woman touched her chest with the spread out fingers of her other hand, sounding almost surprised Uncle Terry didn’t already know.

Behind her mum, the girl stared at Toby and yawned.

"It’s all right," Aunt Melissa called as she came down the hall, then she too joined them on the doorstep. "I forgot to tell him."

"Forgot to tell me what?" asked Uncle Terry lightly. Toby noticed his uncle was glaring at the boy, who was scuffing the frayed doormat with his foot, whilst at the same time trying to smile invitingly for the boy’s mother.

It was about then that Toby lost interest. He slipped away from the grown-ups at the front door disappointed that it hadn’t been his mum. Timothy, however, seemed to have disappeared, so Toby was safe to go into the sitting room. Somebody had managed to find and place a piece of the jigsaw puzzle that had been evading Toby all weekend. He wouldn’t get a chance to complete it now.

Toby knelt on the floor, listening through the wall to Uncle Terry cracking more jokes that he didn’t understand. He both pitied those two kids and hoped that they envied him for being able to get away. Not long after, Toby heard Aunt Melissa and Uncle Terry say their goodbyes, then a car door slammed and Toby heard the crunch of car tyres heading over gravel toward the main road.

Uncle Terry walked past the sitting room, heading for the garden, and Toby decided to join him. But as he stood up, Aunt Melissa pushed the sitting room door open and came in with that Joyce woman’s two kids.

"Toby, I want you to meet the Cohens."

She herded them into the middle of the room.

"This is Nick," she said. "And this is Jo-Jo." She stood behind them, moving her hands from the boy’s shoulders to the girl’s.

Nick was stocky and had shiny skin. He wore glasses that looked too big for his face. Jo-Jo was tall and thin. Toby noticed she had a really long neck, but that she was trying to hide it by wearing a black polo neck jersey.

"Hi," said Toby, forcing a smile.

Neither of them smiled back.

"Now," said Aunt Melissa, clapping her palms together silently in front of her chest. "Are you going to be able to keep yourselves entertained this afternoon? I’m sure Timothy’s around here someplace as well."

Nick and Jo-Jo met dirty looks.

"Toby’s in the middle of a jigsaw puzzle," Aunt Melissa went on, picking up a random piece. "Perhaps you could all work together on that." When she failed to place it instantly, she handed the piece over to Nick.

"And if you need anything, Terry will be in the garden and I’ll be upstairs doing the ironing." She beamed over them. "Okay?"

Then she went out slowly, barely stopping to give Toby’s shoulder a brief, encouraging shake. She shut the door behind her.

Nick and Jo-Jo listened to her climb the stairs. Then Nick threw the puzzle piece back onto the floor and Jo-Jo turned on Toby.

"First off, don’t ever call me Jo-Jo."

"Or she’ll get me to hit you," Nick snarled.

"My name’s Joanna. I hate being called Jo-Jo!"

"Oh. Okay," said Toby, taken aback.

"Only I can call her Jo-Jo," Nick boasted.

"No, you can’t!" she cried.

"Well, who’re you going to get to hit me, Jo-Jo?"

"I’ll hit you myself!"

"Yeah, but you’re a girl!" he sneered.

"I’m still bigger than you..."

She gave him a shove to prove it. He pushed her back. They both lifted fists to thump each other. Then they turned their attentions back to Toby.

"So how do you know Timothy, anyway?" Joanna demanded.

"Yeah, you don’t go to our school," added Nick.

"He’s my cousin," Toby admitted again.

Nick and Joanna swapped more dirty looks.

"I can go and get him if you like," Toby suggested.

Joanna turned up her nose. "No thanks!"

"Yeah," Nick snarled. "We hate that poofter!"

Toby didn’t know what that meant precisely, but it was obvious neither of them much liked his cousin, which didn’t make any sense.

"So you’re not friends of his, then?" he asked.

"Nick, hit him," Joanna told her brother.

Nick grazed Toby’s arm with a light punch, a warning blow.

"He doesn’t have any friends," Joanna said.

"Why did you come round, then?" Toby asked.

"Mum brought us round, that’s why," said Nick.

"She didn’t bring us to play with him, anyway," Joanna added haughtily. "She brought us round to play with you."

Toby frowned. "Huh?"

"Your auntie was talking to our mum outside the school gates yesterday," said Nick. "Whilst everyone was getting on the coach."

"Yeah," Joanna agreed. "Your aunt said something about you, then our mum asked if we could come round. Didn’t even mention Timothy."

Toby shook his head. "But you don’t know me."

Nick’s face looked blank. Joanna just shrugged.

"And I’m supposed to be ill," said Toby.

"Yeah. Mum said you’ve got the mumps," Nick told him.

"We’ve never had it," Joanna explained.

"Well, you might catch it from me!" warned Toby.

"Yeah. Mum said that too," Nick muttered.

Toby was about to say he didn’t believe anybody’s mum would let them get sick deliberately. But then he remembered sharing that cookie with Michael Lawton and his mum not saying anything, and he started to wonder.

"Well, that sounds stupid," he grumbled.

Joanna shrugged. "How many days did you get off school?"

"Oh, I haven’t been all week," he told her.

"What?! You mean you got a week at home?!"

"Well, not home," said Toby. "But here, yeah."

"I want the mumps!" went Nick. "I want the mumps!"

"Yeah," agreed Joanna. "They must be worth it."

"I don’t know," said Toby, spotting an opportunity to impress. "I had to spend the whole time in the same house as that poofter Timothy!"

For a moment, Nick and Joanna looked shocked. Toby wondered if he’d said the right thing after all. But then they both burst out laughing.

Toby joined in, but inside he was sighing. He’d really thought they were going to hit him for a bit back then, but now they were all friends.

When Joanna finally stopped laughing, she yawned and stretched her arms out. "I’m bored. What did you do round here all week?"

"Well, Aunt Melissa started that puzzle," he began. Those dirty looks returned to their faces. "But Timothy did most of it," he added quickly.

Nick and Joanna started to explore the room.

"I went in the back garden a bit," Toby went on. "Played some footie. They’ve got a big garden. We could go out there if you want."

Joanna had reached the front window and was looking out. "Aren’t you allowed out of the gate?" she asked sarcastically.

"I don’t know," Toby muttered.

Joanna cocked her head at her brother. Nick stopped playing with a couple of china animals on the mantelpiece and went over.

"What’s he doing?" he hissed.

Toby crept over and joined them too. He peered out of the window. Timothy was now in the front garden with his dinosaur head on a stick, going around the plants and chomping the flowers whilst making noises to himself.

"Let’s go out there!" Nick suggested.

Him and Joanna turned on Toby expectantly.

"I suppose," he said reluctantly.

They followed him to the front door. When Timothy saw them coming out, he stopped chomping the hydrangea and lowered the dinosaur to his side.

"Hey, Timmy!" Joanna called loudly.

"Timmy! Timmy!" crowed Nick.

"What do you want?" he mumbled.

Toby closed the front door quite forcefully. Things wouldn’t get out of hand if Aunt Melissa knew they were outside and was keeping an eye on them.

"What’re you up to, Timmy?" asked Joanna.

"Hey, can I see that?" said Nick, snatching the dinosaur.

"Oi! Give it back!" Timothy yelled.

There was the tapping of a fingernail on glass and they all turned to see Aunt Melissa at the upstairs window. Nick gave it back.

"It’s shit, anyway," he muttered.

Joanna yawned again. "Well, this is boring."

"We could play some footie," Toby suggested.

"Football’s boring too," said Joanna.

Toby looked at Nick but he didn’t argue with her. He’d just found a stick on the ground and was using it to putt pebbles down the drive.

"Let’s have an adventure," he said idly.

"What? In the back garden?" Joanna snorted.

Toby had a sudden idea. Actually, he’d been fantasising about it all week, but he never thought he’d get the chance to suggest it until then.

"We could go to the island," he said.

Nick stopped putting pebbles and looked up.

"What island?" Joanna asked first.

Behind them, Timothy was already shaking his head.

"It’s just outside the village," Toby explained. "It’s surrounded by a swamp, but you can still reach it. My Uncle Terry did it."

Nick and Joanna turned on Timothy.

"Is that your dad?" Joanna snapped.

Timothy glowered and said nothing.

"Yeah, it is," Toby said it for him. "He was our age when he went. Ask him about his little finger and he’ll tell you all about it."

"No," Joanna decided. "If we ask questions about it then they’ll know we’re planning on going and then they’ll never let us leave the house."

"So you’re not even going to tell them?"

Joanna ignored him. "Okay, who’s coming? Nick?"

"I don’t know," he mumbled to his feet.

"Why? What’s wrong with you?" she snapped.

Her brother just shrugged.

"Toby? You a chicken as well?"

"I’ll go if everyone else goes," he said.

"Well, you have to come, anyway," Joanna retorted. "This was your idea. You’re the only one who knows the way there."

"I suppose," Toby muttered.

"Toby, don’t!" Timothy said through clenched teeth.

"Who asked you?" Joanna sneered.

Timothy looked at the ground and said nothing.

Nick chuckled. "Well, if Timmy’s too afraid to go," he said. "Then there must be something over there worth seeing! I’ll definitely come now."

He stuck his stick through his belt like it was a sword.

"I’m not scared, actually," Timothy boasted.

"Good," Joanna said sharply. "Then you can come too."

Timothy opened his mouth to protest, but nobody was listening. Toby saw him look up at the window, but his mum was no longer looking out.

Joanna told Toby to lead the way. His aunt and uncle’s cottage was on the corner of a cul-de-sac that intersected with the main road through Paglesham. Though the village was much larger walking across it on foot than it had seemed driving through it in Uncle Terry’s Ford Escort, at least the route was direct.

It was a nice afternoon. The sky was white, but not overcast. The sun was just breaking through the thin cloud cover and leaving faint shadows. Spring was coming to an end and people had started to mow their lawns again. There wasn’t much traffic on the roads, but Toby and the others had to stop at the next cul-de-sac as several cars left the main road. They waited restlessly on the curb.

Whilst standing there, Toby suddenly realised that the cottage on the corner was the one that backed onto his aunt and uncle’s garden. As he looked round, he saw Sophie hanging over the wall, wearing her cap and waving.

"Hey, that’s not the way," said Timothy.

"Where’re you going?" Joanna demanded.

Toby turned down Sophie’s road and walked up to the gate. Before the others caught up, he had told Sophie where they were going.

"So what’s on the island?" she asked.

"It’s supposed to be haunted," Toby told her.

Sophie giggled. "I don’t believe in ghosts," she said.

"Well," said Toby sharply. "That’s only because you’ve never met anyone who was attacked by one." He paused. "But I have."

"Oh, yeah?" she went. "Who?"

"My Uncle Terry."

The others gathered round, but Timothy kept his distance. Sophie glared at him briefly. Nick and Joanna both stared at her.

"It’s true," Joanna joined in.

"You don’t know anything about it!" snapped Timothy.

"My dad told us about it once," she said. "Didn’t he, Nick?"

She elbowed her brother. "Oh. Yeah. He did."

Toby eyed them both suspiciously.

"Yeah, there was this boy," she explained. "A long time ago, maybe even thirty years. Early one morning he went out fishing. He left his mum a note saying he’d gone to the island and he would bring back a fish for dinner."

Sophie listened to the story intently.

"Well, it got to dinnertime, and he still wasn’t back. When it got dark his mum really started to worry, so she called the police. They went over to the island with torches and found his fishing rod just lying on the bank."

She glanced at Nick. He was nodding.

"But there was no sign of the boy."

"What happened?" Sophie muttered.

"Well, nobody knows," said Joanna with a sigh. "But as they were looking for him, they found a trail of fish that he caught. They followed the trail and it led them into the middle of the island, but there it just stopped."

"It just stopped," Nick echoed.

"So they got shovels and they dug a hole. They never found his body. But right there, right where the trail of fish stopped, they found a skeleton. They dug a little deeper. They found another skeleton. And another."

"And another," Nick added.

"Sixteen skeletons!" Joanna cried, making them jump. "Sixteen skeletons buried in the mud for hundreds of years. The newspapers said the boy drowned. My dad said they just didn’t want his mum to find out what really happened to him."

After she’d finished, there was a moment of silence.

"My dad didn’t say anything about a boy," said Timothy suspiciously.

But the others just ignored him.

"Can I come, Toby?" Sophie asked eagerly.

Nick and Joanna glanced at each other and grinned.

"Will your mum let you?" said Toby.

"No, but she’s not in," said Sophie. "And my dad will."

"Go and ask," Toby prompted her.

"But don’t tell him where we’re going," Joanna warned her, as Sophie skipped to the front door. "Or he’ll never let you go."

When Sophie reappeared again she was wearing a grey duffel coat her dad was making her wear. She’d told him she was going to the park with Timothy. So with Toby in the lead, they set off down the main road once more.

Sophie kept up with Toby, whilst Nick and Joanna followed behind. From time to time Nick drew the stick from his belt and ran ahead to fence with lampposts along the route. At one point Joanna got him to knock Sophie’s cap off and pretend it had been an accident. Timothy was at the rear. He’d brought his dinosaur with him and when Toby looked back he was chomping plants again.

Soon they were within sight of the River Crouch, though in fact they heard it and smelt it before they saw it. They had to stop at a crossing to get onto the right side of the road, and then they followed it until they were outside the village. With his hands tucked up inside his sleeves, Toby crossed his fingers as Uncle Terry had taught him. He realised he wouldn’t be able to do that the whole time he was on the island, though; nor could he walk with his toes crossed.

Sophie was slightly apprehensive when they had to climb over some barbed wire, and not just because it caught on her coat. She muttered something about the barbed wire being there for a reason, but only Toby heard. Nick and Joanna were getting increasingly excited. There was only a grassy field between them and the bank of the swampy lagoon. They didn’t need Toby to lead anymore.

By the time Toby and the others caught up, Nick and Joanna had already run along one bank of the lagoon and were coming back again.

"There’s no way across," Nick reported.

"There isn’t a bridge, if that’s what you mean," said Toby. Then he sat down on the grass and began to pull off his shoes and socks.

"What are you doing?" Joanna demanded.

"We have to paddle," Toby told her.

Sophie was the first to take her shoes off too.

"We don’t know how deep it is," muttered Nick. He was closest to the water’s edge and was probing the shallows with his stick.

Toby stuffed his socks into his trainers and stood up. The ground felt cold and wet beneath his toes. There were some reeds growing in the water near Nick. Leaving his shoes on the bank and rolling up his trousers first, Toby splashed out and pulled one free. It was three times the size of Nick’s stick.

"We can use this," he told them.

The others sat down and began untying their laces.

"Is the water very cold?" Sophie asked Toby as she approached the water’s edge. Toby was still standing in it up to his ankles.

"Come on in. It’s fine." Then he went in even further.

The others followed him one by one, until Timothy was the last to get his feet wet. He refused to leave his dinosaur on the bank. He clutched it to his chest as he waded in after them. He didn’t want to lose it. There was a lot of silt in the water and this made it very black. Joanna turned her nose up at the smell.

At it’s nearest point, the island in the middle of the swampy lagoon probably wasn’t any further than twenty feet from the bank. It took them several minutes to paddle across, but the water never got any deeper than their knees. Toby plunged the reed into the water ahead of them, and when he reached the island, he lifted it over his shoulder like a spear. Nick also took out his stick again.

But for a moment, none of them climbed the grassy bank. They all just stood in the shallows, peering into the trees. The island looked far more overgrown this close up than it had from the other bank. Toby could tell without counting that there were more than ten trees on Ten Tree Island. Plus there were brambles and nettles and it all looked like nobody had been there for years.

"Did you hear that?" hissed Joanna.

"You didn’t hear anything!" snapped Timothy.

Joanna grinned and Nick chuckled.

"Who’s going first?" asked Sophie.

"Toby’s leading the way," Joanna said quickly.

Toby sighed. "Fine," he said. Then he tossed his stick into the weeds and pulled himself up by the branch of a gnarled tree overhanging the water. Once he was on the bank, he wiped his hands on his knees and helped Sophie.

Nick helped Joanna. Nobody helped Timothy.

"Wish I’d brought my shoes," Sophie grumbled as she stepped on something prickly and lifted her foot up to check the sole.

Toby picked his stick up again. "Be careful where you walk," he said. Then he began to beat his way through the entangled brambles.

"Everyone keep your eyes open," said Joanna.

Sophie gulped. "Let’s stick together."

So with Toby leading once more and Timothy still stuck at the back, they began to explore the island. They quickly came across evidence that people had been there before them. There was an old, burnt car tyre. The tree it was resting against was charred too. The tyre had obviously been there a long time, because there were weeds growing through the middle of it. All around it were bottles with faded, peeling labels, and plenty of broken glass too. Timothy nearly cut himself.

At first they kept to a straight path, heading for the middle of the island, but the further they got into the trees, the harder it became to beat a path through the weeds. So they ended up following a twisted route across the island, changing direction frequently and going whichever way looked easiest.

Ignoring Nick’s protests that he was getting them lost, Toby tried to make it look like he knew what he was doing. At one point, however, he snapped a twig underfoot and a flock of birds roosting in the trees above their heads took flight. They all jumped at that, but by the time they eventually reached the other side of the island, they hadn’t seen a single ghost. Everyone was disappointed.

"Maybe they only come out at night," Toby suggested, as they sat down on the bank and washed their dirty feet in the running water.

This side of the swampy lagoon opened out into the River Crouch. They could see all the way across, though there was nothing over there but countryside and an old mill in the distance. Even the traffic on the main road into Paglesham sounded a long way away. Toby still found the island spooky, ghosts or no ghosts.

"Well, we can’t stay out all night." Joanna sighed.

"And I have to be back in an hour," said Sophie.

Toby hit the surface of the water with his reed.

"Great adventure this turned out to be," said Nick.

"Well, it’s not my fault," Toby grumbled.

"Maybe there just aren’t any ghosts," muttered Timothy.

They all sat there despondently, feet dangling in the water, not saying anything for a few minutes. Joanna found some pebbles on the bank and started skipping them across the water. Nick got bored and threw his stick away.

"Are we going back now?" asked Timothy.

"We still haven’t explored most of the island," said Sophie.

"There’s not enough time to explore it all." Toby sighed.

Joanna stopped tossing pebbles into the river and glanced up at Nick. "Well," she said. "There isn’t if we all stick together, no."

They all looked up at her. Nick grinned.

"What do you mean?" said Toby.

"We can’t split up!" Sophie cried.

Joanna shrugged. "It’s not like we would be very far from each other," she explained. "If we see anything, we can just call out."

Toby glanced at Sophie and Timothy. They looked about as keen on the idea as he was himself. "I don’t know," he muttered.

"Well, you chickens can all stay together, then," said Nick sharply. "And me and her will go off and explore on our own."

"We’ve got to head back to the other side of the island anyway," Joanna added. "We might as well have another look."

Toby scowled. "Okay," he said through clenched teeth. "But if nobody’s seen anything in twenty minutes, we’re going home."

"Sure." Joanna jumped to her feet.

Nick was the first to run off into the trees on his own, making a Red Indian call and batting his lips with his palm. Joanna followed, but went in another direction. Timothy watched them both leave before he got to his feet. Then he trundled off muttering to himself, wielding his dinosaur like a weapon.

Toby and Sophie stood up together.

"Are you scared?" she asked him.

"No," he said quickly. "Are you?"

She just looked at him solemnly.

"Here, take this," he said, giving her his stick. "And if you see anything, anything, call me and I’ll be there in a second."

She smiled. "Thanks, Toby."

Toby found himself another stick and headed into the trees. One side of the island was more overgrown but the others were still sticking to the easy routes. The weeds Toby came up against took some bashing. Soon his legs were all scratched and dirty again. He heard Nick making ghostly noises, teasing one of the others, but he sounded distant, and Toby couldn’t see anybody else nearby.

It wasn’t long before he found himself down by the water again. He’d been going in a straight line, but the island was an irregular shape. As he stopped to bathe his gashed legs, Joanna emerged from the trees a little further along the bank and spotted him. She splashed through the shallows toward him.

"Hey, I’m glad you’re alone," she whispered.

"Why?" asked Toby as he scrubbed his legs.

"I didn’t want to ask you when Sophie was around."

"Ask me what?" said Toby suspiciously.

"Toby, has Sophie got cancer?"

Toby stopped washing his legs and stood up.

"How do you know that?" he said.

Joanna looked pretty chuffed she’d been right. "Oh, my grandpa had it," she said proudly. "He was completely bald too."

"That doesn’t mean you’ve got cancer."

"No," Joanna admitted. "But he did."

Toby nodded and started stabbing the water with his stick. "So what happened to your grandpa? Is he okay?"

"No. He died."

Toby looked up. "How?"

"Cancer, stupid."

"You can’t die of cancer," Toby said quickly.

"Yes, you can," she replied.

"No, you can’t."

"Yes. You can."

Toby glowered at her.

"Ask Sophie," she said.

"I don’t have to," he retorted.

"Fine." Joanna shrugged. "Don’t believe me." And with that she turned sharply and splashed back the way she’d come.

It took Toby a while to find Sophie, but the brambles and nettles put up little resistance as he smashed his way through them. He came across Timothy first, and then he heard Nick talking to someone down by the water, but he assumed that was Joanna and carried on. He eventually spotted Sophie on the other side of the island, and made her jump when he emerged from the bushes behind her.

"Oh, Toby! Don’t do that!" she cried.

She had turned her cap around so that the peak was no longer shading her eyes, and Toby noticed they were all puffy. She was holding his stick up to defend herself, but as he frowned at her, she lowered it.

"Toby, what is it? What’s wrong?"

"You didn’t tell me you could die."

Sophie sucked in her lips and nodded, lowering her eyes. She began to scrape a groove into the moist soil with the end of the reed.

"Joanna just told me," he said quietly.

"I probably won’t, you know," she told him.

"Yeah. But you might," he muttered.

Sophie shrugged her shoulders shyly, staring at the ground. Toby glared at her, feeling betrayed like she’d kept a secret from him, but a part of him was working up the courage to ask a question he was desperate to get answered.

"Sophie," he said. "Can I die of the mumps too?"

She looked up at him strangely and frowned.

"I don’t think so," she said.

"But you don’t know?"

"No," she said.

Toby nodded sadly.

"Just like I didn’t know you could die of cancer."

Sophie was about to respond when suddenly, someone screamed. They both looked up. They both recognised who it was.

"Nick!" they cried together.

They crashed through the undergrowth, running too fast to mow a path through the brambles first. The thorns cut their legs, but they didn’t have time to slow down. Timothy had already found Nick, and Joanna arrived shortly after Toby and Sophie. Nick was standing with his back to a tree, holding his breath as if hiding behind it. He signalled for them to be silent and peered round the trunk.

"Is this another one of your tricks?" Joanna said sternly.

"No," said Nick, breathlessly. "I swear on my life."

"What was it? What did you see?" cried Sophie.

Nick gulped. "I think it was a ghost," he told them.

They all looked nervously around the side of the tree.

"I was having a wee," he explained slowly. "And I heard something moving in the bushes over there." He cocked his thumb behind him. That was close to where they’d joined the island. "When I looked, there was nobody there." He paused. "But there was still something making a noise!"

"It was probably the wind," said Toby anxiously.

Nick shook his head. "It wasn’t the wind," he said firmly.

"Well, there’s nothing there now."

Joanna snorted. "Well done, Nick," she said sarcastically. "You managed to scare the ghost off with your girly scream."

"Why don’t you go and have a look, then?" he snapped.

Joanna’s grin vanished. "We’ll all go," she decided.

She glared round at Toby and Timothy. They both nodded slowly. Then she snatched Nick’s new stick from him and led the way.

"Toby, I’m scared," Sophie whispered.

"Here," he said, and held out his hand.

She grabbed it with her own, and together they followed the others through the trees. Joanna crept ahead cautiously, but she hadn’t got far before she stopped again. They were near the bank, but she didn’t go down to the water’s edge.

"What is it?" Toby called from the back.

"There’s a bottle," said Joanna.

"So? There are bottles everywhere!"

"Not like this," Nick mumbled.

Toby pushed past Timothy but left Sophie at the back. There was indeed a bottle, but unlike all the others they had seen, it was standing upright, and someone had filled it with black swamp water. Toby frowned.

"Who put that there?" he demanded.

Nobody owned up. Nick shook his head.

"Toby! Look!" Sophie suddenly cried.

He hurried back to her side, and followed her finger. She was pointing through the brambles. She was pointing at another bottle.

"Did somebody do this?" Toby said.

"It’s the ghost, all right?!" cried Nick.

"A trail of bottles," Joanna hissed.

"Let’s follow it!" said Sophie excitedly.

She took Toby’s hand again. It was them leading, Sophie’s fears now seemingly forgotten behind the thrill of the hunt. They crept over to the second bottle, and from there, sure enough, spotted a third. The fourth was even further away. The trail was taking them back across the island.

When they found the fifth bottle, they had to stop again. It was in a little clearing. They’d passed this way going across the first time. They looked around, but nobody could see a sixth bottle anywhere.

"This is it." Joanna gulped.

"The end of the trail," Nick added.

Nobody stepped on the area around the bottle. They all remembered what had been at the end of the trail of fish in Joanna’s dad’s story. The earth around the bottle even looked like it had been dug up recently.

At the back, Timothy frowned to himself, but only Toby noticed, and he thought his cousin was just nervous too.

For a while, they all just stood there looking at the bottle, until Joanna rolled her eyes and said, "So, who’s gonna dig, then?"

But nobody was quick to volunteer.

"There might be skeletons," muttered Toby.

"You’ll never know if you don’t look," Nick pointed out.

Toby looked at Timothy. Now he was scowling.

Sophie sighed and took off her cap. "Fine," she said. "I’ll do it." Then she thrust her cap into Toby’s hands and got down on her knees.

Nick and Joanna shuffled forward eagerly.

"Okay, here I go," Sophie announced. She removed the bottle and placed it carefully to one side. It tipped over, but she ignored that.

She returned to the spot where the bottle had been and was just about to start digging when Timothy suddenly cried: "No, Sophie, don’t!"

"Shut up or go away," was her response.

"Yeah, shut up, you stupid poofter!" went Nick.

But Toby looked at his cousin, and found he wasn’t looking at Sophie, or the hole she had begun to scoop out with her hands, but at Nick and Joanna. And they were glaring back, giving Timothy the dirtiest looks ever.

"No, hang on a minute, Sophie," said Toby.

She sighed angrily and got back to her feet.

"What is it, Timothy?" Toby asked.

Timothy gulped, patting the dinosaur head nervously against his shin as he looked at Nick and Joanna. "I saw Nick," he said.

"No, you didn’t! Shut up!" cried Nick.

Timothy turned to his cousin. "Toby, I don’t know what’s in the hole," he said quickly. "But whatever it is, I saw him burying it."

Nick went right over and pushed him. Timothy tripped backwards and landed in a bed of nettles. The dinosaur flew out of his grip.

"Don’t tell lies about my brother!" Joanna shouted.

Toby frowned. As Sophie wiped her hands on her jeans, Toby pushed past and, with the end of his stick, began to sift through the dirt.

"I bet he put something in there!" Nick said.

Toby’s stick scraped against something hard. He knelt where Sophie had been kneeling and gently flicked the dirt away. At first he thought he’d found a piece of broken china, but when he picked it up, he could see straight through it.

And there was a lot more of it still left in the hole.

"You buried broken glass?" Toby hissed.

"I didn’t do it! He did!" Nick hollered, pointing at Timothy.

Sophie slowly, silently began to cry.

"Why did you do it?" Toby said incredulously. "Why did you bury glass when you knew one of us would try and dig it up?"

Joanna rolled her eyes. "Oh, don’t be such stupid babies," she said. "It was just a joke. You didn’t really think ghosts did it, did you?"

The other three stared at her in silence.

"What about the boy and the fish?" Sophie sniffled.

Nick and Joanna looked at each other and grinned.

"You made that story up!" Toby accused them.

"Yeah, and you believed it!" sneered Nick.

Joanna laughed viciously. "There’s no such thing as ghosts, stupid. Do you lot still believe in Father Christmas as well?"

"My dad saw a real ghost," Timothy said angrily, still on the ground. "It attacked him. He’s got a broken finger to prove it."

"That doesn’t prove anything," Nick said.

"Yeah," Joanna scoffed. "He probably shut it in a car door or something and just made up that stupid story about ghosts for you."

Nick laughed. "You’ll believe anything!"

Timothy pouted and shook his head.

"Come on, Jo-Jo, let’s go," Nick snarled.

"Yeah, you babies are no fun," Joanna agreed.

As they left the clearing, Timothy started to get back to his feet. Nick shoved him back down into the nettles again. Timothy’s dinosaur was lying on the ground nearby. Nick stamped on it, hard, and broke it in two.

"I hope you’ve caught the mumps and die!" Toby called.

Timothy didn’t pick himself up again until their voices dwindled somewhere over the swamp. As he squeezed his nettle-stung hands together, Sophie stopped crying, came over and picked up his broken dinosaur.

"I’ve got some sellotape," she said quietly. "Back at home. We could put a bit of tape round here. It would work just fine again."

"Thanks," Timothy said with a smile.

Sophie turned back to Toby, who was burying the broken glass again so none of them would tread on it in their bare feet.

"Let’s go home," she told him.

By the time they got to the edge of the island, Nick and Joanna had reached the other bank. Nick stopped only briefly to stick two fingers up at them, and then they were gone, only to return less than a minute later, whilst the others were paddling across, to throw all their shoes into the water.

So the three of them walked home barefoot, carrying their wet shoes. Toby and Sophie stopped at the corner of Sophie’s road and waved to Timothy until he turned down the next road and went out of sight. Then Toby took Sophie right back to the front gate. They stood on either side in silence.

Just as it started to look like they had nothing left to say to each other, Toby remembered what he had been holding for her since the island.

"Hey, I’ve still got your cap," he said.

Sophie shrugged. "You keep it."

"Are you sure?" he asked. Toby loved Liverpool.

"Yeah." She smiled. "It probably fits you better than me, anyway."

Toby tried it on, and indeed it did. "Thanks, Sophie!"

Sophie nodded, sucking her lips in again.

"So," Toby said. "See you, then."

"Yeah." Sophie smiled. "Maybe."

She got halfway to the front door before he called out to her: "I hope you don’t die, Sophie." Then she turned round and grinned.

"Thanks. I hope you don’t either."

By the time Toby got back to Uncle Terry’s cottage, Mrs Cohen had been and gone again, this time taking Nick and Joanna with her. Aunt Melissa had barely closed the front door behind him when a car pulled onto the driveway. Toby didn’t hesitate to fling open the door again. His mum had arrived for tea.

"Mum, can I die of the mumps?" Toby asked her later.

Toby’s mum had just got into the car and shut the door. She glanced up at Toby in the mirror. Unlike Uncle Terry, she didn’t let Toby sit in the front seat, so he was sitting behind her. She sighed. "No, of course not."

"Oh." Toby wrinkled his nose. "Good."

"Is that what he told you?" she said quietly.

Aunt Melissa and Timothy were standing on the drive, but Uncle Terry was still at the front door. When Toby caught his eye, he winked.

"Mum, no," Toby groaned. He remembered what had happened when Uncle Terry told him stuff about leprosy his mum didn’t like.

"Well, then," she said. She found her car keys, turned the ignition and put the car into a slow reverse down the driveway.

Toby began waving. He strained in his seatbelt to turn round. He kept waving until they turned the corner and went out of sight.

Aunt Melissa had believed Timothy when he told her they got their feet wet jumping in puddles, but Uncle Terry had hovered in the background with his arms crossed, grinning. He knew where they’d been.

But he didn’t say anything.

Toby sat back in his seat and watched Paglesham sail by. He looked down Sophie’s road but there was no sign of her.

They were just about to leave the village when Toby asked, "Mum, when can I go round and play with Michael again?"

She looked at him in the mirror.

"Michael? Michael Lawton?"

Toby nodded. "Yeah."

"Oh, Toby, you know he plays too rough," she said, cocking her head to one side and using that patronising tone of voice.

Toby scowled. "You let me last week," he murmured.

"That was different," she said.

"How?" Toby demanded.

"I was going to see Michael’s mum anyway."

"You’ve never been before."

She frowned. "Toby, what’s got into you?"

Toby glared out of the window. They were passing the River Crouch. "Why did you only let me play with him when he was ill?"

"That’s got nothing to do with it."

"I got the mumps too."

"Well, don’t worry," said his mum, either completely misunderstanding him, or understanding him perfectly and changing the subject. "Now that you’ve had it once, you can’t ever get it again." She smiled.

But part of Toby felt a bit sad about that.

They were nearing Ten Tree Island now, but Toby knew before they reached it that he wasn’t going to cross his fingers and toes. Driving past, it didn’t even seem like the same island. There was nothing to be afraid of anymore.

Toby felt a bit sad about that, too.

NOTES:
This is the fourth or fifth story I've come up with to bear the same title. This 8000-odd word version formed my third year dissertation. After the artificial, plot-heavy stuff with tricksy endings I have been preoccupied with writing these last few years, this is far more naturalistic. It's a return to the territory of "Don't Walk On The Cracks!". Whilst it's not strictly autobiographical, I've fed in a lot of real details. I was even taken to play with a boy called Michael that my mother thought a wildchild so that I could catch chickenpox. Write what you know always felt like cheating, but now I realise it just gives you the tools to be more convincing. References to "Doctor Who" being moved to Wednesdays (at 7.35pm on BBC1) and wrestler Giant Haystacks are meant to place the story in the late 1980s, pre-MMR, when it wasn't just New Agers who allowed children's immunity to develop naturally.

The initial inspiration for this story came from "A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man" by James Joyce, in an oblique, now redundant way. There's an explosive dinner scene (well, as explosive as people bickering over a table can get) early on in the book that gave me the idea for a large family reunion. During the dinner scene in my story, Toby et al would have been sent out by the grownups, but in the end I thought it best they go to the island of their own accord, so I cut that scene, and the characters that peopled it. Elements of Stephen King's novella "The Body" (and its superior film adaptation, "Stand By Me"), in which four kids go looking for the corpse of a missing teenager, are another obvious inspiration.

Incidentally, I've had the idea of a former leper colony island being haunted by the disembodied limbs of those who were incarcerated there floating around my head for years. I first got it from the Channel 4 reality TV show "Shipwrecked", which was supposedly set on such an island, several participants of which claimed to have dreamt of disembodied limbs on the beach. I've tried writing the straight horror story version of it a couple of times. The furthest I got was plotting a story about a nihilistic millionaire who manages to buy the tropical island for a surprisingly slight amount on the cusp of some future nuclear war, and invites close friends to wait out armageddon with him there.

This story got 72%, my best creative writing mark at UEA.