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By Root 516 0

had always been something of a secretive child, content in his own company, but it was almost as if he had taken refuge in the kind of childish make-believe she had assumed he had long grown out of. But there was also something strange in his manner. The sooner he was back in school, the better.

Mrs Sackville watched her son. She felt a little guilty at so doing, for she had always believed him to have as much right to privacy as any adult. And yet, it was so fascinating to observe him going about his play with that earnest industriousness peculiar to children.

So taken was she by this idealistic notion that it was a few minutes before another impression began to register. Robert was wielding the hammer he had borrowed with a kind of fevered relish. What was he doing?

He seemed to be taking nails from his lips the way she had seen workmen do, and was struggling in his efforts to nail something - something that Mrs Sackville saw squirming in his hand as he struck.

Mrs Sackville felt a giddy feeling flutter in her stomach and she moved to the garden door. As she opened it, the sound of Robert's hammering could be heard more sharply.

'Robert?' she called, standing in the doorway.

He made no reply but took another nail from his mouth and hammered it home.

'Robert!' she called again, annoyed at how her voice cracked at this greater volume. 'Answer me this instant!'

Robert hesitated mid-blow, turned and faced her; then grinned and continued. This brazen insolence riled even the mild-mannered Mrs Sackville and she stepped through the open door and began to stride across the patchy back lawn towards her son.

'Robert!' she demanded as she approached.

'Robert! How dare you ignore me? What are you doing there?'

Robert got slowly to his feet and turned. She had not noticed before how tired he looked. There were dark stains under his red-rimmed eyes and his skin had a sickroom pallor to it. As she approached, Robert stood back from his handiwork, the better for his mother to see.

On a long plank of wood supported at either end by two upturned terracotta pots was the most extraordinary collection of creatures.

In the dreamlike clarity of that first glimpse, Mrs Sackville could see beetles, worms, a frog or toad - she could not tell which - crickets, flies, butterflies, a mouse and several birds, one of which was still twitching horribly. They were all pinned or nailed to the plank and, judging by the twitching bird, had been alive when Robert fixed them there.

'Good God, Robert,.' she said. 'What have you done? What monstrous thing have you done here?'

Robert smiled horribly and she noticed that his attention seemed to be distracted. She followed his sideways glance to the wall at the back of the garden. There was something there. The mangy old cat was trotting towards them along the top of the wall.

'He is my friend,.' said Robert, and then sensing that he had not given sufficient weight to this statement, he winked and said, 'my special friend. I have done all this for him.'

Mrs Sackville stepped forward and slapped Robert hard round the side of the face, so hard that Robert had to take a step back to steady himself and Mrs Sackville was shocked to feel how much her own hand hurt. Robert rubbed his cheek and looked away to the wall.

'What are you talking about?' said Mrs Sackville, suppressing a sudden urge to vomit and following his gaze. 'You are trying to say you did all this to please a cat?'

'A cat?' said Robert, genuinely confused.

'Yes,.' said his mother. 'A . . .'

But she could see now that it was no cat, but something else - something not at all right. What she had taken for fur, she could see now was more like spines of some sort and this only partly covered its body, leaving patches of warty and raw-looking skin elsewhere. The head looked like something partially skinned and cooked.

Mrs Sackville's mind struggled to cope with what she was seeing as the creature leaned horribly towards her, its impossibly wide mouth opening and closing as if in silent speech. She lifted her hand to her chest to aid the