Today had been marked on the calendar for months. He’d hated knowing for so long. When they told him, just after Christmas, it didn’t seem important. In April, he’d started crossing off the days, red slashes on the kitchen calendar. Now the calendar was full of red and there were no days left. Today was India, in his mother’s fierce spiky writing. India for them, she meant, for the whole summer. To work, or so they said. He was being left behind, like the cat.

The fifth time his mother called, Josh came down to breakfast, dragging the rucksack behind him. He wouldn’t eat anything, just to show them. Besides, he felt sick, a hollow tightness closing his throat, squirming things in his stomach He said, as they locked the furious cat in her cage,

‘Why not send me to a cat’s home?’

His mother ignored that, too busy carrying bags and cases out to the car. Dad was wandering round the house, feeding purple fish, watering plants. Someone was coming in every week to do things like that. Josh watched as his father set the timer that was supposed to fool burglars, switching lights on and off to pretend someone was in. He said, hopefully,

‘I bet it doesn’t work. Anyway, it’s too regular. Easy-peasy. They’ll guess. The burglars, I mean. If you let me stay, you won’t need that thing.’

Then his mother came back for all the things she’d forgotten, sunglasses, swimsuit, passport. She picked up his rucksack and the cat basket, marched straight back to the car. It was far too late to change their minds now. India for them, cattery for the spitting snarling cat, and for him, the long journey north, all on his own. Fastening his seat belt, Josh gave them one last chance.

‘You could buy those last minute tickets.’

His mother was driving, didn’t even turn round to say, ‘We could, but we’re not going to. Another time, yes, but we can’t take you this time. It’s not a holiday. We’ll be working. It’s important. Do shut up, Josh. It was all arranged months ago. You’ll like staying with Alice and the others.’

No he would not, and who said it was important? But he knew when to give in. They dropped the cat off first. It had given up swearing, just sat there glaring at everybody, planning how to pay them back. It was that kind of cat. Nobody would give it a job advertising cat food. It didn’t like people, spat at them mostly. At least the cat didn’t have to travel hundreds of miles all by itself. Ten minutes after the cattery, he was being rushed onto the waiting train, no time left for proper goodbyes. Which was probably just as well. There was nothing left to say. They were going to India, he wasn’t, end of story. All he could do was sit in the reserved seat and wave, the way you were supposed to. Dad waved, but his mother was already racing back to the car. Josh wanted to cry, but there weren’t any tears, only the tight lump in his throat. Instead, he closed his eyes, thinking about Alice and the strange place where she lived, far away in the North.

‘Cross the arched bridge, above white water, then climb for ever into fells and grey mist…’ On the road to nowhere, there was Alice’s house; high stone walls round the garden, then the wire, higher still, to keep the deer out. Last winter, Alice said, in her last email, somebody left the gate open and a great red stag walked right into the garden. He ate stale chocolate digestives, meant for the birds. The deer were still around. If they got in, they’d eat the whole garden for breakfast. She might be making it up… The other girl was called Rose, still young enough for dragons, roaring through the skies.

He stared out at the rain, then, with his finger, drew a deer on the misted window. The only animals he could see were wet cows, huddled at the edge of wet fields. The fields were mostly under water. Cows ate grass, not fish. How would they find enough to eat? Alice would know… Alice knew more animals than people. Sheep, mostly, she said, thousands of them, munching their way across the fells. Alice seemed to live in a wildlife show. Walking to school, she’d see badgers, hares, otters, pine martens. Peregrine falcons too, screeching on crags above the house. They swooped about, she said, catching baby rabbits. The place was alive with rabbits. As for the dragons… He’d shown Alice’s last message to Sunil, expecting him to laugh, agree that Alice must be a nutter. But Sunil said, calmly,

‘It might be true… A different kind of true? I don’t know your cousin. You don’t, not really. You’ve only seen her twice. So you can’t just say she’s a liar. It wouldn’t be fair.’

Sunil was always like that, talking for hours, slow to decide about anything.

Taking the crumpled paper from his pocket, Josh read the last page again.

Adam’s going to be in charge. You don’t know him yet. Last time you came, when you were little, he was on a school trip. He’s taller than our Dad now. But he’ll be working on the computer all day. At night, he fights with a silver sword and his armour’s white as snow. He won’t stop us doing anything. We can go to the dragon’s cave. It’s not allowed, it’s dangerous, but we’ll go. I’ll tell you how to get to there. You go up the track, past a hollow ash tree. There’s a holly bush in the middle of it. Then, a waterfall disappears underground. Cross another bridge, old as time, and you come to the place where the Stone People lived. On our side of the valley, there’s ravens and kites. In the highest crags, near the reservoir, there’s eagles. They’re a secret, on telly. The dragon’s cave is half way up the steepest mountain. They roar through the sky, scary… On the mountain top, there’s the dancing stones…

Yeah, as if… Dragons were like unicorns or mermaids, nice idea, but everyone knew they weren’t real. Alice was old enough to know better. He didn’t believe that stuff about Stone People or Adam’s white armour or the silver sword. The computer would be true enough. Adam was writing something that would take him all summer, something for uni. And in charge of them, supposedly… Was he old enough? Adam was another mystery. He put the letter away again. The view hadn’t changed, much, what you could see of it. It looked as if someone was sitting on the train roof emptying buckets. Wet, wet, wet, waste of time looking out. So he stopped, closed his eyes, thought about Alice’s house. Years ago, he’d stayed there for a holiday. He’d found a dead hen, where a fox had dropped it. It was the first really dead creature he’d ever seen. Supermarket chickens didn’t count. The hen was nearly alive, apart from having no head. Still warm, so he’d just missed the fox. Great Gran was dead. She used to be Granddad’s mother. Now, there was only Granddad himself. Grandma had died in a car crash before he was born. The house in Manchester still smelt of Great Gran; flowers, and her soap that looked like lemons.

In April, the week after Great Gran died, he’d found a young thrush, fallen from its nest in a storm. You could tell it was young because the edges of its beak were still yellow. He’d buried it in the garden under a rose bush. Sunil wanted a funeral pyre, but lighting fires wasn’t allowed. They’d lined an Easter egg box with leaves, arranged the thrush carefully, as if it was asleep. At school, they’d been doing the Egyptians. Perhaps it ought to have grave goods? They gave it a snail, but the snail woke up and began to crawl away. Then they found some worms. Worms liked being underground.

At Great Gran’s funeral, the men who carried her coffin put plastic grass round the grave, like a football match. They’d used real grass for the thrush. Sunil found a smooth and very beautiful stone, only a pebble from the beach, but the whitest one they could find. Sunil wouldn’t let him write on it, because the stone itself was so beautiful. Anyway, thrushes couldn’t read. On the beach, looking for the right stone, they’d found the skeleton of a gull. It wasn’t a bird any more, just a handful of bones, with holes like an Aero bar. Gulls were just feathers and yellow beaks and light, light bones. Sunil knew about bones because he was going to be a doctor, like his mum and dad. This summer, he was going to India too, staying with aunts and uncles, the whole family together.

Thinking about Great Gran and the thrush and bones, Josh felt sick again. Not as if he’d really be sick, just that hollow unwanted feeling in his stomach. He wanted Mum and Dad, quite badly. He was still angry, still hated them, but he did want them. He’d never travelled so far before, never mind on his own. Last week, buying his ticket, the train people promised to look after him. It wasn’t true. Walking up and down the train, a man in uniform had asked if he was OK? Then he hurried away without an answer. Suppose he’d told the truth, that he felt sick and scared and horribly unwanted? The man wouldn’t want to know… Ten minutes later, he decided the sick feeling was really hunger. Ferreting about under the seat, then on the rack, he could see his red rucksack all too clearly; on the back seat of the car. In it were his phone, all his clothes, three books and lunch. In the smallest pocket of his jeans, there was a twenty pound note, folded around some coins. This was supposed to last for a very long time. How much would new clothes cost?

His stomach hadn’t wanted any breakfast. Now it was half-past nine. Six more hours to go, and no food. The guard had just welcomed everyone aboard. That was just so stupid. Trains weren’t exciting. Nobody came aboard. They didn’t soar above clouds or carve white water. They were just trains, but at least this one had a buffet. If he didn’t eat soon, the sick feeling would turn into something worse. Mum and Dad would be at the airport now. They’d see his rucksack… They might even be sorry for going without him… Mean. Selfish gits… It wasn’t bloody well fair. Feeling better, especially after thinking bloody and gits, he set off to find the buffet. He’d chosen the wrong way. A dog whined in a kennel that was bolted to the floor. The kennel smelt evil because the dog had done a poo. There was a big basket too, lots of birds with thin red necks, squawking. He read the label; Live Turkey Poults, bent down to talk to them. Just then, the guard came in, and shouted; no swearing, just horrible. Grown-ups were bloody, bloody rude. If you shouted back or said any of the words they used, it might be bed, no pocket money, no computer or TV. Too much power, that was their trouble.

The buffet was miles away, right in the middle of the train. Swaying and jolting through five coaches, he tried to work out what everyone else was doing here. In first class, nobody looked up, working on laptops, mostly. A man who might be Japanese was on the phone. Or was he Chinese? Probably… He was standing in the jolting space between two coaches. Dad knew that trick too. Quite often, you got a better signal there. The man finished talking just as Josh passed. He dropped a used top-up card in the litter bin, and some others too. One was just English. The rest looked different, exotic. There was a dragon, burning bright, gold on red, like a dragon for Chinese New Year. No wings, so it wasn’t English or Welsh. He’d been to the Chinese New Year Parade once, in Manchester, with Granddad and Great Gran.

Clever and elegant, the Chinese man walked smoothly to the buffet without lurching once. Josh stood behind him, looking up at the menu. The prices couldn’t be true. You could buy four cans in Sainsbury’s for less than one here. Four very small biscuits cost more than a whole packet. Wriggling his hand into the tight smallest pocket of his jeans, he felt the folded note. The lump was fifty pence and three pound coins Dad had given him, emptying his pockets at the station. Dad’s wallet was full of rupees and cards and traveller’s cheques. They could have given him more money. They could have changed their minds at the very last minute, let him come to India. Surely they could afford one more ticket? It wasn’t as if he had brothers and sisters. Alice had two sisters and Adam, but the older sister would be away too. In France? Alice didn’t seem to mind her mum and dad going away. She’d written pages and pages, planning the long summer together. But what if nobody came back? Roaring above the clouds, were they never afraid of death?

The buffet steward hadn’t even seen him, too busy serving grown ups. They were eating bacon and eggs and drinking whisky, poured from doll’s house bottles. It wasn’t even half past-nine. Perhaps they were winos, but why not buy proper bottles? Everything cost too much, pounds, just for a mouthful of whisky. He wanted money for the holidays more than he wanted railway food. The lurching train made him feel sick again, lurching, emptiness, and the jangled smells of scent, whisky, and very strong coffee. He turned away, ready to sway and stagger all the way back, counting the coaches, back to his own seat. Where the Chinese man had been talking, he stopped, looked round, then pounced before anyone could see. Any minute now, someone collecting rubbish would come along with a bin-bag. It was like seeing something brilliant in a skip. The people who chucked stuff out didn’t want it, but if you even looked, they’d have a go at you. The man couldn’t possibly want an old top-up card, not even one like this. Red and gold and glorious, the dragon card lay in his hand. The other was a dragon too, quieter, but claws bared, still dragonish, still Chinese.

The Chinese man was right behind him. Josh, guilty, lurched on, more skilfully, used to the jolting now. Then the man sat down and the train gave another jolt, throwing Josh off his feet and into the man’s arms. In the Infants, they’d done Japan. He knew how to say sorry in Japanese. They hadn’t done Chinese yet and now there was coffee all over silky grey trousers with very thin stripes. Also, he’d been seen, filching the man’s old phone cards out of the bin. There were hot and cold shivers in his stomach and a wish without words for some ordinary day at home. And his mother. It would be quite a good idea to have her here, instead of being on his own, travelling North. Perhaps, if one of the terrible things happened, he’d never see her again?

‘You all right, cock?’

Josh stared. People talked like that near Granddad, not in Beijing. He said, cautiously,

‘Sorry. It was my fault. And the train’s too, but trains can’t say sorry.’

He held out the phone cards. ‘I thought you’d finished with them. They’re all used up, aren’t they? I liked the dragons. I collect dragons, sort of.’

The Chinese man laughed, took out his wallet, held out five more used cards. They were all Chinese. He said, still sounding exactly like people in Granddad’s street, ‘All yours, son.’

Josh took them. The writing was like restaurants or takeaways, where you just said the numbers. Or on paper flowers or fortune cookies. He’d tried to copy some once, but they didn’t come out right. If you even said Chinese words wrong, you could be in dead trouble, the wrong note meant the wrong word, like music. Why didn’t they change to English writing? He’d tried to learn Japanese at school, years ago. A B C was so much easier, like ordinary numbers instead of Roman. One of the new cards showed the Great Wall. He tried to remember anything else about China. How many people? Billions? Trillions? Should he bow, or was that just Japan? The man held out his hand.

‘Going far?’

Josh nodded. The shivers in his stomach were back. Also, sickeningly, all the sinister warnings, like don’t talk to strangers. You couldn’t get much stranger than a Chinese man with a Manchester accent. On a train, though… It had to be all right. He said, miserably aware that the shivers had flipped back to hunger, ‘Scotland, nearly. To stay with cousins. This train goes all the way. There are faster ones, but you have to change and I’m not allowed, in case I get the wrong one.’

Li Bai took out his wallet again, extracted a card. The writing was in Chinese and English. There were two addresses; Beijing and Manchester. Prestwich. That really was near Granddad. He said: ‘All alone?’

Josh nodded again. Outside, it was flat, nameless country, nowhere he knew. There didn’t seem to be any space between the towns. The country seemed to begin, then, seconds later, it was back to estates, sad places with patios, slimy old decking, spiderweb washing lines. Then streets, terraced houses, factories, another town. He said, head down, feeling the hot blood stain his face,

‘Sorry. It’s not allowed. Talking to strangers. The ticket man knows about me. He’s watching me. And I’m being met.’

Li Bai had found one more old card. He said, kind, and as if he really cared,

‘It’s a long way, on your own. I like dragons too. Suppose I phone your parents, say we’ve met on this train?’

Josh shook his head.

‘You can’t. They’ve gone to India. They’re on a plane. I don’t know if it’s one you can phone. It might cost about a million pounds.’

Thinking about the plane reminded him of terrible things like September 11th or bombs in London. Or an ordinary crash? Engine failure? They hadn’t even said goodbye, no hugs, no last words. Li Bai said, not even thinking about bombs, ‘What about the people meeting you?’

Josh bit his lip, hard, tasting blood. What could he say? They’d cleared off for the whole summer, left him behind, like the cat. Then he remembered Granddad’s number. He said, eagerly,

‘There’s my granddad, in Manchester. I learned his number, years ago.’

He wrote it down. Then it was Granddad’s voice, taking to Li Bai, sharp at first, not sure what was going on. Li Bai was smiling, his hands playing the air. He handed the phone to Josh and suddenly, everything was all right. They talked until there were no words left. Li Bai was a violinist, a soloist. He lived in the same street as Granddad, who’d heard him play at concert only last week. Li Bai had a baby son, six months old. Not a kidnapper, not a snatcher, he just played the violin.

Josh felt himself blushing furiously. Looking up, though, he saw that Li Bai was smiling still, not Oriental, not inscrutable, just someone from Manchester who played the violin. Li Bai had grown up in Chinatown, knew the supermarket near the golden arch where Great Gran used to buy lychees and ginger and lemongrass. The shop sold knives too, wicked, glittering, you had to look twenty-five. They were supposed to be for cooking, but could that be true? Dry chickens stretched dead wings, like vultures. In the crowded aisles, people talked, all the time. Chinese, of course, but he didn’t know a single word. When Sunil talked to his family, you could hear words all the time, even words you didn’t know.

Josh looked out of the window, wiping hard with his sleeve until the tears went away. Li Bai said, gently,

‘It’s OK to cry, you know. This isn’t England.’

Josh stared at him.

‘Of course it’s England.’

Li Bai shook his head.

‘It isn’t. Not really. On a train is like another country. You’re quite young to be on your own. Couldn’t someone come with you?’

‘No. They had something planned, then it didn’t work out. I’m old enough.’

The lump came in his throat. Josh hung his head. Cry at school and you were for it. Girls had it easier, a bit, but even girls who cried were soft. Last night, he’d cried till the pillow was wet, quietly, so they wouldn’t hear. India, anywhere, they didn’t want him.

Li Bai said: ‘It’s all right, Josh. Your granddad knows me, almost. We go to the same paper-shop. Honestly… He’s a bit worried about you, all this way, on your own. If they’d asked, he would have come to get you. He could take you up to the cousins…’

Josh looked up. His eyes were all blurry, sticky salty tears, clagging his lashes. Li Bai handed him a wipe, the kind you get on a plane. More Chinese writing and a fresh sweet smell. After that, feeling better, he said,

‘I’m sorry. It’s just… Not wanting me to come.’

‘Maybe they didn’t explain? But your parents are still with you. No-one can take people away. I’ll show you.’

He opened the card wallet again, took out a photo of a tiny old lady, dressed all in black. She was Chinese, but the picture had been taken in Manchester. You could see the big science museum and a very old steam train, full of children waving. Josh turned the photo over to see the date. Li Bai said,

‘My grandmother… Great-Grandmother, really… She was eighty-seven. It was the day of my first concert. She came all the way from Beijing. She lived all her life in a tiny village, never saw Beijing before, never mind Manchester. She died a few months later, but she’s still with me. If you love people, no-one can take them away, not even death.’

Josh nodded, couldn’t speak, not yet. Tears were far too near. All very well for Li Bai, but he was grown up and a violinist. Violinists were allowed to be different, not like people with ordinary jobs. Li Bai asked if they could sit together. Then he talked about dragons and New Year, and they wondered why English dragons had wings, but not Chinese ones. Josh told him about the dragon in a crystal cave, added, warily, in case Li Bai laughed,

‘Dragons aren’t supposed to be real, are they? But if they’re not real, how come everyone knows what they look like? How did they know to be scared?’

Li Bai traced the snaking outline of a phone-card dragon, looked seriously at its snarling face and flashing eyes. He said, thoughtfully,

‘Maybe dragons are what we’re all afraid of. The shape of fear? English ones are the worst. They can fly. In China, only kite dragons fly.’

Josh smiled, enormously relieved. He said:

‘Welsh dragons fly too. Granddad’s a little bit Welsh, even though he lives in Manchester. He has the Welsh flag. It’s a red dragon. Y ddraig goch. That’s Welsh, but I don’t know any more, except Diolch yn fawr. It means ‘thank you very much.’ I know some more words, but they’re rude.’