Down by the cove we fished in the afternoon, but there were never any fish. Every morning Brother John would ring the bell three times above my bed and take me to the shower. We walked down to the cove always the same way, and in the years we made a path of flattened grass. If there were birds we went back to the cells and waited five minutes before going again. I didn't like Brother John. He was always very nice to me, like he told me, but I always felt secretly that he was very nasty and these feelings made me feel guilty, because Brother John always told me he was nice to me and it’s not nice of me to hate him when he is so good. Sometimes I wished there were other people, but me and Brother John were the only two people in the whole world.

Last Tuesday we went down to the cove over the flattened grass. There were no birds. Their black bodies would have shown against the grey. It was the cold time of the year and my body hurt all over. Brother John pissed, and steam rose up from his stream. The cold was even colder because I had wet hair.

There was a man on the cove. He walked up to us very quickly and Brother John pushed me into the sand and told me to cover my eyes. I cried, so he helped me cover my eyes by putting sand in them. Sometimes I didn't like how he would be helpful. The man spoke with a different kind of voice than I had heard and Brother John shouted 'shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, you are ruining it!'

The man said 'It doesn't matter now.'

On Wednesday another man came. Brother John was very angry. 'It's not your boy, John', I heard the man say, 'Ten thousand children were born that week, what were the odds? You didn't actually think-' and then Brother John would be even more angry.

On Thursday many men took our house away. They took it one brick at a time. I was not sad to see them dismantle my cell. They asked me to come with them, but Brother John told them I was to stay. We slept on the grass and hard rocks and it was still cold.

On Friday three men came to talk with me. One of them had a bird's head and he pointed it at me as I told them my story. I tried to include all the nice things that Brother John did for me, but the men did not seem too happy to hear about them.

On Saturday a man took Brother John away. His friend asked me to come with him and I asked where we were going. He said 'London'.