Tanay appeared around her skirts immediately.
“Thank you, Mrs. Burton,” he said politely.
The old woman’s entire expression softened like butter near a fire.
“Oh, off wi’ you, boy.”
Then her razor gaze snapped back to James.
“So, I suppose you’ll be stayin’ up ‘ere now then?”
James shook his head.
“No. I’m takin’ ‘em with me.”
Her eyebrows shot up.
“Well, I need a month’s notice, mind.”
Then she shut the door directly in his face. James barked out a laugh despite himself. Nothing could get his mood down today. Not with Asha keeping the bed warm for him upstairs.
Tanay slipped his small hand into his automatically as they climbed the stairs together. The boy was dragging slightly with tiredness.
At the landing halfway up, he mumbled under his breath.
“James?”
“Aye, lad?”
“What’s a Paki bastard?”
James stopped dead. For a second all he heard was blood roaring in his ears. Slowly he crouched down so they were eye level.
“That’s not a good word,” he said carefully. “Who called you that?”
Tanay looked conflicted immediately.
"I am not supposed to snitch." he mumbled under his breath.
James gave him the stern look he usually reserved for his sister's demonic offspring.
Then the boy muttered in a voice barely above a whisper.
“Danny.”
James's face must have looked like a thunderstorm because he quickly looked at his shoes again.
“And his mates.” Tanay stared down at the stairs. “I’m better at rugby than him an’ he said I cheated. But I didn’t.”
James could imagine exactly how it had happened.
Tanay swallowed hard.
“He called me a Paki bastard an’…” His voice shrank. “He said something bad about Mum.”
A cold and ugly feeling settled inside James.
“I got in a fight,” Tanay admitted miserably. “Then his dad came t’get him and he said stuff too.”
