Truly

The window in the shed was broken, and everybody was asked who did it.

Truly knew exactly who did it, because Truly did it.

It had been an accident. A ball, a bad throw, an unlucky bounce. Nobody had seen. That was the trouble: nobody had seen, and Nopsy had been near the shed at the time, and one or two fluffs had already started looking at Nopsy.

All Truly had to do was nothing at all.

Truly stood at the back of the group with a stomach like a bag of stones. This is what people get wrong about Truly. Truly is not somebody who finds honesty easy. Truly is somebody who is frightened of getting into trouble, the same as anybody, and who does it anyway.

"Nopsy," somebody began, "were you—"

"It was me," said Truly.

It came out too loud. Everybody turned round.

"I threw the ball. It was an accident, but it was me, and I've been standing here for four minutes not saying so."

There was a pause that felt about a year long.

Then the grown-up said, "Thank you for telling me," and Truly had to sit out of the game and help sweep up the glass, which was a real consequence and was not fun.

But walking home, Truly noticed something.

The bag of stones had gone.

That was the whole discovery, and Truly has never forgotten it. For four minutes, standing at the back, Truly had felt genuinely ill. The lie had not even been told yet and it was already heavy. If Truly had let Nopsy take it, that weight would have had to be carried every single day, round the corner, past the shed, every time Nopsy walked into a room.

Instead there was one horrible minute and a bit of sweeping.

Bravo said so, afterwards: "That was the bravest thing anybody did all week."

"It didn't feel brave," said Truly. "It felt like being sick."